Between 485 & 705 SQ/FT 3rd time's a charm with a 3 car workshop

[loganb]

Dang....to echo Marc that's a beast!

Neighbor that owns the ground around ours has 3...yes, you read that right, THREE D8s, one flat track and two newer versions with the high track. He doesn't "need" them, but could move most of the county's dirt if he wanted too

If you're gonna go overboard...might as well do it with a quarter million pounds of steel! With 3 D8's all he needs is a couple scrapers and a quad-trac or similar green articulated beast to pull a pan and boom he's got a earthmoving company! For awhile those older flat track units were pretty valuable though as the first gen high sprockets weren't worth much for ripping rock, not sure if they've fixed that but man....nice to be able to sit on 3 D8's for "occasional" usage lol! I'm not even sure I can think of (3) D8's in the entire county I grew up in....I know 2 outfits that each have 1....but not sure if there is a 3rd

 

[jblnut]

@Boostingaz yeah that HydraMaxx is cool and all but I can drive mine down the road without needing to lay down a pile of tires first. The HydraMaxx wins in just about every other way though


@loganb yeah .... what kind of farmer needs a dozer ..... Just a baby though compared to a D8 This thing is handy as all get out !

 

[loganb]

@loganb yeah .... what kind of farmer needs a dozer ..... Just a baby though compared to a D8 This thing is handy as all get out !

No offense to the 750....but pretty sure the D8 would push it out of the way without coming far off idle. No surprise that it's handy as hell and I'm expecting you use it for similar grade adjusting, tree clearing, waterway and terrace tuneup plus tiling efforts similar in how we use that loader or our motor grader and for dirt pushing I bet it does a better job. We wouldn't want to be without our dirt relocation equipment, but the amount of dirt that can be pushed with a D8, let alone a trio of them is pretty incredible especially in Marc's country.

On the other hand....the used value of I'm assuming 2 somewhat later model high sprockets and an older machine is around the same price as a late model combine. For small to medium sized waterway cleanouts or terrace fixes we'll either use that Terex or the Deere track hoe to do the bulk work then do final cleanup/adjustment with the motorgrader or box blade on a laser depending on what we're going for....you may be able to do it with a single machine with that 750 depending on how much is being moved so you have one less piece to run over it then we may.

 

[jblnut]

The 750 came into our world for the right price when we weren't looking for a dozer and has been great as a tug rig for the tile plow and as a.dozee of course. Blade to blade a D8 would push it into the ground lol. Anything larger than this 750 and we'd need a serious trailer to haul it around. I'm around $30k into the 750 with a freshly rebuilt undercarriage and two new hydros. A late model D8 is way way more lol. A neighbor just bought a D9G with a scraper pusher blade that he bought to mess around with lol. Now that is a big rig ! He grubbed some stumps out in one push for us that the 750 had to work at for a while to get out. He's got a dirt blade located in Georgia that we need to go get soon so it will finally have something to make some boost and make it sing !!

I'd love to find a nice road grader to be old ditches with as the 750 is a bit clumsy for that. It's good for what we do but is by no means a precision rig lol.

They probably needed to move a fair bit of dirt and a couple dozers were more fun than hiring someone .... And likely needed a tax deduction so it was a win win !! That's why that 750 is in my shed lol.

 

[loganb]

D9 is getting serious...we don't have anyone around that runs one that big as there just aren't any jobs that justify the headache it takes to move it...legally or not. The 8's are enough of a pain and a couple 6's/7's/8's are far more useful and adaptable for the size of work that's around us....would be fun to run one though!

We picked up the grader in the last year, 15 year old Deere from a former county road machine in pretty nice shape. Haven't done a ton with it yet, but have a fair amount of waterways that need cleaned out after doing their job for 15 or 20 years as well as terraces that needs tuned back up and sitting on top of the blade makes it so much nicer to see what you're doing and have that level of control. Takes a bit of getting used to all the levers....but fortunately one of the full time guys used to run one part time so that makes it simple. We're in it for a bit less then you're in the 750 for so it's not a significant asset sitting unused and doesn't take avoiding too many hours of a hired dozer to pay for it and is far more precise then a box blade behind a Deere 8R getting final cleanup/slopes set before running back over to seed grass for waterways or getting ready to plant when we're cleaning up terraces

Was just looking up the specs on that Hydramax...dang she's heavy! Didn't initially think it was that heavy....but 70k lbs....yeah I can understand why a new trailer is required for it!

 

[jar944]

I'm not even sure I can think of (3) D8's in the entire county I grew up in....

We were covered in them in my county, but they were all in the strip mines..lol. One neighbor had a d9 on his farm but it was left over from when he had a sand and gravel pit in one of his fields.

 

[Boostingaz]

@loganb
@jblnut
@jar944

Happy Thanksgiving all you guys! Stay safe and enjoy some good family time. We have about 30 or so coming in from all over, should be a good time.

 

[loganb]

We were covered in them in my county, but they were all in the strip mines..lol. One neighbor had a d9 on his farm but it was left over from when he had a sand and gravel pit in one of his fields.

Not a ton of mines in our neck of the world...few rock quarry operations, @OutlawDrifter has more south of him, including Big Brutus...which I need to see next time I'm down that way as I've never seen it

Big Brutus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

@loganb
@jblnut
@jar944

Happy Thanksgiving all you guys! Stay safe and enjoy some good family time. We have about 30 or so coming in from all over, should be a good time.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! We traded hosting for driving....so had 7 hours in the car with the kids on Thursday which makes for a long day but they did really well. The dessert table was only slightly smaller than the main course table which is always a good sign. That side of my mom's family has been getting together for Thanksgiving for approx 60 years as I'm told and only missed in 2020 due to world events so was good to be able to catch up with that side

Haven't made much progress recently on the growing list of **** on my to do list....but few things happening:

Again pulled out the tools when furnace wasn't working Friday night:



Original to house (date of manufacturer Feb 2005) carrier unit, ended up that it tripped the flame rollout sensor which wasn't where I started as it killed power to the thermostat when it did that and I hadn't seen that in my limited HVAC troubleshooting experience. But couldn't find anything obvious, vent pipe was clear so reset the rollout sensor and away I went and hoping that it was just a strong gust of wind from the wrong direction as it called for heat that caused it.

Narrator voice: The hope was short lived

Fault came back this AM around lunch....so that's not a great sign on a nearly 20 yr old unit

Pulled the burner assy and they didn't look bad, cleaned them up with a brass brush and blew out the debris and reinstalled



Some additional darkening/evidence of heat around burner 2 and 3




So going to see if this does anything, otherwise I probably need to get the video borescope out and see what the inside looks like and get a couple HVAC companies out for bids on replacements. AC unit is 7 or so years old so only looking at a potential replacement of half the setup but expecting that if the heat exchanger is cracked it's not worth it to attempt to repair vs just replace due to age. In good news it did this before I bought spare capacitors for the blower and draft motors!

In slightly more garage related topics, as part of the transition of grandparents to assisted living, a collection of tools needs dealt with. My cousin who just bought a place this summer is taking the toolbox and everything my brother and I didn't grab first(on my grandpa's direction) but I did grab this Craftsman box he was using as a side box that I assume was designed for truck/trailer usage with the diamond plate and flip down keyed door(even have the key!)



Seriously considering mounting it to the bottom of my desk and storing tools often used in the office/upstairs in it. I've always got a collection of tools laying around my desk between work, 3D printing related or household stuff that could use better organization so this may end up being that solution. Going to take a bit of reorganization on my desk as I've got a sit/stand desk and already have a UPS and desktop tower hanging from the underside....but that just makes it a bit more fun right

 

[loganb]

Well bids on replacement furnaces forthcoming as heat exchanger is bad.

The Carrier dealer is working up the options and lead time for both new with the credit from the warranty as well as replacement heat exchanger and what that lead time would be. In good news CO levels in the airstream were very low, so it's not red tagged.

While small talking with the helper, asked how long he'd been there and it was his first day which explained why the hoodie looked so crisp lol. Turns out he was from Ukraine and had come over with his family in February and over there he was a chimney sweep/repairman but found that wasn't as common over here so was working for a local fence company for awhile but wanted to get back to "heating" type work. Had a cousin who already lived in the area, so when they decided to immigrate they choose Nebraska for that. So far he and his family really liked it here and were sad they were forced to leave but happy with how things had worked out since then which was nice to hear.

2nd dealer is coming out this morning for a quote on a different brand(Goodman/York/Daikin)....see what shakes out, this is the last piece of "original" equipment in the house though as everything else has been replaced so that's a bit of good news.

 

[jar944]

Not a ton of mines in our neck of the world...few rock quarry operations, @OutlawDrifter has more south of him, including Big Brutus...which I need to see next time I'm down that way as I've never seen it

Big Brutus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This is a old 7.5min quad, originally published 1958 updated in 1979, but all that purple was new stripmine activity. It was hard to throw a rock without hitting an active or abandoned mine.


On the plus side they were fantastic playgrounds for a kid.

 

[iced98lx]

Ugh good luck on the replacement. Are you considering a drop in heat pump switch out?

 

[loganb]

Ugh good luck on the replacement. Are you considering a drop in heat pump switch out?

Did some digging on it last night as I was curious on what the options are there....at this point not considering it. Biggest issue is timeline...specifically that we don't see us in this house for the time period to really get that benefit. It also makes the install far more complicated as basement ceiling is finished and where the lineset would need to go involves about 40' of finished ceiling to pass thru.

If we saw us in the house for 5-10 years, I'd consider it harder, but I think that as things look now it's probably a 3-5 year house.

First full estimate came back on a 96% efficiency York at $5,758 which includes reconfiguring return air to get a 5" filter box in to replace the junk 1" filter in there now. That's a 2-stage burner with a 5 speed, high efficiency motor. Based on the timeline to be in the house, he didn't recommend pulling any of the other bells and whistles out of the manufacturer's bag like variable speed or modulating gas valve as it was going to add to long term maintenance cost and wasn't going to payoff in our timeline. And even if we end up here longer then mentioned above....it's a nominal 1% efficiency increase on paper.

 

[loganb]

And a Carrier unit it currently is...and a Carrier will stay...just not this one

Repair of existing came in at $1,400, as only the secondary heat exchanger is covered under the extended warranty program, primary exchanger was still a chargeable service. I didn't realize that the warranty only covered 1 of the 2 units and would've very seriously considered repairing if that option had been at a cost of free or sub $500. At that price, the remaining major components(circuit board, blower motor, inducer motor) all cost approximately $500/ea to replace when buying from repairclinic.com and would've been more ok with that....but if even 1 of those items fails after the heat exchanger replacement I'm now at 50% of the cost of new...still with no warranty.

New Carrier with the comparable feature set to the York came in $1,300 less before the cash discount and I was impressed with their tech this AM so so they got the job. Had Carrier not had the warranty buy back which helped that savings it would've been pretty comparable pricing between the two, but I've got 0 brand loyalty here so a 20% or bigger savings with equivalent product and warranty brings the decision down to service and price and no concerns with either on service from what I saw and reputation....so the warranty buyback offer did what the manufacturer hoped.

On the plus side they were fantastic playgrounds for a kid.

I really prefer 4 wheels over 2....that looks super fun!

 

[loganb]

Woke up a bit cold with a 60 degree house which was after getting up 2x overnight to reset the furnace but it ran well today. (2) space heaters has the upstairs where the bedrooms and my daytime lair(home office) back to a normal 68-70. New furnace day is supposed to be Thursday which screws up some plans but furnace is more important.

In a bit of a garage funk at the moment with so much that needs/wants attention and struggling to get very far on any of it between motivation shortfalls and other **** coming up....so spent some time tonight working up some stuff for an upcoming new tool upgrade....cause you know getting all the **** I have already running would make too much sense....

Supposed to be here in next couple weeks....some may figure this out easier than others....

 

[MadeByMiller]

Woke up a bit cold with a 60 degree house which was after getting up 2x overnight to reset the furnace but it ran well today. (2) space heaters has the upstairs where the bedrooms and my daytime lair(home office) back to a normal 68-70. New furnace day is supposed to be Thursday which screws up some plans but furnace is more important.

In a bit of a garage funk at the moment with so much that needs/wants attention and struggling to get very far on any of it between motivation shortfalls and other **** coming up....so spent some time tonight working up some stuff for an upcoming new tool upgrade....cause you know getting all the **** I have already running would make too much sense....

Supposed to be here in next couple weeks....some may figure this out easier than others....

Oh I recognize that page format, congratulations! I won't spill the beans for everyone else, but I bet you're Xcited for this 1 to Come!

 

[loganb]

Oh I recognize that page format, congratulations! I won't spill the beans for everyone else, but I bet you're Xcited for this 1 to Come!

I figured you'd recognize it! I'm Personally ready for this 1 to come So I can start playing!

 

[madison069]

Honestly, those furnace are all made from maybe 3 or 4 manufacture. They just slap the brand name on it. Some model even comes with both name tags so the installer can put which brand they were selling on the unit.

But it is the installer that you want to focus on when it's the AC part. Heater isn't as complex as the AC unit.

 

[nicholam77]

Oh I recognize that page format, congratulations! I won't spill the beans for everyone else, but I bet you're Xcited for this 1 to Come!

@loganb sorry to hear about the furnace woes. I’m feeling at a similar standstill with garage / projects. Holiday / family gathering season / winterizing… it’s a tough time to get stuff done. Looking forward to your new toy,

 

[loganb]

Honestly, those furnace

Furnace? What Furnace?



LOL

Install day came early as they had an availability open up which for a "limited heat" situation I've got no complaints about...couple space heaters kept the bedrooms at 70 overnight so the wife was happier this AM

I was surprised how many different brands some of the major manufacturers have and how similar many of them were....end of line differentiation and being able to provide "exclusive" offerings to dealers without significant cost/complexity to the manufacturing side. I get the strategy, most manufacturers do it at some level, I just didn't realize how "consolidated" the manufacturers were before digging in.

And yes...this is definitely the cheaper side of the equation. The AC unit was replaced in 2015 by prior owner with a 5 ton Trane and it was 7,300 bucks...so guessing that's a $10k bill now for an equivalent system. We got an awesome binder with the house documenting all the major expenses/receipts/manuals etc from their time owning it which has made chasing down "how old is X" much easier and we're keeping it going to make it easier on us and the next owners.

 

[Cdubu52]

That must be one of those new Bluetooth units!

 

[madison069]

Furnace? What Furnace?



LOL

Install day came early as they had an availability open up which for a "limited heat" situation I've got no complaints about...couple space heaters kept the bedrooms at 70 overnight so the wife was happier this AM

I was surprised how many different brands some of the major manufacturers have and how similar many of them were....end of line differentiation and being able to provide "exclusive" offerings to dealers without significant cost/complexity to the manufacturing side. I get the strategy, most manufacturers do it at some level, I just didn't realize how "consolidated" the manufacturers were before digging in.

And yes...this is definitely the cheaper side of the equation. The AC unit was replaced in 2015 by prior owner with a 5 ton Trane and it was 7,300 bucks...so guessing that's a $10k bill now for an equivalent system. We got an awesome binder with the house documenting all the major expenses/receipts/manuals etc from their time owning it which has made chasing down "how old is X" much easier and we're keeping it going to make it easier on us and the next owners.

At the rental house, I replaced the furnace and AC system with a Trane due to the installer was someone I trusted. It was all installed with a final bill of $5,700 in 2016. I picked the less optioned unit but still a 95% rating. I believe it was a 3 or 3.5Ton setup so that's most likely the price different reason.

I've been eyeballing several furnace for the garage and they will cost $1,300-$1,500 without installation. Most likely I'll install the furnace myself when the time comes.

 

[MadeByMiller]

I figured you'd recognize it! I'm Personally ready for this 1 to come So I can start playing!

https://imgur.com/a/jSZW3CY

 

[loganb]

https://imgur.com/a/jSZW3CY

So as Austin picked up....that screenshot was from Bambu Labs indicating a new Bambu 3D printer...question was just which one...the X1C(top dog) or one of the others

I debated this awhile...and previously had commented here the next printer would likely be an X1C but I ultimately ordered the step down from that, the P1S with the AMS unit



Main differences as I understand between the X1C and the P1S being that X1 gets a different set of extruder drive gears(which can be upgraded down the road for about $20 bucks), bigger touch screen, some more whizbang sensors/1st layer detection and a better camera. Which sounds like a lot of stuff...but from what I was looking at just didn't really want to spend the extra money as wasn't that interested in any of it based on reviews and talking with some people nobody had that strong of opinions on those items based on how I'm planning to use it.

The biggest things I wanted was the AMS for multi-color, the speed and the enclosure, which the P1S has all of....so I kept a couple hundred bucks in my pocket....time will tell if that was the right move or not!

The Prusa will likely find a new home....anyone who may be interested let me know....market price seems to be around $500 and this will come with a lot of accy's and a rasberry pi setup to run Octoprint for remote management of it. Another item or two out of the garage will probably go as well to make the swap neutral to my fun money bank account

But in classic case of machine envy....the Voron is upset a new mistress is coming home and she's not feeding extrusion right....grrr. I've never dug into that extruder since I bought it already assembled vs building it so that's on the list for sometime to see what's going on there...hopefully just got some debris stuck in there

 

[MadeByMiller]

So as Austin picked up....that screenshot was from Bambu Labs indicating a new Bambu 3D printer...question was just which one...the X1C(top dog) or one of the others

I debated this awhile...and previously and commented here the next printer would likely be an X1C but I ultimately ordered the step down from that, the P1S with the AMS unit



Main differences as I understand between the X1C and the P1S being that X1 gets a different set of extruder drive gears(which can be upgraded down the road for about $20 bucks), bigger touch screen, some more whizbang sensors/1st layer detection and a better camera. Which sounds like a lot of stuff...but from what I was looking at just didn't really want to spend the extra money as wasn't that interested in any of it based on reviews and talking with some people nobody had that strong of opinions on those items based on how I'm planning to use it.

The biggest things I wanted was the AMS for multi-color, the speed and the enclosure, which the P1S has all of....so I kept a couple hundred bucks in my pocket....time will tell if that was the right move or not!

The Prusa will likely find a new home....anyone who may be interested let me know....market price seems to be around $500 and this will come with a lot of accy's and a rasberry pi setup to run Octoprint for remote management of it. Another item or two out of the garage will probably go as well to make the swap neutral to my fun money bank account

But in classic case of machine envy....the Voron is upset a new mistress is coming home and she's not feeding extrusion right....grrr. I've never dug into that extruder since I bought it already assembled vs building it so that's on the list for sometime to see what's going on there...hopefully just got some debris stuck in there

You'll love it man. Technically the X1E is top dog, so enjoy your third best machine! For what it's worth, I was able to sell my enclosed mk3s+ for $1,000 and my original machine (with Revo Six hotend) for $600. I imagine our markets are pretty similar.

 

[loganb]

You'll love it man. Technically the X1E is top dog, so enjoy your third best machine! For what it's worth, I was able to sell my enclosed mk3s+ for $1,000 and my original machine (with Revo Six hotend) for $600. I imagine our markets are pretty similar.

I forgot they launched the *E with the higher temp option and few other "enhancements", though with industrial companies they'll probably get people to bite on it with their enhanced IT security stuff

I'd love to see more for the Prusa but $500 on FB marketplace seems to be the going rate for un-enclosed mk3's around here. Guy a couple miles away from me runs a garage based printfarm and went to all P1S from mk3's and he was getting 450 to 500 each but they weren't flying away by any means. Hit up a couple neighbors who have expressed interest in printing before to see if they are interested....haven't gotten any bites yet but as I don't have confirmation the new one has shipped yet I'm not too motivated.

 

[loganb]

Well glad this is done and looks great to my novice eye!




Started just after 8:30, back in their truck and on the way back to the shop by 1:30. Wasn't expecting the new return air trunk, but I asked for that better filter box from the old 1" filter and it was easier to replace that trunk then try and rework the prior one.

Definitely quieter in the house, but that's the benefit of a multi speed fan and 2 stage burner vs the old unit which had 2 speeds....on or off. Now to try and get rid of some of the stuff we had squirreled away in the dead space around the furnace instead of cramming it all back in there....

 

[tj675]

Looks good!

 

[gearhead1960]

Looks good. I see you have an Air Bear filter. Best place to find filters I have found are through Amazon. I usually buy three at a time. They say they're good for 6 months, but I find I replace them more often. The nice thing I found is you can get MERV 8 or 11 filters.

 

[Greenlawnracing]

Looks good. I see you have an Air Bear filter. Best place to find filters I have found are through Amazon. I usually buy three at a time. They say they're good for 6 months, but I find I replace them more often. The nice thing I found is you can get MERV 8 or 11 filters.

99% sure that's what I have as well. I was replacing every three months, however the HVAC techs consistently tell me six months or so. And yep, far from cheap! Your link was $30/filter, not sure if thats the same size I have, however recently they've been closer to $40 when I've purchased.

 

[gearhead1960]

99% sure that's what I have as well. I was replacing every three months, however the HVAC techs consistently tell me six months or so. And yep, far from cheap! Your link was $30/filter, not sure if thats the same size I have, however recently they've been closer to $40 when I've purchased.

Yes, far from cheap, but when you look at all the **** they capture, how do you place a price on your health? Those 1" filters are **** compared to the Air Bear filters......

 

[loganb]

Dug into the bigger printer to see if I could find the issues causing inconsistent extrusion of filament. In good news it didn't take long





This printer has (2) extruder gears to force the filament into the extruder head. Theory is with two it will reduce the print defects from when a slip would cause less filament to be pushed in resulting in an under extrusion defect.

These pieces shown are the equivalent to a tension idler, keeping the filament pushing into the drive gear. Unfortunately they were printed in a poor orientation for strength but the easiest to print, resulting in the area of the print around the pivot pins which is seeing the most load being both the weakest due to minimal material as well as having the layer lines of the print in close to pure tension trying to pull the layers apart.

CAD model of the extruder setup is below, you can see one of the failed parts in the light blue color with the tension thumbscrew on it, the other is on at the top on the opposite side.



Will be working to reprint all the pieces as their current iteration of this extruder is slightly different from the version I've got installed. Which means I have to go work on the other printer and get a clogged extruder/hot end cleaned out. Still no ship date on the Bambu...so these parts will get printed on the Prusa, hopefully this weekend

 

[RickP]

I like that you'll be able to print better parts to repair the printer.

What's that old saying about being able to use a lathe to make all the parts to build a lathe? I guess we can update that saying to the 21st century about 3D printers.

How did you get that CAD file for the part?

 

[loganb]

I like that you'll be able to print better parts to repair the printer.

What's that old saying about being able to use a lathe to make all the parts to build a lathe? I guess we can update that saying to the 21st century about 3D printers.

Robots making robots! It's a pretty neat part of the 3d printing world is some of the manufacturers(Prusa for example) open source basically everything so it makes the repair/upgrade opportunities wide open since the native part files are available. As you move up in the spectrum of complexity/capabilities of the printers more components may need to be machined or made in other ways then 3d printing on this home hobbyists level equipment, but for a lot of this stuff you can print your own replacements and upgrades!

How did you get that CAD file for the part?

This printer is really an open sourced design, not owned by any single company so the files for the pieces and parts upgrade options etc are all online in various places. For this extruder the files were on Github, so just had to find the right project, then download all files for safe keeping. The guy I bought it from who built it had included the details of the various components on the listing which I screenshot, so finding the correct github project was pretty easy.

 

[loganb]

Yes, far from cheap, but when you look at all the **** they capture, how do you place a price on your health? Those 1" filters are **** compared to the Air Bear filters......

Similar sentiments on the 1" filter. The last 2 houses both had or got upgraded to the bigger filter box like this, they had Aprilaire units but this dealer did Airbear so used it.
Due to the mentioned cost I have a manometer being delivered today to mount and provide differential pressure across that filter to give a better idea of when it's "done" and due for a change. $12 bucks for the manometer and couple bucks for tubing should pay off easy enough on a $40 a pop filter while also earning another nerd merit badge

Thanks to all for continuing to follow along and offer insight with the frequent jumps from project to project!


And help peer pressure @Greenlawnracing to buy the Prusa printer from me as a Christmas present to himself

 

[iced98lx]

That's pretty awesome! When are you going to print a housing and put inline all the time and make it a sensor in Home Assistant to have it alert you automatically when it's time to change the filter?

 

[RickP]

That open source printer is intriguing.

Due to the mentioned cost I have a manometer being delivered today to mount and provide differential pressure across that filter to give a better idea of when it's "done" and due for a change. $12 bucks for the manometer and couple bucks for tubing should pay off easy enough on a $40 a pop filter while also earning another nerd merit badge

Excellent idea! I'm going to do this for my Aprilaire filters. Thanks!

 

[loganb]

That's pretty awesome! When are you going to print a housing and put inline all the time and make it a sensor in Home Assistant to have it alert you automatically when it's time to change the filter?

In my ideal world....this winter....

In the real world....probably never lol

 

[loganb]

That open source printer is intriguing.

My big one is a Voron V2.4 in 300mm x 300 x 300 configuration....aka approximately 12" cubed print area

The "official" home of the Voron Documentation is here:

VORON Design

Get started with VORON 3D printer, the best little CoreXY 'space shuttle' you can build in your garden shed, or your kitchen.

vorondesign.com

To just read up about it without getting into as many "weeds" of programming and CAD files and bills of material etc you can jump to:

Voron Documentation

Voron Official and Community Documentation

docs.vorondesign.com

It's an imposing and fairly complicated build and not what most would recommend for a first time user unless they're already fairly well versed in low voltage wiring, small machine/control builds and programming/troubleshooting

You can build one without a working 3D printer as you can buy all the printed parts from a variety of different sources. If one wants a project and to learn and dive into new things....it could be a great project. If one wants a 3d printer to push start on and walk away from...look elsewhere like Bambu Labs, Prusa etc

Excellent idea! I'm going to do this for my Aprilaire filters. Thanks!

I'll post what I try! Another thread on the same topic here:

Manometer to monitor filter condition

since switching to 4" aprilaire filters, I'd like to make sure I'm getting all the life out of my filters as possible without pushing it too far. two newer systems with 4" filters that have air handlers I can easily access, one system with a 1" filter that has the air handler tucked away a bit...

www.garagejournal.com

In a prior role, we used differential pressure as the trigger for filter replacement in some spray booths that had a 2 stage filter setup. The exhaust fans were on variable speeds and the manometers were all marked with the "max" point, so they'd turn the fan speed up until it got to that marked line, then they'd start replacing the front filters until pressure difference dropped back down. Repeat this process until replacing the cheaper front filters no longer changed the differential pressure meant it was time to replace the back filters which was about a $3k bill if we replaced all 30 at once but normally could just do the middle (2) rows as those were the ones that took the brunt of the particles.

I went the cheap route and got this manometer, the Dwyer version linked in the other thread is what we used on the spray booths at work

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09GL31DC4/?tag=atomicindus08-20

Same style as used on Radon systems....probably the only difference between it and the one on my radon system is the coloring of the fluid.

I will have to do some digging in the owners manual for the furnace and figure out how to force the furnace to a set fan speed to make more reliable comparisons of pressure difference. Due to that it won't be as simple as walk by and see it above a certain level and that'll signal time to change. Hopefully forcing a specific airflow level isn't overly complicated so it can at least be a slightly more informed change schedule on the filters that after a couple cycles would likely end up with "replace at X frequency"

A quick google search turned up some loss numbers for the filters when new, not finding any specific information on what loss level they recommend replacement at, so either be some more googling or an email to Tech Support to get that information:

 

[loganb]

Pulled the Prusa into the garage for exploratory surgery:



Front half of the "hotend" taken off...found the problem....I hope

The bottom square part there is the "heatblock" which has a 24v, 40w heater element and the wiring going into the heater cartridge was worn and some of the strands had started to break. This is a known issue with this design, especially if you change nozzles frequently(I don't) as nozzle changes can strain that wiring if you let the hotend assy rotate. If I wasn't planning on selling this I'd be tempted to replace that hotend assy with a Revo6 version that has fast swappable nozzles and a higher flow rate...but as it's intending to go to a new home and there is already a fair amount of nozzles for the setup as is...I ordered a new heater cartridge for $7.99 and will now impatiently wait for it to arrive....

 

[Greenlawnracing]

Dude I’m gonna need additional discounts on this thing if you keep screwing with it!