HeaterMeter Winner - Have a couple of questions.


 

MDemm

New member
Hello all, I am the the winner of the HeaterMeter giveaway (Thanks again, Bryan), and have a few questions regarding same. First off, I just placed an order for the Raspberry pi "B", an Edimax Wi-Fi adapter and power supply. Later today, I'll be ordering the Thermocouple pit and ET-732 probes. My question is as Bryan mentioned, this device uses a 3.3v servo drive ? Does this mean the Roto-Dampner ? If so, and I want to run a fan only setup what would I need to do ? MDemm
 
You can use a servo if you like, but is not needed to be able to run the HM and blower. The servo is useful if you have problems with air flow through the blower, while the blower is off, depending on the smoker. The Rotodamper is one I use and like it very much on my UDS.

To run without a blower you would not need to do anything other then to hook up the blower to the HM with a Cat5 cable. If you have a radioshack nearby you can get a Cat5 connector and with that connector you would install the wires from the blower on the correct numbers:

3 = 5v power to servo - this will be the red wire from the servo
4 = Ground for servo and fan. Black wire from fan, black or brown wire from servo.
5 = 12v to blower/fan - red wire from fan
6 = Servo signal wire - this will be the yellow or white wire from the servo
 
It has servo drive, but it also has the blower as John has said. To attach a fan just either get an ethernet cable or a phone cord and cut one end off. Take the middle two wires and solder them to your fan and you're good to go. Ground (black) will be the wire that is further away from you (when plugged in) and Blower (red) will be closest to you (assuming you're holding it with Boxy robot facing up, and upright).

I forgot to mention, the device probably also will say the pit probe is at ~10 degrees when you first power it up. I did a "Reset configuration" so you'll need to set the pit probe back to Thermocouple first thing/
 
On the 3.3v servo drive... I know Bryan was experimenting with servo booster circuits on the v4.2.3 board, so I am not sure exactly what you have there. I have a v4.2.3 board and use it on my roto damper and it works great, but I ended up using my NPN servo booster circuit on it instead of the MOSFET booster (though I have been using the MOSFET booster on my HMv4.2.4 board without issue as well). It's easy to modify the circuit, or you can even build an inline booster that you can either build into your CAT5 cable if you have problems, or if you don't want to do surgery on your main HM board you can make a unit that can plug and unplug inline with the CAT5 cable like I have posted about in my HMv4.2.3 build thread. If you have problems/questions email me at rotodamper AT hotmail.com and I would be glad to help you out....
 

 

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