Brand New Damper Design - "The Micro Damper"


 
Smoked some chicken wings last night on the Primo XL with my newish HeaterMeter and MicroDamper. Other than a 5-10° oscillation at 6:00pm (I think that the chunks of cherry caught and led to this), I'm amazed how well the temp maintained 250° for 90min+

P = 4, I = 0.003, D = 4. Fan "on above" 25% so the second half of the cook was mostly just damper control. Wings turned out great too!

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I received my Micro Damper recently as part of my first HM build out. I haven't tested everything yet as a full system as I'm still waiting on my case, I did get my fabrication finished for connecting to my Primo Oval XL. I did not like the idea of cutting/drilling the stock damper plate since there will be times I want to do cooks without the HM. I took a troll around the local Home Depot and decided on something cheap but requiring a bit of work on my part. I bought a $5 piece of plate zinc sheet metal, a 1" NPT electrical conduit nipple and a pair of lock nuts. Total cost <$10 and ~1.5 hours for fab. Here is the outcome:

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Mounted on grill




I just slide out the stock damper plate, slide this one in and then hold the locknut while spinning in the pipe nipple over the damper opening. I think it should work fine. This plate metal is a bit thinner than the stock stainless steel so if I get air leaks I will just shim it somehow or somehow add some thickness to the edges.
 
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So I received a few MG90s servo's in the mail yesterday. Test fitted the micro damper 3d print (mg90s version) with the servo.. The fit was alright, although I may need to reprint one of the copies (was made with polycarbonate for heat tolerance, that didn't come out as expected).

Anyhow upon fitting the servo in side, I noticed that the long side of the servo takes up a lot of space inside the micro damper, not leaving much space for the phono jack.

Since I didn't receive the phono jack as yet, i was wondering if it would actually fit inside the housing with the servo. In my installation, the hole for the phono jack is in line with the servo... leaving about less than 1/2 inch of space for the phono jack.

Can someone tell me if this is normal? or post pics of the inside of they're micro damper with MG90S. It would at least give me an idea.

thanks!
 
The jack should fit. It's tight though, you have to make sure you make good soldering connections and then bend the wires out of the way to ensure clearance.
 
UPDATE: I currently have no inventory of MicroDampers available. My move to the midwest and unpacking is taking much longer than anticipated. I'm hoping to be back up and running in about a week. Sorry for any inconvenience. I would urge anyone who wants a MicroDamper right away to use my free and open designs on thingiverse along with 3DHUBS to get a model printed. I suggest sorting your search by those who are willing to ship, and then choose the cheapest printer available. Last time I checked you should be able to get one for only $2-4 more than I offer through MicroDamper.com.
 
Paul Nederveen said:
I bought a $5 piece of plate zinc sheet metal, a 1" NPT electrical conduit nipple and a pair of lock nuts. Total cost <$10 and ~1.5 hours for fab.
Click to expand...

Nice job!

Just a note, be careful with zinc, heat and food. Zinc vapors can do nasty things to you. And not good to get zinc deposits on your food either.

Stainless is best, but pricey, and hard to work with. Plain carbon steel would be the cheapest, easiest thing to work. And electrical fittings/couplers are often heavy on the zinc too. Black iron pipe fittings should be as cheap if not cheaper.

I know I'm paranoid, and the heat levels should be low enough to not be a problem, but... It's cheaper to be safe, so why not.

job
 
Job Lenihan said:
Nice job!

Just a note, be careful with zinc, heat and food. Zinc vapors can do nasty things to you. And not good to get zinc deposits on your food either.

Stainless is best, but pricey, and hard to work with. Plain carbon steel would be the cheapest, easiest thing to work. And electrical fittings/couplers are often heavy on the zinc too. Black iron pipe fittings should be as cheap if not cheaper.

I know I'm paranoid, and the heat levels should be low enough to not be a problem, but... It's cheaper to be safe, so why not.

job
Click to expand...

Good advice. It gets very little heat down there but something to watch for. My goal would be to see if Primo will sell me just the little slider door that I can then put a hole into. At the time I had 2 issues. 1) no door 2) no step drill bit to put a hole in it. (not buying a $45 bit for one hole).

I'll improve the design over time I'm sure...including the removal of the zinc.
 
I hear you on making things work with what you have on hand. And you're right that you'd have to be doing a pretty high heat cook for the zinc to cause problems.

I found a hole saw to work well enough, and no where near $45. As I drilled, some spray lube helped it along. I clamped it to a piece of wood so it would not spin, and so it did not distort too much.

job
 
Im assembling mine and i have a question. Are you guys removing the mounting tabs on the servo? Mine is hanging up, but i feel like if i push it will click in place. Also on the side where the jack is it seems that the tab might interfere with the jack if i don't cut off.

Thanks,
Don
 
Ok. Got her all assembled. Tested snd worked, but a the fan was hitting a wire, so i opened it up and made some adjustments. Put it back together and plugged in the 3.5mm, and the servo jumped a little open. Unplugged and it jumped a little again towards open. Plugged bsck in and jumped a littlr open again. Does the same thing with the ethernet jack, except only when plugging it in.

Any ideas about whats going on and how to correct it?

Also, with a 5% change it takes a few seconds for the servo to react. Is this normal?
 
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So, it was a bad plug connection. Took it apart and resoldered and included little tiny pieces of heatshrink and everthing works as it shouls! Now for a cook!
 
Hey,

Does anyone have recommended print settings for this? Printing with Ultimaker 2 and Cura. Would a 0.25 mm layer height be sufficient, I'd like to print this out pretty fast...

Edit: it's the original Ultimaker with 0.4 mm nozzle.
 
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MicroDamper UPDATE


Sorry I've been gone for so long. Moving halfway across the country has kept me much busier than I thought it would. The good news is I've begun printing MicroDampers again. Be sure to check the MicroDamper shop in the next couple days. I'll try to send emails to all of you who have inquired directly, but hopefully you'll also see this.

- - - Updated - - -

DKellogg said:
Ok. Got her all assembled. Tested snd worked, but a the fan was hitting a wire, so i opened it up and made some adjustments. Put it back together and plugged in the 3.5mm, and the servo jumped a little open. Unplugged and it jumped a little again towards open. Plugged bsck in and jumped a littlr open again. Does the same thing with the ethernet jack, except only when plugging it in.

Any ideas about whats going on and how to correct it?

Also, with a 5% change it takes a few seconds for the servo to react. Is this normal?
Click to expand...


Glad you found your problem. The few seconds for a 5% change is a function of the software.
 
DKellogg said:
Im assembling mine and i have a question. Are you guys removing the mounting tabs on the servo? Mine is hanging up, but i feel like if i push it will click in place. Also on the side where the jack is it seems that the tab might interfere with the jack if i don't cut off.

Thanks,
Don
Click to expand...

Mounting tabs need to be removed. I personally remove them from all the servos I sell along with the MicroDamper kits, which is probably why this hasn't been brought up before.

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Riku Naskali said:
Hey,

Does anyone have recommended print settings for this? Printing with Ultimaker 2 and Cura. Would a 0.25 mm layer height be sufficient, I'd like to print this out pretty fast...

Edit: it's the original Ultimaker with 0.4 mm nozzle.
Click to expand...

0.25mm layer height will be just fine.
 
Hi All,

I would like to print off a micro damper, but I was wondering if there was any way I can adjust the hole size or modify the port to work with the adapter I bought. I bought Ceramic adapter for the BBQ Guru to use to attach to my BGE. The inside diameter of that is not standard so I was thinking that maybe the micro damper could be modified to have a proper sized tube protruding from it so that it slips into the adapter. What do you think, too close to the heat? Here is a link to the adapter:
https://www.bbqguru.com/storenav?CategoryId=2&ProductId=14

Matt
 
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