INTRODUCING: the "Roto Damper"


 
Just before taking my wife to her volunteer job, I plugged a 50ft cat5 cable that had a splice in it and its still very stable. But, yeah I will be testing this weekend. Then will dab hot glue on the connections for support and protection.
 
I've had your HM loaded here for a while, the TC temps read "fairly" stable but I do see the noise symbol pop up regularly and the temp oscillates much more than mine does. I think you still have room for improvement somewhere, I never see the noise symbol pop up unless something is truly wrong, like a loose wire or my TC amp is out in the rain etc...
 
T. Micaelsen said:
hi ralph, sendt you that email about the stl files :)
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Hmm, not seeing any email or PM from you? Where did you send it? Best to send to rotodamper AT hotmail DOT com

EDIT: Sorry, I see your email now... I was confused cause you were asking for the files for my Sliding Back Case for the HMv4.2 and not the Roto Damper files...
 
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Well, I have it up and running using 5v and two meat probes at the Rotordamper. I soldered all the wires to the cat5 connector. The cat5 connector was my biggest headache, I think as I could not get good contact with the wires and cat5 plug. It also made it easier to add multiple wires to each, if needed.

I used a -4 offset on the TC and I added a .1ohm cap between the +- of the Thermocouple to try to get a more stable temperature, although It only fluctuates about -.5 degrees when the servo activates and +.5 when it closes. I think the benefits of having 2 meat probes out weigh the negatives.
 
Looking at the Adafruit board, it is they may have lower filter values on the input lines. HeaterMeter uses a 10k resistors and they use 100 ohm, their caps must be much higher value to make up for it. If they had the same value as HeaterMeter's it would be a 1.6MHz low pass filter, which would be useless. Their ground impedance is also much higher (1M vs 1k) which means it will pick up more noise (at least in my testing).
 
Bryan Mayland said:
Looking at the Adafruit board, it is they may have lower filter values on the input lines. HeaterMeter uses a 10k resistors and they use 100 ohm, their caps must be much higher value to make up for it. If they had the same value as HeaterMeter's it would be a 1.6MHz low pass filter, which would be useless. Their ground impedance is also much higher (1M vs 1k) which means it will pick up more noise (at least in my testing).
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I figured that I would try to replace some of their components with the components used in the HM, but still could not get a good temp out of them and made me very frustrated at the price I paid for them.
 
John, I logged in and watched your HM a bit last night and it looks like you have it dialed in. I don't see the noise indicator popping up at all any more and the temps were really stable, moving at most 0.1F, looking really good, outstanding actually... Nice job!
 
Thanks, the first cat5 plug I bought, I thought were better as they were twice as much as the one I usually use. But, they were crap,until I took them apart and found out it had places to easily solder multiple wires to each prong. So, I did just that and everything is soldered in, it has helped a lot.

I was going to take the other plug back to home depot, but now that I found out they are much nicer, they will be my go to plug from now on.

Currently, I running the tc on 5v and I have both meat probes connected. There is a difference when the blower turns on and the servo activates and turns off but its minimal.
 
I've been using the CAT5 jacks from Home Depot and haven't had a problem so I haven't tried any others. Is this the one you are using or something else?

I am torn about using the 5v power for the TC, 'cause I am planning to make a disconnect switch for the +5v line so I can de-energize the servo during periods when I am not cooking so I can leave the HM running to monitor the weather without having the servo powered on all the time during brutal cold.

My parts for the TC offset circuit should be here tomorrow and I will experiment a bit further with regulating the 12V line to power the TC amp, but come to think of it, I could probably switch out the Servo/Blower ground rather than the +5v to kill the servo and leave the +5v live, cause I do like the idea of having two food probes in addition to the TC.

On another good news/bad news note... My standard thermoworks probe registered temps down to 4F last night, that is the lowest I have ever seen the HM register. In the past probes would drop out at these low temps, so far everything has been reading nice and steady through this bitter cold stretch.
 
I used to use the home depot thats white, it sales for about 3 bucks. The one that's solderable is a blue and its about 5 bucks and has a smaller footprint.
 
John Bostwick said:
I used to use the home depot thats white, it sales for about 3 bucks. The one that's solderable is a blue and its about 5 bucks and has a smaller footprint.
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Was the blue one the unit you weren't happy with? I saw that one there but have never tried it... I use the white or tan ones that cost around 3 bucks.
 
Yeah, at first I was not happy with it, but after I took it apart, I like it for the ability to solder to it.

The cream or white one don't have an easy way to solder and can only be used by pushing in the wires.
 
When I want to solder wires to the white ones I just heat an exacto knife and melt the plastic around the punch downs then pop the plastic off with some wire snips. At that point you can solder to the metal contacts. Not the ideal method but it's not a much of a PITA as it sounds. I generally only do this for the ground pin where multiple wires need to connect. I guess next time I am at Home Depot I will grab one of the more expensive blue ones and check it out.
 
Ralph, here is what the inside looks of the Cat5 connector. The pins themselves can be removed and put back in or soldered in
16h2pea.jpg
 
That's what the other one looks like after you snip away the plastic...

IDK what I think about being able to remove the pins? Does the little wire that makes the connection with the CAT5 cable come out with the pin? Not having the pins and wires firmly/permanently in place seems like a recipe for bad connections? Does this connector snap into place properly on the roto damper?
 
The pins are connect to the PCB and then the pins that go to the cat5 cable are soldered to middle of the PCB. I soldered the pins, you see, to the PCB. I did glue the plug and the PCB together
 
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OK, I think I get it. The pins that contact the CAT5 cable are soldered to the PCB, the scissor pins just sit down into the holes on the PCB where they make contact with a trace, but you can remove the scissor pins and solder the wires directly to the board... Do I have that right? How about snapping into the Roto Damper Body, does it snap in and out properly?
 
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