INTRODUCING: the "Roto Damper"


 
...did some further refinement of the 3D printed right angle connector for the roto damper... it's now broke into 3 pieces, the duct, the cap and the plug that mates them together. The parts fit surprisingly well, nice and air tight, as an added bonus it can now rotate in case you want the probe jacks to face forward instead of back, or to the side, whatever...
Intruducing the "Right Angle Roto Cap":
RightAngleDuct.jpg


The initial design worked out nice but had a tendency to split when I screwed in the conduit connector, so I beefed up the output section to make it more sturdy and thinned down the shell of the duct a bit where it doesn't need to be as solid. The hole in the cap is the same size as the output hole, so the same conduit connector can be used in the cap without the right angle duct. I stepped down to a 3/4" conduit connector so I could scale down the part a bit, they cost about $3 for a bag of 5 at Home Depot The conduit connector will fit through a 1" hole in your grill mounting plate and has a nice lip to make fitting easy. This looks a nice solution to interface with a multitude of grills...

Here are some actual pics:
RotoDamperRightAngle3.jpg

RotoDamperRightAngle4.jpg

RotoDamperRightAngle5.jpg



I haven't tested this with a cook yet, or for long term durability, but the parts mate really well and feel very solid and air tight so I'm confident it will work well.
 
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I haven't done any work with PLA to be honest with you. I've chosen to go with ABS because it is stronger and is more suitable for higher temperature applications, but I am sure PLA will work too.....
 
Of coarse I have the cad and stl files, I designed the thing(s)....
Send me an email to rotodamper AT hotmail.com if you are interested, I like to keep track of what I am doing with the files....
 
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Ralph,

Would you mind telling me which wires you connected where? Was it something like this? Think I remember hearing you could only do 3 probes through CAT5.

1. Servo Ground
2. Servo Signal
3. Servo 5V+
4. Probe 0
5. Probe 1
6. Probe 2
7. Probe Ground

Thanks,

Aubrey
RalphTrimble said:
If you are a HMv4.0 (or older) owner you do not have a CAT5 jack or a proper servo jack (or even header) on your unit. I modified my case to fit a CAT5 jack and wired it directly to the board to connect the servo the blower and 2 probes. I had asked for a CAT5 or phone jack to be added to the HM V4.1 board, Bryan was reluctant at first, eventually he came around and did include a CAT5 jack option for the I/O on the HMv4.1 board, so if you have a HMv4.1 board you're all set. Tom did create a version of the HMv4.0 case that included a slot to mount the "aftermarket" CAT5 jack as well. Below is an edited re-post from when I added the CAT5 jack to my HMv4.0 board/case, I thought it might be useful to some so I am posting it here in this thread...


The way I setup this CAT5 jack it is not "mounted" to the case, so If I need to remove the HM board(s) from the case for any reason the CAT5 jack will come right out with it, no problem... it was pretty easy to do with a hack saw blade and some super glue (to mount the plastic for the latch). FYI, I am using the case for the larger 4-line display, which I believe is a tiny bit larger than the case for the standard 2-line display. I am not 100% sure it will work the same in the smaller case, because I haven't done it, but I have looked at it and I am reasonably sure it should work out the same

I opened up my case and shot some pics of the inside today in case anyone was interested in doing it themselves. I got the CAT5 jack from Home Depot (you can see the label in the picture), it is the type where you just punch down the wires and it snaps into a standard wall plate. I inspected the wall plate at the store to get an idea how to make a mount for it, I didn't end up mounting it exactly the same as the wall plate in the end. I just made sure the hole was tight to the jack on all sides and used the latch to prevent forward and backward motion. One piece of plastic glued in was all it needed, I used a piece that had an L-shape cause it was easier to position while gluing (and I had scraps handy), but you could actually use the piece of plastic you cut from the case glued in place to do the same job. (BTW, I just cut straight down with a hack saw blade on both sides then snapped the plastic out with some pliers. I cut down about 6mm on the top and 10mm on the bottom. The cuts need to be about 15mm apart)

Here are the pics:

CAT5_Inside.jpg


And here is a pic showing the piece of plastic I glued inside for the latch. I used an orange plastic scrap so it would be easy to see what I added...
CAT5_Mount.jpg


...and a pic of the whole thing assembled to make this post more comprehensive...
HM_CAT5.jpg


The CAT5 jack would have fit on either side, I chose the same side where the probes connect so all the wires would be on the same side. The Home Depot Website shows the CAT5 jacks available in color(s), it would have been nice to have a blue jack but I didn't even think of that when I was brainstorming this at the time.....
Click to expand...
 
I think I was the first to put a CAT5 jack on a HM so the wiring had no standard at that point. Since HMv4.1 has been released with the CAT5 jack I would recomend that you start out with the HM4.1 wiring for the blower and servo. They would be the center most pins on the CAT5 jack, I am not SURE what order Bryan ended up putting the wires, I did a quick look at the HMv4.1 build guide but didnt see the diagram for the CAT5 jack pinout?? So I think we need Bryan to chime in here so you are sure to make your wiring HMv4.1 compatable. He didn't include the probe wiring to the CAT5 jack, so you will have to jumper over the probe jacks to the CAT5 jack with wires inside the HM.

With HMv4.0 the blower ground was actually the signal lead and the other blower lead is a hot 12VDC, so you can't share a "ground" between the servo and blower, therefore you need:

Blower Signal (switched ground)
Blower +12VDC
Servo +5VDC
Servo ground (actaul ground)
Servo signal

That's 5 wires for blower and servo. Now for probes you have 3 wires left, I do not recommend sharing the probe ground with the servo ground because that can make the probe readings fluctuate with the servo action, so running a dedicated ground for the probes leaves room for TWO probes with HMv4.0

On HMv4.1 Bryan changed the blower circuit so the blower uses an actual ground and the +12 lead is the signal lead, so on v4.1 the blower and servo can share a ground. This means you need:

Blower Signal
Blower/Servo ground
Servo +5VDC
Servo Signal

That's only 4 wires... I still do not recomend sharing the probe ground with the servo/blower ground for the same reason, so with the 4 remaining wires you can connect the dedicated probe ground and three probes.

I've wired my roto damper and HMv4.0 as follows:

Probe Ground
Pit Probe
+12VDC Blower
Servo Ground
+5VDC Servo
Servo Signal
Probe 2
Blower Ground

I did ask Bryan what wiring scheme he planned on using with the HMv4.1 (it was pre-release at this point) and I am PRETTY SURE the above wiring conforms to the HMv4.1 standard, BUT CHECK TO BE SURE. If you are running the HMv4.1 board you can skip the Blower Ground shown above and share the Servo Ground for both the blower and servo, and then you can use that last wire for a 3rd probe....
 
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Thanks! I went with the HM 4.1 wiring.

Pin 1, white/orange wire, unused
Pin 2, orange wire, BLOWER GND
Pin 3, white/green wire, +5V
Pin 4, blue wire, SERVO GND
Pin 5, white/blue wire, BLOWER
Pin 6, green wire, SERVO
Pin 7, white/brown wire, unused
Pin 8, brown wire, unused

Obviously the unused pins could be used for probe grounds and signals as you did.
 
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Ralph,

Got it working! Doing my first trial with no meat on the line, it is really fun to watch it move!

One SNAFU I hit is that the black CAT5 jack I got from Amazon is too wide, it gets wider after the jack portion so it won't go in the RotoDamper. Where did you get the jack you're using?

Thanks,

Aubrey
 
It must be because of the flip up top on the wiring on that unit, it seems the back side is a little wider on the one you have. The CAT5 jacks from Home Depot only widen out about a mm behind the wall plate.
 
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