The Adapt-a-Damper - Open Source Project

[Tom Kole]

A damper is not a required part of a HM build, and there are plenty of designs shared here already, including the "offset rotary" damper that is remarkably similar to my roto damper design.

Ralph, this is why people don't like you. You really need to get over yourself. You didn't invent rotary valves. You were probably the first person to implement them for bbq'ing, but you certainly didn't invent them. You own no rights to their use just as Bryan didn't invent the PID controller and would never claim such a preposterous thing. When I originally posted my offset rotary I cited your original rotodamper as it's inspiration, but to say that it is a knock off of it insults me because I find the "Rotodamper" has morphed into a disastrous mess of push fit plastic that is sure to leak, and is the reason that I created the offset design so that the air path would be a continuous channel from smoker to valve.

BTW, I loved reading your history of damper evolution. Did you mention to everyone that until I showed you how to design an interface for servos and valves that you were stuck on that ridiculous setup of propellers attached to paper clips? Of course not. You would never admit that someone helped you in any way. Also, I'm sure that your RD3 "search for a fan that had similar specs as the original HM fan but with a smaller form factor" was real tough since it's the one that I designed the offset and inline rotary dampers around and had been linked in the first post of my thread for almost 2 years. You've made important contributions to this community, but your view of yourself is way distorted and I have very little stomach left for the nonsense you post around here.

 

[Steve_M]

Putting aside all of the forum drama, the fact remains that your files are already floating around on the internet. You've emailed them to some people. Who knows what they've done with them in terms of sharing them. You've also got people basically doing knock-offs because it's a simple design. At this point, the whole "shoot me an email" thing for people to get your files is just a way for you to possibly keep your own personal record on how many people might be using a rotodamper, but it's certainly not stopping "the wrong people" from getting your files, as those folks don't actually need them.

 

[RalphTrimble]

Ralph, this is why people don't like you. You really need to get over yourself. You didn't invent rotary valves. You were probably the first person to implement them for bbq'ing, but you certainly didn't invent them. You own no rights to their use just as Bryan didn't invent the PID controller and would never claim such a preposterous thing. When I originally posted my offset rotary I cited your original rotodamper as it's inspiration, but to say that it is a knock off of it insults me because I find the "Rotodamper" has morphed into a disastrous mess of push fit plastic that is sure to leak, and is the reason that I created the offset design so that the air path would be a continuous channel from smoker to valve.

BTW, I loved reading your history of damper evolution. Did you mention to everyone that until I showed you how to design an interface for servos and valves that you were stuck on that ridiculous setup of propellers attached to paper clips? Of course not. You would never admit that someone helped you in any way. Also, I'm sure that your RD3 "search for a fan that had similar specs as the original HM fan but with a smaller form factor" was real tough since it's the one that I designed the offset and inline rotary dampers around and had been linked in the first post of my thread for almost 2 years. You've made important contributions to this community, but your view of yourself is way distorted and I have very little stomach left for the nonsense you post around here.

Well Tom, I've never been one to enter popularity contests. I appreciate you giving me credit for first using the rotary valve for BBQ control, though I don't quite recall any propeller and paper clips... I think you must have me confused with D Peart, the guy that was working on the flap damper which first inspired me (as I duly noted). The first damper I had on my grill was the passive ping pong ball valve which I was putting together right at the same time when the flap damper was first being contemplated, almost simultaneously Bryan added the servo support for the HM. I never used the ping pong valve long because I moved right over to the servo damper, but I think it is still one of the cheapest and easiest dampers to put together and it actually is pretty effective. As best as I could find in a search it was D Peart that posted the flap damper, if you created the 3D printed flap he was using or were the one with the idea to use the servo in the first place and want me to credit you I would be glad to do that, it was not a purposeful slight on my part. I had a very brief stay with the flap damper before I moved on and don't fully recall the evolution and it's origin.

As far as my referring to your "rotary valve damper" as "roto damper like", I am glad to address that issue as well. When I saw your barrel damper I thought the rough edges of a 3D printed object would make a leaky and stiff valve, and I believe I expressed that opinion to you at the time. I kinda knew this from my own experiments, but I think we agreed to disagree on that point. So I went in the rotary valve direction and you went with the barrel design. Then when you came out with your rotary design I kinda thought, huh, familiar looking.... Though we have disagreed from time to time and perhaps butted heads on some issues I have respect for your work and contributions to the HM as well as your pace setting with 3D printing here, because of this I didn't say anything about your rotary valve damper, never really planned to. I just stopped following your thread at that point, out of sight out of mind.

Then while I was building the HMv4.2 prototype board I needed a case that didn't yet exist so I started designing one, as did you. Since I was working on an experimental board, and planning on experimenting with it quite a lot to clear up the issues with the servo going nuts I needed a case that was easy to open and close. I had thrown some ideas out to you on ways the case could be made without the allen screws, because my thumbs were raw from opening and closing the case so often, but you weren't in agreement with my ideas and I can respect that. Aside from the pesky allen screws (IMHO) your cases have always quite excellent, your focus has always been on a secure case that supports the board, won't pop open if dropped etc and you do an outstanding job... but the allen screws were a deal breaker for me and my sore thumbs. I needed something that gave me access to the boards easier, so I designed the sliding back case, which couldn't be more different from your case, aside from the holes where the HM parts poke through everything is different. When I posted about my case you really jumped on me hard about making it, which really set me back a bit since I had recently seen your rotary valve released and not taken issue with you about it. That has kinda been stuck in my throat for a long time now and perhaps I should apologize for not saying it publicly sooner, I just thought leave well enough alone and let it go... But here we are today and reading your post to me has brought this to the surface and perhaps the spirit of "Festivus for the Rest of us" has brought about "the airing of grievances" LOL (pardon the reference if you're not a Seinfeld fan)

Again, if there is a note you think need be added to the recent post I made about the evolution of the roto damper, be it for you or someone else that I failed to name, I would be glad too edit the post and add it. TBHWY IDK who was the individual that first came up with the servo idea, if it was not D Peart or Bryan then I would like to give that person credit as well.

I'm glad to have aired all this here today, you can trust if I say your name and the word respect in the same sentence that I truly have respect for you and am not seeking any sort of conflict here with you. Others, however, have been purposefully confrontational and disrespectful, even crossed lines far enough to have posts deleted by the moderator which is really a rare thing in this normally civil forum. In general, even when there is disagreement here we can agree to disagree...

Peace to all (except pirates and thieves)

 

[RalphTrimble]

Putting aside all of the forum drama, the fact remains that your files are already floating around on the internet. You've emailed them to some people. Who knows what they've done with them in terms of sharing them. You've also got people basically doing knock-offs because it's a simple design. At this point, the whole "shoot me an email" thing for people to get your files is just a way for you to possibly keep your own personal record on how many people might be using a rotodamper, but it's certainly not stopping "the wrong people" from getting your files, as those folks don't actually need them.

You know Steve, you're not telling me anything I don't know, I've wrestled with this thought and contemplated just sharing the files in my RD thread and haven't ruled out doing that at some point. But when I run up against someone who is so opportunistic and abrasive it always sets me back into the position of "why make it easier for them".

 

[Tom Kole]

Ralph, this will be my last post regarding this matter because it is now clear to me that you are not able to reason past what your mind believes is true, no matter how contrary to reality that may be. Plus, I've spent far too much time on this already. I will try to sum up in a couple of bulleted points:

1. You have no reason to be upset with anyone regarding dampers.
a. You didn't invent rotary valves
b. You have never posted any of your files
c. No one has ever pirated your work

2. No one is questioning, nor does anyone really care about who created the first damper, the second damper, or any damper for that matter
a. Here is a direct link to your RD thread where you describe your initial "flap" damper. Hence the aforementioned paper clip attachment.
b. I had no part of any of DPeart's designs and I never suggested that I did
c. As usual, you missed the point. Progress is made collectively and you didn't create anything in a vacuum


3. I had every reason to question you about the case last year
a. I was supplying you via email with raw autodesk files during it's development for you to test
b. You then post your case files just before I release the new case


Done

 

[RalphTrimble]

Ralph, this will be my last post regarding this matter because it is now clear to me that you are not able to reason past what your mind believes is true, no matter how contrary to reality that may be. Plus, I've spent far too much time on this already. I will try to sum up in a couple of bulleted points:

1. You have no reason to be upset with anyone regarding dampers.
a. You didn't invent rotary valves
b. You have never posted any of your files
c. No one has ever pirated your work

2. No one is questioning, nor does anyone really care about who created the first damper, the second damper, or any damper for that matter
a. Here is a direct link to your RD thread where you describe your initial "flap" damper. Hence the aforementioned paper clip attachment.
b. I had no part of any of DPeart's designs and I never suggested that I did
c. As usual, you missed the point. Progress is made collectively and you didn't create anything in a vacuum


3. I had every reason to question you about the case last year
a. I was supplying you via email with raw autodesk files during it's development for you to test
b. You then post your case files just before I release the new case


Done

Mostly opinion Tom, which you are entitled to...

My case was printing while you were sending me your case files to print and test fit for you. I was under the impression I was doing you a favor by test fitting because I had a v4.2 prototype board and you did not. So it is your perception of things perhaps that I took from your design, but I was holding the prototype board and building my case around it, not around your files. I did make an effort to persuade you to move away from the allen screws on your case so only one case design would be needed, you like your setup and decided to stick with it. Like I said, it's sturdy, well done, I even kinda like the look of the allen heads on the face of the case, but I just can't deal with them for opening and closing the case. I open my case WAY too much for that, to experiment with HM features, to reference my board to assist others, look at parts, take measurements to assist people for troubleshooting etc. This is something you really don't do as far as I can see, so perhaps you're not feeling me here on the allen screw issue, which is fine. To me its a huge deal so I made my own case. With all the opinions I have read here in this thread, and even in this last post from you, I can't see how you would take issue with this.

 

[NickMV]

I hope I'm not stepping on toes by commenting here, as this has definitely narrowed down to mainly the main 3 folks with damper threads, but I figure I'd offer some an honest 2 cents from an outside perspective without trying to stoke the fire.


1. I've got an RD3 from Ralph, and I enjoy it and it works very well from day 1. For that I'm extremely grateful. That being said, the rotary damper design in history is nothing new, it was just somewhat innovative to house all the components inside while maximizing airflow.

2. WBegg's design is obviously an attempt to replicate Ralph's, there's not much debate on that. Ralph, I can see where you'd get a bit upset about him posting those files, but back up. Ask yourself --- what was the point of posting your RD3 if you won't share the files? It seems counter-productive. It feels like you've built an Apple-style ecosystem where you tightly control your "product". It seems weird that you'd share all these pics and offer to print for folks, but then become incredibly hesitant to share the actual files when people might want to tweak or print it themselves.

3. Now let's switch to the other side here, for WBegg. This guy wants to take an existing design (one that was posted in detailed pics on this forum), and expand upon the design, customize it to his liking, etc. Could he have intro'd to the forums a bit better, and avoided some of this scuffle? Absolutely, but that's past now, and we're now here.

4. Ralph, while I understand from this thread that you've shared the RD3 files with a select few folks, it seems like a decent amount (myself included) have gotten turned down on requests for various reasons, even after purchasing one from you (which I admit was reasonably priced). Because of this, I feel like you should've seen this day coming, though maybe not with such disagreement. Someone was inevitably going to post a similar looking one since yours isn't readily available.

5. Because the RD3 files are not readily available, this means that the only reasonable way to get one is to either copy or purchase it. Copying it of course was going to result in some variant of what we see here. Purchasing it results in, by its very nature, a commercial product being sold in a forum for an open-source project with the intent of sharing ideas, designs, files, etc, even if it's not being sold for profit. These 2 things seemingly conflict.

I feel like this blew up for reasons that could've easily been avoided, but tact was was of utmost importance when intro'ing the thread, and that's where it missed the mark. It was seemingly straight copied without nearly enough credit due to Ralph, but again it seems like it was done for obvious reasons -- lack of files. There's no win/win here, but there's certainly plenty of potential lose/lose. It'd be a shame to see both of you leave because you're ****ed at each other. Try to find some common ground and share ideas better, please?

 

[Jas E]

My comments below are intended to be general, and not directed at any one person.

If someone wants to share their works (licensed or unlicensed), I'm appreciative of that and respect their wishes if they don't want me to redistribute them.

If someone does not want to share their works with me, I respect their decision as well. It might present an economic barrier to me since I don't want to buy 3D printed goods when I have my own printer, so I usually move on to a different design. I would never circumvent that person's decision by using underhanded methods to acquire their works.

If I do create a design, I am respectful enough of others to not blatantly rip off their works and claim them as my own. I like to give credit where credit is due and show my appreciation if my works incorporate something done by someone else.

If I want to claim something as my own, I would ensure that my design is truly made from scratch and/or presents a novel solution to a problem. *Even then* I would likely acknowledge other works that had inspired me.

The key here is *respect*. We have to play nice, whether the works are open source or privately owned.

 

[WBegg]

Yes he did. But they are the .stl files. I want something that isn't mesh that I can manipulate. Especially for machining, where i don't want to remove all of the material in the pockets, it can just stay. A lot of CAM software won't even accept .stl files, mainly 3d printing slicers do.

Charles

CHeathmen, I've now included the Rhino (3dm) files I made to create the design. They're now available in the Thingiverse link.

 

[Chris Morris]

I like your 3-hole damper that you showed on the other thread. Less travel for the servo. Once thing I have thought of with the dampers is that I intend to connect mine to a an air burner with a hose, so it would be nice to be able to mount the damper to a board or some flat surface to keep it stable . Just a thought, I'm not sure how many others are in that position.

 

[NickMV]

I like your 3-hole damper that you showed on the other thread. Less travel for the servo. Once thing I have thought of with the dampers is that I intend to connect mine to a an air burner with a hose, so it would be nice to be able to mount the damper to a board or some flat surface to keep it stable . Just a thought, I'm not sure how many others are in that position.

I don't quite see how it would work though, especially given that the software is configured to simply output 0-100%. Wouldn't the use of the 3-hole damper cap require a complete re-design of the output algorithm/function?

 

[Andy Snider]

Are your files on thingiverse complete? I think you need 1 more STL to make a complete print (the damper wheel) & the .3dm files don't look to be complete either.
(I pulled them into Fusion360 & quickly aligned)
Missing the dovetail/keyway on the lower box, missing the damper wheel.

 

[WBegg]

Are your files on thingiverse complete? I think you need 1 more STL to make a complete print (the damper wheel) & the .3dm files don't look to be complete either.
(I pulled them into Fusion360 & quickly aligned)
Missing the dovetail/keyway on the lower box, missing the damper wheel.

Sorry for the confusion, Andy. I'm not very disciplined with Layer control, so things are a bit scattered. I tend to lose certain solids when I boolean with others. I'll sit down maybe this arvo and try to consolidate into 1 file with separate solids to boolean. Regarding the damper wheel, it's somewhere in there. I don't have my files with me, as I am at work, but I'll straighten it out.

Right now it's a bit of a jumbled mess of 2 different designs.

 

[Andy Snider]

Yeah I figured out that the 3-sloted damper wheel went with the 3-slotted cover AFTER I imported & moved them around (I did't realize the 3-slot cover existed until I couldn't figure out what was what), so I just left it between the covers.
I'm horrible with fusion360, but I don't really have the time to learn it properly. I cut my teeth on autocad on floppy & pretty much stopped after that. I don't have the damper design thats in my head printed out because I don't want to beat my head against the CAD software, I figured I could stand on your shoulders.
At least the .3dm imported nicely into fusion, sometimes it acts a bit squirrely.

Also, drama aside, thanks for doing this.

 

[Tom Kole]

I don't quite see how it would work though, especially given that the software is configured to simply output 0-100%. Wouldn't the use of the 3-hole damper cap require a complete re-design of the output algorithm/function?

You just adjust the servo limits. The only downside to this design is that you cut the valve resolution in half.

 

[WBegg]

Upon thinking of how the current fan/damper could be improved, I came upon the realization that the profile of the damper opening does not allow for true % open/close. Let me see if I can explain.

Assuming the damper has to travel a total of 143.7 degrees from fully open to fully closed, then one would assume that if the servo moved to 50% open, then it will move an equivalent of 71.9 degrees. However, because there is not a true polar relationship between the shape of the opening, and the center of rotation, 50% open on the HM does not equate to 50% open in relation to the damper cross-sectional area.

The resulting open void is actually 42%, and varies with other percentages, ie 25% = 16% and 75% = 71%. The picture below illustrates this. This would be the heatermeter telling the damper to open 50% and the relative location of the damper.

So how can we modify the design so 25% = 25%, 50% = 50% and so on? By relating the shape of the opening to the point of rotation. The figure below hopefully illustrates this.

If this makes any sense, and anyone can see any use in changing the design, I'll draw up some files this weekend.

Cheers,
W

 

[Tom Kole]

Upon thinking of how the current fan/damper could be improved, I came upon the realization that the profile of the damper opening does not allow for true % open/close. Let me see if I can explain.

Assuming the damper has to travel a total of 143.7 degrees from fully open to fully closed, then one would assume that if the servo moved to 50% open, then it will move an equivalent of 71.9 degrees. However, because there is not a true polar relationship between the shape of the opening, and the center of rotation, 50% open on the HM does not equate to 50% open in relation to the damper cross-sectional area.

The resulting open void is actually 42%, and varies with other percentages, ie 25% = 16% and 75% = 71%. The picture below illustrates this. This would be the heatermeter telling the damper to open 50% and the relative location of the damper.

So how can we modify the design so 25% = 25%, 50% = 50% and so on? By relating the shape of the opening to the point of rotation. The figure below hopefully illustrates this.

If this makes any sense, and anyone can see any use in changing the design, I'll draw up some files this weekend.

Cheers,
W

You are absolutely correct. I toyed with solutions to this previously, but every one suffered from the same flaw. Any attempt to change the valve opening results in a loss of cross sectional area for an equally sized valve. The amount is small, but in my view, I want to do everything possible to maximize airflow while limiting the size of the damper. In the end the CSA will not be linear with respect to servo rotation, however, I'm not sure that we have the resolution to see that difference. If you have the the time to do a rigorous side by side comparison with torture testing, I'd love to see it.

 

[Paul Hunt]

I would have thought that as long as the cross sectional area of the damper vent is the same, or a little larger than the area of the outlet, then there should be no significant reduction of air flow. We are, after all, not concerned with very high flow rates, or turbulent versus laminar air flow?

 

[DavidNP]

my suggestion is would be to keep the best/easier design and have the software deal with the 'math'....it shouldn't be difficult to have a factor/formula that can be entered and used to translate 25% into the proper position on the servo....

I've toyed with the idea of using a stepper motor instead of a servo motor......that would allow for a lot of different ideas with full 360 forward/back rotation....

 

[Steve_M]

Does it matter that the opening is really at 36% when the HM says it's at 25% as long as it's holding the temp?

Adding more config boxes to calculate something that not a lot of people care about quickly turns the config screen into this: