Progress on the filament dryer was stalled over the summer since all free time went into the repainting of the room. The next thing to do on the box itself was to figure out a way to mount the internal circulation fan, figure out how to run the wires, and assemble the panels into a …
After designing the circuit board, I thought I would get back to glassing but nothing got done on that end before all the components and the circuit boards arrived. I’ve soldered surface-mount boards before using the “smear flux everywhere and touch the pins with the solder iron” method, which works but is pretty slow and …
Lately, the glass work on the physical box has been on pause since I realized I needed to work out what the connections to all the sensors is going to look like. To work out the electronics, I buckled down and started designing the circuit board. I had a vague notion of what it needed …
After glassing the cover for the dehumidification channel, I needed to mount the thermoelectric cooler. Small tasks are best now…. The hole fit pretty well, there’s a bit of clearance but I’ll seal this up with some silicone when mounting the cooler for real. On the outside, I had to drill and tap the holes …
I’ve been distracted by things like trying to find toilet paper (seriously, people) but I’ve been trying to make a little progress on the filament storage box. Since the last post, I mounted the fan that will push air over the cold plate for dehumidification. It fit pretty well in the hole I made, but …
More progress on the filament storage box. All 5 sides of the box have been glassed on at least one side, and the dehumidifier circuit side was completed. The layups for the air channel were a bit tricky compared to the flat sides I’ve done so far. Instead of just wetting out rectangular pieces of …
In the last post, I described the basic idea of the dehumidified filament storage box. I don’t have a lot of time to work on it, so progress is slow, but I’ve done a few layups. The back side is made from 2″ foam to give good insulation against the hot plate and maximum rigidity. …
As you may remember, my 3D printer is mostly used with Nylon or polycarbonate filaments, since those are strong and works to high temperatures. Unfortunately they’re also very hygroscopic, so they absorb moisture from the air (which we have a lot of here) and then you can’t really print with them without getting blobs and …
After fixing the main wheels, there was also some things to attend to at the back. We’ve had a replacement for the ridiculously dinky tailwheel since before I became a co-owner but never mounted it. Since we were doing wheel work anyway, we decided now was the time. Replacing the tailwheel looked simple until we …
The “one thing” left to do on the Sonex was to fix the left wheel brake, which was stuck. Well, ok, the left tire also kept losing pressure. Finally co-owner Andy and I managed to get down there and jack the plane up so we could take the wheel off. We had wondered about how …