Repairing a Ridgeflow Conservatory Vent Fan

The Ridgeflow is a conservatory vent fan that was was manufactured by Ultraframe, a company that supplies parts for conservatories and similar extensions. An external thermostat can be connected to the terminals provided, alternatively if these terminals are connected together then the built-in electronic thermostat will turn the fan on when the ridge temperature reaches about 38C.

The Ultraframe site lists the model number as RFCB001/UF here however my particular unit was labelled RFUC001. I believe it dates from around 2002 but it is possible that it was replaced some time prior to 2016. So bear in mind that the instructions that follow may not be applicable to newer versions of the Ridgeflow.

Piper Autocontrol III Wing Leveller Fault Finding

Recently I had the chance to investigate a Piper Autocontrol III (which is a rebadged Century II) 2-axis autopilot. The unit was installed in a Piper Cherokee and had been placarded “Autopilot inop”. The owner reported that avionics shops considered the unit not worth repairing and offered it to me to look at. I enjoy getting old electronics working (I had just finished restoring a 1947 radio), so I accepted the challenge!

Home Energy Management System Part 4: Characterising the Hypervolt Current Transformer

The Hypervolt EV Charge Point is a UK-manufactured 7kW single phase unit. It is one of the smartest looking EV chargers on the market. It has no controls on the unit and can only be controlled via a smartphone or similar via the cloud server.

Home Energy Management System Part 3: Planning the hardware

In order to meet my objectives without running wires from one part of my house to another, I will need at least the following WiFi-connected units for control and monitoring:

Home Energy Management System Part 2: Hacking the iBoost+ protocol

The Marlec iBoost+ solar PV hot water diverter uses a current transformer to detect when there is surplus power being exported. This is wirelessly connected to the main iBoost+ unit, which adjusts the power fed to the hot water tank immersion heater so as to use any excess power to heat the water, until the immersion heater thermostat cuts out.

Home Energy Management System Part 1: Objectives

This series will record my adventures in building a home Energy Management System, to monitor and control solar PV generation, battery storage, EV charging, hot water heating, and grid import/export.

Adding filament monitors to the Hemera tools

The imminent 3.2beta release of RepRapFirmware includes support for filament monitors connected to Duet 3 expansion and tool boards. This post describes how I added filament monitors to the two Hemera tools on my E3D Tool Changer.

Improvements to the Hemera Tools

Since building my first Hemera tool controlled by a Duet3D Tool Board, I have built a second one and made some improvements.

Large Kossel update

My large Kossel variant has been running for several years now. It is reliable and produces good prints. I have however replaced the extruder drive and the power supply by different models, and added a filament monitor. I will now describe these changes and the reasons for them.

Converting the E3D Tool Changer to Duet 3 with Hemera Tools (Part 2)

Configuring the Duet 3

The Duet 3 configuration and other system files I use are based on the ones that I published for Duet WiFi/Ethernet running RepRapFirmware 3. They are configured so that X0 Y0 is the centre of the bed. The changes I made for Duet 3 are: