u/diogenes_sadecv

My hotend fan recently started to die. How do I know? Because it would make an awful whirring noise as the hotend was heating up before resolving itself once the temp got above 180. The problem is the hotend fan uses an oil lubricant which isn't as sturdy as ball bearings, plus it sits on its side all day which hastens the end of its life.

When I started shopping around for replacement fans I realized I didn't know shit about fans, so here's what you need to know (ie, here's what I learned after some time on Discord and researching fans). First, you need a 25x25x10 mm fan, often called a 2510 fan. It's probably smaller than you're imagining. You also want to make sure it's got a two wire connection. It might not have the right size connector, but you can cut and solder the old connector to your new fan, just make sure you don't get the wires crossed. Also, make sure it's 24V and 0.1A

The most important metric you should be looking for is CFM, cubic feet per minute. I can't find reliable data about what the base CFM is for the KE fan but you should be looking for something above 3.5 CFM. If the vendor doesn't list CFM, it's probably too low. The risk of an overheated hotend is the blob of death. Nobody wants the blob of death.

The other thing to make sure of is that the fan has ball bearings. If you see something like "sleeve" or "hydraulic," it has the same oil-based lubrication as the original and will have a shorter life. There are maglev fans that have a longer life than either but I haven't found a reliable vendor for those for 2510 fans. The only caveat to all this is that the hydraulic/sleeve bearings are quieter than the ball bearings.

When it comes to installation, it should be a quick 15-minute process.

Remove the 3 hex screws from the hotend cover.

Remove the 4 Philips head screws from the 2510 fan which won't be in the cover itself, but directly attached to the hotend.

Unplug the fan. Just follow the wire and gently pry it loose or pull it out with some pliers (gently!)

Screw in the new fan. This can be a bit fiddly but I started with the bottom corner then did the top corners then the last bottom corner.

Plug the new fan in. Fiddly as well. I used tweezers to get it lined up before pushing it in all the way with a finger nail.

Re-attach the hotend cover. This bit's pretty easy.

Bob's your uncle.

Ask any questions if you've got them! If the thread has expired and you can't comment or reply, feel free to shoot me a DM

Over a year ago now I showed off some of my clocks (maybe here, I don't remember) and someone challenged me to make a balanced ternary clock. I couldn't figure out a good way to do it so I just made a simple clock, only changing the digits from decimal to balanced ternary, but I didn't like it.

What I didn't like was that it was a (relatively) simple base conversion, not a time-keeping system built from the ground up around balanced ternary. A few weeks ago I had an idea while coloring with my kid and I've finally built it.

Look at the README.md for more details or ask me in the comments, I'll be happy to explain any details! Basically, I break the day up into 3^11 units and then use the ▽, ○, and △ glyphs to represent -1, 0, and 1. Then, instead of having those digits/glyphs inline, I make them all concentric to each other. The varying opacity and line thicknesses are just aesthetics. I hope you enjoy it!

I started doing FPP when I had a max of 6 and I did a 5-days-on/2-days-off protocol to better match my schedule. I started with 6/5/4/3/2 on day 1 and just completed 9/9/8/7/6 on day 20.

I'm definitely taking a break from FPP for now 😅 One thing I learned from doing this is where my weak points are because my forearms are smoked! I also think it helped me psychologically, because after finishing week 2 (7/7/6/5/4) I didn't think I had 8 in me for the following Monday. Likewise when I cranked out 9 for the first time this Monday. And an unexpected skill I unlocked is the hanging rest, which I didn't have the stamina for before starting FPP at the beginning of the month.

I'm going to take a week off from doing any pull-up work and then shuffle it back into my workouts (I took pull-ups out of my workouts when I started FPP).

Full disclosure up front: Xteink still has a lot of work to do to make their firmware "good," but when it comes to reading, the hardware is pretty good. Is it an ESP32 with an E Ink screen? Yes, but if you're comfortable managing your e-book library by yourself, you don't really need much more than that. If portability is important to you, the X3 should be on your shortlist of devices to consider.