u/nas886

Hi all, glowing stove monitor guy again.

Episode 2 of my new youtube series is up, and many of you are actually in this story. It's the story of actually making the lamps.

When the first orders from you all came in earlier this year, I'd never run a CNC machine. Most of my career was spent writing software, so woodworking was very new to me.

The episode covers the entire process of making the wooden parts of the product, from rough lumber all the way to a finished product, and the many mistakes I made along the way.

How the first 57 actually got made.

If you bought one of the first 57, your box is in there somewhere. Thanks for being the reason this thing exists.

I'll be in the comments all day. If this content is interesting to you, let me know! I'd also love to know what else you'd like to see, I'm new to this whole way of putting myself out on the internet so I'd love to hear from you all.

Hi r/Vermont,

I posted here last month about the woodstove monitor I built after moving here and not knowing what I was doing. The response from this group was incredible, and a few of you asked to follow along, so here's an update.

The first 57 units were all built by hand. I had never run a CNC machine before this year. I ruined a lot of wood learning, and every time I got stuck someone at the makerspace was always available to help me out.

Setting up the CNC machine at Generator, the makerspace in Burlington

I started filming a YouTube series, talking about how I made these and the process I'm taking to go from the first batch to the first 1000, which will be ready by this burn season. The first two episodes are up now.

The production version of Oru goes live on Kickstarter in late October, and I'm racing to have units ready before this burn season.

Happy to answer anything about Generator, LaunchVT, or what building a hardware product in Vermont is actually like.

Edit: Adding an image of the production quality product here.

I posted here a while back about the little box I built that glows based on flue temp, because I was terrified of my woodstove and checking the fire every 20 minutes. A bunch of you said you wanted one.

So I sold them. I hand-built dozens at a makerspace here in Vermont and they sold out in about two weeks. It took me a month to build the first one. Along the way I learned to woodwork, learned to run a CNC machine, and gained a lot of respect for anyone who builds physical things for a living.

The update is that a manufacturer is now working on a real production run, 1,000 units, which I need ready before burn season. That's 12 weeks from now, and I'm equal parts excited and terrified.

I started filming the process as a weekly video series, mostly so there's a record of it. The first episode is basically the story of how this sub accidentally started a company: https://youtu.be/bxwla0LHIks

Thank you for all of it. The old threads here taught me how to actually run my stoves, and then this group gave me the courage to actually go and build this product.

What's everyone's wood situation for the season? I'm way behind on splitting.

Hi r/Vermont,

Sharing this here because I really don't think it would've have happened anywhere else.

My wife grew up here, and a few years ago she talked me into leaving NYC and moving back. The house we bought came with two woodstoves. I had never run a woodstove in my life. Her dad always handled theirs, so between the two of us we knew basically nothing, and I spent that first winter burning way too much wood and somehow still being cold.

I do hardware and software for work, and I'd always find myself really anxious about the fire burning through the winter. I hated having to go check the stove all the time, so I built myself a way to monitor it from anywhere in my house. I put a temperature probe on the flue, built an app, and a little wooden box in the kitchen that glows different colors depending on how the burn is going.

I posted about it on r/woodstoving mostly to get feedback from the community, and people actually started DMing me asking if they could buy one! There are 57 of them out in other people's houses now, and somewhere along the way it stopped being a hobby and turned into a real company.

The first version of the stove monitor I built for my house.

Last month, I pitched at the LaunchVT demo night down at Hula in Burlington, and surprisingly won! There were some great pitches and great companies that night, so candidly I'm still surprised that I won.

Me on stage pitching using a reddit comment about \"woodstove anxiety disorder\" to illustrate the point

I'm deep in the process of manufacturing now, and the production version will go onto Kickstarter at the end of September. The website is getoru.com if you want an email when it's live.

Here's a few pictures of the product and a bit about how it works.

You attach a sensor on the stove. A small box sits away from the stove and broadcasts the stove temperature to your wifi network.

The app tells you the current temperature of your stove, and the color of the app tells if if you're burning at an optimal temperature, too low, or too high.

The lamp can be put anywhere in your house, and it glows based on the temperature of the stove.

Happy to answer questions about any of it. I've learned a lot about wood stoves during this process, but happy to chat about LaunchVT, what it's like trying to build hardware in Vermont.

Me with the grand prize award cheque.

And if you heat with wood and have opinions, I'd love to hear them. The reddit community is how this all got started.

I run a CNC mostly for wood, but it'll cut acrylic and I've got some acrylic parts to make.

What I keep worrying about is the microplastics. Cutting acrylic kicks up plastic dust plus chips, and I don't love the idea of that getting on my clothes, in my truck, or tracked into the house. I've got kids at home and don't want to be hauling plastic dust around.

So for anyone who cuts acrylic regularly:

- Is this worth worrying about, or am I overthinking it?

- How do you keep the dust contained — dust boot, enclosure, downdraft table, shop vac?

- Does bit choice matter? I've been running a single-flute O-flute, which seems to throw chips instead of fine powder, but curious what you all use.

- How do you clean up, and how do you keep it off your clothes before you head out?

- Anyone with kids do anything different?

Mostly I just want to cut this stuff cleanly and not drag a mess home. Appreciate any real setups or advice.

Hi r/homestead, thanks for having me.

I'm Neil. I build hardware in Hinesburg, Vermont. The mods were kind enough to let me drop in for an AMA today, so I figured I'd introduce myself and the project and then open it up.

Quick background on how I got here. I grew up on Long Island, then NYC, then SF, then back to NYC. I had pretty much zero outdoor skills until 4 years ago, when my wife (who grew up in Vermont) convinced me we should move up here.

We bought an old farmhouse that came with 2 woodstoves. She was pregnant, winter was coming, and I was suddenly responsible for keeping the house warm without burning it down. I had no idea what I was doing.

I learned the hard way. I filled my living room with smoke on more than one occasion. I burned through a face cord in a week and somehow still ended up cold. I didn't understand draft, negative pressure, flue temps, or why the same stove behaved completely differently on a 20 degree day vs a 40 degree day.

The thing that finally pushed me to build something: I was working from home, on the other side of the house from the stove. I'd load it, get pulled into a meeting, and 4 hours later the fire was dead and I was starting over from kindling. I tried a magnetic stovepipe thermometer. It helped, but only when I was standing next to the stove looking at it.

So I built a wireless monitor. There's a K-type thermocouple that magnetically clips to the stovepipe, and a temperature sensor unit that sits 3 - 4 feet away from the stove, and a small walnut display box that lives on my desk or in the kitchen. Instead of showing numbers, the display just glows:

- Blue/gray: cold / no - fire

- Pale yellow: too cool, creosote territory

- Amber: cruising along, good burn

- Red: hotter than I'd like

- Pulsing red: fast spike, pay attention now

There's also a phone app that pings me when something's actually changing. Fire dropping to a coal bed so I can reload before it dies, stovepipe climbing too fast, that kind of thing.

The walnut is from a black walnut tree we had to take down on our property a few years back. A neighbor helped me mill it. Every unit so far has been hand-finished from that one tree, which is part of why I'm calling the company Oru. getoru.com if you want to poke around.

I shipped the first batch (40 units, all built by hand last winter) to readers in r/woodstoving last fall.

I'm happy to talk about any of it. A few things I think this group might find interesting:

- The hardware build (thermocouples, how I keep electronics and a 600 degree stovepipe in the same room without trouble)

- The Vermont side (clearing land, milling our own walnut, learning to homestead as an adult after a lifetime in cities)

- Things I've learned about woodstoves, draft, and creosote that I really wish someone had told me my first winter

- Anything else, including any questions about woodstoves. I had a lot of those.

Ask me anything.

The first Oru I made with a neighbor.