My machines

[geneb]

I think someone needs to start volume production of those awesome looking FSR mounts. *coughs*

g.

[DeltaCon]

Xenocrates, thanks for the elaborate answer. I am not sure I understand it all (I am no electrician) but I do understand I would have to ask some knowledgable guy to do checks on my mains if I really want to rule that out. Still I have no problem with ANY other equipment, but the switching pattern of a heated bed is probably more critical. Trying on a different circuit is something I can easily try. And you are correct that usually we have all outlets in one room connected on the same circuit. A few years ago I added three circuits specifically for our washing machine, dryer and dishwasher so all can run at the same time (at night, lower energy tarif). So I can try one of those circuits. I am searching for something like the Kill-a-watt, but that seems hard to find for 240V European mains...

[Xenocrates]

I think someone needs to start volume production of those awesome looking FSR mounts. *coughs*

g.

If you can convince Matt to make more, even as a special request, I'm perfectly happy to let him have commercial rights to the design (For attribution only), but I've got no mills to call my own. I do appreciate the vote of confidence in my design skills though. I went ahead and put them on Repables in case you want to print a test set or work with a different manufacturer (STL, STEP, and f3d files). You can find them here

[rurwin]

(And indeed, I've heard of some circuit designs where there are only a small number in the house, typically lighting, kitchen appliances, bathrooms and wall outlets)

You are correct. Certainly in the UK there would be one or more circuits for power and one or more for lighting, almost invariably one of each per floor in most houses. Those would be rings, so each point is fed from two directions. Then a few other circuits for the cooker and the water heater and so on. The power ring circuit that feeds the wall sockets is wired with 2.5mm2 conductors and fused at 30A. Each individual socket has a maximum draw of 13A, about 3kW. All sockets in the bathroom have internal isolation transformers and only have two pins, but they are on the power ring circuit.

[Xenocrates]

(And indeed, I've heard of some circuit designs where there are only a small number in the house, typically lighting, kitchen appliances, bathrooms and wall outlets)

You are correct. Certainly in the UK there would be one or more circuits for power and one or more for lighting, almost invariably one of each per floor in most houses. Those would be rings, so each point is fed from two directions. Then a few other circuits for the cooker and the water heater and so on. The power ring circuit that feeds the wall sockets is wired with 2.5mm2 conductors and fused at 30A. Each individual socket has a maximum draw of 13A, about 3kW. All sockets in the bathroom have internal isolation transformers and only have two pins, but they are on the power ring circuit.

Here's another question, since you seem to know UK wiring. Breakers or fuses, and why?

[rurwin]

Generally breakers these days. One reason is that fuses were universally of the rewirable variety, which is subject to abuse and accident, not to mention the difficulty of repairing it at night in the event of a failure in the lighting circuit. Another reason is that the current regulations specify that all power outlets are protected by a 30mA RCD. The easiest and cheapest way to implement that is in the consumer unit. (The regulations are not binding, they only represent best-practise. My electrician assured me that while RCDs where specified in the current regulations, they were not required for existing installations, so not all premises have them.)

[rurwin]

Also remember that houses in the UK , and Europe generally, may be older than you are used to. Our current house was built in 1920. The house we moved from, which would be considered an ideal starter home, was built in the late 1800's. Such buildings will have been rewired more than once in that time but they will often not be up to the current code.

[Eric]

That's generally true in the USA as well. Code requirements only apply to new work, not existing installs.

That said, it's still pretty common to find older houses (pre-1970) with ungrounded 3-prong outlets. Not to code, but nothing actually stopped homeowners from updating their outlets anyway for convenience purposes (before that, people were inclined to cut off the 3rd prong on cords rather than find an adapter).

[Xenocrates]

So, I finally got the heat exchanger for my watercooled E3D project back. I'll likely be testing it shortly, although it won't be on the machine itself for a while since I want to do some testing of the cooling system and pumps first. I also got an X-carve delivered today, although I haven't got any pictures of that yet. So you get a pair of pictures of the spool, and the promise of more updates later. As part of my design, there are aluminum and brass components in the loop, but no copper, steel, or other random metals. I also plan to use a corrosion inhibited glycol coolant. Among other things, there's also plans to cool the extruder stepper motor.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/bA75Val.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/EbD4zVC.jpg[/img]

As always, comments are appreciated. I'll try to have a build thread on the X carve started sometime tomorrow. I'm thinking I need to also build a torsion box while I'm at it.