Caution: Dirty Pictures....or...How I Cleaned the Exhaust Fan šŸ¤”

Anyone try trained hamsters wrapped in microfiber jumpsuits? :thinking: Jules - what do you think caused most of the ā€œbuildupā€ wood? acrylic? leather? or just all 3ā€¦? (tile? paper?cardboard? bologna?..)

13 Likes

:rofl:

That just made my day.

1 Like

Fairly sure it was the bologna. (Or maybe the plywood. But probably the bolognaā€¦it wasnā€™t Oscar Mayer.)

2 Likes

Worked like a charm, thanks!

25 Likes

I went off to a reunion ā€¦ and you stayed home and worked! Thank you so much for the write-up and photos! Just canā€™t wait to give this a go! :thinking:

Well, I may not be truly excited ā€¦ but, I do feel better equipped to handle the job now!

2 Likes

Sounds like funā€¦hope you guys had a good time! :smile:

1 Like

Having worked on computers since 1980, I disagree. too much gunk built up on transistors, capacitors, etc. can cause over-heating. Nothing so eerie as seeing one of those little can caps popā€¦

Not likely to happen here, but definately wish this fan/control stuff was a slide in/out moduleā€¦ hey glowforge design team? for v2ā€¦ @dan ā€¦ MODULAR!

6 Likes

Youā€™ve got 6 years on me, so I guess Iā€™ll have to concede. In all my computer-fixing days, though, I never saw dust/dirt hurt one except in moving parts. :wink:

2 Likes

Impressive! We use those bag sealers all the time, so I gues I am going to have to go instead with some surplus 3D printer filament. (I have a bunch of 3mm, but no currently operating printer with a 3mm extruder)

5 Likes

1/2 of power supply failures are related to NO F*kin maintenance. So much dust and dog hair/cat hair, etc.

I changed one out for a guy who had 2 dogs, and also smoked 2 packs of cigarettes per day sitting next to his computer. Heā€™d go through a powersupply every 9-18 months!

4 Likes

By the way Tim, that picture made me squeeeee! :smile::squeeee::hedgie:

1 Like

Iā€™m pretty sure that was the ā€œbeforeā€ photo. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

You know, if Iā€™d taken the time to knit a little sweater for my pet hamster, I might be a little reluctant to send him into the Glowie for cleaning. :rofl:

4 Likes

You and your dirty pictures @jules :flushed::joy:

4 Likes

One time I went to work on a friendā€™s PC because it kept shutting down after a couple minutes use regardless of program running.

His heatsink fins on the CPU were so tightly packed with crud I had to chisel them clean. It quit overheating afterwards :slight_smile:

8 Likes

True, heatsinks are a non-moving exception I wasnā€™t thinking ofā€¦ in the photo that triggered my response I was looking more at the wires and board-level components and remembering how repeated unnecessary cleaning can sometimes cause things to come loose that shouldnā€™t. :wink:

2 Likes

Itā€™s the only exception I could think of too.

1 Like

Not sure why this memory was triggered, but I made a woman really mad at me one timeā€¦she had brought her computer to me for a RAM upgrade, and it was back in the days of 8-bit processors with rows and rows of DIP sockets. After I spent a half hour tediously inserting oodles of DIP chips, I checked all the pins one last time and then said ā€œsmoke test!ā€ as I reached for the power switch. For some reason she took great exception to my saying that. (Fortunately there was no smoke.) No sense of humor, some folks!

8 Likes

Thatā€™s funny. I used to annoy all of the electrical engineers (and computer folks) using the term ā€œsmoke testā€ every time I powered up a new or newly repaired computer or piece of equipment. As a mechanical guy that seems like the best test to me :smiley:

I still use that term instead of IPO (Initial Power On) for spacecraft

4 Likes

Hear hear !!!

4 Likes