We’ve noticed the exhaust flow on Tarkin has reduced significantly. I took a look to see what we need to be watching
I pulled the bed for the first time. Found much less debris than feared, but the exhaust grill was encrusted badly. Not stuck tightly, the shop vac was enough to lift that off.
There was an accumulation of tiny bits that somehow made it through the center grill and hung around in the hose. It’s in a low spot so unlikely to clear by itself, but not any obstruction.
But the actual prob was encrustation on the grill on the blower inlet. Really it doesn’t need a grill here so with the help of @jamesfreeman we just cut it off and sprayed out the impeller find and the flow is all back.
I can see that cleaning the blower’s impeller is going to be a regular maintenance issue, like monthly-ish.
Thanks, Danny. Do we have any maintenance checklists set up for stuff like this? I know there’s been some discussions of such around shop stewarding, etc, but I don’t remember a consensus actually forming around some ticket system, Discourse convention, or whatever. Having something like a monthly reminder and checkbox for folks willing to take care of such stuff seems like a good idea in general.
I’m building a maintenance list here, this definitely goes on it. Red/Blue didn’t need it often, but Tarkin is a much heavier duty machine and it was running constantly for a long time around the holidays.
I didn’t expect that much buildup this soon. Part of that was the overly restrictive inlet grill, it clogged fast and stalled a lot of the airflow
Cleaning the chiller is also going to need to be done pretty regularly, but that might change when we get doors in
