[UPDATE 10/21/2021 -After 2018 I started posting my updates on my Patreon page, and so I'm filling in the back-logs for this project retroactively so the whole story is in both places. You can also read all of these posts with their original photo formatting here]

February 29, 2020

Happy leap year, everyone! This month I spent your money installing the Metabolizer at the Portland Winter Lights Festival! This was the first time I've been able to deploy the entire Metabolizer system outside of my backyard. 

The weather was awful, with sustained winds of 15-20mph during setup on Wednesday and Thursday, which hampered my efforts to install a more complete version of the canopy system I had hoped to try out.

Still, all things considered, the installation went really well! Ultimately, the goal is to build a canopy that can fully enclose the entire structure in these triangular panels, and shelter it from wind and rain so that it can house the Trash Printer and Shredder. For PWLF, I was only able to install the first ring of panels. Still, the panels held up admirably to the heavy winds, and went together without too much difficulty, once I figured out how to hang them from the structure.

On Thursday evening we were able to run the generator for the first time without using a gasometer to collect and store gas. This was the first time I had tried this approach, and I was a little surprised that it worked at all. However, due to the lower gas pressure, the generator never reached a speed where it could output useable power. 

Between the rain, lack of shelter, strong winds, and large crowds, we ultimately decided to not to try and run the Metabolizer on Friday and Saturday nights, and opted instead to use LEDs and informational signage to demonstrate the flows of energy and material through the system.

Although I was a little disappointed to not be able to not be able to show the whole system running this time around, the demonstration version was a lot easier for people to engage with and understand, and we had a great time showing off the system and Trash Printer on Saturday Night.

Overall, it was a great test of the deployability of the system, and it gave me a lot of good information on what needs to be worked on to make the system more functional and more easily deployable in the future.

For next month, I've started working on a new design of the Trash Printer (Version 3), built around a cheap and widely available harbor freight service cart, which gives it a much larger Z axis, and a completely redesigned XY gantry, so that the system can be fully-open source. 

Currently I'm using some else's design that is partially closed source, and while it's easy to build and cheap and I still recommend it, a fully open-source system will make documentation and replication much easier in the future. The enclosed design allows for the chamber to be heated, which helps with warping and adhesion issues, and also makes fume-mitigation easier. 

Thank you, as always, for your support, and thank you to everyone who helped out and volunteered during Portland Winter Lights Festival! Thanks for letting me keep doing this work that I love!

Onward!

Sam