There is also the issue with the salt by itself in desalinisation. If it’s removed with water, you have to deal with that stuff. Table salt is really cheap and there is plenty of offer, so you can’t really economically clean it enough and package it for human consumption or industrial use. So what usually happens is that they dump it back at one moment or another. And that is a hard pollution, and can lead to dead zones around the desalinisation plants if not managed well enough. Being able to add it in a high demand product such as batteries takes all those hurdles away

I wish ! But architects and building engineers you know. The building sector is filled with mysteries beyond logic. For example, I still don’t know why it’s such a hassle to have real HVAC in centralised ventilation systems in Europe. Or integrated solutions to move energy to other systems (like my water heat pump releases cold. Why am I out of warranty if I place a heat exchanger that cools my fridge heat exhaust on the air rejection?). Without floor heating air-water heat pumps aren’t super efficient, and retrofitting baseboards with water-heated ones for baseboards in a bitch to do.

Ventilation systems are named a bit weird like that:

-System A is natural convection (like holes in the walls)

-system B is holes in the walls, and a motor brings fresh air in the building

-System C is only a centralised extraction (needs rosters in your windows so you have an air intake, so basically an energy-label-certified-hole in your brand new windows)

-System C+ is centralised extraction with a variable debit depending on CO2 and humidity detected (so it is less energy wasteful than the previous one)

-System D is a double flux system: one centralised unit with a heat exchanger built in. There are 2 circuits, one is fresh air and the other one is air extraction. the house is basically always a bit over-pressurised. It is possible to obtain also humidity regulation for the winter if needed (ex build-in humidifier or enthalpy exchange units). When testing for build quality in passive houses, they check that almost all air exchange goes only through the unit

-System E: System C+ with a heat exchanger connected to a centralised heat pump for the building. Never seen one outside of an expo room.

If I understand it correctly, the numbers only change because when they do the energy and house energy rating certifications in each country (because the details in the energy ratings are different in each country). Managed to trick it tho, but it changes the unit to a german id but with the same serial. So certification wise, it is the paper that comes with the unit that counts, not what the unit says

[Update]

So used my old rooted tablet to tweak around a bit with the app. Through lucky patcher (when logged in with the test account) I noticed that the downloads are done trough the root user of android. After that I used MiXplorer to get the data files on my pc. Quickly found the structure of the files. Couldn’t trick the system to access my local files, but I managed to trick the system into updating as if it were a german system.

So if someone else happens to look and stumble upon this, this is how I got it to work. It works only from a rooted android device for now:

• Login with the german test account to access server downloads
• Connect to the cloud delivery system and download the update that you want
• Close the app, with a root file explorer (like MiXplorer + Shizuku) go into the root folder (use their FTP server with a root allowed user or whatever to transfer it more easily to the PC).
• Go to /data/data/com.zehndergroup.comfocontrol/files/products/1/R1.12.0-DE -Open the meta.json file and change the german id of your unit to your unit. Ex: 471502013 to 471502023 for the UK id. Save it and send it back to where it came from. You could just update your unit, and it would keep the same serial number, same everything but would be under german ID. Easy for new updates but annoying to explain if you need to have a technician over and he is wondering why your unit has that ID. But then again, that is a minor detail and I’m not even sure the technician will be paid enough to care. Reverting to your national number should be the same process but with the update for your country.

What didn’t work: *Open the config bin file of your unit (so again, for the Q600 : config_R1.12.0_471502013_v1.bin ) with a hex editor. Look for the unit number that needs to be replaced (so here 471502013 needs to become 471502023). I only needed to replace 1 number (a 1 into 2) , so 31 became 32 in the hex file. Replace the country code with your local one in hex (So DE into UK). Save it and send it back from where it came from. This provokes an error after the 3rd block. Probably a checksum that isn’t cooperating in another file *Seperate API connection: the naming pattern o their website is obvious, but connection without their app is something else

• Firmware updates for the ventilation units are in folder “1”, maybe that will change in the future
• The downloaded firmware update will be there under it’s own folder (like R1.12.0) and sometimes there will be it’s own ZIP
• National ID for your unit is on Zehnder’s website but also under “basic mode” > “unit status” > “Article unit”
• The installers pin code changes from your countries to the German one, so it becomes 4210

PS: there are ati-bricking measures in place in the system. If an update fails, you can Erase the firmware and reupload it but you’ll have to redo the post-install setup

Hey! You are both right! Queen and bee cages are made of plastic or sometimes wood and metal mesh. But having protective cells can be useful. If you add a queen-cell in a colony a few days before birth, that queen will almost always be accepted. In case of mated queens, their pheromones are strong enough that they will be often (but less probable depending of the season and presence of young larvae) accepted. Usually we put mated queens in a cage with some sugar so that the bees eat trough it, giving time to the queen to disperse her pheromones. Virgin queens however have the lowest acceptance rate, and it is sometimes better to re-encage them in a (now plastic) cell with a wax cover so that she will be born again. For the foundations, it is a little more difficult than just pressing at the moment, but the size of most of frame-standards would impose the use of huge machines. But it would be less human-energy consuming than the actual method

Hey! I managed to draw a little bit and to solve the cage and cover. The only issue is with the little hinge, but nothing impossible to solve. If you want to, you can always correct my messy stuff if you see improvements ! https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6557850

No existing model, but it wasn’t that hard to replicate at the end

Took me a little more (the bottom of the cells are difficlt to draw and there aren’t a lot of files with the right bottom), but at least now I’m not scared to solve some stupid issues that always frustrate me by drawing and printing easy solutions!

I know this link existst, but sometimes when it’s treatment season those are out of stock, or take forever to arrive. I can print 4 in a few hours, so it can always help to print one at home. Also, I’m not sure, but I think the ecological impact is bigger if it comes through the Aliexpress expedition than through 3D printing using filaments from Vietnam. But the link is valid, and and is way better to order there price-wise than to order it here!

Hi all! Thanks for all the replies ! I played a little bit with Tinkercad and we’re close enough. The only part needing perfection is the little lock (le opening piece needs manual help to open), but that’s the same thing for the original one. An other solution is indeed passing through a chinese marketplace if the wait is not long enough and the CO2 impact is not important for you. The printer was a little difficult to have it printed, and I had to print it on the side.

I’ve uploaded it on Thingiverse : https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6557850