Quarantine Projects!

Goce,
I hope you didn't burn any of that galvanized coating. That stuff is really bad to breath. Never have heard of that welder??
Work out ok for you?
 
Goce,
I hope you didn't burn any of that galvanized coating. That stuff is really bad to breath. Never have heard of that welder??
Work out ok for you?

I used my grinder to grind back as much of the coating as i could, i know is toxic but i've done it many times before no bad effects. My welder is Varstroj varmig 160 c that is a slovenian company they are good machines at affordable prices, i've recently modified it with those big wheels and i've changed the ground cable.
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I‘d say an Arduino uno would be your gateway drug... ;)

they’re cheap and easy to code for with the Arduino IDE. A raspberry pi is essentially an entire PC on a single board. The Arduino is just a small relatively slow microprocessor with some additional bits to allow it to talk with the outside world. Check out the official arduino website for some ideas:
This seems really daunting. I'm not a computer idiot, but even basic commands...say DOS, isn't something I can do much with. I know Arduino doesn't use DOS commands, but it still seems to be alpha/numeric mumbo jumbo. How do you do it? Is there U.I. that makes this easier? Like ITTT?
 
I think you have to have an interest in learning to code to play in this sandbox.
Except for the Rasp Pi 4 which is pretty much a PC.
Robert
 
Thanks for the guidance fellas! If I don't get into Arduino this month I probably will some time this summer. I've not heard of Parallax Propeller, I will check that out too!

One of the main reasons I've been inspired to learn some programming is this guy.

https://bps.space/

He's been designing/building highly engineered model rockets for a few years and one of the things he's been working on is thrust vector control at the model scale. Below is a GIF image of how small servo motors can manipulate the rocket engine in response to external stimuli in order to keep the vehicle going straight.

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He designed and built the mounts and such with a 3D printer and even designed his own flight control circuit board.

While this level of programming is likely not for the beginner, this is the type of thing that is possible with Arduino and Raspberry Pi and the like. It has me intrigued, though to be honest I don't have an idea about what I want to do with it.
 
Check out this 1+ minute vid. It uses a 'drag and drop' programming method that doesn't get any easier.

One thing I like about Propeller is that with 8 cogs, you can do 8 separate things at once (simultaneously)! Not just one after another like a single core processor.
For instance, in the program pictured, there is a RTC' real time clock' constantly keeping track of days, hours, secs etc.;
10 temperature sensors; 2 door sensors; as well as 4 other events; all being displayed on a TV screen with 4 different audible alarms. It also monitors the chimney temperature of my outside wood boiler and turns down the draft fan speed when the fire gets to the best temperature but doesn't let it get too hot.

Aaron
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Quarantine Project No: 4 Making a steel planter for my yard, i used 10x30 mm tubing, marked them cut them to size, welded them, made the two sides and welded the cross braced. I plan to hang it and paint project 3 and 4 after lunch at once. This may look strange without the skin but once all together you'll see my design.
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Quarantine Project No: 4 Making a steel planter for my yard, i used 10x30 mm tubing, marked them cut them to size, welded them, made the two sides and welded the cross braced. I plan to hang it and paint project 3 and 4 after lunch at once. This may look strange without the skin but once all together you'll see my design.
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You grow your own steel?

Johh
 
So a little more than a week ago I was looking on Craigslist and there was a die filer being offered for $40 not far from me. I've wondered about these tools since I first heard about them and even contemplated trying to make one from an old scroll saw I have. A quick trip and this one was mine.

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Looks like I didn't get too many "before" pictures but you can see it was pretty grungy, I took it apart and drained the old oil.

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Cleaned up the motor, here's just part of the swarf I got out of it.

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Painted everything, replaced a few fasteners, sealed it up, new belt and oil.

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It's a pretty cool machine, table can adjust to any angle and should speed up just about any filing job.


John
 

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Man, one work week down! I was so tired after work on Monday! Everyday I get a little stamina back.

So, this isn't technically a quarantine project, but I feel like sharing. A friend is trying to mount Harley Davidson saddlebags on his Vulcan, so he got the brackets and asked me to modify them. The following is his design to mount up the bags to his rear fender.

This is the pair of brackets.

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The plates were welded on by me. He'll use these plates to drill/bolt the bags on. The holes in the plate will be used to mount the bracket to the bike.

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Gussets on the back side. All this stuff was welded with 110V flux core. My trusty old Lincoln SP135! I bought it in 2001, it's almost 20 years old!

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He also needed a backer plate made for the air cleaner. Here's the template.

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The plate fits into this grommet for an air tight fit.

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I thought I'd be slick and cut this thing out with the lathe. If I'd have known what a pain it was going to be I would have just sheared it out and sanded it down!

To get the clearance I needed I set up to cut the OD from the back side. The metal is 1/8" 5052 aluminum. The thickness is just right for the grommet.

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Nother view.

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Inverted tooling! Craziness!!!

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Holy chatter! I had an awful time with this. Chatter was very very bad. A few times the tool caught and caused the piece to spin on the arbor. I tried a few different speeds even down to back gears. The slower the better for this. I tried to feed in with the carriage as slowly as possible but it was extremely easy to catch the part and cause the arbor to slip. Eventually the tool caught bad enough to break the tip off.

I finished cutting it out the old fashioned way. I love this little shear! It was very easy to follow the kerf made on the lathe. It was over halfway through.

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I put it back on the arbor and cleaned up the OD. Even this chattered badly. I tried a tool with lots of negative rake thinking it would help and it kind of did. I again ran the lathe very slow. Out of all the passes I did only one of them yielded a nice quiet cut with well formed strings of aluminum peeling off the part. What I needed was a beefier arbor I think. Trying to turn a 6.5" round disc on a 1" arbor is pretty asinine if you think about it, which I didn't until now.

All that's left is the ID. I should be able to hold this in the 4 jaw and bore it out. The finished size is around 1.875" so I may hole saw 1-3/4" to start.

Fun fact: you can see there's a concentric ring on the face which is where I almost cut the part too small! I did a scratch then double checked the size with a tape measure. Always double check!

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A final view of the edge. I filed it a lot to get this finish. It's not great but better than the lathe cut finish. Didn't feel like doing the sandpaper/polish bit.

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Tomorrow I'll tackle the ID. I hope it goes better!
 
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