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Baldor Miter Gauge

3/27/2019

2 Comments

 
I purchased a "bargain" Baldor 500 Carbide grinder on eBay. It looked great in pics, but it went cheap as there was something in description about it not working correctly. I took a gamble and found out that the motor was toast - the windings in the field coils were shorted (it looked like a manufacturing error as this couldn't have seen much use. Also one of the end castings was broken. 

Not to be deterred - I found a place in L.A. that would rewind the motor for $300 and I was able to weld the casting back together. So I ended up with a pretty nice unit. 

BUT - I still wanted a miter gauge. I started to look for one, but they run $145+ used on eBay! No way! Here's a pic of the PB-547. It's about 1" tall by 3" wide. 
Picture
So what's a person to do? Make your own of course. I made it out of some scrap I had around. The fence part was done on my CNC and I used Fusion 360 for the CAD/CAM. Took about a day to get it done. Here's my version, I think it turned out OK and I know I'll use it.
Picture
Here's a bit of detail
Bottom - coulda been a bit smoother
The bits
2 Comments

Shop Air Update

5/23/2016

1 Comment

 
Picture
Here's the basic layout of the shop.  The circle with an "x" in it represents a ball valve.
​
Below is a pic of the chart in ThingSpeak. The slopes of the different curve segments are calculated below:
Picture
Valve(s)
Description
Loss (psi/hr)
All Open (except 8) 
"Normal" Shop mode
15
2 closed
Shortest run, closest to compressor
<1
4-9 closed
Isolate the air lines from the equipment
4.1
4,6-9 closed (5 open)
Just the shop air hose
4.3
4,9 open
Just the CNC
9
6 open
Just the Bridgeport
13.2
7 open
Just the lathe
8.3
So it appears the best the system can do is around 2 psi/hr. That's with as little of the system as possible in the mix, i.e. best case. That said ,there's still the compressor check valve, a water separator/filter, air line quick disconnect fitting, and 3 ball valves in the mix. It's possible the air line quick disconnect fitting could be the bulk of it, however the filter also has an auto drain feature which could be leaking too.
UPDATE: I've been opening up each end point separately and it looks like the Bridgeport is kinda a problem. I'm pretty sure it's the Kurt Power Drawbar IN/OUT switch - I knew it was leaking, but it's leaking more than I wanted. I think the rest of leaks are probably a collection of minor things I'll have to find by soapy water, etc. 
1 Comment

Shop Air

5/23/2016

1 Comment

 
A couple of years of ago I finally added hard lines to my air compressor throughout the shop. What a nice upgrade! No more hoses all over the floor. However, it seems my copper sweating skills are maybe not what they should be as it seems to leak a fair amount of air. After I switch off the compressor it takes something like 4 hours for the system to depressurize. 

I felt I could do better. 

But how to isolate the problem? And how to make it a complex project? 

Well, that's easy. Just build a wireless network connected microcontroller with a pressure sensor, an SD card for logging, and a graphical display. Have all your data get collected in two ways - 1) local to the SD Card and 2) upload to ThingSpeak.com. 

My thinking is to attach the logger to different segments of the air line. As I move away from the compressor -  therefore adding more pipe joints, valves, equipment - I should be able to deduce from the pressure decay rates what the relative leak rates are per section. That should give me an idea of what to work on. Additionally, I can verify my repairs in quantitative terms. 

So after a few days of cobbling things together
Picture
Here you can see it's attached to my air lines - running about 115psi.
Picture
Close up of the mess. The screen is an older Arduino TFT (now discontinued) with an SD card socket. The smaller chip above that is an ESP8266 WiFi chip. For $5 you can't beat it!  

The ESP8266 is a 3.3v part which needs some juice when transmitting. I happen to have had lying around an old  XBee shield that I had previously added a 2 channel level shifter to. It took care of both issues as it also has a robust 3.3v power supply. 

Here's a link to the ThingSpeak page where I'm uploading the data :  https://thingspeak.com/channels/6008

I'll have to update this as start logging the system and try to figure it out.
1 Comment

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