Sometimes I make things that actually work.

Yesterday I hauled home a large amount of fresh steel.  This weekend I'll be cutting it up and putting it to use.

The CNC milling machine has been coming along nicely, and so it's time to take it to the next level.  If I want it to be a true Tony Stark machine  "Begin automated production.  I'll be in the bar." then I need it to run unsupervised.  A couple of things are needed for that.

First, an enclosure.  A milling machine is great at flinging metal chips everywhere.  With an enclosure, this mess will be contained.

Second, it needs a flood coolant system.  Essentially this is a fishpond pump that pumps a mixture of oil and water onto the part, keeping it and the cutting tool from overheating.  It also washes away the metal chips.

The resulting mess drains to a pan, is filtered, and then is recirculated.

This weekend I'll be starting on that setup.  I've designed the enclosure so that it will fit the current X2 mill, or a larger mill that I may get later, an X3.

(Ideally, I'd like an RF-45 based mill, but that's a ways down the road.)

It's hard to tell the relative sizes of these machines from the pictures, so look at the dimensions and weights to get some idea.  Also check out the table travels.  That dictates the size of the part that each mill can make.

This weekend I'll be cutting and welding to put this together.

 

I also have another mystery project on the back burner.  I haven't committed to it yet, but if I do, it will be a major, major, MAJOR effort, but also incredibly cool.

I'm home sick all this week, so I've been catching up on old projects.  This bike project wrapped up a month ago, but I never got around to editing the videos before now.

This is the last one in the series.

This bike is fixed and out of my garage now, but I'm still catching up on video editing.

Here's two more videos covering the brake caliper rebuild.

Has it really been two months since I posted?  I guess so.

Here's what I've been working on lately.  I converted my old milling machine to CNC (Computer Numeric Control).

Just watch the video and you'll see what it's all about.  It makes things.

I haven't posted, but I've been busy.

Today, for example.

Continued work on converting my milling machine to Computer Numeric Control.  It will be done soon, and I'll be able to produce much higher quality parts on the mill.

I also tore down the rear brake caliper on the Turbo Maggot.  It was incredibly gunked up, so I'm letting it soak in the parts washer for a couple of days to clean it up.  Once it's done and working, I'll do the same on the front brakes.

I did some work in the garden today.  The mint is taking over, so I broke out my trusty sickle and hacked it back to a stump.  It'll be back...

I've also been planning to build a Turbo Encabulator.

I finished the welding on the rain barrel platform today.  Now I just need to get some wood to make a top and sides for it.  It's going to double as a small storage area underneath.  I'll probably put a hose reel in there so that the whole setup will be nice and clean looking.

I leveled the ground under it so it won't be on a tilt.  I still need to hook up the new downspout and block off the old one.

And I need to find one more rain barrel that matches the two I already have and it will be complete.

I got the rain barrels together, but was disappointed by the trickle of water that they produced.

Part of that is the valves I bought, which just don't flow a lot of water.

The other problem is that the barrels are on the ground.  So I'm fixing that.

At the moment I'm taking a break from welding together a platform out of my favorite material, disused bedframes.  The basic shape of it is done, but there's more to do.

One gallon of water weighs 8.35 lbs.
Each barrel holds 55 gallons.
Three full barrels will weigh 1337.75 pounds.  That's close to three quarters of a ton.

So it's important that this platform be very strong and sturdy.  To improve the strength of the basic table shape that I have now, I'll be adding a lot of angle braces.  The way that something like this would collapse would be for a leg to begin tilting, which puts more side force on that leg, which bends it further, and the whole structure rapidly collapses.  And then 165 gallons of water either crashes onto the air conditioner, spills onto the ground, or goes through my bedroom window and floods my house.

I'll be overbuilding this structure to prevent that.

Yesterday I spent three hours tilling the garden to get it ready for the fall planting.  I know, I'm a little late, but so was the rain.

I put in snap peas on the trellises and lemon cucumbers on the ground.  Since I only spent a couple of bucks on seeds, it won't be a great loss if this harvest fails.

Today I set up the soaker hoses for the one day a week that I'm allowed to use them.  The rest of the time I'll have to hand water, which I dislike because I don't believe I'm saving any water at all.

Don't get me wrong, the watering restrictions do save water, because the selfish twits who leave their sprinkler running all night now have to stand in their yard and hold a hose.  THEY use less water.  But since I never water my lawn, and had the garden irrigation on a timer, and did the minimum watering I could, the restrictions don't change much for me.

I did lay out the hoses to be much more efficient.  Before they were just back and forth in rows across the garden.  With the cucombers, which root in a single spot, I was able to have two to three turns of hose around each plant, and then a straight run to the next plant.  In a quick test, this worked very well to soak the spot where the roots will be without wasting much water on the rest of the dirt.

I also made a berm around each circle of hose, so the water will stay in place instead of running off somewhere else.



Tonight I started converting my two disused jalapeno barrels into rain barrels.  Once the glue and sealant is dry, I'll have to cut and move my downspouts so that they'll fill the barrels.

The biggest dilemma I have is that 90% of my roof drains at a single downspout right by my front door.  If I put a rain barrel there, it would mean that it would be blocking the walkway to my front door.  I think I have a solution for the problem, but it will take some work.

Stay tuned.

Last week I posted about Toffee Balls, my neighbor's cat, being hit by a car.

Tonight I went over to visit and noticed that unseelie_sidhe was petting a cat.  I looked at it for a minute and then said,"Huh?"

I've never been quite so shocked and confused.  It was Toffee Balls, BACK FROM THE DEAD.  He'd been waiting for them when they got home this afternoon.

We don't know where he was, but he was sporting a new flea collar, so somebody had taken him in and probably kept him inside.

There are some unanswered questions now.

Where was he?

Who took him in?

And who's cat did we bury?



Toffee Balls sleeping off a long two weeks of adventure.

Update time!

Day 6.  Fixing the fuel leak.  I love the simple repairs.  I was all set to repair the petcock, but instead I just had to buy a couple feet of fuel line and put it on.




Day 7.  Taking the clutch apart and maybe finding the problem.  What do you think of my diagnosis?  What's the solution?




Cheers,
Fred