Stuff you have fixed today

[brewdexta]

Started to fix the Tom Senior M1, or rather the motor and VFD. I converted the original Brooks Gryphon motor from star to delta by finding the star point and breaking it out into the individual windings. However, it was gutless. Life got in the way, and I acquired another Tom Senior, a light vertical, which meant I've only just got around to fixing it.

I suspect that I have one winding reversed, that is instead of a2 connecting to b1, and b2 to c1 and c2 to a1, one of these is reversed. I thought I would use the induced voltage method testing, using a 10v AC power supply, if its the right way around you get about 4v induced into the other winding. If all else fails I have a new motor, but that involves broaching a keyway.

I'm also replacing the VFD with a cold plate VFD, no annoying fan! I have a 40 ohm, 200 watt brake resistor on order, I'll compare before and after to see how much faster it slows down.

Pics next time, I'm in the pub!

 

[Geoffm]

Heavy duty repair of tumble dryer involving vintage Drummond Round Bed lathe

The original shaft had worn through the bearing and finally parted itself off on the sheet metal.
I dressed off the damaged shaft square then added the stub shaft I turned last night on the Round Bed over this, tight fit and secured with a couple of grub screws.
New plummer block added to back then assemble and we can dry clothes again
Cost was about £12 for the plummer block and some free time but saved £250 or more on a new machine and quite a satisfying excercise.
Just need to trim the strengthening bar to fit around the mod then back to work it goes.View attachment 471415View attachment 471416View attachment 471417View attachment 471418View attachment 471419

Nicely done.
When we were hard up newly weds, I got a basically free dryer, missing the back and well worn. It was always noisy, but got worse. My wife came home to find the oxy set on the back porch and I was crawling inside the drum welding a bolt in to replace the worn axle. I didn't get it centred on the drum which had flogged out as well so it was out of balance and even noisier, but it kept it going for a bit longer until we could replace it.

 

[MattF]

Heavy duty repair of tumble dryer involving vintage Drummond Round Bed lathe

The original shaft had worn through the bearing and finally parted itself off on the sheet metal.
I dressed off the damaged shaft square then added the stub shaft I turned last night on the Round Bed over this, tight fit and secured with a couple of grub screws.
New plummer block added to back then assemble and we can dry clothes again
Cost was about £12 for the plummer block and some free time but saved £250 or more on a new machine and quite a satisfying excercise.
Just need to trim the strengthening bar to fit around the mod then back to work it goes.View attachment 471415View attachment 471416View attachment 471417View attachment 471418View attachment 471419

Drummond & Bosch. You have good taste in tools.

 

[DAPPH]

Finally fixed the gap between my recently obtained non working ..... now repaired 5 cu ft compressor and the user end .
It cost me nearly £40 ( screwfix ) for hose , connectors and an air jet gun . I can now disconnect the hose and gun from the hose & store the hose & gun away safely . Its only taken me seven months to garner enough spare cash for this planned event .. after finding almost £9K for other well planned essential to me things

 

[DAPPH]

Finally fixed the gap between my recently obtained non working ..... now repaired 5 cu ft compressor and the user end .
It cost me nearly £40 ( screwfix ) for hose , connectors and an air jet gun . I can now disconnect the hose and gun from the hose & store the hose & gun away safely . Its only taken me seven months to garner enough spare cash for this planned event .. after finding almost £9K for other well planned essential to me things

*&^%$£"(*& it the planned celebration of using the repaired compressor didn't happen .
The new hose , pair of plug in connectors and female connector were great, but would not connect into the compressors air line female socket as the neck was too long .
Nipped out to Screwfix ( 1,7 miles away ) and purchased what looked to be a shorter necked male connector only to find it is about 1 mm to big for the female .

Arrrrgh ! I went back to Screwfix asked for a second female connector .that fits the nozzles , this time to put it on the compressor .... " Out of stock , delivery to store expected by 12.00 hrs. Saturday " .
So the service / repair of the dead 9 yr old dehumidifier has to wait yet another day.
I purchased a new one just incase the old one has a smoke tablet hidden inside , if it lives it will be time clocked for use in our log cabin to keep things dry over winter . Cost so far £186.24

 

[qwakers]

im even more knackered today....
but i am getting there.

sharp sand dumped ready for the surface.

and one ton of aggregate dropped down dads yard to fill a couple of low spots

Nice straight line to work with now. just have to render the face and point the joints. do that tomorrow.

 

[My Old Landy]

Back on the air after 11 months with no antenna! It fell down in the wind last year.
Today, with the help of a good friend, it got put back up. We found the feed and the 40m element were damaged so they got sorted and back up and running

 

[qwakers]

Nice straight line to work with now. just have to render the face and point the joints. do that tomorrow.

a scratch coat put on the wall edge to take the render, might take a couple more coats in the middle.... and the joints and edges of the slabs filled with coloured mortar.

not much more work to it now before i can start putting block down...

 

[qwakers]

bit of a more challenging job was to make my crane work by remote control. i bought a remote that should have been able to replace the wander lead entirely. now either im very dense, or there is absolutely no way to wire it to work in both directions. i DID manage to get it to go up, but not down.

so 2 240v ac double pole double throw relays and a bit of ingenuity, i wired it so the relays are emulating the switch on the wander lead. the lead is now attached permanently to the side of the winch, and the relays behind it, so it now works up and down. i would like to have the estop button on the remote work too, but i cant do it with the relay wiring method, so it'll have to do with the emergency magnet release instead. the estop button on the original control still works.

and yes, i will put the relays in a enclosure. but not today. i wanted it to work first.

the beginning (no those connectors are no longer there, i had the old wires i was using for testing still attached to identify the connections, the wires are all black but are numbered.)

the new wires attached to the back of the switch to go to the relays. i know i said i wont use blue insulated connectors anymore, and i wont on a car. with no vibration and moisture they are fine here. plus its all i had in the required size.

and the end result.

final function test.

 

[DAPPH]

bit of a more challenging job was to make my crane work by remote control. i bought a remote that should have been able to replace the wander lead entirely. now either im very dense, or there is absolutely no way to wire it to work in both directions. i DID manage to get it to go up, but not down.

so 2 240v ac double pole double throw relays and a bit of ingenuity, i wired it so the relays are emulating the switch on the wander lead. the lead is now attached permanently to the side of the winch, and the relays behind it, so it now works up and down. i would like to have the estop button on the remote work too, but i cant do it with the relay wiring method, so it'll have to do with the emergency magnet release instead. the estop button on the original control still works.

and yes, i will put the relays in a enclosure. but not today. i wanted it to work first.

the beginning (no those connectors are no longer there, i had the old wires i was using for testing still attached to identify the connections, the wires are all black but are numbered.)

the new wires attached to the back of the switch to go to the relays. i know i said i wont use blue insulated connectors anymore, and i wont on a car. with no vibration and moisture they are fine here. plus its all i had in the required size.

and the end result.

final function test.

Sounds like something is wrong there's a bloody awful dust bin down the stairs sort of noise the whole time your playing with the control .

Seriously , not a bad idea at all . What sort of sized angle iron have you used back to back for the gantry runner .. what SFL do you envisage it is ?

 

[Gragson]

Reorg in the shed, was quite concerned on the wobble on top shelves when loaded up.
Big convert to Thunderbolts now, TBH 2 would have done it, put 4 100mm in, rock solid now.

 

[minimutly]

Reorg in the shed, was quite concerned on the wobble on top shelves when loaded up.
Big convert to Thunderbolts now, TBH 2 would have done it, put 4 100mm in, rock solid now.

View attachment 472468

View attachment 472469

HOW many grinders???

 

[Farside]

HOW many grinders???

<shrugs>
Eight seems normal around here.
I've only got three and I've been lagging.

 

[MattF]

Five seems a good amount.

 

[My Old Landy]

I've got three I need to list on here as I can't use them anymore. One is a new DeWalt battery one that has never been used since buying it three years ago!

 

[qwakers]

Sounds like something is wrong there's a bloody awful dust bin down the stairs sort of noise the whole time your playing with the control .

Seriously , not a bad idea at all . What sort of sized angle iron have you used back to back for the gantry runner .. what SFL do you envisage it is ?

late night radio is always awful... angle is 35mm iirc.. its stronger than the winch, for sure. ive had a entire rear half of a toyota mr2 hanging from it before now....

 

[awemawson]

At last I've brought my Migatronic KDX250 mig welder back into commission.

It has sat idle for at least two years in my unheated welding shed. I'd given up using it due to wire feed problems but decided that I really needed to fix it as it's a rather nice welder that doesn't deserve to be abandoned.

I knew a major issue was rusty wire (not surprisingly) and had planned to replace the torch liner but the two 'boxer' 20 watt cooling fans were squeaking like the gates of hell so a pair were ordered from RSComponents. Fitting the fans was a right pain. They sit on a horizontal shelf above the (rather large) rectifier stack, and are bolted through the shelf. Unbolting the rectifier and bending it away to the limit of it's huge copper tape connections barely allowed fingers in to manipulate a spanner but after much loss of skin I got there in the end.

New fans installed I turned my attention to the control board. This PCB is beautifully made - quality electronics. I'd always been suspicious of the burn back control but I couldn't find any faulty components. I changed the four electrolytic capacitors anyway as a precaution while I was 'in there'.

OK now for the liner - first I stripped off the top two layers of the 15 kG spool of 0.8 mm to be sure the rusty bits were gone. I did this by firing the gun (tip removed) into an empty 25 litre oil drum to avoid a tangled mess on the floor. Old liner out - then blowing the tube out with compressed air from both ends (it's a Eurotorch) I inserted the new liner and trimmed it to length (I needed 3m but only had 4m in stock)

Everything re-assembled and guess what - it now works

Now this welder will only be used very intermittently so the rusty wire problem will probably return. I know taking the spool out and keeping it in a heated place is really the proper solution but this is not practical. I'm tempted to give the spool a spray of WD40 but not sure what the effect will be on the welds - comments welcome.

 

[indykid]

Now this welder will only be used very intermittently so the rusty wire problem will probably return. I know taking the spool out and keeping it in a heated place is really the proper solution but this is not practical. I'm tempted to give the spool a spray of WD40 but not sure what the effect will be on the welds - comments welcome.

Spray some WD40 on some sheet, leave it a few days for the solvents to flash off then try welding it. I wouldn't have high hopes.

A sock full of dessicant beads in the wire compartment may have better success, but it may need to be reasonably well sealed to achieve much. Some antispatter sprays claim to have flash rust inhibitors? Might be cheaper to just junk a bit of wire every now and again though. When you use it, do you use it enough to need a 15kg spool in it? Could you chuck a smaller reel in so there's less exposed wire and less waste if it goes a bit rusty?

 

[qwakers]

due to the way i mounted the intercooler on the race car it was able to flex and hit the a/c rad, putting a hole in it.


new ac rad fitted...

and the intercooler mounts re designed to stop it moving into the rad.

just a slight modification to the intercooler pipe and job jobbed.

 

[dobbslc]

A/C in a race car!