What did you do today?

[IdahoJim]

I bought a Harbor Freight bender, and a Manley Arbor press from a guy last spring. Spent the last couple of days building stands, and getting them into position, and anchored to the floor. Nice and solid now, and ready for use.
Jim

[MrFluffy]

I remember Sir John posting about laser marking steel. Here are 2 of his posts. There may be more useful information elsewhere in those threads:

That's what I'm waiting for my moly d spray to try and one of the reasons I wanted a laser with a bit more power than my 2w blue laser. I'd seen the results from his work on his 50w machine at the time, but linked to the youtube as it had back to back of the two methods showing the differences on a 40w machine, which is quite a step down in purchase price currently (although there's someone advertising "50w" machines for the price of less than a 40w normally, but photo's of the machine show that its not big enough to take a real 50w tube, so if it is 50w, its a 30-35w tube being even more overdriven than in the 40w machines...)

I used it to engrave my smiley on a jam jar last night to test it. I applied masking tape to the area I wanted to engrave as it cuts down on spattering on glass, and was waiting for the shattered glass noise, and ran it at about 12% power. Pretty surprised to see it come out clean and sharp despite the curved surface. Now my wife wants me to mark up some empty jars with holley etc motifs for her christmas mincemeat cooking, I've spawned a monster...
I've tried all sorts of stupid things to engrave/cut with it so far and like Noltoen I'm pretty impressed at what it can do for the price, despite all the people claiming you cant do this or that with the nasty budget 40w chinese machines. All I know is if I try it, I know it works or doesn't. Sorry Its a terrible shot, but this doesn't do it justice how sharp it looks in real life & have you ever tried taking a good photo of a jamjar with engraving on it? plus I'm not a good photographer at the best of times.



Jim, we need pictures now, of it in action.

[vpt]

Are the Chinese 60 and 80w machines worth the money ($2000-3500)?

I have been wanting a laser for some time but would like to be able to do something to metal. haha

[Noitoen]

Are the Chinese 60 and 80w machines worth the money ($2000-3500)?

I have been wanting a laser for some time but would like to be able to do something to metal. haha

From what I know, Small metal "direct??" marking lasers are of the fiber kind. For cutting metals you require lasers in another price range.

Almost on a hobby budget you can buy a small water jet capable of a wide range of materials up to 15mm

[vpt]

From what I know, Small metal "direct??" marking lasers are of the fiber kind. For cutting metals you require lasers in another price range.

Almost on a hobby budget you can buy a small water jet capable of a wide range of materials up to 15mm

Water would be great too, but I want to be able to mark things with laser as well. Plus how well does a waterjet do in a cold shop?

[MrFluffy]

Don't know on waterjet in a cold shop, but you have to keep the laser cutters above freezing as they use watercooling to cool the laser tube, and if it freezes when not in use, it risks cracking it.
I also don't think 60-80w will get you metal cutting ability, when I get my next section of shop built, I'm going to make my own plasma table for that task.

[3 Phase Lightbulb]

Can water jets use RV antifreeze or a mix? Or does it require something like pure distilled water/etc?

[Jim Stewart]

(snipsnipsnip)
Sorry Its a terrible shot, but this doesn't do it justice how sharp it looks in real life & have you ever tried taking a good photo of a jamjar with engraving on it? plus I'm not a good photographer at the best of times.

Here's where manual focus is your friend.

-js

[MrFluffy]

Can water jets use RV antifreeze or a mix? Or does it require something like pure distilled water/etc?

The manual says pure distilled water, but I've read on the net that RV antifreeze is ok, its in my office so its a non issue for me anyway.

This also arrived today, Its a Perception/Matrox control computer. Its part of a laser scanning solution that mounts to a cimcore/romer portable cmm arm giving non contact laser scanning but with portable arm cmm accuracy. Which I also have one of after fixing a broken one a while back.


I've been hunting one for literally years now after buying the contour probe sat above it (I got 3 of them actually) without the interface hardware in what must have been stitch up of the year by a seller (to be clear, the seller of the probes, not this control computer). The pc came locked with the keyboard disabled and no details, but looked like it booted to a login, so I gingerly powered it up, and got it to boot from a usb stick and used clonezilla to network copy the hard disk somewhere safe. Then I reset the administrator password, and found the old default ip address. Configured a machine into the same subnet and managed to log into it. A quick poke about and it seems to be still autostarting all the special matrox software and have valid licenses.
Now "all" I have to do, is make the missing cables up (having never actually seen even a diagram of them), make a probe mount that fits the romer arm and the top of the probe head as its a stud mount where it was on a cmm, work out the resistor value that tells the arm itself its got a laser probe mounted, get the probe and the interface to talk correctly, and then get that to talk to a really old version of scanworks running on a laptop on the same network which reads the arm itself and tells the probe when to initiate a scan so it can get the exact co-ordinates when it scans.
Chances of getting it all to work flawlessly? not very high, but if I pull it off, it'll be awesome to have a laser scanning capable pcmm in my little fiddle farting amateur hour home shop.
Don't expect better pictures mind, I still can't work a camera even if I know my way round embedded computers and industrial hardware

[PStechPaul]

Last night I met a guy from Philadelphia at the TSC store in Aberdeen, and sold the four good tires and rims 3 years old, 10k miles) for $100 (I was asking $125).




Today I met the tow truck from www.peddle.com, removed the driver seat (to put in my truck), and got $130 for it. I had advertised the car with the good tires for $350, but got some responses that seemed to indicate they could just get it inspected, tagged, and drive it, and many of them were from pretty far away. So I got a total of $230, about 30% less than I was asking, which is about what I expected.

There will probably be some metalworking involved when I pull the bench seat from my 1989 Toyota 4WD pickup. Then I will have bucket seats.

[3 Phase Lightbulb]

There will probably be some metalworking involved when I pull the bench seat from my 1989 Toyota 4WD pickup. Then I will have bucket seats.

How many turds per mile are those rated at?

[754]

MrFluffy, we or I will say they, had a portable CMM at the Western Star truck plant .. oh about 12 years ago.
They used it to check tooling and fixtures some of which I made.
Came in a big case, had a printer I think , and was quite pricey..

[754]

What did I do..
Even though it did not get above freezing, I test rode 2 bikes today.
A Buell 1125 R, that one is pretty quick and has a wonder full front brake.. not what I am used to.
And a Heritage Softail with a sidecar I just mounted, needs some setting up.
Two very different bikes but the same year.. at least it was sunny.,

[Jim Stewart]

What did I do..
Even though it did not get above freezing, I test rode 2 bikes today.
A Buell 1125 R, that one is pretty quick and has a wonder full front brake.. not what I am used to.
And a Heritage Softail with a sidecar I just mounted, needs some setting up.
Two very different bikes but the same year.. at least it was sunny.,

Wonderful front brake. Yep! The same kind of brake that sportbike riders and racers have been using for 30 years.

Do yourself a big favor and take that Buell animal out for a few experiments on dry pavement on a sunny day. Do some wheelies! When you're comfortable with the beast, do some *stoppies*.

But never forget you're riding a powerful beast!!!

Have fun...

-js

[754]

I don't see a lot if single disc on sport bikes nor perimeter rotors.