What did you do today?

[vpt]

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.

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

Can the laser use antifreeze as well? I'd assume the system would be much like my tig cooler?

I have a plasma cutter for cutting metal, I'd just like to mark/etch metal and possibly cut super thin like shim stock type metals if possible.

[Noitoen]

I'd just like to mark/etch metal and possibly cut super thin like shim stock type metals if possible.

You can use the laser to "help" with the thin shim stock. Use the laser to transfer the drawing and use electroetching with salt water to corrode the excess metal.

[MrFluffy]

Sounds like how some people make circuit boards by spraying the fr4 blank copper clad board with spray paint, then using the laser to remove the black spray coating and etch it in a regular etch bath. Thats another thing I'm going to be using it for as I have a side habit of making electronic stuff.

I tried some dibond board in mine, while the engraving results are superb (much better than on wood or perspex etc) with visibly different shades in the picture I engraved, its not capable of cutting even the very thin aluminium sandwiched inside even with multiple passes. So I'll cut the sign out with another process, then use the laser to engrave it afterwards or before.
Someone makes a blank stock board especially for laser engraving without the aluminium layer inside, but its a bit expensive for me to want to buy without a specific use case.

754 it was probably a Cimcore/Romer or a Faro, they seem to be the two main brands of pcmm's, and yes, they originally were hellishly expensive, and by my cheapskate standards still are. Having dealt with Hexagon/Cimcore/Romer over my Romer arm when I first had to make it work, I'd recommend getting a Faro to anyone who asks. Regardless I'm sure you have happy memories of fighting the drunk octopus using it.

[Noitoen]

You can make brass or stainless name plates in 2 ways. Paint the plate black or any other color with a decent spray paint, remove the paint with the laser and then, you can seal the plate with a urethane varnish or electroetch to remove about 0.5 to 0.8 mm of metal. This void is then filled with paint before sanding the highlighted letters.

[Felsted_Skiver]

I'm doing more machining dry with carbide tooling so today I installed a vacuum nozzle to clear swarf and help cooling. Next stage is to pipe the exhaust air from the shop vac back to the tool - cheaper than using compressor air! Lock-line 2.5" hose for the air, 3/4" for the mount and 80kg magnetic base to hold on machine.
[IMG]www.felstedskiver.com/workshop/vacuumnozzle1.jpg[/IMG]

[Willy]

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.,

Damn 754, you're hardcore, it was cold out there yesterday!
No bugs though!

[Cenedd]

Had a good play with a 60mm bar of Delrin. Bored a 36mm hole in the end (should have been 35.5 but forgot to halve the number of divisions a second time.... again) and then turned the lathe into a make-shift shaper to cut two keyways 180° apart. First time I've ground a tool in anger and although quite rough, it worked. Not sure it would have hacked the same in steel mind.
What am I wasting all this time making, was the loaded question my wife asked. She wasn't massively I with the answer when I said wall-mounts (sockets) for the vacuum cleaner nozzles. Meh, it's a learning curve and at the end of it I'll have tidy was, knowledge and enough Delrin for future random parts. Was already thinking of making a new gear knob for my wife's car out of it. Existing one's chrome paint is flaking off and it's really sharp at the edges.

[MrFluffy]

Got this to check out, its a little external turbo wastegate for one of my bike projects, except the tolerances on it are so bad its currently unusable. It turned up months later than it should and the buyer had already got a refund, so it was basically free as a result. Which is a good job because it saved him all the hassle of getting the seller to take it back as its complete junk.
The valve is supposed to seal the body closed until the actuator tells it to open with a pressure signal to stop the turbo overspeeding. And has to have sufficient flow to dump all the exhaust gas pressure at peak flow or they start to boost creep and bad things happen. But no risk of that here... In fact, very little risk of the turbo even spooling. The light is above it in this shot shining down through the gap between the valve head and the seating area.


Not only is the valve head too small to seat, its also not concentric to the piston bore.


Not sure how I'm going to fix it yet, I'll strip it apart tomorrow and size up making a new valve and maybe boring the housing true to the bore to suit.

[vpt]

Got this to check out, its a little external turbo wastegate for one of my bike projects, except the tolerances on it are so bad its currently unusable. It turned up months later than it should and the buyer had already got a refund, so it was basically free as a result. Which is a good job because it saved him all the hassle of getting the seller to take it back as its complete junk.
The valve is supposed to seal the body closed until the actuator tells it to open with a pressure signal to stop the turbo overspeeding. And has to have sufficient flow to dump all the exhaust gas pressure at peak flow or they start to boost creep and bad things happen. But no risk of that here... In fact, very little risk of the turbo even spooling. The light is above it in this shot shining down through the gap between the valve head and the seating area.


Not only is the valve head too small to seat, its also not concentric to the piston bore.


Not sure how I'm going to fix it yet, I'll strip it apart tomorrow and size up making a new valve and maybe boring the housing true to the bore to suit.

There is a ring that is supposed to get sandwiched between the waste gate and matting flange on the exhaust. That ring fills the gap and seals the piston and gap between the flanges when assembled.

[vpt]

You can see in this picture the piston doesn't make contact with the valve body also. The ring in the top right v-band clamp is the one that gets inserted and has the piston seat built into it. On cheap valves I am sure they rely on that seat to center the piston too.

[MrFluffy]

You can see in this picture the piston doesn't make contact with the valve body also. The ring in the top right v-band clamp is the one that gets inserted and has the piston seat built into it. On cheap valves I am sure they rely on that seat to center the piston too.

It has the stubs, but that piston is nowhere near the seat, its about 1/4" shy of contacting it. And the seat itself has a sharp machined edge, so the valve would contact a sharp corner on the stub instead of a flat seating face. Maybe I'm missing something more and the piston can be adjusted to strike that flange and somehow seal on that sharp edge, I'll play with it as a unit first.
I'm comparing it to the tial on my other bike, that just came and was sealed without extra pressure or adjusting out the box.

Edit, oh I see, perhaps its missing a insert piece that I could reproduce that forms the seat and is kept in position by the vband clamp flange itself. I can make one of them... This is another seller with the same style generic chinese valve, showing a insert that forms the seat in addition to the vband stubs in this shot.

[vpt]

Yes, should be easy to make that ring. I expect a thread on it with all sorts of pictures now.

[ezduzit]

On the lathe, I had to make 28 special zinc anodes from bar stock. They are 1.2" long and have a M12 x 1.75mm left-hand thread for half that length. Used a die to cut the threads. The lone piece in the photo is the provided sample from which I took dimensions.

[PStechPaul]

Got the old bench seat out of my 1989 Toyota 4WD Pickup. The driver's side had completely rusted loose. I was able to remove one of the bolts on the passenger side, but the other responded to a bit of yanking and crowbar:




Just sitting there for now. These were the seats from my 1999 Saturn that I had to junk:




Too cold and dark to do any more. Maybe next week I will get the mess cleaned up and see what metalwork needs to be done.

[plastikosmd]

Nice work ez