What did you do today?

[danlb]

No pictures...

I had a cell phone from 2011 that I stopped using because the digitizer went bad. It was a neat phone (HTC EVO 3D) with a 3D camera and 3D screen. Because of the flaky digitizer I used it for a desk clock for years and years, then the battery swelled up and overheated. It went in the box with the other obsolete phones.

I came across it's spare battery last week, and it powered up without errors. Well, except for the touch screen. For fun I checked eBay and found a digitizer for $7. Nothing to lose, I ordered it and it arrived today. The disassembly went as expected. A sprained thumb made it a hassle. I got the digitizer (secured with 1/8 inch two sided tape) off with few problems, but the LCD screen also had to come off to route the cables. That was secured with 1/2 inch wide two sided tape.

I lied. There was a picture. This is post repair.



Key learning: If the glass bends it's breaking somewhere. Use just enough heat to get the tape to give without causing injured thumb to hurt. The tape is not hot enough if the thumb hurts when trying to pry the screen out of the body. It should give easily.

The phone's in the garbage can now. RIP, old friend.

[danlb]

Today I made a Delrin spacer for my kitchen sink strainer/stopper. It's the type that screws down to seal a stainless steel disc against the throat of the drain. Problem was that when it is open it rests on the ACME threads on the shaft and the threads are not long enough so the disc rides too low. A thin spacer between the strainer basket and the shoulder on the shaft lifts it up enough to clear.

I spent most of the day playing with a new Raspberry pi. It's the new model, the Pi4-B. I bought a 3.5 inch touch screen to fit on it. I was thinking it would make a good display for the status of the house infrastructure. You know, networks, cameras, power, web servers, DNS, and all the other crap that I have. I ran into problem after problem and never did get it to boot properly. Everything from burned out micro-SD cards to KVM (keyboard) switches got in the way. Did you know that if you accidentally bend a 32GB Samsung Ultra SD card it might get hot enough to scorch plastic when you try to use it? Neither did I.

On the positive side, the new Dymo Rhino 4200 label maker for cables arrived today. All my KVM wires are now properly identified on each end!

I took some time out to replace the batteries in a fairly robust UPS. It's a CyberPower 1350VA with lots of smarts, voltage regulation and even a couple USB ports. I had to take it out of service last month when it croaked within seconds of the power grid going down. I used a small electric heater as a load test. It died as soon as the heater element kicked in. The pair of 12V, 8AH batteries are wired in parallel, but one read 13+ volts when freshly charged and the other was only 12.3 volts. Obviously they were unbalanced. New batteries (a pair for only $35 from Amazon. What don't they stock???) and it's back in service and working as it should. In retrospect, I might have been able to charge the old ones independently to re-balance them. That might give me a few more years use.

Dan

[Tim Clarke]

Went to the monthly meeting of the Mid Valley Model Engineers. Great bunch of guys

[Tundra Twin Track]

Had a great weather today for harvesting, wheat was 19%moisture so going in dryer 14.5 is dry.Ground very wet but making slow progress,long range forecast isn't pretty!

[Cenedd]

Today I made a Delrin spacer for my kitchen sink strainer/stopper.

Stop that! Producing useful things that aren't for the shop...you'll give the rest of us a bad name!

IQUOTE=danlb;1256178]. In retrospect, I might have been able to charge the old ones independently to re-balance them. That might give me a few more years use.[/QUOTE]

I would hazard a guess that you wouldn't. Just had a UPS with four 12V lead-acid cells in parallel pairs. Each cell read a nice healthy voltage but some would run a load (was using a 4A 12V fan), some would not and some would run it but stutter. Even making up a set of four that would run that load wouldn't run the UPS and charging them individually on a recondition cycle would give a fail once it got far enough. Cells are about $50 a piece for cheap ones so I'm pondering what to do with it at the moment.

[RMinMN]

Had a great weather today for harvesting, wheat was 19%moisture so going in dryer 14.5 is dry.Ground very wet but making slow progress,long range forecast isn't pretty!

I think the farmers in northwest Minnesota and eastern North Dakota are done with harvest for this fall after a storm system dumped 3 to 7" of rain a couple days ago. The land there is very flat and makes a sticky mud when wet. I suspect that a lot of fields are under water and won't drain sufficiently to get a harvest.

[plastikosmd]

No shop time today Building rock walls and a tool gloat
A grinder to go with my novice blacksmith journey, came with a couple wheels and hollow grind attachment

[Jayarr]

Found an old split phase motor under one of my workbenches, it happened to be exactly what I needed to repair my old delta drill press... it even had the step pulleys I needed. Now I need to find a space for it, I will do that tomorrow

[wierdscience]

I cleaned up,swept up,threw out junk and organized all day.Wanna know what I will be doing next Sunday?The same thing

[DennisCA]

Update, I have been working on this problem with my Deckel FP2 now for nearly three months.... Though I did take a break from the problem for several weeks because I just had to for my own mental well being...

The problem was that the machine did not work at certain speeds, opening up the gear box found that one gear spun in place rather than being locked to the shaft. Consulting blueprints I found it was part of three gears that where all locked to the shaft with a key, the key had sheared over the 3rd shaft. It was a bigger headache than I could have imagined to get it out. Just no space to get at the problem or being able to leverage much force on it. In fact I would have risk breaking the casting if I used too much force. I first managed to spread the two first gears apart from the 3rd gear using small homemade pushes, I could barely get the wrenches in there.





I drilled and picked out as much as I could of the broken key, eventually I drilled open the front of the shaft to get at the key from the front too, and managed to break the drill inside too once...



Well I had tried all kinds of things but last night I finally got the 3rd gear to move axially including welding up a really beefy pusher with M16 fine thread but even that was not enough to make the 3rd gear move. When the key got sheared it most likely resulted in bits of the key gouging up radial grooves under the gear, causing it to be locked solidly, yet allowing it to rotate pretty freely.

The trick that finally worked was to use lapping paste (special non embedding paste) and rotate the shaft while holding the gear in place ad pushing it forward. This was a very slow and tedious process but it finally yielded results along with the beefy pusher I made. I have now gotten the first gear off the shaft though I cannot get it out (no space). I'm still working on the problem, things are kinda stuck again but I am hopeful I will actually get somewhere now that I have gotten things to move.

[Cenedd]

No shop time today Building rock walls and a tool gloat
A grinder to go with my novice blacksmith journey, came with a couple wheels and hollow grind attachment

May I be the first to tell you YOU SUCK!
Nice find. What's the upright piece on the right that sort of looks like a drill or touch probe?

Found an old split phase motor under one of my workbenches, it happened to be exactly what I needed to repair my old delta drill press... it even had the step pulleys I needed. Now I need to find a space for it, I will do that tomorrow

And THAT, dear wifey, is why I've not thrown out that thing that's irritating you!

I'm still working on the problem, things are kinda stuck again but I am hopeful I will actually get somewhere now that I have gotten things to move.

Is there enough room that you can move the gears across and then slot in just enough key for that one gear?
This is what they mean when they say "labour of love", right?!

[plastikosmd]

Cenedd
Hansfeld spark eroder
I don’t use it much but it is handy

[DennisCA]

Is there enough room that you can move the gears across and then slot in just enough key for that one gear?
This is what they mean when they say "labour of love", right?!

No I have to get it all out and disassembled, the shaft is damaged and needs to be repaired, I have gotten almost all the remains of the key out except where it got sheared off, but that portion of the shaft is clear off the gears now. I have also damaged the threads on the front of the shaft when I misaligned the pushing tool and missed the center hole. The extraction procedure has been decidedly destructive.

I might have to cut of the entire part of the shaft and attach a new part that I then machine down and rebuild that part of the shaft. But I need to get it out and measure it first, and see if I can get away with something less drastic. But everything has to come out.

[Cenedd]

Cenedd
Hansfeld spark eroder
I don’t use it much but it is handy

Ah, I see. I thought it was part of the grinder from that pic. Was trying to work out if it was some sort of (fragile-looking) belt tensioner or how it would work to have something like a toolpost drill mounted on a belt grinder. Makes far more sense if it's not related. Useful tool to have when you need it - like broken taps. So far I've not technically broken a tap....it twisted into a spiral but it didn't break!

[Cenedd]

No I have to get it all out and disassembled, the shaft is damaged and needs to be repaired, I have gotten almost all the remains of the key out except where it got sheared off, but that portion of the shaft is clear off the gears now. I have also damaged the threads on the front of the shaft when I misaligned the pushing tool and missed the center hole. The extraction procedure has been decidedly destructive.

I might have to cut of the entire part of the shaft and attach a new part that I then machine down and rebuild that part of the shaft. But I need to get it out and measure it first, and see if I can get away with something less drastic. But everything has to come out.

Well, I guess that answers the question of why didn't whoever broke it fix the problem. I wish you luck....but I'm not sure I'm going to be much help to you I'm afraid.