What did you do today?

[plastikosmd]

On ferry going to get new boat, then a 100mile trip back to home (at 17knt)

[vpt]

If you use that grinder on top of the welder it will destroy it (the welder).

[plastikosmd]

I figured
Just a little a place to set it for now
Thank you

[mattthemuppet]

fixed a creaking problem on my bike that was driving me batty. 2 1/2h a day for 2 weeks of "eek, eek, eek" that was loud enough to make it embarassing to ride past school kids waiting for their bus. Had lots of time to think of a solution.

Problem - motor is not held in the frame in only one position, which allows it to shift and rub against the frame. You can see that the paint on the motor mounting pads has largely worn off and there's another worn patch just above the top one in the picture. The likely source of the noise.


the threaded ends of the bolts (drive side) had also started wallowing out the bolt holes, leaving "threads" in the softer material


The plan - bore out the drive side bolt holes to make delrin "top hat" bushings to press into the holes, keeping the bolts and motor away from the frame. On the other side, make longer top hat bushings that go through the motor, centering the bolts and space the motor away from the frame. Doing so would also require milling the thickness of the bushings (minus the considerable clearance from the factory) from the motor mounts on both sides.

First step, a piloted reamer/ boring tool out of scrap 01. The idea was to use both existing bolt holes to center the reamer and keep it perfectly aligned, then have it cut the new hole to a fixed ID. I've tried enlarging holes with a drill and it never comes out well.

Here's the tool, couple of hours work on the lathe, mill and with a file. The fattest end will also debur the hole Didn't bother hardening it as I figured it would be fine for the use and I was on a hard time limit - my ride in to work this morning!


in action


you can see the fretting marks on the far side where the motor is moving within the frame cradle. Tool worked well, really clean hole that was the same ID for all 3 holes.


Next step was machining down the motor mounts, after which I could work out the thickness of the bushings. As every single mounting point was a different thickness (~0.3mm from large to small) I split the motor and used the machined face of the case as a reference and clamped it to my mill table. First time using the clamp set, which was neat.


Then work out the amount to cut off the other side to get to the desired width, rebuild the motor then clamp it to the table using the 3 machined mounts as a reference surface. Clamping was a bit sketchy, but the cuts were small.


Widths came out to a range of 0.03mm, which was bloody fantastic.


Long top hat bushings, these go inside the motor where the bolts pass. Had to step ream out the bore as it was egg shaped - narrow at either end and widest in the middle where the case halves met. Probably something to do with casting the cases. These were a royal PITA to make, but eventually they fitted. Would have prefered a larger shoulder but I didn't have enough 1" delrin rod and I had 5ft of 1/2" delrin rod, so I used that instead


Measured again and made the top hat bushings for the other side, this was a failed one that came out too small


Ended up making the front one first and when I test fitted the motor there was more clearance than I liked. It was 0.15-0.2mm, as intended and down from 0.3-0.5mm as stock, but I reduced that to 0.1mm for the back two. No pictures of that as it was late and I was tired.

Finished product - you can see the larger top hat bushing on the right, but not the smaller but longer one on the left


This morning the first thing I said to my wife when I got to work was:

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again"

geddit?

Anyway, pleased as punch. A lot of work, but it came out just as I had planned, which is pretty satisfying. Only worry is that the motor will get hotter as it isn't directly connected to the frame any more. If that turns out to be a problem I can remake the longer top hat bushings out of alu instead.

[Tundra Twin Track]

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.

We had 17" from end of June into Aug some areas were over 24" which is unheard of for this area.We are progressing slowly harvest with vast areas drowned out.Hope it's a good October!

[danlb]

I was having HDMI problems with a Raspberry Pi4 micro computer. It was brand new, as was the cable, the memory card and the 3.5 inch LCD screen that was to be used as a display for my network monitoring setup. The HDMI output worked when I first got it, but after I assembled everything I burned out a memory card and the screen never lit after that.

So I made this little white donut that was just the right size and tried it again.

It's exactly the same size and shape as the micro-HDMI connector on the Pi4.

It did the trick. The display works as it should! Yay! You might wonder why it worked and how I used it. After working for hours on the problem I finally realized that the case did not allow the HDMI plug to penetrate all the way into the jack. It was about 1/32 short. I sliced the rubbery plastic of the shell of the plug so that it could go in deeper.

Machining content: You may note a little red on the white plastic. I used a felt marker with a very short, fine tip to mark a 1/16 inch ring around the area that I was going to remove. Using the red line as a guide a razor blade quickly cut through the plastic.

Off Topic; The Pi4 is quite impressive. It's able to run Linux (Debian style) as fast as my desktop does. The SD card for a disk makes it a bit more responsive than my wife's 2.7 GHz Intel quad core Win7 box.

Dan

[Jim Stewart]

This morning the first thing I said to my wife when I got to work was:

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again"

geddit?

Oh, yes. I'm impressed that a lad of your tender years could make the reference. :-)

AND: very nice work!

Damn: that'll run in my head. Still, there are much worse ones. I won't give examples unless pressed. You don't wanna go there....

-js

EDIT: I don't mean that Sounds of Silence is bad, in fact it's lovely. In my head now until I go to sleep. But I could give links to some earworms that you'll hate me for.

[Dave C]

Last week I binge watched the whole last season of "The Ranch" on Netflix. I haven't been able to get Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys out of my head since.

[DennisCA]

Finally got all the spares for another project, so now I just need to bake some bread.

[plastikosmd]

So got it home. Was a bit more than a 100mile run. 2300rpm (didn’t touch throttle for 6.5 hrs.) Seas went from 1-2 after about 3 hrs to 4-5++ for last 3.5. Boat handled it great. Fuel burn was around 10 gph. It was much better, early in trip but seas got tougher.
Background:
I have always liked Novi/Downeast style. First boat was a Midland 19 foot. The admiral and I had a lot of adventures. We outgrew the CC and moved into a Parker 2520DV. In my quest for more fish and bigger catches we steadily moved the boat further south and east until we were on the sound/ocean and out of protected Narragansett Bay. This led to some consternation from the admiral as the increase and seas lead to some discomfort on her part. (More profanity than nausea.) We also began to appreciate/desire some comforts as we have gotten older. Thus began thesearch for a downeast or Downeast “style” boat with a combination of cruising and fishing capabilities. I began my investigation through local brokers and the Internet. I joined several forums and lurked for information. I reviewed every “downeast” boats on yachtbroker. This provided me 50 or 60 individual makers to focus. Putting aside individual biases I was able to glean a list of wants/needs and coupled that with functionality I wanted.

I needed a boat that could easily be captained by one person (65% usage) yet comfortable for 2 ( 30% usage and we like our space) and expandablity for 4-6 for fishing (5%.)

Eventually, I came across the Albin 31te. Factory downeast “style” boat, (132+/- produced over 14 year+/- period.)

Albin had the right look and function. The marketing slogan of a “fishing machine for the cruising family” was dead on. The 31te was a “BIG” 31. My list seemed a perfect match diesel, single preferred (twin considered), sea capabilities, comfort, 2 berth, no flybridge, cruise comfort in cabin(couch etc) galley/head/shower, Fishing set up including Downriggers, live bait well and fish storage/tackle storage.
Bonus Things (that could be added later) AC, genset/solar, updated electronics.

As I was not looking for a project = a well-documented and well cared for Boat was key.

The people that I interacted with on the albin forum were consummate professionals, willing to provide information and pictures/sea trials if I desired.

I made several inquiries regarding the 31te and quickly saw that the boats do not last long.

An Albin forum member reached out to me. He was considering selling but was still well invested in his boat and wanted to see if I was serious. (He was more than happy to keep it.) I was serious and willing to factor in his care and upgrades.

In relatively short order, we met/took a sea trial/spent several hours together and settled on a deal. Both of us couldn’t be happier. The ride sold the admiral. She negotiated and closed the deal.

Seaquel:
1996 31te
3126 cat 420hp
Thuster
Ac
3k inverter
2016-2018 electronics
(To many creature comforts to list)
Repainted, rebuilt, reconditioned and maintained.
My independent Survey was A+(dry hull/stringers and mechanically perfect)
Boat is well documented including yearly commissioning, haul out and general maintenance since owned. Oil survey every year since owned and it duplicated mine as perfect.

There will be some small changes made and some small things to do.

[jhe.1973]

Well, actually it was yesterday................

Hi Everyone,

I've had this Accu-Finish for a few years and have kept it in a cabinet with various accessories for my grinders. I have crammed so much stuff into my shop that often when I go to use it I end up not 'cuz of the hassle of moving whatever happens to be in front of the cabinet.

Soooo I FINALLY made a stand for it so it will get more use:

[mattthemuppet]

Oh, yes. I'm impressed that a lad of your tender years could make the reference. :-)

AND: very nice work!

Damn: that'll run in my head. Still, there are much worse ones. I won't give examples unless pressed. You don't wanna go there....

-js

EDIT: I don't mean that Sounds of Silence is bad, in fact it's lovely. In my head now until I go to sleep. But I could give links to some earworms that you'll hate me for.

he he he, the only thing that's tender about me is my backside when I get off the bike That's one of my favourite songs and also one of the best scenes from Trolls

I have some earworms that I rotate through while I'm riding. For some reason I had a Lighthouse Family song stuck in my head for a good while this morning.

As for the bushings, I'll probably remake the longer ones out of alu as the motor was alot hotter than usual last night and this morning, most likely as it's not thermally coupled to the frame any longer.

edit - beautiful boat Plastikosmd, I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun on that!

[Cenedd]

Got the rotary table out (an early extravagance) today in an effort to make progress on a piece I've lost heart in.
Found it somewhat crunchy to turn and figured the swarf had got in. Set about taking it apart - a couple of 4mm round HSS rods served as a pin wrench (the two-pin kind like an angle-grinder) to unscrew the nut off the bottom. Good clean, regrease the worm and re-oil the table but it seems that the crunchiness comes from the needle thrust bearing at the bottom end. I think it may have been preloaded too much from the factory and suffered - it's still greased and not full of swarf. At least I know it's not something (that isn't easily replaceable) destroying itself as I turn the handle.

Now all I need to do is make a mini pallet for the top so I stand a chance of holding the part down enough that it doesn't move when machined! Back to the ordering board!

[PStechPaul]

This is a pretty powerful version:

A darker version:

https://shareably.net/heavy-metal-disturbed-covers-sound-of-silence/

As a 9/11 tribute:

https://pjmedia.com/video/disturbed-911-sound-of-silence-tribute/

[PStechPaul]

Yesterday I finished repairing and calibrating an old (1997) version of my Ortmaster (ORTM-2) product for a customer in Minnesota who still uses these, which require a parallel port and MS-DOS. It is basically a high current ammeter, capable of reading currents as low as 5 amps and as high as 10,000 amps (short pulses), as encountered in oil circuit recloser testing. They are used on high voltage power distribution lines typically 15 kV to 60 kV, and nominal current ratings from 5 amps to 600 amps.

The calibration setup:


I can get up to 700 amperes by using this toroid transformer, which has a ratio of 0.3 volts/turn with 120 VAC on the primary winding, so 700 amps is a primary current of only about 2 amps, easily supplied by a small Variac:


Just a single turn of #4-0 welding cable is all that is needed.

Here is the main test screen on an old Compaq laptop running Win95 in MS-DOS (7.0) mode:


And here is the waveform for the first "shot":


It is essentially a digital storage scope where the waveform can be displayed and analyzed for true RMS amplitude and time, to an accuracy of better than 0.25% and time to 1 mSec. Here is the calibration data sheet: