What did you do today?

[Tundra Twin Track]

Had to replace 2" bearing on circulation Auger on Grain Dryer 25' feet up,replaced the original 10hp Baldor Motor last year it ran 27 yrs out in the open and lots of dust.Will see if the New Lesson lasts that long,l problably won't lol!

[tlfamm]

@tundra:

"New Lesson" Sounded like a chicom name - but you meant new Leeson, I presume.

[J Tiers]

Finished the repaired original solar panel frame for the roof, put it back up, and re-installed the panels, using MC4 connectors and approved USE-2 wire. The other smaller frame went over the door, using the fabbed EMT supports.

That frame got bent up by a falling tree limb from the north side of it, which also destroyed 3 out of 4 of the panels. I've had the three matching new panels for a while, but they had not got put up yet. The original 4 were originally put up at the old Carrizo solar facility out west (California?) in the 1980s, and I bought them in the 90's after the facility was removed. The three new ones are also from there, a friend had also bought 4 and he had one broken, so the other three were not much good to him.

[nickel-city-fab]

took a nap

[Tom S]

took a nap

Working man needs his rest.

[nickel-city-fab]

Working man needs his rest.

LOL actually it is very rare for me to do that

[J Tiers]

Concerts on my street this week have been great... although I think it is probably close to the end of outdoor concert season.

Thursday we had "The 442s", kind of mixed "new music" combining several styles. Very good, but I dunno how to describe it...maybe mixed classical and jazz...???. Friday, good classical, Saturday, folk music from a local singer-songwriter, and tonight, ragtime, blues plus hot St Louis and New Orleans 1920's jazz from "The Gaslight Squares", a 6 piece local jazz band.

Super kudos to Thomas Jostlein for putting this together!

[Tundra Twin Track]

@tundra:

"New Lesson" Sounded like a chicom name - but you meant new Leeson, I presume.

Thanks for the correction, should have stayed in school longer lol! Getting frustrated with this Bearing issue,when I installed new Auger 21 yrs ago I used a salvaged New Departure 2" bearing from 1950's Grain Elevator.It lasted 16 yrs and non greaseable.Have went through 2-NSK and 1-URSA ,the one that went in today is a SealMaster so time will tell.

[RMinMN]

Thanks for the correction, should have stayed in school longer lol! Getting frustrated with this Bearing issue,when I installed new Auger 21 yrs ago I used a salvaged New Departure 2" bearing from 1950's Grain Elevator.It lasted 16 yrs and non greaseable.Have went through 2-NSK and 1-URSA ,the one that went in today is a SealMaster so time will tell.

There is a bit of discussion on how over greasing a ball bearing will cause damage but I wonder in your application if under greasing isn't at fault. I bought a needle fitting for my grease gun and have been successful at resurrecting failing bearings by pushing the needle through the grease seal and giving the bearing a bit more grease.

[Ridgerunner]

Bought 2 new hydraulic cylinders for a backhoe and they were made with fittings so they could be used on either side of the machine. The cylinders came with plugs for the unused ports and constantly leaked. I tried different fittings with the same result so I just welded up the unused ports.

[Tundra Twin Track]

Harvesting wheat today,not dry but will be when Dryer is done with it.

[Dan Dubeau]

Zero machining at work today. Spent the day designing and programming.

I am 3d printing a prototype for a putter design I've been chipping away at for a while now though. Will cast the end result, probably from aluminum bronze with some carbide endmill shank counterweights. I doubt it will make me putt better, but its been a fun journey (lots of research thus far.....more than I care to admit ). What's that saying about a poor tradesman blames his tools?......

The print is about 90% done and I already don't like it. Will make some changes and try again....Sometimes it's difficult to get size and shape perspective from a cad model. The 3d printer earns it's keep here.

[swatkins]

I spent 4 hours editing a shop tour video

Sept 20 Shop Tour, Truck Update and Projects coming to a Youtube Channel Near You!

Trucks, Dogs, Machine tools, Shop tour, Girls....... Almost enough in this one for a Country Song!

[PStechPaul]

I found a PWM motor controller among my piles of stuff, while looking for other things. It looked like it might be useful for my B&D cordless mower project, for which I designed and built a PWM controller, and I also used another one I had bought which has an ON-OFF-REV switch, LED duty cycle display, and adjustment knob. So I tried powering it up using my lab supply, and it was dead. I found a diode which measured about 80 ohms, and I replaced it, but it drew too much current and the 15V supply on the board seemed shorted. It had a 15V zener, but it tested OK, and the short persisted. I unsoldered the NE555 and the power came up to about 15 volts and then started drawing a lot of current. It appeared that the diode was connected from the input supply (12-48V) to the zener, with no current limiting. Perhaps it was a current regulating diode? I added a 1k resistor and replaced the 15V zener with a 12V, and now the power supply came up to 12V with about 20V input. I replaced the NE555 (several times because I had problems with shorts and flux cleaning), and now I have a working (although kludged) PWM supply. I found the same supply on Aliexpress for under $10, and I hate to say how many hours I spent fixing this, but, hey, a win's a win.



If you look at the image from the Aliexpress link you can see that the diode has been replaced with some sort of three terminal device with the middle lead cut off, but it may be a voltage regulator.

[Tom S]

Got a few collets in the mail today... about 100lbs worth. Picked up a surplus lot, time to sort them out and figure out what I want to keep. There’s a full set of Schaublin W20 in 1/64th increments, to bad I don’t have an Schaublin... yet.