Devin Ward
Contents
25 June 2014
- Plumbing in the HabLab backed up all over the bathroom floor. HabLab kitchen sinks and bathroom sinks flow through common drain pipe under kitchen sink, clog occurred somewhere in that common drain.
- Pipe snake on site was too large to fit through the reduction fittings. Tried cutting into the pipe so snake would fit, but the snake couldn't make it through the 90-degree elbows and eventually got stuck in one, necessitating removal of most of the under-sink plumbing.
- Marcin, Sam, and Gabriel dug up the junction of the kitchen drain pipe with the septic soil pipe and snaked it out. They removed an obstruction comprised mostly of what appeared to be onion remnants.
24 June 2014
- Returned to FeF.
2 June through 23 June 2014
- Off-site.
12 May through 1 June 2014
FILL IN DETAILS/PICTURES OF FIXING LATHE
11 May 2014
- Day off.
10 May 2014
- No work on lathe, helped with disassembling the roof structure in front of the old workshop/greenhouse building in preparation for drainage landscaping and site prep on Monday.
9 May 2014
- Examined stand grinder for serviceability, location in shop made this difficult. Will require assistance moving it.
- Lathe: removed existing attempt at hydraulic motor mount.
- More lathe cleanup. Set up compound rest, discovered it was in dire need of maintenance.
- Performed teardown of lathe carriage, cross slide, and compound rest. Thoroughly cleaned, degreased, dressed, re-lubed, reassembled the compound; cross slide almost completely cleaned, will continue tomorrow.
- The scope of the damage to these components is greater than I initially thought (much damage was concealed by dirt, paint, other parts of the machine).
- Underside of compound has a large divot/crack (unable to determine how/from what).
- Compound swivel track is pitted and corroded.
- Compound feed screw threads are worn unevenly. Not badly, but readily apparent to the naked eye.
- Cross slide gib/set screws are a mess. Looks like someone broke off a set screw and tried to drill a new hole (badly). One set screw hole has a large divot spalled out on the inside, where the gib should make contact.
- Cross slide feed screw bearing has been replaced with a homemade part (made of aluminum).
- Myriad scratches, nicks, divots, etc. on bearing surfaces, gibs, and screws.
- None of these problems appears to be serious enough to impede getting the lathe running again, but they will have a negative effect on precision operations.
- 3-jaw chuck jaws are stiff in areas as they are closed/opened. I suspect the scroll mechanism is dirty or clogged, chuck will likely require a full teardown as well.
- Someone's tack welded the damn thing to the lathe spindle... Might try cutting through the weld bead with a file first, to avoid collateral damage a grinder might cause.
8 May 2014
- Design Sprint Google hangout.
- Modeled oxy torch in SolidWorks.
- Developing rough concept for small-scale biogas reactor:
- Run on kitchen waste
- Using two 55-gal plastic barrels, large-diameter pipe, small diameter pipe, valves and assorted connectors (most of this is already on-site)
- Should provide some data and test platform for larger-scale systems and alternate feedstocks
- Preliminary sketches of mounting system for a hydraulic drive system on large lathe in workshop.
- On Marcin's suggestion, searched storage sheds for lathe parts. Found 2 tool posts for lathe, 2 tool holders (1 right-hand, 1 straight), 4-jaw chuck.
7 May 2014
- Scheduled design conference call for 7pm with my contact who is going to work on z-axis controller.
- He thinks the easiest course of action is to reconfigure Lasersaur controller to add back support for z-axis (Lasersaur ignores z-axis).
- Marcin seems to think a second, independent z-axis controller is the best way to go, since we don't want to interfere with using the Lasaur app.
- Sent my rough SolidWorks mock-up of induction furnace design to electrical engineering friend who wants to run COMSOL simulations to help refine design specifications.
- Investigated implementing a load balancer to improve our internet infrastructure on-site.
6 May 2014
- Continued familiarization with Lasersaur manual.
- More team collaboration on CNC Torch Table Project.
- Investigated ultrasonic rangefinder devices for z-axis sensing:
- Cheap USB sensor unit.
- Expensive module; integrated rangefinder and controller.
- Discussed CNC Torch Table project with personal contact who has agreed to assist us with the electronics and programming of an independent Z-axis controller system.
- Researched gas purification techniques for possible use in small-scale biogas reactor.
5 May 2014
- Researched, compiled list of existing open source CNC machine projects, uploaded here: CNC Torch-Router Table 2 - Controller module - Industry Standards.
- Recruited two personal contacts to participate in upcoming design sprint.
- Continued familiarization with Lasersaur manual.
