MadModder

Thanks Steve - yes I'm a bit more able to get my head arround things now thank goodness.

This morning I went through all the digital outputs and proved that they were in the same state that the 'Q' words in the control were at - they were ! I suspect that the digital input output system is actually fine though it's not conclusive on the outputs as I can only observe rather than drive them.

However I HAVE found that the drive circuit for the main spindle drive is reporting an error - it also has a tell tale red LED that should be 'on' but it isn't. Fortunately I do have a spare so I'll install it when time permits - ATM waiting to meet and greet two sets of cottage guests whose arrival is imminent. (sounds of thumbs twiddling!)

Just to give a picture of how bad things have become, here is what once was my outside molding casting area. The Big Dig is on the left.

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It has become nearly impossible to get into my tiny shop and work because of unfortunate new acquisitions. My parents in law passed away a year ago and we have been cleaning out their house to put on the market. A sad and difficult task. Tag sales, online sales, large filled dumpsters, relative giving still has not done the job. In the end it just seemed wasteful to throw many things away that we just couldn't place, materials, tools, metal shelving, I think you all probably understand.

But I'm at a point now when I wondering if I'm creating the same situation for my family. I'm getting rid of things I haven't used in a long while. Still I have to work in the shop or I'll go nutz. The original idea was to keep it small, and present interior usable space is about 6' by 8'. One of the reasons for building my small but rugged bench lathe was to minimize what I needed to do even largish jobs.

But I am overwhelmed at this point. And my shop is very poor in energy efficiency, other than the fact that it is very small. So I'm thinking about enlarging it, and adding insulation and considering how I can have heat in our severe winters here. I don't really want to do this. I don't have the motivation and energy I once had for more building. But we'll see if I can do it.

First thought is, maybe build the new shop over and around the old one. There isn't room to only expand laterally by adding on because of the roof snow loads. The would dump onto any addition, and everything would have to be higher anyway to get enough headroom at the edges.

The other possibility, discounted, was to level the old shop and build anew. But where would its contents go during construction? I have no more storage space at all (part of the reason for expansion). And it's all machine shop stuff that you really don't want to expose to the environment.

It seems to me that if I build a roof over the existing one, leaving it in place, the shop can continue to be usable while building the expansion, which would be handy. There's power, and tools and a vise, etc. Eventually I could deconstruct the old roof (it's just galvanized tin), and would have an upper storage space in its place for materials.

Another reason for not leveling the old shed, is that it's built like a brick ****house. Actually, cement block with the recesses filled with concrete and 1/2" rebar run down every other one for the full height of the walls. Why, you ask? Well it was actually originally built as an outdoor wood furnace, with 11 tons of sand contained inside for heat storage. Called a HAHSA, the design originally found in Mother Earth News. It actually never worked well, and was later converted into a furnace room for an experimental wood chip Hot water furnace I built. Its final iteration was as a tiny workshop for me and my homemade lathe.

Anyway, those are the thoughts. I'm trying to get motivated. Maybe posting here will push me forward. The 90+ F temps here have not been encouraging, but yesterday I did start digging a hole where a central post to support the new peak might be, and I account that a start.

 

A waste. I can achieve the same effect with a screwdriver bit. Basically it's a matter of applying high enough RPM at the start of the extraction process. I find I can use the same bit for this for thousands of screws. 

And in some cases the digital outputs will be quite dynamic. For instance the 8 bits shown as '1's ' on the above picture are the data bus that the PLC uses to talk to the SMCC card that is a slave PLC that controls the tool turret - wheels within wheels comes to mind!