The Saga of the XPC

My Super Computer, the Shuttle XPC, Pentium 4, Liquid Cooled, state of the art Machine in 2005, has died.  I bought it almost 10 years ago exactly.  It had its troubles through the years, but kept going.  The Mutha Board is that which quit.  Every other component works...

A fortunate event happened that gave me posession of a Dell B110 chassis, Muthaboard, and a Celeron, no memory, or drive.  Turns out this is a socket 478 Mutha board that will support my Pentium 4, and DDR2 memory.  So my system has reincarnated in a drab Dell body, and doesn't like it very much.

 This system was built in the XP era, but won't load XP because Microsoft ended its support.  The only option was to install 7, but now the machine is handicapped because Dell never developed drivers for 7, and never will.  This machine is ripe for a Linux install...  Hello Professor Falken...

Solder Exhaust Fans

This is scraptacular...  I've been building Solder Exhaust Fans from scrapped components.  At work I have a large scrap heap, and there are a lot of base materials, and some complex devices, like computers.  I take the CPU Cooling Fan out of the computers, and use it as a Solder Exhaust Fan.  I need to add some things to it like screens to keep the fingers out, and a base to keep it from cruising around the table.  Here is the latest set, minimized to take up as little space as possible.

This started with my Fan Controller from another project, and got simplified into an extremely cheap product.  The early models were mounted on a block of wood.  Then I moved on to a aluminum box, and now  its just a plate of aluminum with rubber feet.  The speed control is a LM317 Variable Voltage Regulator mounted on the top.  I use a switched potentiometer to provide On/Off control on the speed control knob.  Here is a shot of some "Classic" Solder Exhaust Fans...

Magnetic Stirrer 3

We finally got all the pieces in the same place, and were able to test the Magnetic Stirrer.  Looks like its working good.  The motor I picked is considerably overpowered.  I can trim the power level when I design the next generation Magnetic Stirrer.

Magnetic Stirrer 2

Back in the Metal Shop, my favorite place, I am building the mounting system for the Magnetic Stirrer.  I decided to use 0.125 Aluminum sheeting to build the frame pieces.  Its locally available at Turner Hardware.  The closest piece I could get to the size I wanted was 12" x 18", so first I had to reduce the sheet to the 8" x 8" squares I want.  Then I can mark the parts, and start cutting.

I draw lines on the part with a carbide scribe so they are durable during the cutting process.  First thing is making the holes that hold everything together during the cutting process.  The I can clamp the two pieces together so all the cuts are the same on both pieces.  Then I'll clamp the whole jig onto the Mini Mill, and make the round cuts first with an endmill.

I jam a bolt into the table, and through a T Nut to make an axis.  Then line up the part, and nibble out the circle part.  Once I found the process to do this, it makes round cuts easy, and precise.  There are some select parts I don't want to cut like this, so when I get to those parts I have to disassemble the jig, then put it back together with only the parts I want to cut.  Next is cutting the straight lines.

This is a hacksaw job, a good challenge to make straight lines.  Cut wide, and grind into tolerance, LOL!  No, I'm pretty good at making straight lines.  After this I will make the ventilation slots, and mount holes for the motor.  The bottom piece will have a clearance hole in the middle for the body of the motor, but no motor contact.  Then also on the bottom piece there is a shelf for the motor Speed Control.

I've got a little more machine work on the bottom piece, then I can do a test fit.  There is one more piece which is the shelf on top where the stir vessel is placed.  It will be 1/4" plexiglass, and I'm not sure how I want to cut it...

3D Printing

We got the 3D Printer printing last week.  Finally had some time off to work on it.  There were problems with the Extruder Head feed mechanism, too much tension.  Also the feed motor was binding.  We re-adjusted the tension on the screws that hold the feed motor to the extruder to free up its motion.  Also we disassembled the filament path into the extruder, and found some obstructions, then cleared them.  We had to coax it along a bit, but we finally made some printed pieces.

Here is a little bit of video to show the thing in action.  It takes a long time to make a part.  The large Tron took an hour , and fifteen minutes...

Magnetic Stirrer

My latest adventure with metal working, and magnets is the Magnetic Stirrer.  A friend at work gave me the idea, and it seemed like good application for the spare sheet metal, and magnets out in the garage.  The rotor is 1/8" aluminum sheet cut to 2.5" diameter.  I used a 1/4" inside diameter Arbor to mount the rotor on the motors shaft.  I had a little trouble with that because the motor shaft is 1/5", so I used a 1/4" outside diameter aluminum tubing, then bored the inside out to 1/5".  The set screw on the Arbor provides a crush fit to make the Arbor stay on the shaft.

There are two, 10 pound Neodymium Magnets, facing opposite directions, which will latch on to the Stir Bar inside the Erlenmeyer Flask on top of the Magnetic Stirrer.  The plan is to have a piece of Plexiglass sit just above the rotor, and the Erlenmeyer Flask will sit on top of the Plexiglass.  Next in the process is to fabricate the base support for the motor, and Plexiglass top, then to assemble the Pulse Width Modulation Voltage Regulator which will act as a Speed Control.

3D Printer

I've been working with the Velleman K8200 3D Printer.  This surprisingly affordable kit has been a really exciting project for me.  Some of my friends, and I went to a Maker's Fair at Tanner Electronics last fall.  One of my friends is a Mechanical Designer, and this Velleman kit was irresistible.

Now we have the kit assembled, and are working out the functional idiosyncrasies.  The motor stop switches needed to be adjusted.  The table needed to be leveled.  We needed to check out all the electrical connectivity, and functionality.  And now I think we are ready to print some parts.

This 3D Printer comes with all the basic parts you need to make it work.  But there are other things to be added to it that you can print, like a control board cover.  Then, also, there are even more things other people have designed, and made open source, like an extruder head light, and even enclosure pieces like the corners.  This is a wholly open source kit, even the source code for the Arduino processor board is customizable.  This is truly a miracle in rapid prototyping.