Home made horizontal milling machine.

[tonyfoale]

Been a while since I could get online, been looking after grandson last 2 yrs. I thought 2 yr olds were close to 'perpetual motion' but 3 is even closer.
Leon Moss was founder of LEDAR, died in a hang gliding accident if I remember right.

I had to scroll back to see why you were talking about Leon. I knew of Leon, in our previous discussion I was just indicating that I was not familiar with his work although I knew of him.

Don't know if you've looked into it at all but could one of the cheap weather anemometers be used to measure airflow in flow bench? It would work along the lines of Vizard's 'floating point' bench with a ~5hp vacuum cleaner/shop vac

I looked into many ways to measure air flow for the bench. Most benches use an orifice plate but the flow coefficients are low, 50 to 60%. I used a venturi in place of an orifice plate, coeff around 96 to 98%, so I only need a vacumn source of roughly 1/2 that I would with the orifice. Combined with electronic differential pressure transducers it is very accurate and highly repeatable. Most/all orifice machines have to change out plates at different flow rates, even when doing a single test over a range of valve openings on the same port. With my venturi I have to change out nothing. Testing is very quick. My software averages 100 readings over a set period (usually 5 secs). All I have to do is set the valve lift, push a button, wait 5 secs and repeat for as many steps as I want. My software does the rest.

I don't see any price or functional reason to use a weather anemometer over what I have.

Click for full size images.
Ventururi with temp sensor attached. See my old post on ruggedized temp sensors.


Some pix of the black box and DP sensors. There are humidity, baro and temp on the board as well as a temp sensor on the venturi and port. These parameters allow the results to be compensated for different atmospheric conditions. I obtain indistinguishable results from testing at 0 deg when I lived in NH, USA and testing at 30 deg here in Spain. My workshop is always 30 deg in summer.

I use a floating plenum pressure as Vizard has as well. However, I realised when I made my first bench a long time back that even without electronic sensors you could make accurate manometers from clear plastic tube and coloured water to actually measure flow. That is unlike Vizard's first efforts where he only got a "better or worse" indication. I had real flow numbers from the outset.

As you suggest I do use a motor from the biggest shop vac that I could find on a trip to the US. I extracted the motor which was light enough for a suitcase and left the rest behind.

Anyway I'll leave more on the flow bench subject until I make a full post about that. Maybe this discussion will bring it to the top of my list to document. I was intending on doing something on an LVT that I made for my shock dyno or some modifications to put my bead blaster on steroids.

[that_other_guy]

Thanks guys. As a newbie on this forum I was not sure what sort of posts were of interest to the rest of you. ..........For example I made a flow bench which is largely mechanical like other devices but some of these tools need electronics, either home-made or using devices like Arduinos, to enable them to work. Are forum members also interested in those details?

I am very interested!
Thanks for sharing.
Brian

[tonyfoale]

I am very interested!
Thanks for sharing.
Brian

Brian,

I assume that you are talking about the flow bench? I keep trying to find the time for that, actually I must have at least 100 projects that I would like to document, I create them quicker than I can write about them.

Click for full size images.

For the time being here are some pix of the bench and some of my swirl meter.



Here are some shots of the software.

There is a shock dyno build that I did on this forum if you are interested and you may find web site of interest, the link to that is in my signature below.

[Frank S]

Tony you will find that when it comes to articles or in fact artifacts made by the human hands the 15,000+ members of these forums are just about the most eclectic group you will ever have the pleasure of finding concentrated in one place.
The answer to your question would be electronics are absolutely a major contribution to the workings of homemade tools.
You will also if you haven't already discovered that more often than not the end postings to many threads morph into some very interesting sometimes informative although once in a while controversial collections of information which otherwise might have remained unknown, but some will find useful in their endeavors, or which will create a spark of future creativity

[C-Bag]

I'll second what Frank said and say check out this ongoing adventure: http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/g...ls-lathe-31441

It takes a little while but swiftly heads off into some deep electronics with Rendoman and PJs(the Wiz) as they hash out a audio plasma tweeter. There has been a ton of views but not a lot of comment outside of the primaries. You'll find that here there are a lot of folks lurking, but us usual suspects that have commented here plus some others are the ones most likely to comment. I have to say there has been a bump up in postings and interaction here recently. So who knows what else will change. I am not as adept at electronics as others here but is definitely interested and would love to see the flow bench and some Arduino projects to name a few.
Carry on.

[Toolmaker51]

Mr. Foales's "Is it OK..." and responses like
"...caught my eye..."
"...you will find..."
"...threads morph into some very interesting sometimes informative..." or "most eclectic group...concentrated in one place."
and "...lot of folks lurking, but us usual suspects that have commented here plus some others are the ones most likely to comment"
Those just begin, barely, to typify what you'll find, and participants enjoy here. There are categories for ANYTHING you care to post.
And we offer humor occasionally. Your own "shaped as it is for a deeply technical reason. It's the way that it came out of the scrap box." caught on to that readily.

Kind of like a family dinner party. The real action isn't at the main table; the interaction is located elsewhere; most call it 'the kid's table'. Conformity and expectations don't seem to be what makes this work. And anywhere your cursor lands and highlight a name or avatar; you can peer into what makes individuals tick.
A stunning group, to be sure.

[Toolmaker51]

eliminating errant double post

[Frank S]

"Kind of like a family dinner party. The real action isn't at the main table; the interaction is located elsewhere; most call it 'the kid's table'."
I hope that I never grow up. which just reminded me of something I saw my grand mother do on a coal oil stove one winter. weather turned off very cold so G'ma as per her usual daily chores after breakfast had just finished cleaning up the 6 burner Butane cook stove but still had the fire going in the very old even at that time, coal oil stove it didn't have an oven just the small flat top with 4 holes for pots to sit in. Since everyone was going to be house bound for the day she decided to make stove top cookies. I don't know or probably just don't remember her whole process but I do remember the cookies because the snow had blown deep against the house effectively blocking the doors All of us were sitting around trying to watch the 1 channel we could get on the TV when G'ma yelled from the kitchen that she needed help to remove the pot from the stove because her cookies were going to burn. OK she got the help the cookies must have turned out fine. I don't remember anyone ever complaining about burned cookies. The post about the kids table somehow brought that memory to mind , that and the fact that the wind chill here is now in the lower teens with slight flurries outside since the electronic controller on my Propane oven has decided to go south for the winter I am stuck with only the 4 burners on top I'm wanting cookies My wife grew up on a farm as well but has never heard of stove top cookies so I'm going to attempt to make cookies tomorrow while we are house bound not due to snow but just because there really is no good excuse to get out in the -0° wind chill

[C-Bag]

"kids table" indeed!........I resemble that remark..........food fight!!!!!!!!!!

[Toolmaker51]

About stove top cookies, I'm not familiar. My paternal Grandmother had humble origins, and raised 4 kids thru the Depression. No longer on the farm, but cooked woodstove in what were outskirts of Kansas City, passing away in her 90's. Thus three younger generations were treated with all manner of kitchen wonders. While her situation improved greatly, she often 'celebrated' her past and teaching 'us' simple joys. One memory is a rectangular steel plate, blackened with use but still flat and teflon-slick, on a gas range. She fried cornmeal paste [less water than mush] around 1/2" thick x 4"; topped with homemade chili & beans, shredded cheese and onions. Same plate also made buckwheat pancakes; batter sat overnight to raise a frothy mixture in the morning. Crispy edges, fried on lard and white corn syrup.
Safe bet Dad, Sister, and I are last to make either in our three separate locations. Fear simple cuisine lost on the others.
Milling machines morphs into comfort food; what rails?