Retracting faucet by Robert Brown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR5mahgMiHEI recently finished building my house, took nine years, but it's paid for. I designed the house around me, so in the kitchen, I have a 3.5 ft. by 10 ft. island and to have the advantage of two uses for the large area, I decided to retract the faucet out of the way. To fill the sink void, I put a 3/4 inch thick piece of granite to fill the hole, I do that by hand. My first design I didn't like because it just didn't look right. What I had was a piece of granite above the faucet and when the faucet was up, the rectangular piece was held up by two wooden boards, and when I retracted it the tower would come down and fill the hole. I didn't like the looks when it was up, so I designed the fill piece be automatically slid forward and raise upward to fill the hole, much better. I will attempt to link the youtube video here. The mechanism operates with two linear slides, one for the faucet, which is nothing more than a vertical drawer, and the second to move the rectangular granite forward and lift up to the level of the surface. Robert Brown machiningfool

Very, very cool! :bow:

Best not to give my wife any ideas, though… :rolleyes:

Ken

And that, folks, is why we have the "Not a Tool, but Homemade" subforum :clapping:

Really impressive, machiningfool. Wow.

Thanks guys for your kind words. Like I say, I love a challenge. Robert Brown machiningfool

Very nice, but as Ken says, better to not show the wife. ;)

When we moved into our house, we finally have granite counter tops, and now I know that my wife will want one of these when she sees the video. Great work getting that to work, and just first rate craftsmanship. Thanks for posting this.

Ron

I don't know if this is good or bad, if your wife wants one. I took me about an hour to design the faucet lifting portion, but it took me about a week to design the mechanical for the granite filler portion and about a week to figure the wiring of all of the limit switches, there are about 10 of them, and a 4 pole, double throw, push on switch. It was fun building it, but challenging. Robert Brown.

I found a video of the vertical lift for the faucet, couldn't find the one of the hole filler, thought you might be interested in how it looks out of the cabinet. Bob.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mb7QMln_wM

That looks neat, but what about water leaking down into the cabinet? I don't know about you, but in my kitchen there is a lot of water that gets splashed on and around the faucet. And is that vertical stem that the faucet fits in also some kind of interlock? Or can the mechanism be activated to retract the faucet with the arm in other positions?

I don't splash water around the faucet hole. The vertical rod is a safety device, when it is in the faucet cannot be retracted, so to retract, I fold the faucet back and take out the rod and it releases a micro switch and then it can be retracted.

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Originally Posted by machiningfool

I don't splash water around the faucet hole. The vertical rod is a safety device, when it is in the faucet cannot be retracted, so to retract, I fold the faucet back and take out the rod and it releases a micro switch and then it can be retracted.

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Machiningfool If you haven't already done so, you might spring load the facet parking rod so that if the facet is not parked the micro switch will be in the same position as if the rod were removed. Parking the facet would require the rod to be pushed down activating the micro switch, preventing the accidental facet retraction even if someone forgot to remove the vertical rod.
Beautiful design by the way

I don't understand what you are trying to achieve. The reason for the rod in position, is so if the master switch is turned on, nothing happens and the faucet is not retracted. When I remove the rod, I then fold back the faucet out of the way and then the system is on and the faucet can be retracted.

I was just looking at it the way it seems that you have it now if as you say the rod is in place the facet can be retracted When you pull it out it cannot be retracted.
However to me it looks like if the rod is in the hole the master switch can retract the facet even if the facet is not parked on the rod, maybe it is no that way but that is the way I interpreted it.
The way I was thinking if the rod had a spring under it to cause it to rise away from the micro switch then anytime the facet head was not holding the rod down the system could not retract even if the rod were not removed.
You have designed and made such an elegant looking system I was wondering if that was the way you made it because to me when something has to be removed to prevent the mechanical's from functioning but doesn't rely on the facet having to be physically located in the parked position and if someone forgot to remove the rod the system could still be activated with the facet in most any position.

I think that your first two sentences are backwards. Here how it is. The micro switch is a normally closed. I push the master and the faucet appears. I then insert the rod, the switch opens, rendering it out of operation. When I want to retract it, I pull the rod out, closing the switch and then folding the faucet out of the way of retraction. I then throw the master and it retracts, goes down. It is purely for safety so that if the faucet is not folded out of the way, damage would occur.

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Originally Posted by machiningfool

I think that your first two sentences are backwards. Here how it is. The micro switch is a normally closed. I push the master and the faucet appears. I then insert the rod, the switch opens, rendering it out of operation. When I want to retract it, I pull the rod out, closing the switch and then folding the faucet out of the way of retraction. I then throw the master and it retracts, goes down. It is purely for safety so that if the faucet is not folded out of the way, damage would occur.

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OK now I am confused that is not how you describe it in the video nor how the video shows it. To me that looks like a normally open switch set up rod in switch closed rod out switch open. This was why I was thinking that if the micro switch had been located under the rod then it would require the rod to be held down in order for the system to function. To me that would be an even better safety feature as with a spring under the rod the only way to hold the micro switch closed would be to have the faucet parked on top of the rod

You are right. I built that so long ago, I had forgotten how the safety rod worked. When the rod is in and the spigot is parked, the micro is closed, and the faucet can go up and down. When I want to use the faucet, I take the rod out and unpark the spigot and the micro is open. Sorry, I haven't used it in years. Bob.