Killing time in a small "2 car" garage

[bj383ss]

Interested to see the printer in action. I really want one but at the moment I have so many projects going on I don't need another distraction. And it would be a hard decision between one and an CNC router.

I think you almost derailed Lilscorpion.


Bret

 

[slodat]

As a very long time Mac user at home I was reluctant to buy a much needed PC for the shop a couple years ago. Well.. I'm still a Mac user at home, but I must admit the latest generation of PC stuff is so much better than it was the last time I used it outside of a work environment. Needless to say the beat up old machine was replaced a couple weeks ago with a really nice Dell (from their Outlet store). I am beyond impressed with it - i7-7700 4 core processor with 64 RAM, SSD and so on. I'm sure your new machine will be a nice addition to the shop!

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Interested to see the printer in action. I really want one but at the moment I have so many projects going on I don't need another distraction. And it would be a hard decision between one and an CNC router.

I think you almost derailed Lilscorpion.


Bret

LOL! For the record, I didn't start it. But yes, I'm pretty stoked to get this running. For the record, I would NEVER buy another GeeeTech printer. Fortunately I didn't even buy this one, my buddy gave it to me because it is such a PITA to find the support files needed for it. At least I'm cutting my teeth on a difficult printer so when I get the FT-5 and then build my own from scratch it will be a walk in the park!

I'm hoping to have it printing this weekend. Then I'll order some PET-G filament so I can print out upgrades for the GT i3 and see how they look. If they're good, I'll go ahead print the new parts for the FT-5 so they're ready and waiting once I finally get to order it. I was going to go ahead and order it at the beginning of March, but I decided I need to have the space for it in the basement shop first which means I have to get my shop area done and pick up the Milwaukee 30" tool chest. I'll just be using the base for the printer in the basement. The top chest will go on a 46" base that will be modded with the ZTFab welder cart mod out in the garage. I really don't even have room to store the 30" top chest ATM, but I'm hoping to get a lot of work done in the basement and garage over spring break when my son and wife are in Florida.

I personally chose to go with the 3D printer first simply because it is a less expensive project than a DIY CNC router. I do plan to build a small CNC HS spindle router for engraving later, then I'll build a full sheet CNC router when I have a real shop.

As a very long time Mac user at home I was reluctant to buy a much needed PC for the shop a couple years ago. Well.. I'm still a Mac user at home, but I must admit the latest generation of PC stuff is so much better than it was the last time I used it outside of a work environment. Needless to say the beat up old machine was replaced a couple weeks ago with a really nice Dell (from their Outlet store). I am beyond impressed with it - i7-7700 4 core processor with 64 RAM, SSD and so on. I'm sure your new machine will be a nice addition to the shop!

I'm keeping my MBP too. I'll be removing the VMware Fusion and Win7 Pro from the Mac after I have the new machine configured. I've become way to spoiled having both OS's on one machine, but I'll manage to adjust.

The new laptop is for my day job in sales, but I built it powerful enough to support my hobbies which includes needing to run the AutoDesk suite which I use for my second job as an adjunct professor at one of the local universities. I can upgrade my P51 to 64Gig or RAM later if I need to, but 32Gig should cover me for the next 3-5 years.

 

[bj383ss]

Well I am looking forward to your adventures and learning about them along the way.

Bret

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Well I am looking forward to your adventures and learning about them along the way.

Bret

Bret, I quickly discovered software makes ALL the difference... I downloaded Simplify3D to run the printer and... it's alive! I can move the axis now!

15 second vid of the Z-axis moving!

Now I just have to level the print bed and I can try a print.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

So, this particular 3D printer is definitely a learning experience! And, unfortunately, it didn't come as a surprise based on what I had read online.

I was able to get the print bed leveled so I decided to see if it would actually print. I wasn't really jazzed about the extruder and hot end, but I was hoping it would work well enough to print out some upgrade parts.

Here is one of the standard models used to test 3D printers called 3DBenchy:

And the printer was actually printing:

But the filament was coming out blotchy and inconsistent. The spool of the PLA said the extruder temp should be 210-230degC. So I raised it to 210degC with no improvement, then 215, then 220degC and suddenly the control board could no longer keep the hot end at any sort of consistent temp. It would skyrocket to 263degC, then down to 215, then 257, then it went to 270 and the printer shutdown on a MAX TEMP alarm. This is what I ended up with:

I have 2 other hot ends and a lot of nozzles as well as spare drive cogs for the extruder so tomorrow I'm going to just swap everything out and try again. If that doesn't work I'm going to have to replace it with an E3D unit.

 

[Squashfest81]

Huh... if you squint one eye and hold the phone at arms length into the sun you can kinda see where that was heading.
Sounds like you’ve got a plan. Keep at it.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Huh... if you squint one eye and hold the phone at arms length into the sun you can kinda see where that was heading.
Sounds like you’ve got a plan. Keep at it.

I shared that with my wife. We both got a good laugh from it. Thanks man. There is a guy on YouTube whose videos I really like for the FT-5 and he happened to have a video about upgrading his GeeeTech i3 so I'm going back to watch his other vids on the GT i3 to see what I can do to get this printing correctly. It could very well be the filament too.

I'll get it printing correctly...

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Well, way back on post #19 I shared the new basement floor I put in... it almost made it a year. Last night we had a gully washer of a storm and with the ground already saturated from 4 days of constant rain the basement walls wept. We out at a friend's house about 15 minutes away and their neighborhood streets completely flooded.

We got home around Midnight and came home to water over half the storage area and under about half of the finished floor. I spent about 90 minutes mopping up water last night then decided I had enough and went to bed. We ended up with about a 1/4" of water in some spots. And the floor is trashed. We put down a "waterproof" underlayment, but the water still got over it and under the floor.

Streets have literally washed away. A lot of people in the city had 1-2 feet of water in their basements!

So now we get to completely gut the basement including the finished walls so we can have the basement professionally waterproofed. Yay! But at least now I will have a self-leveling coating put down over the entire basement floor so I can lay ceramic tile in the storage/utility side. I'm also going to build in storage cabinets under the basement stairs and rework the wall at the door into the laundry area to make it a little bigger and gain access to a crawl space under the sunroom.

I had planned to play with the 3D printer today because I picked up a new roll of eSun PLA+ yesterday afternoon to try in it after I swapped out the hot end. I also discovered that the extruder needed to be calibrated. Stock the GT i3 doesn't usually push in enough filament into the extruder, which is what I was seeing on my first print. I also picked up some Elmers glue sticks to use on the heat bed to get rid of the blue tape.

But instead I spent the day pulling out totes from storage and mopping up water, then cleaned out the gutters to make sure they wouldn't add insult to injury on Wednesday when it's supposed to rain again. F'in global warming. If it was cold like it should be, this would have been snow and the melt run off would be much slower and not soak into the basement.

Oh, we had so much rain last night that even my garage had water in it today. It came up and over the foundation blocks and under the sill plates! That's a lot of water! This spring I'm going to dig down along the foundation of the garage and put in drain tile to route the water down the driveway to wear the cistern used to be (which is now filled with #8 gravel) so it will drain away correctly.

I now know how Madone_si feels dealing with his water issues in the house and not being able to accomplish anything in his garage.

 

[Squashfest81]

Terrible news. Few things worse than a flood.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Terrible news. Few things worse than a flood.

Thanks Squash. We had had water in the basement a couple times in the past 18 years from windows leaking so pretty much everything is either up off the floor or in Rubbermaid totes. I lost one box of pasta that was wrapped in plastic but on the floor, the box for a used MEC 20ga shotshell reloader was trashed, and the box we had Christmas tree lights in soaked through; but everything else was fine. The big loss was the floor itself. We didn't go with a waterproof vinyl plank but a composite floor because it was half the price and we liked the color/pattern the best. We put down the more expensive underlayment, but it didn't really help. Unfortunately the style of composite it is is not easily removed and will probably break the interlocking tabs when I remove it or I would salvage it for the garage just to have it out there until it got completely trashed. We'll see what happens when I start taking it out.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

My Lenovo P51 arrived yesterday! The 27 day wait for a custom built machine was worth it!

And every laptop needs to be protected by Deadpool:

It took most of yesterday afternoon and late evening to get it all updated and "customized" the way I wanted it. It only had 4 little game apps loaded and no other bloat ware! But it took me about and hour to customize the Start menu. My background pic is a custom KZ650... not my build but I love the bike and it was the background on my Win7 Pro on my MacBook... it looks so much better on the P51.

At lunch time I started downloading and installing the AutoDesk programs.

The biggest issue I had was getting my Outlook archive .pst file off the MBP. It was over 5GB and even compressed is over 4GB. It wouldn't let me copy it to a 128GB USB thumb drive so I had to upgrade my DropBox account and I uploaded it to DB. Then I had to call our helpdesk to get my Outlook 365 set up in Win10 on the P51. That was easier than I thought it would be. Then tonight I spent 2 hours migrating and organizing my documents from my old Win7 onto the new machine.

And here is the last pic of my 2011 MBP running Win7 Pro in VMware Fusion next to the new P51. After I took this pic, I wiped VMware Fusion off the Mac so now it's "just" a Mac for the first time in 6-1/2 years.

It's going to take me a while to get used to the keyboard and the touch pad on the P51 as well as Win10. I keep making typos and accidentally selecting or unselecting too many files... The file selection issue is a Win10 adjustment, but the typos are because of the bigger, but more closely spaced keys on the P51.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Today I finished installing all of the Autodesk software I want to run. A lot of the programs I will use for work and teaching, but I also installed a few to "kick the tires" to see what they can do.

So far I'm loving the new machine. It's so quiet and runs so cool.


I also wired up the new hot end on the 3D printer today. Pics are in the 3D printer thread. The hot end is still only stable to 215degC so I'll see if a new firmware on the controller will take care of it. If not then I see an all metal hot end upgrade from Genuine Prusa in my future. Tomorrow I will relevel the print bed, calibrate the extruder, and take another run at printing a part with the new eSun PLA filament. The printer held the temps stable at 215degC and 70degC on the print bed which is the sweet spot for the eSun PLA according to all the reviews I read. I also ditched the blue tape and will be using the Elmers glue stick on the print surface.

We'll see how it goes. My GT i3 has the Z-axis wobble common to i3 clones. I may try to print the axis stabilizers if the test print is successful tomorrow.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

The GeeeTech i3 Pro B is a POS, at least the extruder/hot end is. So it's shelved for the time being because:

A Genuine Prusa i3 MK2.


And off the bat, much better results on the 3Dbenchy test:

I am having some challenges with the first layers not sticking which trashes the print, but I'll get it sorted out.


The GeeeTech will eventually get the parts pulled off the MK2 when I upgrade it to a full MK3. That will take care of the issues since the GeeeTech will be more genuine Prusa than clone at that point. Once it's done I will be donating the GeeeTech to my son's middle school for the tax write off.

Then the Prusa MK3 will be put into action to print the parts for either a Eustathios Spider V2 or HyperCube Evolution Scratch DIY large 3D printer.

 

[jon72vega]

Boilermakerfan,
The 3D printing looks very interesting.
I am thinking about getting one in the near future.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

It's definitely been a fun learning experience Jon. The new to me genuine Prusa Mk2 was kicking my **** today! It wasn't printing more detailed and fine models. It would get about ten layers up and rip the whole start of the print off the bed. Researched the issue, cleaned the bed with 91% Isopropyl Alcohol, upgraded the firmware to the latest stable version, and calibrated everything again. My first layer was printing way too close so it was basically smearing and lifting. I have a much bigger print going now and it's first layer isn't perfect, but much better. It's actually a little too high now, but I'll adjust it tomorrow when this print is done.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

I posted this in the 3D printer thread too:

My long term goal for 3D printing is to print the seat/rear trim and side covers for the original Honda SOHC CB650 Nighthawk, but clean up the tail and add mounts for a more modern LED tail light. Then I'll print a custom front fender:

* Not my bike, but the best pic of one I could find online * Mine will be a restomod custom: wire wheels or later model cast mags instead of comstars; inverted CBR fork; Honda Interceptor rear swingarm with monoshock; modern lighting, mirrors, handlebar, and gauges; a frankenSOHC engine- C5 Ignition, Mikuni round slide VM carbs, CB550 case and transmission for a kick starter, CB650 rods and head, and overbore CB750 pistons for a total displacement of 754cc; Kinetic Motorcycles SS 4-into-1 exhaust; and a custom seat.


And in other news... after RTFM on the Prusa MK2, I realized my P.I.N.D.A. bed level sensor is actually too high from the bed, so it's in the hysteresis deadband area of the sensor. That is causing my first layer calibration tests to pass or fail during consecutive prints at the same settings. The manual also suggested adding glue stick to the PEI bed on PLA prints with tall prints that have small contact points on the bed. Amazing! Reading the ****** manual actually told me how to fix my issues!

For now, I'm just learning the whole 3D printing process and trying different materials to learn how they print. An interim step for 3D printing will be to print off some tool storage and tool box organizers that I can use in my garage or hobby shop in the basement.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Tonight I adjusted my PINDA auto leveling prox sensor and recalibrated. Adjusted the Z down on two consecutive calibration prints and had a very good result, then it printed the same results three more times in a row.

I also learned, by reading the rest of the bloomin' manual, that the Prusa MK2 has multiple modes like the MK3. My printer was set to High Power mode. Switched it to Auto and Voila! SO MUCH QUIETER! Woohoo!

Then I went back to edit the two files I had on the SD card that failed over the weekend and added a raft. Well, it's either the model or the Simplify3D slicing, but both failed again. The printer printed the raft and first layer that was on the raft, but didn't move to the other two or three points and print additional rafts. Instead it was 0.6mm higher than it should have been and proceeded to spit out filament.

Changed to a different file on the SD card and it is printing beautifully (and quietly) now.

I'm going to import the STL files from the two models that failed into the Prusa software and slice it again to see if it does the job correctly. If not, I'll download Cura and try a third time. If it fails all three then I know the models have errors. Actually, the goat started to print ok the first time without the raft so I may just remove the raft, use the glue stick, and try it again, but the sea otter never tried to print the two other first layers for the front feet so I think that is a Simplify3D slicing error or the model itself.

Anyway, I'm really happy/relieved that I sorted out the two big issues I was having with the Prusa MK2: The first layer bonding/calibration and the noise.

Now I just have to get the two models I really want to print to work correctly (since they're small gifts for my wife and son) and I'll be so stoked. The next things I'm planning to print are a couple of sea turtles for my daughter (which are two color prints, but two pieces) at her request. Then a Star Wars New Order trooper head, a Death Star, and a thermal imploder requested by my son. After those I'm going to print a couple of things for my coworkers mostly because I have two spools of older PLA to burn through and I'm learning in the process before I move on to printer upgrade / new printer parts in PETG or eSun's ePC.

I can print the Prusa upgrade parts while I wait for the Prusa i3 MK3 full upgrade kit to come into stock since the STL files are on the Prusa web site and you have to print your own parts anyway. I'm looking forward to the upgrade and donating the GT i3 Pro B to the school.



For those of you readers following along that are interested in getting your own 3D printer, check out the Everything 3D printer thread (link in my sig). Several of us have shared our ideas and opinions about which printers to consider for your first one. My only regret is waiting this long to finally get one, or two, or three... My wife thinks it's really cool and my kids love it. I get brownie points with the SWMBO because I print out little things for her that I know she loves like honey bees and sea otters. She also loves that my son and I are spending time together literally making stuff from bits, bytes, and plastic "wire" that didn't exist until we printed it. He and I are both learning new things along the way too.

I will add this as well: Having started with a cheap i3 clone and then getting the real deal; if you can afford a genuine Prusa i3 and like the style of printer that it is, then definitely save for the real thing or try to find a good used MK2 or MK2S. Don't buy any used printer without seeing it print unless you really know the person selling it and trust them when they say it works. I would even go so far as to bring a SD card (32gig or smaller) with the 3Dbenchy g-code file on it and ask the seller to print the 3Dbenchy from the card. If the seller refuses, then the offer just got cut to half the asking price and I wouldn't buy it at all if you can't see the X, Y, and Z axis be moved in manual mode.

I'm willing to put the g-code file for the 3Dbenchy test up on my DropBox and send you a link so you can download the file to copy on a SD card or MicroSD card in a SD card adapter to make it easier for you guys to. Just send me a DM and request the 3Dbenchy test g-code file.

If the seller is honest and says that he or she could never get the printer to work correctly or they kept having problems with it, GoogleFu the heck out of that model and see if it's worth the hassle. If I didn't score the used Prusa MK2, I would be in a situation where I would be putting good money after bad on the GeeeTech if I tried to make it work. Without the Prusa I would have been better off buying a different, new printer at twice the cost. That's the path I was going to have to take... I was prepared to buy a new printer this summer and then gut what parts I could use off the GeeeTech to build a different printer with those salvaged parts to recoup some of my time I have invested in trying to get the turd to work. My monetary investment in the GeeeTech was minimal. The printer was free; I only paid a discounted price for materials, extra nozzles and a few spare parts. I kind of feel like I still paid too much for the GeeeTech. That's how much I dislike it.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Busy week, but I was able to determine the issue with the sea otter model. It's model and not my slicing software. I need to see if i can put small supports under the front feet and belly so it will print correctly, but I haven't had time to mess with it.

I did have a successful print today:

It's a coaster that I scaled up to 125% size. I damaged it slightly when I pried it off the bed. The details inside the relief are tiny and in standard PLA they are also fragile.

I had an Amazon gift card from Christmas so I ordered some new eSun filament. A roll of ePC black polycarbonate, a roll of olive PLA+, and a roll of solid purple PETG. The ePC and PETG will be primarily used to print the upgrade parts for the Prusa MK3/Zaribo frame upgrades for the Prusa MK2 and also used to print the parts for a HyperCube Evolution scratch build larger scale printer down the road.

I was going to print a new enclosure for the OctoPrint Raspberry Pi 3 B board I have, but I may just buy the Raspberry Pi Zero W board for the OctoPrint since the new MK3 controller already has the header in place for it.




On the garage front, the weather is not being kind yet again this weekend. It started raining Friday night and will continue through Saturday. I may still try to get at least a little done in the garage. I need to get the support frame work up in the joists for the big 3-bulb, 48" tube flush mount ceiling light that I converted to LED. I probably need to purge some more **** while I'm out there.

I need to swap the clutch cable on the KZ650 and change the oil. Then get it prepped for a new, full SS exhaust.

I may have to swap the head off the running engine with my donor spare because two of the 8 exhaust header bolts are snapped off. I can't remember if there is enough protruding from the head to grab with vice grips or not. If there isn't enough to grab then I have to swap the head which means I might as well clean up the donor head and install a set of KZ750 cams before the swap so it has a fresh top end and a little more power. I suspect that I may just put the new exhaust on for the time being to get riding it even if it leaks a little. It's killing me that the bike sat for the last two months of the riding season last year after I picked it up.

 

[wkearney99]

I may have to swap the head off the running engine with my donor spare because two of the 8 exhaust header bolts are snapped off. I can't remember if there is enough protruding from the head to grab with vice grips or not. If there isn't enough to grab then I have to swap the head which means I might as well clean up the donor head and install a set of KZ750 cams before the swap so it has a fresh top end and a little more power. I suspect that I may just put the new exhaust on for the time being to get riding it even if it leaks a little. It's killing me that the bike sat for the last two months of the riding season last year after I picked it up.

Heh, "might as well" ranks right up there with "while you're at it" in terms of ways to delay getting a "simple" job done!

If you don't have the time/tools/inclination to deal with those bolts, considering taking it to a local shop. Someone that does them all the time might be able to get it done quicker. Especially if it helps get the bike back on the road in time for good riding weather!

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Heh, "might as well" ranks right up there with "while you're at it" in terms of ways to delay getting a "simple" job done!

If you don't have the time/tools/inclination to deal with those bolts, considering taking it to a local shop. Someone that does them all the time might be able to get it done quicker. Especially if it helps get the bike back on the road in time for good riding weather!

You have nothing to worry about man... "I suspect that I may just put the new exhaust on for the time being to get riding it even if it leaks a little. It's killing me that the bike sat for the last two months of the riding season last year after I picked it up."

And I do have a fantastic local shop. Already talked to them several times about some other custom work and valve jobs for the GL1100 and KZ650 heads. I was already planning to have one of the KZ650 heads completely rebuilt with bronze inserts, Viton seals, upgraded springs, drop in the KZ750 cams, etc. While they're doing the work on the head, I'll be riding!

Phase 2 is to get better carbs and an EBC clutch in the bike. Phase 3 is the C5 Ignition. Then I'll rebuild/upgrade the donor conventional R6 fork, relace the wire wheels, upgrade the brakes, etc. Last phase is the rebuild of the donor long block and the remaining customized resto-mods for the bike before finally the paint. The plan is to only have the bike in non-running condition during the winter months. After that, the "old engine parts that weren't rebuilt the first time will get their own full project to take it out to a 8xx cc displacement with proper Mikuni VM carbs and a full custom Kinetic Motorcycle exhaust.

I have other bikes to ride, but the KZ650 and GL1100 are the two main long-term project bikes for me. The others will be slower or less customized builds except for the CB650 Nighthawk, and mechanically, that will be the most difficult project I will embark on. Those three amigos are the only bikes I'm planning to keep long-term. And for the right offer, I would sell any of them except for the KZ650.

 

[rodpoa]

3D printing? Damm, another rabbit hole!

 

[BoilermakerFan]

3D printing? Damm, another rabbit hole!

Kind of... it's more of a means to an end for me... I can print prototypes of custom parts I design for the motorcycles to test the fit before CNC machining. I'm also planning to print body parts and fenders before finishing them with 'glass or carbon fiber/kevlar. 3D printed parts aren't as strong as injection molded parts, but with an epoxied on composite skin, they'll be fine.

I'll print parts for some of my other hobbies too, like custom feet and knobs for my audio amp builds. I'll probably prototype some headphone cups for a custom pair or two I plan to build.

But right now I'm just printing models and new 3D printer parts I've downloaded off Thingiverse.




Our weather is still ****. It's been raining almost every other day or third day so the ground isn't drying out. I can't move stuff out of the garage to get anything done until it dries out enough. Getting really frustrated with this weather pattern.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Our weather continues to ****. I think we've had rain 24 days out of the past 30. And on Saturday it's supposed to snow with 1-3" of accumulation.

I did pick up five more linear actuator legs on Thursday with two control boxes. One is a 3-Channel and one is a 2-Channel so I tried to link them together with an ethernet patch cable. Neither set of legs moved. So I looked at the connector on the controller and it only had 3 wires in it. I made a little patch cable that mirrored the wire locations in the RJ45 jack, but I couldn't find my plug crimper. I know I have a really nice one with interchangeable jaws, I just can't find it anywhere. So I'll have to bring the cable over to a buddy's place to crimp the two connectors. Hopefully this patch cable will work. Otherwise I will have to cut the cord on the controller and add a second RJ45 jack in a Y arrangement to operate both control boxes from the one controller.

My plan is to use the five legs under my steel workbench top in the garage. The five legs combined will lift 785 pounds. They will be arranged in a U pattern. The 3-ch control box will have the Left front, Center rear, and Right front legs on it. The 2-ch will have the Left & Right rear legs. That way if the motion is off a little bit the workbench top will still raise and lower. I need to have some 1/2" steel plate cut and machined to mate up to the existing 1/4" plates so that I can join the two actuators on each side into one larger piece and add strength. The rear center will also be beefed up. Before I commit to the steel, I will use a piece of 1x4 wood as the beta test.

My garage is still a disaster too because of the weather. I'm going to buy the cheap HF welder cart to just get the welder out of the box and off the floor. Once the garage is cleared out more I can finally pick up the Milwaukee tool chest and get the dimensions off to ZT-Fab for my welder cart conversion. I really can't wait to get that done so all of my tools will be in one place in the garage and put away.

Oh, I did grab a CertiFlat 30" x42 fab table top from WeldTables. I'm just waiting for it to ship. It will be mounted to the big single column lifting actuator and I'll add the heavy duty leveling casters to the base of the setup so I will have a nice work surface.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

The jumper cable between the two control boxes didn't work. As soon as I plugged it in the set of legs immediately started to extend. That was interesting. So now I have to put together another set of cables to split the connections into two leads, one for each control box. Hopefully that works; otherwise I will have to dig deeper into how to send the signal to both control boxes at the same time.

My CC was compromised... they caught two unauthorized charges for a grand total of $13. The bad part is I had to close that card so now I'm waiting on my new card before I can order my exhaust for the KZ650.

Today my son and I ran errands for half the day, returning things and picking up supplies for the dogs and chickens. Oh, and I bought my TurboTax software today so I started on my taxes this afternoon. Yeah, I wait until the week before to do them. If I have to pay, I'm not mailing in the check until the last possible day anyway.

I also spent a few hours last night and this afternoon purging old magazines and project plans that I'll never build. I always keep plans that I come across for a couple years and go back and look at them again to decide if I will really ever attempt to build them once I have the garage and basement hobby shop in order. Some I end up keeping because they still interest me or I can modify them to my needs. Others I just recycle. The ones I decide to keep go into a pile to be scanned into PDFs that I edit and crop. Then I recycle the originals. Now that I have the new wireless printer/scanner and fast laptop, it's a pretty easy process to do. So I will begin scanning them in this week, a few at a time each evening.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Woohoo! My WeldTables Fabtop shipped yesterday and should be arriving tomorrow. The great news is, no archery and no lacrosse this weekend; plus the taxes are done!

So I should get some time out in the garage on Saturday to hang some plywood and get things better organized. I'll post pics of the fabtop once I have it in the garage.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

So guess what it did Friday night and pretty much all day Saturday except for about an hour? I'm so tired of rain. And then the temp plummeted today with very scattered showers.

My garage's current state is: Disaster. It's packed.

I'm watching the extended weather forecast. If we have two days in the 70s with no rain on either side, I'm going to take two days vacation so I can clean out the garage, get my outboard engine stands built, and get the plywood arranged for the walls and ceiling so I can at least hang a sheet or two each night after work.

I will also admit that the thought of just selling this house and moving to another house with a proper garage and/or shop has occurred more than once in the past couple of weeks during all of the rain. Houses in our neighborhood are selling quickly and for a lot more than they were 3 years ago when we had our house for sale to move locally. Unfortunately, there isn't anything popping up for sale in the area that I would be willing to move to and we don't have the time to deal with building a new house. I have shared the house I want to build in the future, but the plan is to build that house with the barn garage attached via a mudroom somewhere we want to live for the rest of our lives (or at least into our late 60s) on a few acres of land. SW Indiana is not that place.




Last week I did get the horrid logo off my 3D printer enclosure and I put a few stickers on it:

I left the main area in the center clear because I will probably cut that section out for a window so I can look in when it's closed up and running. That will also eliminate the ghost of the old logo... it will be cut out. I have a couple nice sized pieces of 3/8" thick Lexan so the window will rigid and with a rubber trim gasket around the opening, the window won't vibrate or pass too much noise through it. I'll add LED string or strip lights inside so I can see in and the web cam connected to OctoPrint will have plenty of light for a clear picture.

I need to further mod the enclosure besides just the window and lighting. It will get sound deadening mat on all surfaces and a 3/8" thick steel plate on the underside for installing legs or a pedestal base with leveling casters. I'm planning to build the 600mm Z-axis version of the RailCore II so I need to remove the divider shelf and raise it up about 3". I'll still have room to store a few spools of filament in the top section, but the storage capacity will be drastically reduced from the 16 spools that fit in there now. I'll have to lay the spools on their sides so they'll need bearing mounted carriages so the filament can be easily unspooled by the printer's extruder. I think 6 spools will still fit on their sides. I may just leave the divider out and build a spool storage rack out of aluminum extrusion and mount it to the top of the enclosure, then add small gas struts to allow the top to still open but support the weight of the spool enclosure on the top. We'll see how much room is left inside once I have the final height of the 600mm RailCore design.


My trials with operating two separate Linak linear actuator control units wasn't going well until tonight. They do not daisy chain and wiring two output leads split from the one controller didn't work either. So tonight I tested the leads to determine which wires actually make the actuators go up and down. Once I had that sorted, I dug into my box of old **** and pulled out a 2 N.O. contact block for 30mm push buttons/selector switches. I can stack two of the 2 N.O. blocks behind a momentary spring to center selector switch. They may not be perfectly in sync, but they will be close enough and I can put one of the anti-collision dongles in one of the controllers so if the two actuators start to get ahead of the other 3, they'll stop.

Anyway, here's a few pics of the test block. The blue wire is the common and either the green or orange wire is tied to the blue to make the legs go up or down, so I just have to jumper the blue wire to both sides of the contact block. Then the selector switch will activate one of the contacts. The test contact block worked when it was fully actuated, so I'll need to order logic level contact blocks when I order the selector switch and a legend plate. The logic level blocks have a little different contact design so they'll be easier to actuate with the selector switch.

All of this testing/development will allow me to use two different control units to operate a total of five actuator legs that will be installed under my steel workbench top out in the garage. I thought about welding the actuator mounting frames to the underside of the bench top, but I've decided to buy a birch butcher-block island top from Menards and use it as an intermediary piece between the bench top and actuators legs. This will allow the installation to be removable and it will deaden/support the steel bench top. The bench is a hand-me-down so it already has a few holes in the bench top surface. I'll weld the ones I don't need closed and just drill a few more holes where I need them, then screw the top down to the butcher-block sub-base. The five actuators can lift 785 pounds, so the extra weight of the butcher-block isn't a problem. I won't be using the height adjustment once I put a heavy load on the bench and the heaviest things I plan to put on it are motorcycle engines and bare frames that are being modded, so I doubt I'll be approaching the max weight of the setup anyway.

 

[bj383ss]

Bmaker,

Sorry to hear the weather is cooperating for you. I totally understand the motivation to go out and do something in the shop and the weather being a hurdle. My time for this is July/August when the temps here rival the Sun. Hope you figure something out and squeeze in some QST.

Bret

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Bmaker,

Sorry to hear the weather is cooperating for you. I totally understand the motivation to go out and do something in the shop and the weather being a hurdle. My time for this is July/August when the temps here rival the Sun. Hope you figure something out and squeeze in some QST.

Bret

Thanks Bret. It's been very frustrating.

A MCM time capsule house went on the market in the area I like in town. It's a foreclosure sale so the kitchen appliances are missing, but the bathrooms are original except the floors. My wife and I are going to go look at it just to see how much work it would be to get it back in proper shape. I'm also concerned there isn't room for a shed in the backyard. The house has a 2-car attached garage and my wife insists her Pilot gets to park inside, so I would need a big shed for the motorcycle fab work. If there is room to add on to the garage or add a shed, we may just pull the trigger on this place because we could definitely get our investment back out of it within 3-5 years.

 

[Grumblebum]

The old weather preventing play. I had that also last weekend, we had high winds gusting up over 50mi for a few hours.

The bench w/actuators will be cool, especially when welding strange angles etc you'll be able to adjust the work piece height easily.

Hope to get some 3D printing gear at some point. Aldi have had basic units pop up a couple of times now.

Cheers GB

 

[BoilermakerFan]

The old weather preventing play. I had that also last weekend, we had high winds gusting up over 50mi for a few hours.

The bench w/actuators will be cool, especially when welding strange angles etc you'll be able to adjust the work piece height easily.

Hope to get some 3D printing gear at some point. Aldi have had basic units pop up a couple of times now.

Cheers GB

Yeah, it's been a real PITA. We're not supposed to have any precip for the next 5 days and my son will be out on a band trip all day Saturday. We have an archery tournament on Sat. at Noon, but the school is less than 5 minutes away so I'm planning to get some QGT on Saturday for sure.

My new plan is to get everything out of the garage, including the big bench for the basement so I can rearrange it and route the grooves in the workbench top for the T-Slots. Then I'll rearrange the plywood to be on the walls where it will be hung and put the ceiling plywood around the perimeter of the garage so I can grab it easily to hang it. I need to frame the ceiling at the very back of the garage to add the supports for storage and a few other things, so again, the plan is to just get everything laid out and ready to install.

Hopefully this will let me make progress a little each night moving forward.


And we're probably going to go look at the MCM house for sale, but it has some issues that may not be worth the effort to deal with. The biggest issue I see is that it has a rubber membrane roof with rock on it like a commercial roof. I need to investigate how hard they are to maintain and how difficult they are to replace with a steel raised seam roof.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

The bench w/actuators will be cool, especially when welding strange angles etc you'll be able to adjust the work piece height easily.

Hope to get some 3D printing gear at some point. Aldi have had basic units pop up a couple of times now.

Cheers GB

Hit submit before I was done...

I thought about putting actuators under my fab table top, but even with TIG, I'm not sure I want the current having a possible chance to flow down to them or the the controller, so I think I will just use manual crank legs if I make it adjustable.

The workbench will be for relatively clean assembly and fabrication fitment use and with the solid top the actuator legs will be protected. My eventual plan is to add aluminum extrusion with unibearing sliders so that I can adjust the height, then lock it in place with the unibearings so I can beat on it without damaging the legs.

The 3D printing is really fun. I'm just waiting for the plans to be posted for the big 300x300x600 RailCore II so I can start the process of gathering parts and printing parts for it. I'm really excited about moving to designing my own custom parts in CAD, then printing prototypes for fitment before machining them out of aluminum or steel. For bodywork, I can design it in CAD, then print the core on the 3D printer before wrapping it in composite or 'glass. This technique will yield much more consistent results than shaping foam and it will be stronger too.


Speaking of doing the composite layups, I found this cool thing at a thrift shop:

I had no idea what it was and neither did the shop owner. I knew it was a vacuum vessel by the gauge and it's all nickel alloy steel (but not 304 or 316 SS). I asked how much he wanted for it and he said $10. I said sold and paid cash.

Turns out the thing is an air quality sampling vessel. A full vacuum is applied and it is set up to **** in air at a rate that basically gives it 24hours of continuous sampling time to detect hazardous VOCs. The collected sample would then be put into an analyzer. The sell new for $550-$700!

I'm going to clean in with helium and argon to make sure no nasty VOCs are still inside, even t hough the valve was wide open. You just put it under pressure up to 35psi and the gas will back purge the inlet sampling regulator to clear it out of any trapped VOCs or other neasty gasses.

I bought it for the gauge, but I also knew I could repurpose it to be a vacuum accumulator for my future DIY vacuum bagging setup. The vessel will be in the vacuum line to hold additional vac so the pump won't run if there are any small leaks.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

My son had to be at school at 6:30am this morning for a band/orchestra trip to St. Louis for a competition, then they had free time at the Galleria Mall and Six Flags. He didn't get home until Midnight. So that gave my wife and I the day to ourselves.

Except I had to get to the BMV this morning to renew the plate on my CX500 because I have a Historic plate on it so I have to sign an affidavite in person each time I renew... Then to be at an archery tournament at 11:15am for a Noon flight time, but I was home by 1pm. Also got my Forester in to the dealer for a LOF and tire rotation at 3pm. So I didn't have anywhere near a full, uninterrupted day to work on the garage...

Because of the band/orchestra trip, I only had 3 archers shooting the tournament. One of the sixth grade girls has really been improving lately and she shot a dead-center 10X at 15M on her second arrow. She punched out the X in the middle! She was so excited she followed the perfect 10 with two 5s. Oh well, the X shot was awesome, so I took a pic to send to her mom and dad (her dad was one of those dad's that was really pushing her and trying to over coach her... until I had him shoot with us one practice and he discovered how hard it is to shoot the bows they use):

But my priority today was to get the CX500 running after it's long winter slumber. She's a very cold natured bike so I drained the battery twice trying to get her started. I was concerned I had a coil or CDI issue, but after the third charge on the battery she started. The wife and I enjoyed a nice ride out to the next town over on the back road along the river and back. The CX isn't running well so I need to pick up Murray's Carbs Coil-On-Plug conversion kit, Murray's Mikuni VM34 carb kit, and Rae San's full Hall replacement ignition for the bike. That will eliminate my issues and give me more power and torque as well. My wife loves the CX but she hurt her back in November so she can't take the ABATE class and get her own endorsement now. So I'm going to keep the CX in the herd and slowly continue to customize the bike, but keep it a 2-up setup. A fork rebuild and new rear shocks are on the short list after I get new tires on it in a couple weeks.

I did get a little done in the garage though. I cleaned up my loft storage and rearranged my motorcycle frames and totes to free up a lot of space:

I have room for two more totes now, plus all of my spare wheels, swing arms and chopped frame sections. I'll use the frame sections for fabbing a custom rear inner fender/under seat pan for the KZ650 and the parts I need to scab the Intercepter swing arm and monoshock mount to a CB650 Nighthawk frame. The partial frame sections are from donor bikes and will make the work much easier without risking my good frames to any "hiccups" along the way.


The garage looks much cleaner right now:

It's kind of an optical illusion; the GL1100 and KZ650 are locked up out in the driveway. I needed them out of the garage so I can access the attic storage and have room to move the other stuff out of the way. Tomorrow I'll be able to get a few more totes out of the way, then sort through things to purge more stuff out of the garage. Hopefully tomorrow night I'll have pics of a much more organized and clean garage. The plan for tomorrow is to also get grooves routed in the basement workbench top so I can install the T-Track and get that sucker finished except for the addition of the hanging drawers which will be built later. I have a template for the top already that has all the mounting points marked to make it easy to install on the finished bench once it's done.

My plan after the bench is out of the garage is to start tearing down the GL1100 to get it stripped down to the bare frame. I'm going to sell the bare frame as a titled frame and have my other frame powder coated. Then I can swap in my '83 swingarm when I get both back from powder coating and start the process of rebuilding the fork, brakes, doing the PM on the engine, etc. I need the GL torn down and out of the way for the room to do the maintenance on the KZ650 to get it road worthy by June. I'm hoping to have the GL back together as a running naked bike by early October.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

We all slept in today since my son and I were up so late last night.

Today my son had a lacrosse game at 1pm at a school about 20 minutes away so we had to leave at noon to be there no later than 12:30. We got home a little after 2:30pm and it was starting to rain, but that didn't stop me form getting in some serious QGT! (It was a nice, light, intermittent rain)


Yesterday evening I finished the day with this mess behind, next to, and in front of the bicycles:

So the first order of business was to move the bicycles and clear out the stuff. Most of it was stuff that needed to be put away correctly. A tote of camping gear went into the pop-up, motorcycle wheels and other parts went up into the storage loft and one tote will be sorted as I empty it. Then I cleared out a spot behind the garage under the eve for the Gravely. Pushed the Gravely out into the driveway, blew it off really good, and put air in the tires; then pushed/pulled it to it's new home for the time being. That opened up a LOT of space so I put pieces of 2x4 down on the floor and started moving my plywood. I don't remember it being that heavy the night I unloaded it off the trailer.

Anyway, I got all of the 3/8" pieces stood up and on the wood blocks:

That opened a lot of floor space next to my workbench project:

I can even walk through the space at the back of the bench now:

I will stand up all of the 1/4" boards later this week on the wall to the right in the pic that has my dart board and bike hanging on it. I have to move the stack to lean against the workbench so I can get the lawn mower and few other things out of the way, then move the CX500 into the driveway so it doesn't accidentally get hit when I'm standing up the sheets. That will open up the rest of the floor space and allow me to separate the bead boards from the smooth plywood too.


Tonight after dinner I went back out and kept straightening this up. I had room to move the bicycles closer to the stack of plywood and moved my piece of good 3/4" maple plywood up onto the wood blocks behind the bikes:

My steel workbench got more stuff dumped on it, but I had to put it there for now so I could clear out more totes and open up the space in front of the metal shelves since a lot of the stuff on those shelves will be getting a new home or will be purged. The 2x wood standing up is for two outboard engine stands I need to assemble and the cross braces for my motorcycle work table. I'm picking up 6x6 solid oak legs for it from a buddy this week. That will knock out 3 more projects too.

I think that once I get the plywood up on the walls, I will only need 3 wall mounted cabinets to store everything I have on the metal shelving units except for two motorcycle engines. I think I can store all of my engines on a 4' wide heavy duty shelving unit if I buy the 24" or 30" deep side legs. At least that's my plan for all of the engines. I will have room for a 4' wide unit and the 56" long Milwaukee tool chest on the wall where the 3/8" plywood is stacked. I'll put the wall cabinets above the area where the tool chest will be and two shorter cabinets above the steel workbench. My parts washer may even fit on that wall too once everything is finished, which will be sweet if I does.

I will be giving away the 3 steel shelving units plus another one that I have taken apart. Once I purge, get the tool chest, and the wall cabinets, I won't need the steel shelves. I'm only keeping the two black wire NSF shelving units in the garage. I gave my neighbor a third black wire shelving unit since my wife decided she didn't want it for her classroom at school.

My goal with all of this organizing and purging is to hopefully be able to get all of my stuff to fit on just one side of the garage so that in the future, I know that my wife and I could peacefully coexist in a normal 2-car attached garage.


Here's the last pic of the garage as I left it tonight, much cleaner and more open floor space:

The column actuator in front of the CX500 has a new home in my storage loft, but I was too tired to haul it up there and I was using it as a stand for our JBL bluetooth speaker when I was working. Tomorrow evening I'll put it away.


The other little project that I finished up was the installation of a new ballast in my 3-bulb ceiling light and getting the internal covers reinstalled:

And I still haven't opened the box with my CertiFlat assembly table top from WeldTables, but their boxes arrive with a cool stencil painted on them:

I haven't decided what I'm going to do for legs for it yet. WeldTables has a nice steel leg kit for it, but I might put it on an adjustable height set of legs made out of 3" aluminum extrusion from T-Slots. I may try to design a folding leg setup for it to so that the top can be dropped down allowing me to store it in front of the 4' long heavy duty shelving unit so it will only take up about a 1'x4' area of floor space when not in use. I don't really want it to be a permanent flat surface table in the garage that takes up a 2.5'x3.5' area if I don't have too. We all know what happens to flat surfaces in our garages!

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Another 2 hours in the garage tonight...

I was able to get the rest of the plywood stood up and moved all of my other project materials to the same spot. I can get to the lawn mower again and I still have access to my bike.

Look at all that open floor space! Ah, feels much better.

The workbench project in the middle of the garage (under the burgundy sheet) will be finished soon so that will be out of the way. Now I have to work on moving some of the existing wiring so I can start putting up the plywood on the ceiling at the front of the garage. I have to frame in the supports at the back of the garage to pick up the last 4' of the roof rafters as storage space. That's not going to be a fun project so I will probably finish part of the walls at the front of the garage for about 2/3 of the length. I will probably have to buy a couple wall cabinets and hang them up to have a home for the stuff on the shelves that will be staying, but it has to have a home before I can take down the shelves. The shelves have to come out so I can finish the ceiling at the back of the garage.

Looks like I'll have a few months of garage Tetris (after the workbench project is out of the garage and in the basement) until I have everything finished, the new wall cabinets installed, the heavy duty racking for the engines in place, and the Milwaukee tool chests set up.

The great news is I will have enough room to put the 4' rack in for the engines on the side wall with just enough room to put the parts washer, tool chest, and workbench on that wall before the air compressor in the corner. I may end up moving the workbench to be more in the middle of the wall and put the parts washer right by the air compressor. That arrangement on the side wall should allow me to have just enough room on the back wall to put a fold up spray booth and the curing oven between the air compressor and the black wire shelving. The curing oven will be the trickiest thing to fit since it will so deep. I'm trying to keep it to the air compressor side of the garage so that there will be room to pull the Pilot in or put the camper in the garage in the winter.

Also, I have to keep the other side wall with the man door clear. My dart board is on that wall (and now buried under all of the plywood) so that's the side the vehicle or camper will go on so they can be easily moved out when I want to play darts. That is a non-negotiable item in this small garage!

 

[BoilermakerFan]

And going back several pages, here is a reference pic from December on just how much plywood was in the space between the bench and the wall:

Plus I had brought home several sets of linear actuators, the welder, lots of other materials and just added them to the garage... like I said, it was a disaster and I could barely walk anywhere in the garage. The improvements made this weekend are huge.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

It's been raining on and off since midday Sunday so yesterday my son and I ran by the MCM house that was for sale. I wanted to see if there were any water issues. Oh boy! Lots of leaks! The floor in the garage had a 6' diameter puddle in it. The covered patio at the back was essentially a pond. There was water in the basement that I could see through the window. All of the eves had signs of water and water damage. The back yard was a sopping, muddy mess. I suspected that would be the case, but it was worse than I imagined, particularly in light of the fact that we never really had any heavy downpours. When my son and I were peaking in the front door the realtor showed up to put a Sale Pending sign in the yard. I hope the new buyer got at least $20K off the asking price. I might have offered $30K less than the asking price if we really wanted the house. It's going to need a LOT of work to fix all of the water damage and eliminate the problems in the future. For the amount of work required and the location, I'm definitely glad we passed.

Then yesterday evening I got the garage opened up and blew out most of the remaining dust. I'd say I was able to get rid of 90% of the loose dust so that was a nice victory.

I had to teach last night and it was the last class of the semester before the final on Tuesday so I didn't get home until 9pm. I was too tired to head back out into the garage to start moving electrical boxes around.

 

[Strouty]

Looking good, isn’t it funny how you need to make a mess to clean up?

Keep at it, slow progress is still progress, at least that is what I tell myself.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Looking good, isn’t it funny how you need to make a mess to clean up?

Keep at it, slow progress is still progress, at least that is what I tell myself.

Thanks Strouty! Following along your journey has helped me since I know I'm not the only one struggling.

I'm really dreading the garage Tetris.

This morning my wife told me that she doesn't want to move until we move out of Indiana in a few years, so that at least helps with the motivation to work on this garage. I kind of stalled the real work for a bit since we had been looking at other houses for a possible move in the city. My wife's thought was that since houses in our area are selling fast and going up in value, we need to hang tight a bit and see how much they go up. Our area doesn't usually jump up quickly, but it always goes up steadily.

So that does help motivate me to put in the work on my current garage. Now I'm thinking about having one of the 20' containers dropped off so I can put the stuff from the basement in it while it gets refinished and then move all the garage stuff in to the container to grind the floor, stain seal it, and get everything finished on the walls and ceiling in a very condensed time frame.

The other idea I'm kind of kicking around is trashing my cheap 16' x 7' garage door, then set the block course down to make the door opening a 9'x7' or 10'x7' door to make the garage a proper 1-1/2 car garage that it is. The new door would be insulated and finished from the factory and that would give room to add the LiftMaster jack shaft opener. Plus I would gain 4 or 5 feet of wall space on the new wall which I could really use too. I suspect my wife will veto that idea until I say that it would allow her to actually park in the garage. That would get her attention. I have to make the decision on the garage door change before I buy new siding this fall.

 

[Bob Heine]

BF, while it's empty, you might want to insulate the walls and ceiling in the garage. Once the garage is insulated you can maintain a comfortable working temperature with a relatively small heater in the winter and even an A/C unit in the summer (or go big with split heat pump unit. That would make the space inviting regardless of the weather outside.