Above 1200 Sq/FT The Salvage Garage

[Strouty]

I just did a stupid and I am paying for it...

DOT requirements are crazy, trying to update our MCS-150 info, I tried to do it a while ago, but the portal they use was "broken" and I forgot about it. So I am trying again, it says that you have to use new login info and create an account, so I login, enter my info and they say that my DOT number and PIN don't exist because I have to create a new login... I go to the .GOV website and it says click here for a new account, so I do, I login and enter all the info, lots more than I expected, then I have to verify myself, then I have to go through a few more steps... Then it says here is your new DOT number, so the link wasn't for a new MCS-150 login, it was for a new DOT number, mothafucka... Been on hold for almost two hours and assuming I won't ever get a representative. Still not sure how to update the original info as it seems they make you go to one portal, then use another portal to login, then back to the original portal and then you enter a wormhole and end up on Alpha Centauri.

I am hopeful that it can be fixed without losing our original number. I will also say that the DOT vultures got my info the second it was registered, got 15 calls in about one minute and a dozen emails, all pretending to be DOT I am sure, trying to make you pay for services that are free or not required. Although at this point it might have been cheaper to pay one of them to file my "free" update...

 

[Strouty]

I gave up and went to the "chat" feature, started out I was number 60 in queue and it would be an average wait time of 20 minutes, wish I had just done that first, but now I am number 45 in queue and the average wait time is now 26 minutes, so I am still over 20 minutes...

At least it bounces around in real time, wish me luck...

 

[Strouty]

I am chatting with Mariah now, so far she is very slow and not helpful at all.

Responses to a simple yes or no question take minutes to get. At least so far it appears that the original DOT number is still active.

 

[Strouty]

This is awesome, they can't delete the second DOT number, they have to merge the two and then we have a "primary" and a "secondary" number. In order to do this I have to submit articles of incorporation, the original IRS EIN notice, and my driver's license, at least they still accept faxes...

 

[reader2580]

How many years ago was it that you were going to purge? You guys are owned by your stuff, not the other way around.

I got rid of a bunch of stuff, but nowhere near enough. The siding for my new garage was installed last week so that freed up a lot of space. I took the day off work tomorrow to clean out my passenger car garage. I have leftover building materials I need to sell or give away. I want rid of the stuff more than I want the little bit of money I could make.

 

[Strouty]

I get to that point as well, gone is almost always better than the selling hassle. I wish I had been better prepped for the auction, but I wasn't. Hopefully there will be one in the fall, that would be much better timing for sure. Good luck tomorrow Reader2580.

 

[Tommo3]

That would just be stupid.

A bit harsh, my suggestion would be far less likely to failure either of the structure or project. Also allows to keep building in a workable state if weather turns or other life disasters happen.

 

[Strouty]

A bit harsh, my suggestion would be far less likely to failure either of the structure or project. Also allows to keep building in a workable state if weather turns or other life disasters happen.

Except that all I had been talking about was doing 20' sections at a time, not once did I say I was going to lift the entire roof. Besides, I never know when you are full of it or not.

 

[Tommo3]

Except that all I had been talking about was doing 20' sections at a time, not once did I say I was going to lift the entire roof. Besides, I never know when you are full of it or not.

I've always been full of it ! The problem I envisage is that the shop will be torn apart while you pour a new stem wall and wait for it to cure and then build a taller wall section. However all who follow your thread know you have your own unique way of doing things so we follow with interest.

 

[Strouty]

To reiterate, I hate snow....

 

[walrus]

No snow here, rained most of day lightly. Forties most of the day. Wood stove in shop going though

 

[Strouty]

The damp cold always gets me.

 

[walrus]

Thats why the wood stove was going, its going in my house also. Tomorrow looks like **** also and next week not much better

 

[Firebrand]

You just need the right snow tools.

 

[Strouty]

Even that wouldn’t help me, we used all sorts of cool snow machines to get to the top of a mountain, so I could freeze my nuts off. I just associate those things with nasty working conditions.

 

[Strouty]

I am headed to the Salvage Garage with an empty trailer, I so want to put stuff on it, but I have no place to put anything yet. As for why I have an empty trailer, I blame the enabler, one that I won’t name, but they know who they are, going to get a 1998 Chevy truck with a blown motor. I think I will finally get to try out my winch mount, also bought a shiny new Harbor Freight winch, 1500 pound capacity should do it since it is on wheels, right???

 

[jack stand]

Who is this idiot?
I hope you mean 15k not 1500!

 

[Strouty]

So you don't think the 1500 pound version will work???


Typical overkill fashion, I went with the 12k one with the synthetic rope, definitely lighter than my Brother's with the steel cable. I still have to setup the power cords for it, I have to find my supplies and tools now.......

 

[jack stand]

I don't think any of your collectibles rolling or not would make it on your trailer with a 1500# winch. I
Go big or go home, Strouty style right.

 

[Strouty]

Of course I didn’t even need to use the winch, again. I can see that it will be useful in the future, but it probably would have been a RPITA as it needs a proper mount on the trailer. Will have to rework the toolbox to make that happen, but I will have to do it.

 

[xtremek]

I happen to like my Horror Freight Badlands winch (12k version), which surprised me. I've used it several times and worked really well. Pulled the pickup truck backwards while trying to load an 8"x40' i-beam onto the trailer (the beam was frozen in the ground). Good bang for the buck.

 

[jack stand]

I've noticed that the off road YouTube towing guys have several of them in various positions on their rigs and praise them.

 

[walrus]

Of course I didn’t even need to use the winch, again. I can see that it will be useful in the future, but it probably would have been a RPITA as it needs a proper mount on the trailer. Will have to rework the toolbox to make that happen, but I will have to do it.

Is the other side of that truck as nice as this side? For a Maine truck it looks pretty rust free?

 

[Strouty]

Is the other side of that truck as nice as this side? For a Maine truck it looks pretty rust free?

Looks can be deceiving...

It isn't too bad, the frame was all I was after, but there will be some decent parts beyond that.

 

[Strouty]

We have been messing with the 3 axis Bridgeport all afternoon, after figuring out the order of the plugs that were removed (by me), we got the computer to boot up. We can't get the spindle to work and it almost seems like the motor is bad. We get the exact same results in high gear, low gear, forward, reverse, or any combination, including neutral. The controls have two starters, one for forward, one for reverse, they both chatter and try to spin the motor, but do not succeed. We were worried that it was the RPC as we have unequal legs with 210, 220, and 240, for voltages, but we ran another 50' of cord and started up the other 2 axis Bridgeport with no issues at all. Both have the same 2HP motor and both are wired for the low side voltage, we did check that, no corrosion, no loose wire nuts, nothing looked bad. Tomorrow we are thinking about trying to use the control from one BP to try and start the other one.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

So far we have tested the RPC on my lathe and the other BP with no issues, so I really don't think that is the trouble. I need to see what the 2 axis spindle feels like when trying to turn it by hand, the 3 axis (problem one) turns hard, then gets easier, then back to hard again, but we were thinking that the belt may have a spot in it from sitting in one place for two years.

 

[DennisK59]

Is the internal motor wiring set up for 440V?

 

[Strouty]

No, everything was set for 230, I saw it running on a static phase converter before I bought it, it was definitely 240 volt setup in a residential house. No where in the control box or motor is anything set for high voltages, that was the first thing we checked. I actually looked at the schematic and checked the numbered wire pairs inside the cover on the motor. We also moved all the legs around just to see if having the voltages in a different spot would change anything. After we test some things tomorrow we should have more answers than questions, at least I hope it works out that way.

 

[Strouty]

We ran an extension from the known good Bridgeport to the motor on the one with the issue and it fired right up, just like it should. At least now we know it is something in the control side, having both forward and reverse magnetic switches not engaging makes me think it is before those, but we are going through the wires now.

 

[Cane]

Have you checked the motor overloads on the bottom of the starter. If it's a old cutler hammer you may have a bad solder pot.

 

[Strouty]

We may have found the issue, the main transformer is set for 208 volts, not 240, I didn’t think a static phase converter would be setup that way, but I guess it could be? Going to try that next, there were a couple not totally tight wires, but nothing that would wreak havoc like what we have. If that isn’t the issue, then we are going to have to do a lot more work as everything is buried in there.

 

[Strouty]

After we swapped from 208 on the transformer to 240, the computer screen developed this rolling wave effect and it didn’t change anything with the motor. We swapped it back. We pushed in the contactor for forward and it will lock and engage, same thing for reverse. We decided to see if the axis motors are functional and found a new issue, the cord has been cut off and it doesn’t appear to go anywhere on the inside of the control box. Trying to determine if they were using an external parallel port or not, but there isn’t even another end of the cable, like it never existed. Very weird.

 

[Strouty]

We figured out the random cable end issue, it was simple and stupid easy, I had two different keyboards one was the newer style PS2 mini DIN and the other was an older 5 pin DIN, they had upgraded to the newer style, but since we had the wrong keyboard and they had left the old cut off cable in place it wasn't obvious until it was. Now we have everything so all the axis functions work, but the motor for the spindle will not start. We are getting a weird voltage reading inside the control box from the output of the RPC, one leg is reading 245, one is reading 222, and then the last one is 120? If you read the voltage directly off the phase converter it is not like that, it reads 245, 222, 210 for each leg. We are investigating the cord end right now.

 

[Strouty]

If you had told me what the problem was yesterday I would have told you that you were full of it. The cord end had a small piece of the rubber insulation in with the wire. Fixed that and it works like new. I guess we learned a lot about too many things, always start simple...

 

[Old Man Roger]

UUUGGGG. lol

 

[Strouty]

At least we got it figured out before we ripped apart all the electrical components in the control panel.

 

[zanyad]

I feel ya. Chasing gremlins in a FANUC control at work the past few days....

 

[Strouty]

We ended up changing the transformer voltage to 230 from 208, the screen looked fine and the output voltages were pretty decent. We may try 235 and see if it is any better.

 

[Strouty]

I made an early morning trip to get some more pallets, yes I know, these were different ones, so I had to have them...

Anyways, today is going to be outside work, some at the Salvage Garage and then some at the Hill, tomorrow should be inside stuff at the SG, going to finish setting up the 3 Axis Bridgeport and try to actually do a couple projects, well, pieces of bigger projects. I want to start getting things done rather than shuffling things around or putting them off.

Last night was a big event for my QR codes, I found a program that would let me add two text files to each of the 10,000 folders I created in dropbox, it took about 20 minutes, but it is done. Next step is to figure out how to automate the process of getting the dropbox links from each folder. I don't want to have to do it 10,000 times, but if I have to I will.

 

[Strouty]

Went to unload the new pallets from the pickup truck and the forklift wouldn't start, guess what one of today's projects is?

Frustrating for sure and it really messes up my plans, but I need to have that thing so I can start it when I need it. Just one more thing of the many...

 

[Strouty]

The forklift was functional again, not totally back together, but usable. We reworked some wires and found a bad ground wire, between that stuff and replacing the starter, hopefully it will stay working. It is going to be a wait and see scenario as this only happened a couple times over the last couple months, but it was always at a bad time to have a forklift not start.

Also did a few other things, we ended up moving some Lista cabinets around at the Hill, now I have to deal with that mess. At least I am starting to feel like things are moving in the right direction for a change. One thing to note, today was auction day and I wasn’t there. Although I did acquire a few things from Marketplace, but it was stuff I intended to buy, not oops I bid on that…