Got a couple more units reorganised in my basement, and a few things shuffled around. At present my table saw is more of a table than a saw but it's a work in progress. What's really useful is that I've made some space that I can use to clear out the space under an old sink that someone put in the basement for reasons unknown. It had a hot and cold water supply but the sink drained out... onto the floor in the corner. Obviously. As soon as I can get that cleared out the whole thing can go - I've disconnected all the pipes feeding it so I just need to clear it out and then figure how to get it up the stairs and out.
I found that the shelves in the cabinet I've been working on were pretty gross. I wiped them with a piece of paper towel and it came away black with no sign of disturbing whatever was on the shelves. I started out trying to wipe it away but then decided my sander would be a quicker tool. The round sander did the job but threw up a load of dust, so I used the square one instead. The square one has the big advantage that I can attach my shop vac to the back of it, which means virtually everything that the sandpaper removes gets sucked right into the separator. Now I have nice clean shelves that look like wood rather than something very dirty. It's almost time to start putting stuff in it.
Had a pleasant surprise at church yesterday. I went into the sanctuary after Sunday School and discovered they had removed all the ropes sealing off every other pew. So I got to sit in my favorite seat, the middle of the very first row.
Cool. We also had our first service with no restrictions although I could not attend as I was in the field for a site visit.
I've been super clumsy with my left hand over the last year for some reason. It's ok but it still does not bend like it should.
How you doing, Manny? Or as a friend of mine has started asking, "How's your walk?" Hope you and yours are all well, and enjoying the sweet peace of God.
Fun With Shredders. A friend gave me a paper shredder some years ago. It didn't work and he didn't have the tools to fix it. It looks like he lacked the tools to open it at all, given some of the screws were so deeply recessed it was almost impossible to get at them. I filed an old screwdriver so it would fit down the holes and turn the screws, and eventually got the thing apart. Then I found a circuit board that was faulty but I couldn't see which components were faulty. Before I threw the whole lot in the trash I figured I'd just disconnect everything and try to put power across the motor. The first attempt used a 12V power supply that got the motor to turn, albeit desperately slowly. From the components on the circuit board it looked like the motor took 28V so I expected it to turn faster with 12V than it actually did. The next step was to wire it to one of the 20V batteries I use for my tools. That made it turn faster but still not as fast as I expected. Eventually I strapped three of the batteries in series, which makes it turn quite nicely and actually shred stuff. It looks like the circuit board was offering +28 and -28V, hence my 60V battery combo matched what the motor wanted. I wasn't sure what current it took - the components suggested anything up to 10A but looking at the wires it was obvious they wouldn't survive carrying 10A. Eventually it occurred to me that I have a multimeter that can measure current, so I put that across the circuit and found that when the motor is working hard to shred something the current maxes out at about 2A. So now I need to talk to a friend who knows more about electronics than I do, to see how easy it is to take 120V mains and turn it into a 60V DC power supply. Thus far I've got the shredder head - the blades, cogs and motor - mounted to a piece of board. Assuming I can rig a power supply together I'll put a simple chute on the underside to make sure paper chippings don't spray sideways too far, then I can mount it and let it shred directly into a garbage bag. It's really not pretty - everything is exposed and it lacks the kind of safety features you'd expect from a paper shredder (like automatic shutoffs, shields etc) so it will need to go somewhere it's not going to be found by curious fingers. Hopefully my friend can help me rig up a power supply that will support forward and reverse motion and some kind of basic on/off switch.
Today demonstrated that my new shredder head can destroy credit cards quite easily too. From the shape of the original lid I think it can probably destroy CDs but it's been a while since I used one of those.
Now I've got my work surface sorted out and lighted I've rediscovered the joy of tinkering with stuff. My bedside light is a converted oil lamp that has a turnkey light bulb holder in it, except the turnkey mechanism was broken. I took it apart, replaced the bulb holder, and now it works as it should. I found a couple of old mains powered clocks in a dark corner. I'd been meaning to fix them for ages but never got around to it, and now they are both working. I just need to find a space to put them on a longer term test, which can't be my work surface just yet because I don't have enough power sockets (that's a pending project, along with connecting the light over my work surface to the light switch for that room, freeing up another socket). I also fixed a mains powered wall clock we've been using that stopped working a few months back. It has been hanging on the wall saying 10:20 for a while, and now that seems to be operational again. I couldn't open the movement up to get at individual wheels without destroying stuff, so if this doesn't work I'll be looking at a battery powered unit to mount to the hands. I like the look of this clock and its dial so am keen to keep it operational.
General tinkering with fixing stuff today. We've got a screen door with a spring doodad to close it. For a while now it has been kinda-sorta-closing it. Often we'll go out and return to find the door is ajar because the spring didn't quite get there. Today I fitted a new spring, which works as it should and the door clicks shut every time. Then I tinkered with the power sockets next to my work bench. I had a double socket there, which wasn't enough. At present I have an LED strip light plugged into one outlet and that only leaves me one outlet for anything I'm testing, the shop vac, and anything else. So I took out the double socket and put in a larger box with two double sockets. At some point I imagine they will be connected to the GFCI-protected circuits I've got in the adjacent room but for now it's a nice simple case of two sockets powered from the same circuit. I've got a few odds like that - I've got one circuit that consists of one single socket and nothing else, another circuit that contains two sockets and nothing else, and so on. Some day I'll rationalise it all and free up some space in the breaker panel. At present I don't need the space, so no great urgency.