Daniel's Work Thread: Toward a Hackerspace Scanner

[rob]

The Elevator Dominator: Worst. Video. Evar.

[rob]

Wow, check out this interesting panel mover idea. Cheap, and I can easily make it on the CNC. I really like the idea... only downside is that it is currently more convenient for me to load sheets the "long way".

I'd think it would be inconvenient to have to push your 4x8 so that it takes up the most possible area of the hallway. Just steal a cart from Home Despot XD

Anyway, maybe one wheelie thing to get your wood off the truck, onto the cart, up the elevator, and into your space, and then a tippy thing that you can tip the wood onto and rotate it up onto the bed of the machine?

[daniel_reetz]

Hmm, a wheelie thing and a tippy thing. I could see something like that working.

I am really sorely tempted to buy the E.D. lol or the panel cart I linked earlier in this thread. They're expensive as hell but exactly what I need. I made a DIY panel cart today out of wood and it SUCKS.

That said, it's probably cheaper for me to make one. I'll draft something up.

[daniel_reetz]

I worked like crazy this weekend. Worked and worked and worked. Built and built. Cut and cut. Kits are drawing close, now. But I worked so hard I kinda went a little crazy. Today saw this video from my favorite artist, Tom Sachs. Good video.

[daniel_reetz]

Another idea: hand held laminate trimmer with a 1/4" flush cutting, bottom cutting bit. Set the depth to 3/4". With the motor off, push the trimmer around the groove. When a tab stops you, back up a bit, turn the motor on and then zip off the tab. Repeat. Easy-Breezy-Chuckaleezy.

I bought the Harbor Freight 1/4" trim router and a couple of those eBay bits. Hopefully it will all come in the mail this week. Currently building a dust separator can. After all the aggressive cutting the workshop is covered in dust and so are my insides. Ordering an upgrade filter from Wynn Environmental for my Delta 50-760 first thing tomorrow morning... my 1 micron Delta bag is absolutely shot.

[daniel_reetz]

Well, I haven't received my router bits or my new filter, though I did receive an awesome care package from jck57 containing some rope and some bungee cord.

So I'm working on other things - one of those is making a garbage can dust separator add-on for my dust collector. I am having serious dust issues in the workshop while cutting. I'm making a modified "Thien separator". Unfortunately I got almost to the finish of my first one and realized I made some pretty serious mistakes - it won't fit in the 20 gallon garbage can I bought. So I'm going to rebuild it. I'll take pics soon.

[daniel_reetz]

Throughout the process of developing this scanner, I've had problems with curves - there is some mention of it earlier in this thread.

As it turns out, CorelDraw (and many other apps) cannot export smooth curves. Instead, they export about ten bajillion line segments.

There is a commercial package to fix this, but I wasn't ready to pay just yet. Turns out the clear path from CorelDraw to VCarve is EPS. EPS is the only format that CorelDraw exports (and Vcarve imports) that totally preserves arcs and curves without breaking them into a million segments.

[daniel_reetz]

Ultimately, though, I think this means I need to commit to a better software package, like Solidworks.

[rob]

I'm not sure Solidworks is very good for 2D. I've never had a problem with Illustrator importing into VCarve. But I know how much you like Illustrator

[daniel_reetz]

Illustrator makes me suicidal. That said, I am expert-level with Illustrator. I just hate it for this task.

Made some concrete progress today.

Basically, my dust extractor is out of commission. This is because the filter bag is completely clogged with ultra-fine dust, chips, etc. I took the filter bag to a friend's house today - someone who had a giant air compressor. I did my best to blow it out, but it's still basically screwed. I have a wynn environmental nano-spun cartridge on the way to replace it, hopefully arriving midweek next week.

In the meantime, I needed to do something about the sheer volume of material going through the dust collection system. The basic problem is that a half-micron filter simply can't handle all the larger chips and dust, it is quickly destroyed. In a perfect world, I'd have a giant cyclone separator that would remove most of the dust and stuff before it gets to the filter, leaving only the ultra-fine dust (the stuff that grows tumors in your lungs). But the next best thing to a cyclone filter is a "Thien separator" designed by Phil Thien. I read about eleventy thousand badly written project blogs on building them, and finally just designed my own. Unfortunately it's a patent-applied-for design, so I can't make my files Open Hardware. But regardless, here is a picture of the device I built today:

philter_IMG_20120519_163101.jpg (54.1 KiB) Viewed 575 times

I have to wait for the glue/sealant to dry before testing, so I probably won't know how well it works until tomorrow morning. But I'm pretty excited to install it under my Delta 50-760 dust collector and see it collect chips.

Dust collection turns out to be a rabbit-hole of info and mis-info. I don't recommend reading too much. You'll just get bogged down.