pushbuttons, toggles, and damfoolishness

"Inside every project are a bunch of smaller projects, trying to get out." - anon

 Damfoolishness first.  I had a careless/clumsy moment, the drive box hit the floor, and the power switch broke its fall:

 The toggle switch is a strange one from Tektronix, because I now perceive the baton was hollow plastic, not metal.  Sheesh.  Fortunately, the switch type is nothing special, and they are cheap.

 Next, the buttons.  I've been thinking about safety a lot lately, started making small tweaks around the shop.  Everything short of putting guards on my machines, heh-heh.

 One of the things that came to mind is this: suppose your spouse or neighbor hears you hollering for help (because your lathe has grabbed your hand, and wrapped your arm around the work, breaking it in seventeen places). They rush in and want to help.  How do they turn off the machine?  Maybe they've never seen a machine tool in their life, or maybe its your spouse but they just never made a study of the thing.

 You know what all those buttons, knobs and levers do - they don't.  There's eighteen of them on the mill.  And you're probably hollering (I'm being optimistic) so they're panicky.

 OSHA and other agencies worldwide solved the access-to-dangerous-spaces (where the whirling bits are) the best they could with movable shields, light curtains, NO FOOT PEDALS, dual hand buttons and so on.  But just in case, every machine has an Emergency Power Off which is larger than all the others, orange or red, and typically on a yellow background.

 I bet your machine doesn't have shields or light curtains.  Mine sure don't.  ^_^

 Well, my lathe had a red mushroom-head stop button when I got it, but it could use better labeling. It's a bit of a reach too because they put all the buttons at the back of the headstock instead of the front somewhere. That will get fixed when I move it which I need to do soon.

 The mill had a turn-to-select knob controlling power to the rotary phase converter, specifically this one:

 I wanted to change it to a modern EPO type mushroom head.  These were my options from what I had in my parts drawers:

 The big one on the left is a drop-in for the existing switch, but it is so big, it would cover up the "PUSH OFF" text on the tiny little Hoffman box the switch is in.

aside: those old Telemecanique panel components are
super easy to install, change parts on, change functions...

 The next one to the right was no good because it's a momentary button, which is no good - only useful in telling a relay to drop out, but that's not what we want.  We want positive actuation of the actual switch contacts.

 The next one is exactly what we want; when it is pushed in, it positively holds the contacts open.  Pull to run, and it too is a drop-in replacement.

 But the complete replacement from Itek on the far right has one thing going for it, which I like: you don't turn the power back on by pulling, you reset it by turning.  Howsomeever, I would need to buy new contacts for it, I would need to embiggen the hole slightly, and right now, the Telemecanique block is the ground for the whole box, very convenient, digs into the metal, no extra holes.  So it doesn't seem worth the trouble.

 In the end, I went with #3.  To change it, the switch/lamp panel mounting body has to be loosened slightly - two straight blade jack screws on the inside of the panel.  Then the switch/lamp/whathaveyou bayonets out, new actuator/lamp/whatever bayonets back in, re-tighten those two jack screws and you are done.  Voila:

I wish it had better labeling; at least my block printing is legible.

 I had to change the contacts too, but I had spares.  It's one mounting screw per pole, they have good performing, easy to access wire clamps.  AFAIK, none of their kit is made the same way any more, more's the pity.*

 By the way, the reason this switch is in such a rugged, sealed, flanged box is that the available fault current from this circuit is several hundred amps before the breaker (motor time delay type) trips, which translates to a released power of 43,200 watts minimum.  That's a lotta calories while that breaker decides if this new load is a big motor or a short cirtcuit.  If something shorts in that box, the flanges direct any arc flash or other ejecta away from the operator.

It's not paranoid to try to do a good job while keeping a weather eye on possible futures.
______
* I believe this entire line of products was rendered obsolete by a Euro-initiated safety standard which disallows any conductive parts passing through the panel, which is most of the Telemecanique devices.  D'oh!

 ~≈{👁}≈~

such power cord! many thought! wow! very trivia!

 This is about the power cord for the mill's power table feed.  This power cord goes between the motor drive housing on the side of the column to the power outlet.

 The original cord, dating from the mid-70s, was in astonishingly good condition.  After being exposed to cutting fluids etc for decades, it shows not the slightest amount of cracking or crazing.  The jacket is still quite flexible, the conductors inside are as well.  I could have re-used it...

 But it has paint and oily grime on it, and I am out of acetone, so I can't remove those things.  And with all the effort I've made to clean up all the parts, I can't have an ugly power cord hanging off it.

 It has a regular plug, and because the cord hangs down from a height, I prefer to make the plug a right angle type.  So I would be cutting off the original plug anyway.  I wanted one gauge larger of wire (from 16 to 14) anyway, and I wanted a little more flexibility, so I decided to replace the factory cord with SOW, which I have plenty of, on-hand.  It's black tho, and the original cord matched the machine's paint.  Sad face.

 But the SOW is larger in diameter than the factory cord and will not fit the original 3/8-ish cable gland on the housing.  Fine, okay, I found a cable gland of the right size (my last one) in my parts piles.

 Cleaned up one old one, installed one new one, got cables into glands, realized they now need to be swapped to fit the new arrangement of guts.  Thankfully I realized this before I started soldering.

 So, remove cables, remove glands, swap glands, re-insert cables. You have to put the glands into the box in a specific order, and tighten the first one before installing the second, otherwise, you can't get both of them tight...

 I'm actually still waiting for the pilot light (a maybe, I may not like the part when it arrives) so when that is finally selected and installed, I can do a proper and final fit test, to make sure it doesn't hit any of the parts on the mounting panel.

 It occurred to me that collector mindsets being what they are, some future owner may want the original power cord, so I'm keeping it around, and I'll clean it up when I have more acetone.

Now I am waiting for the rt. angle plug to arrive (and many other things besides).

EDIT, later: rt. angle power plug had been installed.  Turned out I ordered the wrong diameter pilot lights, so that item is still open.

 ~≈{👁}≈~

What are fiducial marks and does my banker need to know about them?

What's wrong with this picture?

It's subtle; There are two dots, they're supposed to be red.

 When I first took apart the power table feed for my mill, and removed all the guts from the mounting panel, I noticed whoever had made it hadn't cared to make the mounting panel's drilled holes symmetrical and mirror-image.  It went in only one way.

 To save myself time flipping and spinning the panel later to find the right orientation, I put "fiducial marks" on the housing and plate.

 And then one day when I was reassembling everything, and realized it was time for a fit check... oh.

Haha: everything fits!  Provided I spin the plate 180º because I forgot about the problem when I started rebuilding.  Oops.

 Well, the simple solution is to drill out the holes.  This bugs me because inevitably, one of the holes will show some hole under the screw head... where no one will ever see it... but I'm a bit anal-retentive, if you haven't noticed.

 On the very other hand, you can see where I already had to re-drill this plate for the motor drive heat sink.  (JB Weld, The Hole Eraser) Perhaps I oughta make a whole new mounting plate... I probably won't... but you never know...

 And then there's the preventably random engine turning on the plate... the plate no one will ever see again... but it bugs me. I was probably thinking "no one will ever see this again".

 The point is to do a better job of everything than the factory did in the 1970s.  I'm trying.

 All this stuff would go a lot faster if I didn't hurt all the time. And if I could still multi-task.

 ~≈{👁}≈~

Huot drill indexes, another unsolicited attaboy

  Many of my readers will share my desire to buy American-made tools whenever possible, unless it means sacrificing quality. Sadly, yes, there are a tiny few American companies that either make junk, or have a mixed bag of quality.

 But this post is not about them.

 Huot Manufacturing has been around for a hundred years.  Literally; they were founded in 1926.
They literally invented the drill index, and to this day, those are among their most popular products.  100% made in St. Paul, MN.  They aren't even outrageously expensive.

 I just paid around $60 for this index which has three sections for fractionals from 1/64 to 1/2 by 64ths, numbered drills from #60 to #0, and the lettered drills from A-Z.

 Herewith my on-arrival review. 
As usual, I bought this with my own
money, Huot doesn't know I exist, I am
not for sale, my opinions are 100% my own. 

The only other times I review something is if
something on it breaks sooner than I expected,
or I realize I've owned something for twenty years
and it has quietly done its job without breaking or
getting in my way, and that too deserves a mention.

granted, I only have two or three letter drills, so far...

  This replaces two indexes I had for fractionals (a Craftsman) and numbered (Harbor Freight).  It also adds an index for letter drills, which previously just rolled around in the drawer.

some differences:

    • the HF index has the thinnest steel for the housing, by just a few thou vs the other two.  OTOH
      the racks inside are paper-thin, and it's paint is falling off; typical for the source (and the drills
      that came with it are as hard as a bad day - no temper at all - will snap from a stern look, LOL)

    • the Huot index has a housing the same thickness of steel as the Craftsman, and slightly thicker
      steel in the inserts / drill holder parts

    • the Huot index has a nice paint job, halfway between spatter and hammer tone.  For a minute,
      I wondered why it seemed a bit rough, until my senile old brain tumbled: it is non-slip even
      with greasy / oily hands, without being grabby or lint-collecting

    • the Huot arrived with two racks (out of eight, I think?) which had a bit of sharp punched / wire
      - edge which was sharp enough to cut, but both were easily deburred in less than two minutes
      with a small hand stone

    • despite it holding every standard drill used in America (metric indexes are a complete but seperate
      product line, and one I don't think I need) the Huot index still fits in the same tool chest drawer
      the other indexes did, with a bit of re-arranging, and it's real nice to be able to open that drawer,
      open one lid, and have all my drill bits easily accessed.

    • The old indexes A) did not open in a convenient direction and B) the tabs and wires meant to
      pull all the racks upright when you opened the lid never worked right, and got in the way more
      than they helped worked, so I cut the wire bail and filed off the tabs.  The Huot hasn't got that
      convenience feature (how would you even implement it?) and frankly, I consider that a fine
      thing and not missed.

    • Oh, I almost forgot a major feature of construction:

 Old 'n' Busted (old Craftsman index) is on the left.  Both it and its Harbor Freight cousin sport a "hinge" consisting of just two folded sheet metal tabs.  In all fairness, they actually did hold up okay for decades.  That doesn't mean it's not cheap construction.

 On the right, The New Hotness, the hinge on the Huot index. Not only does it sport a piano hinge, the hinge wire is staked every few tabs.  We've all had piano hinge objects from which the wire kept trying to migrate out one end.  This one will never, ever do that.  I was impressed with construction and finish.

 That's everything I liked and didn't like, without having used it, any at all, yet.  Right now, even allowing for my very few gripes above, my recommendation (if you're in the market) is to BUY HUOT.  If I discover any warts while using it, I'll post about them later, as usual.

 ~≈{👁}≈~

Ohhh, so that's why we bake the enamel one layer at a time!

That paint was harder than a bad day.

 I just now finished this.  It took me a lot longer than it should have.  The painting was routine.  Getting the paint off the lettering was not.  It turns out that baking enamel on as I do has the desired results - that stuff gets tough. It will not crack or chip, and it resists abrasion.

 I started with wet-sanding, but this went very slowly, even with nice, fresh/sharp, silicon carbide paper in a semi-course (200) grit.  Harrumph.

 Next I tried mounting it on the mill and running a little (sized for a Dremel) convolute abrasive point over it.  That seemed to move the paint around a bit.

 Finally, I decided to get aggressive; I put my largest fly cutter in there.  That did the trick.  Even so, it required multiple passes, and I had to touch up the 'ON', 'OFF', and the ®egistered Trademark symbol by hand-sanding with one of my paint-stirrer sanding sticks.

 The enamel finish was dulled in a couple of places by my carelessness during the first attempts to do it, and I haven't decided what to do about that.  First impulse is to mask off the shiny bits and just spray, but I worry the mask boundaries will look like dog yack.  Actually I think I will try wiping the dull spots lightly with acetone first.  We'll see.

Er, well, it turns out I own a buffer, with a selection of wheels and compounds.  I forgot. >_<  I'll mask off the lettering with aluminum tape and have a go with that, first.  We'll see, we'll see...

 The next step is wiring up the motor drive panel and its relays with the cable from the drive proper.  I'll need to cut back a bunch of the cable for service loop, and it's very tempting to insert a connector between electronic mounting panel and the housing with cables.  I like serviceability, even though I am  building this so it won't likely need serviceing again until the day it is scrapped for its iron. :(
(my ghost will haunt the person who does this, until I've driven them mad)

 I probably won't start that today because I have pain-brain.  I would probably cut the red wire instead of the blue wire and blow up the speeding bus. 😂 I need to think about the connector when I can think straight.  Oh shoot, I don't think I own a pair of crimper handles any more (the ones that accept different dies).  I'll have to look.  I think my regular ones (I had two) were in the tool kit that got stolen out of a rental property thirty years ago and I never replaced them because they are expensive.  Grump.

 I guess I'm competent enough to install the power cord, umbilical, and fuse holder into the box.  I might replace the plastic power cord with some nice SO cable. I have to give the original cable a hard look.  It doesn't move, so it's not as if it needs to be more flexible than the basic PVC, and the original power cord doesn't actually seem to have any age defects.  Perhaps I will let sleeping dogs lie.

 ~≈{👁}≈~

Does UV-C light speed polymerization of Boiled Linseed Oil? maybe a little)

 One camp says UV (such as in sunlight or from mercury vapor lamps - the shortwave stuff, not blacklights - hastens the curing of BLO, the other camp says no, only oxygen matters, and not even heat will speed up the process because it is not drying in the usual sense. Evidence - and I'm here to tell you that most woodworkers are not good scientists - suggests it's a little of each column.

 We are Fooling Around with every intention of Finding Out:

100 watts (electrical) of short-wave UV

 I actually put cardboard around it because I wanted to work near it, and use the bench, and even the stray scattered light from these things will give you - and your corneas - a sunburn, with bonus increased risk of skin cancer thirty years later.  Stay away from the evil-looking death light. :D

The strongest peaks in the mercury vapor spectra are:

Wavelength (nm)  Name  Color 184.45 ultraviolet (UVC) - !! 253.7 ultraviolet (UVC) - !! 365.0 I-line ultraviolet (UVA) 404.7 H-line violet 435.8 G-line blue 546.1 green 578 yellow
The brightest peaks are the UV, blue, and green lines, which is why it looks like an eery sort of blue-green color to our eyes.  The yellow line is weak, and I suspect we can all be grateful for that.  They used these in street lights (for you youngsters) before LEDs and before those, High Pressure Sodium.
UV light speeds polymerization of some resins, and with the UV-cure resins used in 3D printing for example, it can just be UV-A (blacklight, harmless).  But in theory, higher-energy photons should do a better job of polymerizing, right?  Well, we get higher-energy photons by going to a shorter wavelength.  Kids don't try this at home; shorter wavelengths (UV-B & UV-C) will not only sunburn your skin, they will sunburn your corneas.  (feels like sand in your eyes for weeks, and can cause permanent damage to your eyeballs.  You need goggles or UV-coated eyeglasses at the very least.  Thick glass lenses alone will stop UV-C, but for UV-B you need an anti-UV coating.  EDIT: early indications are that UV light may speed polymerization somewhat, it is not a dramatic effect, and not worth obtaining shortwave UV sources for this purpose; just use the sun, which also provides heat and fresh air which seem to be the primary oxidizers.  UV-C falling on some surfaces especially metal screens will create ozone, and it's possible that is the cause of UV having an effect for some and not others (people reporting online).  I did not notice any more ozone than usual - the lamp head is metal and the unit does make a small amount of ozone by itself.  And this limited effect was using a very nasty, hazardous, UV-C source which most people won't have access to anyhow.  If it's speeding up the polymerization only a little, there is no sense spending $400 on a 100w mercury vapor lamp and ballast.
~≈{👁}≈~

No. Gears.

  If I ever need gears for a project I'll either buy a finished gearbox somehow or cannibalize them from some other mechanism.  Fuque making gears! Why?

 To make real gears that will hold up for a while and won't grind the brass or cast iron or whatever into dust, you must first make an involute cutter for the size of gear teeth you want to cut.  That's not horribly complicated if you have a mill (I do), a "spindexer" (I don't), and... an involute cutter cutter.

 Ohhhh, okay, and to make that involute cutter cutter, you just need a heat treat oven and a surface grinder...

 See what I mean?!?  Fark a bunch of making gears! 

 ~≈{👁}≈~

mill power table feed restoration cont'd

shouldn't it be the same
color as the column?

 This is the subject of today's blather; it's the motor drive electronics and housing for the mill's power table feed. -->

 It's defunct, demised, past-on, ceased to be, it's expired and gone to meet its maker.

 These controls were built - at least the electronics were - by a contract manufacturing shop, not Bridgeport themselves.  I'm not sure who made the cast aluminum housing.

 The original electronics weren't well-designed even for the time.  And, as usual, insufficient thought was given to heat rejection. The stock unit appears to have just one bad $10 SCR and it's still not worth my time to repair.

Old n Busted

<-- This is the stock drive electronics.  It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good.  I guess they assumed every shop would have air conditioning and wouldn't have welders.

 I am replacing this with a modern motor drive (from Minarik) which is half the size and needs a quarter as much heat rejection because it uses newer devices with lower forward voltage drop.  I heat-sunk it to the back panel anyway, with silpad because that's who I am, and my shit doesn't break.  That's literally one of my mottos; don't build things that will break.

 

The New Hotness

 The outside of the housing is kinda grim.  Apparently whoever coated the housing, be they Bridgeport or bridge-dweller, did not know about acid etching primers for aluminum.  And so the paint kinda - fell off - over time, because it wasn't bonded to the aluminum, it was bonded to the (relatively loose) oxide layer.

 The good news is that this has been a solved problem for decades.  I used Rustoleum's "automotive" (I think they mean, for engine blocks) acid-etch primer for aluminum, stainless and mumble.  Then a few coats of conventional industrial enamel.

I used a rattlecan color called "Smoke Gray" because the 'Machinery Gray' (Rustoleum) that Bridgeport used only comes in gallon cans and I am not planning to repaint the whole mill.

notice where the round corners suddenly turn square?

 It feels good knowing you're doing a better job of something than the factory did.  My guess is that Bridgeport had little to do with the production of these, and here's why: the paint on the mill column is .045in thick!  I know this because former users hit the column with work that came loose and knocked chunks of the coating off.  The thickness is impressive.  (that's what he said)  I could measure the depth of the hole in the paint to the surface of the cast iron with a pair of calipers, that canyon's almost deep enough to have an echo. ;)

 I will put on several top coats, baking each in turn, and then I will use a sanding block with 200 grit waterproof paper with water to wet-sand the paint from the logo and from the "on" and "off" labels so they are bare metal.  That's the stock look and I think it's sharp.

 One weird thing I noticed is that the casting mold was modified from its original form, at the bottom rear of the exterior, where the round corners of the housing turn squarish right before meeting the rear.  That feature is not present on the top, and the mold marks there are less smooth than the rest of the casting.  This creates a little bump-out on the bottom rear of the housing for the drive mounting panel, which apparently turned out to be wider than originally planned.  I can easily imagine how that went down.

 And even tho it wasn't originally, and doesn't need to be now, this box will be nearly oil-tight (coolant spray tight by implication) when assembled.  The panel has a foam neoprene seal rather than an o-ring which is the only reason I say, "nearly".  The original cable glands appear to be re-usable, and will get some sealant on their threads... this time.  The new switch and pilot lamp will be oil-tight models, with a silicone rubber boot on the switch.

 Because that's how I roll.

More as it happens.

 ~≈{👁}≈~

mill power table feed (restoration)

 Ugh.

 After decades of owning a mill with a non-functional power table feed, I have finally embarked on the adventure that getting it working again will entail.

 First piece, because it looked easier, has been the motor drive.  I'm dumping the old, dead 1970s tech in favor of a modern drive with the same capabilities, which is half the size and generates one quarter of the heat as the old one.

 The new motor drive requires two industrial control relays, which I thought I had ordered, but Mouser canceled my order while still showing stock. Their customer service rep seemed clueless and unhelpful.  Mouser is kicked out of the clubhouse.  So are Grainger and Newark as their over-enthusiastic security plugin for the web server is falsing on my browser's plugins and won't let me give them money.  Are they hiding some vulnerability?  Better not risk it!

 There are many other competing suppliers.  Even eBay.

So that rankles because even if I wire it all together including the relay sockets, it's no good without the relays.

 There is other work to be done on this box; the pilot lamp and power switch needed replacement, I had the switch on hand, but not a good lamp.  Those are cheap, I'll get one ordered soon. The box itself needs to get sandblasted (done), acid-etch primed (primer not arrived yet), top coated, then the raised letter parts carefully hand-sanded.

 After that box is done comes the more arduous table feed itself.  This consists of a motor, a gearbox, and an electrical box with switches inside and a pushbutton (for fast-traverse) and a speed control knob, like this -->

 The shaft from the operating handle passes through the oil-filled gearbox, into the electrical box (through o-ring seals) in order to actuate the limit switches that live down there.

 I said, the oil-filled gearbox which is located on top of the electrical box.  And apparently they did not have Viton O-rings back then, so guess what always happens eventually?  The oil leaves the gear box and fills the electrical housing.  It was a screwball, in-house, ad hoc design.  A good cleaning and replacing the failed o-rings with modern Viton (fluoroelastomer) rings should solve the problem for a lifetime or three.

 And of course, the wire ends need to be trimmed back and replaced, and the electrical components, which are full of oil.

 And I don't think I'll be able to resist sandblasting and coating the power feed assy either.

 I think I have posted a few pictures of this stuff already.  If not, I'll post some soon.

 ~≈{👁}≈~

minor update on EDC flashlight purchase Fenix LD-22 v2.0

 My flashlight arrived, I noticed some things, and unsurprisingly, I have opinions.

Except for some niggling details, it's housing is more-or-less identical than the LD-20 it replaces*.

Niggling Detail #1: it's no longer possible to stand it on its tail cap.

Niggling Detail #2: I forgot to get my name engraved on it for free, and there is no longer a flat place for that on this housing, you have to settle for it being wrapped around a cylindrical part of the light.  Fun fact: laser engraving does not harm Type III HA - it penetrates the outer HA coating, bleaches the dye out of the dye layer, but leaves the coating above it intact.  That is assuming it's done with CO2 and not a fiber laser.  I don't know for sure about fibers on anodizing.

Niggling Detail #3: it no longer has enough non-round stuff sticking out to prevent the light from rolling off of flat surfaces.  It is virtually round everywhere, and the few small places where it is not, make no difference.

 That's it, that's all my gripes.

 It came with a Li-ion "AA" size battery pack already installed.  I did not know this because who reads fine print, so I ordered what is now an extra one.  WTH, they are only $13.  In this economy, that's not bad.  It came with all the accessories which are typical - a lanyard, strong belt or hat clip, charging cable for the battery.

FWIW, Fenix's manufacturing is in China or Taiwai, but they seem to be controlling prices well.

 Their offices are in Colorado and their product warehouse is in Monticello, Arkansas - 161 Market St, Monticello, AR 71655 - that's where stuff ships from.

 Their showroom is in Littleton, CO.  I've never been there, I don't know how long that's been there.
I think I might drive down there some time just for kicks.

 The new light emits a maximum of 800 lumens in Turbo Mode.  My old LD-20 in Turbo Mode was good for 160 lumens.  Even 800 is not enough for a light bulb to light a room, but for a "mini" size light, it seems staggering at night.  I'm a "more light is always better" kinda guy - usually - so I am  content.  I don't need my EDC light to be so bright it sets things on fire.  Perhaps a camping light should do that. ;)

 ~≈{👁}≈~ 

____
* I need to dig the old light out of the "raygun parts" box to compare them side by side.