What did you do today

[Tom&Shelly]

Tom when you say prices jumped up, what kind of cost would it be to fill up a ballon that larger? How many gas bottles?
They do a ballon fest here in ogden Utah every year and it’s such a fun experience to take kids to, the color and sure size is amazing. We all appreciate the hobby from a far. Thanks


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Hi Dave,

It costs somewhere above $1000 a flight for hydrogen. Over $10,000 per flight for helium when everyone stopped doing it. The way to get into this hobby, IMO, is not to own a balloon, but to help friends who own balloons! Shelly and I did take one flight in the hydrogen balloon, our one and only due to our engineer/school teacher budget, and a once in a lifetime experience.

But the colorful balloons use propane and fly on hot air. This is our friends':



That is what you'll see at balloon rallies, and it's a totally different sport. There are many hot air balloon pilots, especially out here in the west. They usually fly for an hour or two in the mornings, and that only costs maybe 15 gallons of propane. (The same fuel many of us use to "fly" our houses; there is no difference in "grade" like there is between automotive and aviation gasoline.) We haven't been to the Ogden balloon fest, but we usually go to three or four rallies a year. (One reason Shelly and I want a teardrop.)

Tom

[twisted lines]

So far they are all great
Here is mine, worked on the city bumper skirts (again today) Now I am coming down to one that's been hanging over my head,
How to shorten the latch on the ammo can, between the tire / can for my battery, in this position.
Nothing is moving but the lathes / lid.

[BigDave_185]

Can you simply turn the can around so the latch is on the wheel well side?


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[BigDave_185]

The projects of today

Epoxy second trailer

Purchase completely in needed garden tractor
1977 era I believe

Fix or reinstall all Honda xr parts and give it the ol slap n tickle to see if she starts


It runs but 1/4-100% throttle Boggs out. Lack of fuel I assume. More tomorrow on her I assume


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[twisted lines]

Can you simply turn the can around so the latch is on the wheel well side?


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No both end are the same.

[BigDave_185]

So your saying the kid comes off completely? Does it have to? Just have the once side act as a hinge.


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[twisted lines]

So your saying the kid comes off completely? Does it have to? Just have the once side act as a hinge.


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No it wont open at this point.

I guess I need to buy another box or quit being so sentimental about this box and cut the handle shorter, but that will also be intwo

[Tom&Shelly]

After the high last week from replacing our kitchen under-counter florescent lights with LED lights, I decided to look into replacing the 52 T-12 tubes in our workshop with LEDs.

First of all, I wasn't aware of this, but I should have been buying T-8 tubes (1 inch diameter) for the past few years, instead of the 1.5 inch T-12s. At 32 watts, the T-8s actually put out as much light as the (older technology) T-12s. Evidently, not only am I losing money, but I'm an ENEMY OF THE ENVIRONMENT! Guess they outlawed T-12s back in 2015 (or something), but Home Depot is allowed to sell them until their stock is gone, and they still had some for sale last week.

Anyway, I'm a retired engineer and decided to figure out what the florescent lights cost me. If I run them for 8 hours a day, at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, I pay $584/year! Okay, that has my attention! If I replace each tube with an 18 watt LED replacement, I will save $321/year (now that I'm retired and planning to spend at least 8 hours a day in the shop.)

Next thing to know is that there are two kinds of LED replacements. The first kind runs directly off of house current, and requires replacing the ballast in the fixture. Not a problem as far as I'm concerned, but the cheapest I can find these is at about $5.12/unit. With 52 units, not chump change--though I should make it up in less than a year.

Then, I was at Walmart yesterday, and found these suckers at only $4.40 a unit! No ballast replacement, they just plug right in! So I bought a pair to test...



They looked great this morning, but when I came back down after a break, here's what we had:



Shelly looked at the reviews, and with 2.5 stars, this was evidently not an uncommon problem. I fixed their packaging for them, and so they can resell the one that still works after I return them.



So, I did order some of the ballast replacement type from Amazon, and will test those out. They all get something like 4.5 stars, out of several hundred reviews, and some of the one stars are bogus. So we'll hope for the best, and return the rest!

And yes, I am looking forward to taking out the ballast's from 26 light fixtures! They fail as well as the tubes. And as an engineer, I'm wondering what I can do with them. Also, as an engineer, I'm half thinking of cutting the failed Walmart tube apart to see why it failed, instead of getting my $8.80 back. (I'd be more eager if I didn't have a teardrop to finish!)

Tom

[BigDave_185]

Today we finished up a massive table for a nook that was in one of our custom homes



Also installed some awesome looking floating shelves for one of the other houses closed in December



And finished up this nice little coat rack for another house.

Today was a catch up day for the cabinet shop. Trying to keep busy while our other stuff gets delivered hopefully before the state shuts down


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[Modstock]

Tom&shelly ;;;;

Look into the harbor freight lights. I just picked up a 4 footer a few months ago and am so far impressed.
Thier reviews are way better than wallyworlds.

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[noseoil]

Going to set up a small milling machine for simple stuff in the shop. Worked on a rolling table stand for the bench-top model I'm getting this week (PM-25MV). Since this picture was taken, I added a center support rail & 14 gauge top with obligatory black paint to get it ready. The mill weighs in at about 275#.

I'm not a machinist, but doing tooling in wood stuff over the years should help with cutting techniques. Heck, it's just a big router with better feeds & easier setups than making jigs by hand for repetitive cuts in wood. The first thing I'm building is a magnetic chuck for my 2" blade grinder, to remove scale & flatten knife material with better precision. Will post a new picture once it's set up & running, but this shows the basic framework without the center support rail. It's 1 1/2" 16 gauge square tubing mostly. Had a bunch of left-over casters from Costco's steel shelving we use in the basement & shop for storage racks.

[BigDave_185]

Looks good, where did you source your mill?


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[twisted lines]

Found a Fat fifty would Fit 3 12V AGM's I had from a 36V E bike, Cheap way out
Then while shopping for the can I found the portable battery kit, video's, and parts list
3 cans 4 more battery's, switches, gauge's, Anderson powerpoles, crimping tool, & Locks for the cans.
I think I have a way to power, a trolling motor for a boat I don't have.

[PCO6]

I built a radio, switch and charge centre for my trailer to get a lot of what I need in one spot. I still need to trim out the edges of the wood but that's pretty straight forward.

[Tom&Shelly]

Tom&shelly ;;;;

Look into the harbor freight lights. I just picked up a 4 footer a few months ago and am so far impressed.
Thier reviews are way better than wallyworlds.

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I looked at those, and might try them when I need more light in the shop. But Harbor Fright doesn't post the spec's, including how much current they draw. I've already "invested" in 26 dual 40 W florescent fixtures, and certainly wouldn't want to replace them with the light equivalent of single tube fixtures.

Instead, I bought 50 LED replacement tubes. In this case, they are dual end, no ballast types, which means I had to rewire every fixture to remove the ballast and apply 120 VAC across each tube. I did the first six in such a way that I could go back if the tubes displayed infant mortality, or I didn't like them for any other reason (required wire nutting five 18 gauge wires together). Tried them for a day or so, and decided to proceed and wire the rest, daisy chaining to make the wire nutting easier (one can insert two pairs of wires into each tomb stone holder to daisy chain them together). Would be a bear to re-install the ballast that way, however.

So after three days or so, I have all but one fixture converted. At $5 + change per 22 W tube, I should recoup the savings after less than a year.




The bright looking fixture in the pictures is the florescent. It actually doesn't put as much light on the ground.

As far as quality of light, I'll give it 4 stars. I used 22 W replacements instead of 18 W, so I should actually be getting more light. However, I do notice white/yellow banding, particularly on objects close to the lights, such as the teardrop roof. However, I spent today making some wood parts for the teardrop, and didn't notice any problems while concentrating on the job at hand.

One curious thing: here is the reflection off of our miter saw:



The first image is focused on the surface while I believe the other is focused on the light causing the reflection (that's what my eyes adjust to). First, notice the gaps between individual LED's are apparent. Then, also notice the saw's surface acts like a prism, breaking the light into its component colors. Much better than florescent, which (at least for the tubes I use) have several bright lines, rather than a continuum.

So that's what I did over the weekend. Now, I have to figure out what to do with 50 T-12 florescent tubes, and 25 ballasts. Took one of the (electronic) ballasts apart, and found some good parts for an electronics scrounge like me. Shelly saw potential doll house parts.

Tom