Part #7 dealt with paint, new
batteries, a bit of welding to re-size the Bat-Framing and the physical
replacement of the twin DC fans with a 120Vac Blower.
Since March 12th onward about
all I've been doing is maple syrup & firewood and renovating the building
immediately adjacent to the foundry area... (when done this will be a 36 by 22ft
dedicated fab-shop specifically to accommodate Quad sized ATV's)
Since I won't have time to post
yet another page on Maple Syrup production the video below is the only account
of the 2009 season...
To continue along with the paint
theme I opted to draft some simple stencils to do the lettering.
The image to the right is the
tool path that was machined into a sheet of thin self adhesive plastic shelf
liner.
The mill was set to 25 Inches
per minute feed rate running a 0.020" cutter set to a depth of
0.030".
The cut is a little ragged but
certainly passable... A sincere thanks to Jeff at Thorsgaard Foundry for giving
me the idea to re-try vinyl cutting with the CNC.
The stencils still have plenty
of life in them, and may be re-used on other projects, though I think that I'll
have to apply some brush-on rubber cement to get the same sticky-ness.
The images below are the result
in spite of the tired and literally worn-out Badger Air-brush that went to it's
grave knowing that this is the last thing it will ever paint... As an aside,
anybody with suggestions for a cheap, but utile air-brush for doing work not
much more complex than this, please drop me a line.
Out
of the blue we lucked into a most welcome Mid-March thaw...
Here the Suzuk-E reposes in warm
sunshine while she sucks at the teet of the grid in anticipation of another
pounding...
Pounding may be less than
accurate, as the pulley drive mechanism is working out less than ideally.
The motor similarly is in
desperate need of active cooling as it has plenty of snot to squeal the belt,
but a goodly portion of that enthusiasm is realized in a significant measure of
heat (the installation of an inverter to drive the blower is a top priority as
the ambient temps slowly break double digits in the positive Celsius.)
Beyond the complaints above, the
bike handles very nicely, seems well balanced and stops on a dime.
I'm not getting too worked-up
about any GPS runs until the fields dry-up more...
Another consideration is to take
the angle grinder to both the rear & front tires to reduce a portion of the
drag they must be imposing due to the aggressive tread pattern they sport.
Somehow we lost our household
iron, so the result was yet another capital expenditure ... like 10 bucks for
this fine Lancaster, which is NEVER to leave theworkshop.ca.
If I have an image of an iron,
you know that I'm making a PCB (printed circuit brd)...
The schematic below is to a
dual-purpose circuit that features a 555 timer based PWM (Pulse Width Modulator)
that drives the 3.5V LED's with 12Vdc more efficiently than the LM7805 based
Voltage regulator that I'd previously been using... The objective criteria that
I assessed the improvement in efficiency, is that the LEDs do light (and can have
their intensity varied) with no measurable heat generation as compared to the
"Coleman Stove" that the LM7805 was (even with a heat sink).
Image saved at 200dpi for a
local copy right click image and select, "save as" or
"print".
The secondary portion of the
circuit is a serial string of three 15V zener diodes that effectively creates a
voltage offset of 45Vdc, while a single 10K resistor expands the scale of a 1ma
85 ohm analog meter to accommodate a range of deflection that should equate to
10V or 45Vdc to 55Vdc.
The theory of this passive
string is based on the writings of R. Fechter, and I did get him to review so
that I didn't mis-understand the idea... But it has not been tested to this
point so regard with caution... If the execution is flawed it is a reflection on
my interpretation of the instructions, R. did point out a glaring flaw in my
logic on how I initially was going to sense the current draw, I think the above
will work...
The PCB layout listed to the
right is the execution of the schematic shown above...
Both Sch & PCB were created
in PCBExpress...
Both will be available for
down-load after all testing is done and verified to be fully functional.
Though I have enough confidence
in the design to commit it to copper.
Etched and drilled...
Only one brd is needed but if
the LED driver works out, the Electro-Quad will need it as well.
The PCB is populated with 100%
recycled parts, even the screw-down header....
No, the Zener Diodes are new and
I think I ordered them with the last batch of Blank copper brds... regardless I
think they are like 20 cents each...
If you're 555 saavy, the
inverted diode pair PWM is a neat trick that was pilfered from Tony Van Roon's
website and modified largely to accommodate the parts that were closest at hand.
Actually The brunt of 555 driver is Tony's...
Let's not quibble about who
designed what, Mr. Van Roon has never been abused by the hands of theworkshop.ca
and the proof of his contribution is visible to the left.
The 50K Pot offers say 20 to 80%
duty cycle on the gate of the FET and is set slightly below 50% with good
illumination as viewed in daylight.
The remainder of the 55 to 60%
of the duty cycle could be dialed in for either larger arrays of LEDs or higher
mcd units in place of the generics currently installed.
Yet again, this project closes
without being complete... So in no particular order, install and wire 120Vac
Inverter to drive blower, wire-in control panel for Volt/Amp reading off a
single meter, replace 2 1/2" dia drive pulley with 3" or 3 1/2"
pulley, install and wire LED driver brd, tame the knobby tires and by the time
all that gets done something else will need to be addressed...
And some moving pictures to help
fill in any gaps...
Out
of the blue we lucked into a most welcome Mid-March thaw...
