#linuxcnc Logs

Jul 31 2021

#linuxcnc Calendar

01:16 AM flyback: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg9IR5_u-bU
01:39 AM Deejay: moin
04:02 AM Tom_L: morning
05:19 AM JT-Cave: morning
05:20 AM XXCoder: heys
06:17 AM Tom_L: hi 98F
06:17 AM Tom_L: T-storms later
06:17 AM XXCoder: 78f and cloudy. humidity aloy
07:06 AM JT-Cave: 94% here
07:41 AM perry_j1987: morning
08:45 AM JT-Cave: yo
09:49 AM solarwind: perry_j1987 did you manage to get your battery/power issue worked out?
09:50 AM solarwind: I forgot what it was exactly, I lost the conversation history
09:56 AM perry_j1987: i need to go get another battery
09:56 AM perry_j1987: and test
10:58 AM solarwind: I love this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IeEDKQ35vg
11:00 AM solarwind: I don't have a furnace like that, but I have an oxy acetylene kit. I wonder if I can use that with a heating tip and plenty of flux
12:34 PM Eric_: seems like you could shorten your life considerably by copying that video
12:38 PM solarwind: Ok so I'm about to use my plasma cutter and have an extra set of consumables
12:38 PM solarwind: When I practised on clean metals, no problem
12:38 PM solarwind: But the scrap metal is painted (not much rust though because it's all indoors in a warehouse)
12:38 PM solarwind: Anyone have any tips to prolong the life of the consumables?
12:39 PM solarwind: It has "blowback" start which I'm not really sure what it is, but claims to make it easy to cut through paint
12:39 PM solarwind: It also has a little metal guide on the cutting tip so you can maintain a constant height above the surface of the workpiece, so the consumables won't touch the workpiece
12:40 PM solarwind: But any tips on prolonging consumable life is much appreciated
12:43 PM acer is now known as _unreal_
12:46 PM _unreal_: solarwind, I dont think many people in here to plasma cutting
12:49 PM roycroft: i haven't done a lot of plasma cutting - i sold my plasma cutter a fews ago, actually, as i wasn't using it much - but i was taught that if i'm not cutting bare metal to grind the starting point of the cut clean before cutting
12:49 PM roycroft: the plasma stream will keep the gunk away from the nozzle once the cut is started
12:50 PM roycroft: i found that roller guide annoying
12:51 PM roycroft: i took it off right away, and learned to hold the torch a fairly consistant distance from the part
12:51 PM roycroft: but it does not have be a precise distance - there's a range that works fine, so hand-holding it works fine with a little practice
12:53 PM roycroft: i never felt i was using too many consumables, but again, i did not use it much
01:16 PM Eric_: has anyone tried the $99 maker license for solidworks?
01:17 PM solarwind: Eric_ I have not, but I applied for the startup licence for Fusion360
01:17 PM solarwind: They granted it to me without hassle
01:17 PM Eric_: I don't really feel comfortable about the fusion startup license
01:18 PM Eric_: I'm not a startup
01:18 PM solarwind: You can get the personal licence too
01:20 PM solarwind: I'll be back on later. Time to practice plasma cutting and hope I don't ruin consumables.
01:21 PM solarwind: roycroft yours had a roller guide? Mine just has a plain steel guide that looks exactly like this: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51wfY0Zwf-L._AC_SY355_.jpg
01:21 PM solarwind: It's easily removable and quite compact
01:21 PM Eric_: I am pretty sure the solidworks files are still stored on your computer instead of on DS's
01:22 PM Eric_: I don't really care that autodisk has all my files, but it's very inefficient and it's annoying
01:22 PM solarwind: Eric_ agreed about the inefficiency. But you can also download them and save them locally
01:22 PM solarwind: That's how I share with my friends
01:24 PM solarwind: Overall, I'm impressed with the very clean cut I'm getting with this
01:24 PM Eric_: They also really hate my system, not sure why. Solidworks runs circles around it
01:25 PM Eric_: I expect it's my gpu
01:25 PM solarwind: Not sure how else I'd cut sheet metal other than nibblers
01:25 PM solarwind: I don't have a band saw and the big ones are expensive. The small ones don't have a large enough throat for larger panels
01:26 PM solarwind: This PowerPlasma 80i unit works so well in my garage. I can just set up a straight edge and zip across sheet metal faster than any other cutting method.
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02:15 PM _unreal_: I just got out of the pool. flirting with going to the beach http://www.bocasurfcam.com/
02:16 PM _unreal_: lake boca has a nice party going on http://lakebocacam.com/
03:17 PM JT-Shop: first drawer is going a tad slow... got one corner glued
03:24 PM perry_j1987: got my battery bank together now
03:24 PM perry_j1987: all the pieces sitting here
03:24 PM perry_j1987: now the mesa board right now is powered off this toroid psu in the lathe
03:24 PM perry_j1987: im not planning on running the host computers on the inverter
03:24 PM perry_j1987: so i should power the mesa off the wall as well eh?
03:25 PM perry_j1987: so the entire controller is on the same ground
03:25 PM roycroft: my garage door opener finally arrived, just as i was leaving to go to the recycling center
03:25 PM roycroft: so after lunch i may install taht
03:49 PM roycroft: blah
03:50 PM roycroft: spammers are attacking my mail server
03:50 PM roycroft: i have better things to do than babysit a server today
03:51 PM roycroft: they are hammering it and it is throttling connections
03:52 PM roycroft: since i'm being hammered, i shall apply a big, fat hammer to the problem
03:52 PM * roycroft sets up a cron job to restart the daemone every five minutes
03:52 PM perry_j1987: setup fail2ban
03:53 PM perry_j1987: let it manage the auto bans
03:53 PM roycroft: i've tried that and it generates too mah fals positives
03:53 PM perry_j1987: you can also setup entire continent IP bans
03:53 PM roycroft: and i don't have time to tweak it today
03:53 PM roycroft: restarting sendmail every five minutes will get me through the day
03:53 PM perry_j1987: use to run a zimbra email server for a decade
03:54 PM roycroft: an i'm fine with that, as long as i don't tell anybody i'm doing it
03:54 PM perry_j1987: finally got tired of it and switched everything over to office 365 servers and let them play and have fun heh
03:54 PM roycroft: otherwise i'd be embarrassed
03:54 PM roycroft: oops
03:54 PM roycroft: i guess i'm embarrassed
03:54 PM perry_j1987: lol
03:57 PM roycroft: i've been running sendmail since the early '80s
03:57 PM roycroft: i managed a site that used smail for a while in the '90s, but other than that it's been sendmail
03:57 PM roycroft: i just started converting the work mail systems to postfix, though
03:58 PM roycroft: sendmail doesn't handle sni properly, and i need that to virtualized our mail systems the way we want to do it
03:58 PM roycroft: i don't want users knowing what physical machine they're connecting to, because i need to be able to move them easily
03:59 PM roycroft: and if they know whom they're really talking to, they will do things we tell them not to do, and their mail will break when we move them
03:59 PM roycroft: so i have to keep them in the dark
04:01 PM perry_j1987: every single time their air compressor kicks on my LED shoplights go almost black and almost trips the breaker
04:01 PM perry_j1987: all for a piece of crap tent trailer they are bondo-ing the hell out of and sanding with air tools every single day for almost hte past month
04:02 PM roycroft: well it's not their fault
04:02 PM perry_j1987: not exactly
04:02 PM roycroft: you need to talk to the person who owns or manages the facility
04:03 PM perry_j1987: but i'd feel better if htey were solving world hunger or something overthere haha
04:03 PM roycroft: if your agreement with them is that they will provide you with reliable power, then they need to provide you with reliable power
04:05 PM roycroft: if it's the startup surge that's the problem, and they won't or can't make the other tenant fix the issue, then they need to provide you with a line conditioner or something that will buffer your power so that it's not susceptible to the compressor surges
04:06 PM perry_j1987: not startup it kicks voltage down to 103ish atm
04:06 PM roycroft: it drops and stays low until the compressor turns off?
04:07 PM perry_j1987: ya
04:07 PM CloudEvil: 103 sounds like sucky lights.
04:07 PM roycroft: ok, that has nothing at all to do with the compressor people
04:07 PM roycroft: that's shitty, overprovisioned wiring
04:07 PM perry_j1987: the lights come on after startup its the initial startup that the lights go out then it comes back dimmer and 103 volts heh
04:07 PM roycroft: get management to fix it or move
04:08 PM perry_j1987: for now i got a couple golfcart batteries and im going to try this 3000 watt inverter / 6000 peak
04:08 PM CloudEvil: I'd argue that 120->103 should not dim lights significantly.
04:08 PM roycroft: that kind of behavior is going to cause an electrical fire at some point
04:08 PM roycroft: they're led lights
04:08 PM CloudEvil: But that may be reasonable in some peoples POVs. Given that they should work fine at 114 at least.
04:08 PM perry_j1987: CloudEvil they are cheap LED shop lights
04:08 PM CloudEvil: roycroft: yes.
04:09 PM roycroft: there's going to be a rectifier and voltage divider circuitry
04:09 PM CloudEvil: I was amused to find that my LED lights go to about 67VDC before stopping working well. (240AC nominal)
04:09 PM roycroft: if the voltage to the led gets too low it will not work at all
04:10 PM roycroft: yours may have better voltage divider circuitry than perry_j1987's
04:10 PM CloudEvil: For various reasons, you want to regulate the LED brightness more than just a resistor gets you.
04:10 PM * roycroft heads back to the shop and ponders doing the garage door opener install today
04:11 PM CloudEvil: For shoplights, I would be tempted to simply add a moderately large cap in parallel with their filter cap
04:11 PM roycroft: i was thinking about waiting until tomorrow, but i had more than a full load for recycling today, so tomorrow i'll be doing some more yard work and hauling another load away
04:11 PM perry_j1987: just did first powerup test on the inverter
04:11 PM perry_j1987: sounds like the VFD makes a ticking noise
04:12 PM CloudEvil: As long as it doesn't follow up with a boom.
04:15 PM perry_j1987: seems to work
04:21 PM CloudEvil: :)
04:23 PM perry_j1987: right now i got the 5v power for the mesa 7i96 coming from a toroid psu and then through a dc-dc converter to 5v
04:23 PM perry_j1987: if im going to run the toroid psu and VFD for this lathe off inverter. im going to be running the computer still off the wall so it seems to me the mesa board should be off the wall as well
04:23 PM perry_j1987: should i just cut a usb cord and wire that from computer to the mesa heh
04:25 PM _unreal_: as I recall the mesa has power conversion? correct me if I'm wrong.
04:28 PM _unreal_: requires a 5v input
04:28 PM _unreal_: thats right
04:28 PM _unreal_: perry_j1987, I use a UBEC
04:28 PM _unreal_: to power the 7i96
04:29 PM _unreal_: its the same psu devices used in quad copters etc....
04:29 PM _unreal_: but takes a range of DC input and outputs solid 5v
04:29 PM _unreal_: 3-10 amps average
04:29 PM _unreal_: more then enough and they are cheap
04:30 PM perry_j1987: ubec?
04:30 PM _unreal_: you can then use your transformer to power the the mesa with out worries and add a small output CAP to give you a BUFFER incase of a power shortage.... say
04:30 PM perry_j1987: btw i just found 100 bucks
04:30 PM _unreal_: 10v 1000uF
04:31 PM _unreal_: I've been looking for that hand it over
04:31 PM _unreal_: thanks for finding it
04:31 PM perry_j1987: i bought this parts bin full of fasteners from a moving sale few years ago.. i just opened the bottom drawers all the way out so i could get in and hang it on my pegboard
04:31 PM perry_j1987: and there was some 20's hidden in there haha
04:31 PM _unreal_: https://www.amazon.com/2-Pieces-Hobbywing-Switch-mode-UBEC-Helicopter-Quadcopter/dp/B01GHMW0C0/ref=asc_df_B01GHMW0C0/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312136795426&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13595084032650634328&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9012012&hvtargid=pla-569131665574&psc=1
04:33 PM _unreal_: get one of those or one like it and you will have no power issues
04:33 PM _unreal_: just be sure to not mix TRIOD gound and DC-DC ground
04:33 PM _unreal_: unless you have ceramics in between
04:34 PM perry_j1987: that looks useful
04:35 PM _unreal_: a lot of quad copter/RC control hardware is 100% the same as cnc control hardware. same controller chips and everything. just different form factors and code
04:35 PM _unreal_: that is what I would suggest
04:36 PM _unreal_: just remember ENSURE your DC logic output is isolated from the transformer
04:36 PM _unreal_: I'm not kidding
04:36 PM _unreal_: if you go with one of those
04:36 PM _unreal_: the DC output side is a closed loop setup
04:37 PM _unreal_: and anything connected that has a signal in it will hijack the quality baddly
04:39 PM perry_j1987: i wonder what this noise is from
04:39 PM perry_j1987: i dont remember it being there when powered off the wall
04:39 PM _unreal_: ?
04:40 PM _unreal_: soething you can hear or soomething you are metering?
04:40 PM perry_j1987: hear
04:40 PM _unreal_: ahh?
04:40 PM _unreal_: is it comming from the transformer?
04:40 PM perry_j1987: sounds like its coming from the VFD
04:40 PM _unreal_: thats normal
04:40 PM perry_j1987: but the toroid is in the area too
04:43 PM _unreal_: proximity can only take you so far. its wiring that causes the majority of WTF
05:33 PM JT-Shop: one drawer done...
05:33 PM JT-Shop: I think I need to install the slides from the top down in the carcass
06:19 PM Eric_: I always do the slides bottom up so I can use a plywood spacer. Have yet to put slides in succesfully by just measuring
06:27 PM _unreal_: JT-Shop, closed and shut ehhhh :)
06:32 PM roycroft: i usually install drawer slides on the carcase before assemby
06:32 PM roycroft: assembly
06:32 PM roycroft: i don't use spacers - if i'm not doing a 32mm system i just measure and install them
06:33 PM roycroft: i mount the drawer sides of the slides to fit as install the drawers
06:34 PM Eric_: I probably wouldn't have as many problems if I put the slides on before assembly
06:34 PM Eric_: but I never plan that far in the future
06:34 PM roycroft: i also apply finish to the inside before assembly
06:35 PM roycroft: it's so much easier and turns out so much better than doing it post-assembly
06:35 PM roycroft: i just mask off the sections that will be glued up and apply whatever finish, then install drawer slides, then assemble
06:35 PM roycroft: planning a bit ahead can save a heap of time
06:35 PM roycroft: and result in a much better job
06:36 PM * roycroft is about to hoist the garage door opener motor and rail up and mount them
06:37 PM roycroft: the rail is a lot longer than my old one - i hope there's clearance for the head unit
06:42 PM snakedLX is now known as snaked
06:55 PM CloudEvil: roycroft: Good luck.
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08:05 PM roycroft: it's all installed except for the electrics
08:05 PM roycroft: and i'll probably do that tomorrow, as i have other things to do this evening
08:05 PM roycroft: the photosensors and the control panel wires are what i have to do yet
08:06 PM roycroft: the door is shut and latched to the opener, so nobody can get in, and that's what is important right now
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10:23 PM CloudEvil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhJRzQsLZGg welding on a largish table
11:02 PM roycroft: wow
11:02 PM roycroft: abom is brazing some cast iron to steel, and he's making a big mess
11:03 PM roycroft: i don't know if i've ever seen him make a mess like that
11:03 PM roycroft: he thinks he did a great job
11:04 PM roycroft: maybe it will clean up nice
11:04 PM Tom_L: let's not burst his bubble
11:04 PM roycroft: i'm not going to email him
11:04 PM XXCoder: if im doing shit job and think its good, please burst my bubble
11:05 PM roycroft: i'll wait until he cleans it up before passing final judgement
11:05 PM roycroft: i'm just surprised, because he's a good welder
11:05 PM roycroft: and i know cast iron to steel is difficult
11:05 PM XXCoder: that live stream? or some other video?
11:05 PM roycroft: it's his saturday night special
11:05 PM roycroft: not a live stream
11:05 PM roycroft: one moment
11:06 PM roycroft: i'm watching it on my tv, so i can't paste the url
11:06 PM XXCoder: ok
11:06 PM roycroft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXNh4XK4ucA
11:06 PM roycroft: there
11:06 PM XXCoder: thanks
11:06 PM roycroft: he's doing everything right
11:07 PM roycroft: but the rod just isn't flowing really well
11:07 PM roycroft: the second one is looking better than the first
11:08 PM roycroft: ok, they cleaned up decently, and he just said he wished they were prettier
11:08 PM roycroft: he's also not showing a closeup of the brazing :)
11:08 PM XXCoder: grinding to make weld work better i guess
11:09 PM Tom_L: it's sucking the heat out before it can flow
11:09 PM roycroft: yes
11:09 PM Tom_L: looks like shit
11:09 PM roycroft: and he did a long preheat with a big propane torch
11:09 PM Tom_L: i skipped that part but saw what he was doing
11:09 PM roycroft: but that's the problem with cast iron - it needs a tremendous abount of preheat
11:10 PM roycroft: it's the correct technique though
11:10 PM roycroft: cast iron should be brazed, not welded, especially when attaching it to steel
11:12 PM Tom_L: i had a guy weld some for me and it turned out good
11:12 PM Tom_L: cast to cast
11:12 PM roycroft: with nickel rod, cast to cast is ok
11:12 PM roycroft: but brazing is still better
11:12 PM Tom_L: i've brazed it several times
11:13 PM roycroft: i've brazed it a few times
11:14 PM roycroft: i had a drill press where the flange that holds the column to the base broke off
11:15 PM roycroft: i brazed that back on, and used that drill press for at least 10 years after that before i sold it
11:46 PM roycroft: hmm
11:46 PM roycroft: this garage door opener does not have physical limit switches
11:47 PM roycroft: it uses soft limits
11:47 PM roycroft: i suspect most modern openers are like that
11:47 PM roycroft: but i'm probably not happy with the idea
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