"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 18 Feb 2016 13:02:09 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:
"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
. ..
http://tinyurl.com/z56msjj
I'd love to build a scaled version of one of these little
beauties.
Specs are outstanding. I wonder what diesel engine they're using.
Is this the first diesel hybrid plugin? I don't recall seeing one
before.
What did you say you had for machine tools?
Um, let's see. I have several hammers! :/
For metalworking, so far: a drill press, portable bandsaw (time to
make a base for it), several 4" angle grinders, disc/belt sander
combo, table saw (for aluminum and plastics), indicators and bases,
calipers and other measuring devices, 3" sine vise, angle plate,
v-blocks, tapping stand, grinder, buffer and 1/2 dozen compounds,
TIG
welder w/ argon, various square tubing sizes, various chunks of
delrin
and other plastics, etc. Not a whole lot of machine tools, but it's
a
start.
My buddy, Gunner, refuses to find a $5 compact vertical mill for me,
but my buddy, Glenn, lets me use his gear head mill, lathe, and real
TIG when I need them. He's half an hour away.
Building machinery takes lots of time or money. I spent most of the
morning making one custom-sized split shaft clamp like this from
aluminum to support new guy lines on my antenna mast.
http://www.staffordmfg.com/Product-C...p-Type-Collars
Alas, "I'd love to" and "I'm starting to" are two different things.
Funding -may- play some small part in this.
You can build quite a lot with a bandsaw, drill press and welder if
you design the power transmission around $tock components.
http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=220003011
Most of my sawmill and a good fraction of my front end loader were
sawn and welded, and most of the parts I machined could have been
bought. The ones I made were considerably less bulky, being integrated
into the structures instead of bolted on.
http://store.cookssaw.com/sawmill-pa...-1-1-2-blades/
Having machine tools let me make them from bar stock and $5 of skate
bearings.
When I was estimating quotes to respond to RFQs for custom equipment I
had to quickly learn to decide between building or buying. I read many
catalogs of components.
http://www.wmberg.com/
http://www.actuate.com/download/whit...ild-vs-buy.pdf
I tend to build the first example of something new like this aluminum
shaft collar for the experience. I've been tinkering with adapting an
APC SU1400 pure-sine UPS to solar power and first learned how to make
the custom serial cable and reprogram it at low level with Hyperterm
before using the third-party applications apcupsd.exe and apcfix.exe:
http://www.apcupsd.org/
http://apc-fix.com/apcfix
--jsw