Been even longer!
I finally added some information about my rain barrel system to the main page. It is only the beginning.Automatic Rain Barrel
Have had a lot going on. Had a big job. Installed new floor. Remodelling kitchen. Wife threw the timing chain on her car. Big snow storm. And of course, Zoe!
Big job was building enclosures for 6 large LCD projectors used in the Sachs 5th Ave. Christmas display. They sat on a 5th floor roof and projected onto the whole side of Sachs store on 5th Ave. in New York. They not only had to protect the $100,000+ each projectors, but had to keep them between 50 and 100 degrees in the middle of winter, AND fit through a 30"x30" window. Oh yeah, the 3 aluminium cases had to be done and tested in 4 weeks.
Finished installing new flooring in the kitchen to match the rest of the house before starting to replace all the cabinets. I am completely redesigning the kitchen as well.
The wife's Saturn's timing chain slipped about 6 teeth so it is torn down waiting to get the head checked and order new parts. Aside from new timing set, ($140) it will need head gasket set ($120) and new torque to yield head bolts.($80)
Then there was the great storm of 2011 with 18" of snow to bring everything to a halt. I am scared to dig out and open the Saturn's hood to see what blew in.
Zoe is doing great. Got 4 teeth and going to walk and talk any day.
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Been a while...
..since I added anything here. Been busy. I am watching my baby girl, Zoe, full time now. Quite an adventure. Got another free pool that I am grafting on to the first one. Updated MythTV and it's computer. Moved my shop into my garage. Finally did some redesign on the rain barrel. Bunch of landscaping. And too many other small projects to list.I will be expanding on these things soon in the next few posts individually.
Just thought I would let anyone who actually reads this know I am still alive!
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Addition to the Family
My little baby girl, Zoe, is finally here!I have given her her own blog to keep track of her progress.
http://zoe.lwill.net
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Forklift controller
This entry should pull together all the things in my web site name.Bunch of electronics, code, and some machining to make it fit.I have a 30+ year old fork lift at my shop that died. It was basically given to us to use for storing it by someone who got it for free.
It was broke when we got it and I got it working whit the original electronics. It has a blown transistor and huge diode that I replaced and it worked for about a year until it finally gave up. The main power section was made up of 16 large PNP transistors (they actually had International Harvester part numbers on them, didn't know they did electronics!) and all of them were dead along with the 16 low ohm high wattage resisters that tied all the sections together and acted as fuses.
Partial picture:
I started looking for replacements and found them at NTE for over $20 each and the resisters were no longer available. So rather than patching it back together for over $300, I decided to design my own.
I found a simple design at http://www.zeva.com.au/speedy/ and up-scaled and modified it for my use. This is the highest power circuit I have ever done, so it was something new for me. Also it is the first time I used an AVR. Using what I could find out about the original control, I determined I wanted about 400 amps at 36 volts. I took this from the original transistor ratings and the fact there is a 3?0 amp main fuse. (couldn't read it) It powers the drive motor as well as the hydrolics. This is probably a bit over kill, but better to be safe. This also worked out well since I spec-ed out reasonably priced FETs that are 50A each, so 8 would give me 400A and an even number to drive.
The first version was built using the heat sinks and other bits form the original control and lasted about 30 seconds.
Pilot error. Looked like mini flash bombs at a rock concert! 8 FETs later and some fine tuning and I got it working for about 6 months. It finally died so I decided to take another whack at it. In the interim I ran across this tread paul-sabrinas-cheap-144v-motor-controller which basically started out the same way I did but took it much further with a lot of community support.
I have tried to do this on the cheap using what I have available, so I started with the heat sink that was salvaged from an old forklift charger. It also worked out since 6"x9" is the largest board I can easily etch. From there I tried to correct the errors I made on the first version.
First, I totally under designed the power supply section. It got upgraded with pass transistors to give me a stable 12v gate supply. This was causing the FETs' gate siginal to be crappy and the main cause of the failures.
Second, the first design had the FETs mounted on the separate heat sinks from the original controller. This gave different gate lengths and added more noise.
Third I had some bad code. After looking at the "Cougar" design I found a few flaws I had.
I ended up with this:
I also added a serial port so I could monitor things real time.
One big difference from the "Cougar" is I am using the original current shunt to measure current. My code is not as sophisticated since I am simply sensing over current or high temp and shutting things down instead of adjusting the output. I am also controlling the reversing solenoids with the micro. I do not have such large ripple caps since I am still using the HUGE ones from the original as well as the freewheel diodes in parallel with the ones on the controller.
So far I got it running pretty smooth. Good power, no noise, staying cool.
I'll see how it goes and report back how it works out.
Here are a few more pics of the work in progress.
A few more pictures
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So...I got married. And my Mom hits the floor.
Yes, it happened and the world hasn't ended yet.There will be some pictures to follow at some point.
It was (suppose) to be a fairly small and simple affair at the court house that ended up with 20 people showing up. Thanks to all who did. The next day we had a simple reception with around 35. Thanks again. Small by most accounts, but bigger that we expected when we started planning with fairly short notice.
We have one more party to go with our friends at our home.
We didn't have a honey moon since we have been living together nearly 9 years, (and still broke) but we did spend the day in St. Louis. The following day though will make the "honey-moon" hard to forget.
My mother has Parkinson's that is slowly getting worse. She actually is very active and does quite well, with an occasional spill. We happened to be there for one. She missed a step going into the house and fell on her back on a concrete floor in the garage. We were all sitting there at the time drinking our morning coffee, when BAM. I turned around to see her laying there, not moving. Needless to say everyone freaked out. I was sitting right next to her landing spot and started trying to do all the things you should do.
She was out cold, and not breathing.
I started to remember my 20 year old CPR training class and gave breaths then checked for pulse, which I could not find or hear so I moved on to compressions. I felt her ribs go "crunch" which turned out to be cracked from the fall, but still was not a good thing feel. Still not breathing, so carefully tilted her head again since there was now some blood on the floor under her head, and more breaths and she started to breath again and come around.
I carefully held a rag under her head to stop bleeding (she is on blood thinners, so I was a bit worried) then set it down and packed towels on each side so she would not move around.
By this time my new wife Brenda was on the phone with 911 and gave it to me to fill them in and stay on the line until the ambulance got there. Living in the country can have it's disadvantages at times. Mom was becoming more alert and starting to feel the pain, so I tried to keep her calm. I told her she went to a lot of effort just to get a kiss from her son! Of course my mom is a pretty tough old bird and just before they loaded her into the ambulance she said, "All I want to say is... SHIT" which the EMT told her she could say as many times as she wants. I rode along to the hospital and more family showed up there and THEN I about threw up from coming down from all that happened.
Turns out, she is going to be fine. 4 cracked ribs, 9 stitches in her head, bad bruise on her arm where she landed with her ribs, and a big head ache. My niece works at the hospital in imaging so we know she was checked out good. They kept her over night and kicked her out the next day.
I sort of wanted to write this down just to get it out of my head. Didn't mean to get so serious in my blog. See, we live 4-1/2 hours away and it was "lucky" we were there when this happened. My dad would not have been able to handle it alone and I was so glad I was there when she needed me. I am still amazed I was able to react the way I did.
I think most people wonder how they will react to a situation when it arises and (mom's) SHIT hits the fan, and I guess in my case I did OK?
Now I just have to deal with being married! Oh and did I mention the kid on the way???
(Love ya, mom)
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