Better in color

Pretty excited about the squeezer handles being anodized. This is the first one going together. I am not sure if we will have both silver and red versions. Comment and let me know what you want. Notice that this one does not have a switch, as it is a foot control version.

Virtual vs. Reality

First rule of plumbing... You never have the piece you need.

First rule of assembly... Nothing fits.

First rule of the natural man... Point at the guy next to you.

While smiling of course, I was ribbing Seth, our high school wiz kid that does our SolidWorks models, that he drew it wrong. He in-turn was ribbing Nick, out part time CNC programmer that he made the parts wrong. And it came full circle that Nick insisted that I designed it wrong. What we were all talking about and contributing to is the cumulative error that resulted in the valve assembly 'growing' about a half inch. The only problem is that it has an eighth of an inch of wiggle room. After an hour of what ifs, we again have a plan of attack. With any luck the platforms will be done today... again.

Tray

We are getting the tray foam cuts worked out.

Regulation

Regulators are here and assemblies are complete. Parts are rapidly being machined and it is exciting to see numerous items coming together.

Transistor Chips are in

I decided to run the solenoid through a transistor / diode chip to make sure the switches in the handle hold up well. I was thinking these would be the size of a 1980s 555 timer chip. Turns out they are slightly smaller. Yet another skill to learn, ugh.

Exciting Morning

After a month of fighting various illnesses on and off again, as well as catching up on the normal tech support and daily tasks, we are finally running again on the hydraulic squeezer project.

This morning was particularly exciting as not only two boxes showed up from Numatx (above), but also the new style miniature air regulators for the intensifier box came (below).

The setup had been tried before, but we wanted to double check everything with the new regulators.  Shown below is the plug and play hack to prove them out.  We are still waiting for one other solenoid valve to replace the one that is in the center of the photo and it will be assembly time.

The assembly below is a spacing mock-up (ignore the cylinder as we used a mock-up we had rather than the Numatx cylinders shown above) that we used to make sure that we could stuff all the equipment needed below a deck in the bottom of the intensifier box.  The view is as if looking through the bottom of the box.  All that is left is to manufacture the already designed circuit board (planning for Wednesday).

Yesterday's News

We finished up the new base plates for the intensifier boxes. This plate will replace the base plate on the Numatx intensifier.