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Test Drive

Spent the morning watching soccer and then worked out on the treadmill. Ash and I then took a drive to Peabody to test drive a Tesla. I’ve done a test drive before, last September, but wanted to give it another go, and Ash was interested in seeing what all the hype is about. We took a short drive along the highway, parked for a bit to play with the screen, then headed back to the Tesla store. It was a quick drive, but a lot of fun. Very much looking forward to getting my new car.

I think we were feeling a bit stir crazy, so after driving home from Peabody, we decided to hop on the T and head to The Quiet Few for dinner. We feel comfortable going there as they have been one of the few places that demands a vaccine card for entry. We were able to grab a seat at the bar and just relaxed for a few hours before heading back home. Ended the weekend with the chihuahuas on the couch. More serious content tomorrow.

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Lazy Saturday

It’s probably possible to do less than I did today, but I doubt it. Spent most of the day on the couch with the chihuahuas watching soccer. Hugh was getting ready for the Arsenal game tomorrow wearing his new red hoodie. In the afternoon I worked out on the treadmill. Ash spent most of the afternoon making pizza dough for a Bianco thick crust pizza, which was delicious, as always.

Tomorrow we will head to Peabody for another Tesla test drive, Ash has never been in one before.

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LED Word Clock Complete

It’s taken quite a while, but the LED Word Clock looks to be finished. This was a project started a few years ago by some students, and then was completely redone by a current Junior from our shop. This student has spent most of the semester putting the project together in a manner that looks professional, like a product off the shelf.

The design uses about 10 layers of lasercut wood to conceal the wiring and house the lettering and spacing pieces. The circuit board is custom made on our Bantam Tools PCB mill, and all the wood and acrylic were cut on our Epilog Fusion Pro. Just a few photos below of the finished product, hoping to have a more detailed writeup of the process from the student.

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Tormach Resolved

I believe it was Tuesday when I reported having some issue with my Tormach. You can read about the initial symptoms here. Fortunately, Tormach has very good support, at least in my opinion. I had also let Tormach know the automatic draw bar was not functioning, the lock and release buttons were not doing anything despite having good air pressure, and other air pressure related functions working properly. This led them to believe that the draw bar control board may not be receiving power, which would then affect the ATC, as both are used together during tool changes.

I put a multimeter on the draw bar control board and was not reading any voltage. I traced the wires back to their source at the electrical cabinet and also received not voltage at that point, which suggested perhaps a fuse had blown. However, while looking at the fuse board in the electrical cabinet I did notice a few small chips of aluminum on the board, which might be shorting out the board and causing the issue. I brushed those chips away and retested the wires numbered 501 and 502. 11.92 V showing on the multimeter, problem solved.

Looks like some chips somehow made it into the electrical cabinet and shorted out the fuse board, specifically the 501 and 502 wires to the draw bar control board. It took a day or so to track down the issue, but luckily it was an easy and cheap fix. Some photos below.

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EV Charging

Last week I contacted a colleague from my school who was an electrician about installing an outlet at my house to charge an electric vehicle. They were unable to do the job, but gave me a name of a former student who works in the electrical field that would be able to do a side job. When I first texted with that person they were under quarantine and needed a week before they would be able to come out and do the job. Unfortunately, today I found out they no longer have the availability to help me out, so I’m back looking for an electrician. I will most likely look into contacting the person who installed our new electrical panel when we first purchased our house. Will follow up on that in a later post.