Simple Jig Uses Electromagnet For Clean Angle Grinder Cuts

July 2, 2018 by Dan Maloney 22 Comments

We like it when hacks are literal hack jobs, put together with what’s on hand to do a specific job. This quick and dirty angle grinder circle cutter certainly fills the bill, and makes decent cuts in sheet metal to boot.

The build starts with an unlikely source for parts – an old automotive AC compressor. The one that [Made in Poland] chose to sacrifice was particularly nasty and greasy, but after popping off the pulley, the treasure within was revealed: the large, ring-shaped clutch electromagnet. Liberated from the compressor, the electromagnet was attached to a small frame holding a pillow block. That acts as an axis for an adjustable-length arm, the other end of which holds a modified angle grinder. In use, the electromagnet is powered up by a small 12-volt power supply, fixing the jig in place on the stock. The angle grinder is traced around and makes a surprisingly clean cut. Check out the build and the tool in use in the video below.

At the time [Made in Poland] recorded the video, he noted that he did not have a plasma cutter. That appears to have changed lately, so perhaps he’ll swap out the angle grinder for plasma. And maybe he’ll motorize it for even smoother cuts.

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Rotary Electric Gun Might Not Put Your Eye Out, Kid

March 21, 2018 by Dan Maloney 24 Comments

This one is clearly from the “it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye” file, and it’s a bit of a departure from [Make It Extreme]’s usual focus on building tools for the shop. But what’s the point of having a well-equipped shop if you don’t build cool things, like this unique homebrew electric gun?

When we hear “electric gun” around here, we naturally think of the rail guns and coil guns we feature on a regular basis, which use stored electric charge to accelerate a projectile using electromagnetic forces. This gun is much simpler than that, using purely mechanical means to accelerate the projectiles. The heart of the unit is a machined aluminum spiral from an old scroll compressor, which uses interleaved orbiting spirals to compress gasses. This scroll was cut down to reduce its mass and fixed to a complex shaft assembly allowing it to spin up to tremendous speed with a powerful electric motor. A hopper feeds the marble-sized ammo into the eye of the scroll, which spits it out at high speed. Lacking a barrel, the gun can only spew rounds in the general direction of the target, but it makes up for inaccuracy with an impressive rate of fire — 100 rounds downrange in two seconds. It’s pretty powerful, too, judging by the divots in the sheet steel target in the video below.

Like all of [Make It Extreme]’s build, a lot of effort went into this, and it shows. Their other fun builds of dubious safety include these electromagnetic wall climbers and these “Go Go Gadget” legs.

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Build A Sandblasting Rig For $6

January 19, 2018 by Kristina Panos 42 Comments

Let’s get something out of the way: yes, this assumes you already own or have access to a compressor. So if you do, and know what you’re getting into, why not build a cheap sandblasting rig? That’s what [adamf135] did after seeing someone do it on YouTube. He seriously doubted it would work, but the results are pretty impressive.

This one doesn’t require much more than an empty 20oz bottle, a cheap air gun/nozzle, and an adapter. The hardest part of this hack seems to be cutting a groove in the nozzle for the blasting material without severing it completely. [Adam] cut a 1/2″ section out of his, but that large of an opening really uses up the blasting material. He recommends going smaller. After snipping off the sealing ring, he runs the nozzle through a 3/16″ hole drilled through the strongest part of the bottle and seals it off with hot glue. Watch it power through rust and paint with crushed glass after the break.

If you do any open sandblasting like this, be sure to at least wear a mask. If you don’t want to spray fine particles all over the shop, you could build a wet media blasting cabinet instead, or go even lower-tech and build a drill-powered parts tumbler.

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Fridge Compressor To 2-Stroke Engine: JB Weld For The Win

August 16, 2017 by Dan Maloney 28 Comments

We like this one because it has a real Junkyard Wars feel to it: turning a cast-off fridge compressor into a two-stroke internal combustion engine. [Makerj101] is doing this with tooling no more complicated than a hacksaw and a hand drill. And JB Weld — lots and lots of JB Weld.

[Makerj101]’s video series takes us through his entire conversion process. Despite the outward similarity between compressors and engines, there are enough crucial differences to make the conversion challenging. A scheme for controlling intake and exhaust had to be implemented, the crankcase needed to be sealed, and a cylinder head with a spark plug needed to be fabricated. All of these steps would have been trivial in a machine shop with mill and lathe, but [Makerj101] chose the hard way. An old CPU heat sink serves as a cylinder head, copper wire forms a head gasket and spacer to decrease the compression ratio, and the old motor rotor serves as a flywheel. JB Weld is slathered everywhere, and to good effect as the test run in the video below shows.

Think you recognize [Makerj101]? You probably do, since we featured his previous machine shop-less engine build. This guy sure gets his money’s worth out of a tube of JB Weld.

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3D Printed Jet Engine

June 21, 2017 by Bryan Cockfield 21 Comments

In specific applications, jet engines are often the most efficient internal combustion engines available. Not just for airplanes, but for anything that needs to run on a wide variety of fuels, operate at a consistent high RPM, or run for an extended amount of time. Of course, most people don’t have an extra $4,000 lying around to buy a small hobby engine, but now there’s a 3D-printed axial compressor available from [noob_sauce].

As an aero propulsion engineer, [noob_sauce] is anything but a novice in the world of jet engines. This design is on its fourth iteration with a working model set to be tested by the end of the month. Additionally, [noob_sauce] created his own software that was necessary for the design of such a small, efficient jet engine which has all been made available on Git. So far the only part that has been completed has been the compressor stage of the engine, but it’s still a very impressive build that we don’t see too often due to the complexity and cost of axial compressor jet engines.

Of course, there are some less-complex jet engines that are available to anyone with access to a hardware store and a welder which don’t require hardly any precision at all. While they’re fun and noisy and relatively easy to build, though, they don’t have near the efficiency of a jet engine like this one. The build is impressive on its own, and also great that [noob_sauce] plans to release all the plans so that anyone can build one of these as well.

Parallel Compressors For Sandblasting Without Crashing Your Grid

July 12, 2016 by Adam Fabio 77 Comments

[Hannah] is restoring a 1962 Volkswagen Bug. The goal is to get the car on the road in time for her driver’s test. This is no easy task, as the lower 3 inches of all the body work is rusted out, and the engine is…. well, missing. Basically, the car needs a frame off restoration. This means that [Hannah] will have a lot of metal bodywork to clean up. One of the easiest ways to do that is sandblasting.

Large scale sandblasting is a bit different from most air-powered operations. Sandblasting needs only a modest air pressure, but a high air flow. [Hannah] need 25 Sustained Cubic Feet Per Minute (SCFM) at 80 PSI for sandblasting. Most compressors can easily supply that pressure, but 25 SCFM is asking quite a lot. She could go with an expensive 3 phase unit, or rent a diesel screw compressor. However, [Hannah] decided to connect 4 compressors in parallel to give her the flow she needed.

Connecting the air outputs in parallel is easy. The problem is the electricity. Each compressor is rated for 9 amps while running. They draw quite a bit more while starting up. The compressors have to be wired to individual 15 amp circuits to avoid blowing fuses. They also need to be started in sequence so they don’t pull down the AC for the entire house while starting.

Hannah could have used any sort of delay for this, but she chose an Arduino. The Arduino’s wall wart is wired up to the master compressor. Turning on the master powers up the Arduino which immediately starts a 2 second delay. When the delay times out, the Arduino fires up the second compressor. After several delay loops, all 4 compressors are running together.

The Arduino’s GPIO pins can’t handle 9 amp AC loads, so [Hannah] wired them to TIP120 transistors. The TIP120s drive low power relays, which in turn drive high current air conditioning relays. The system works quite well, as can be seen in the video below the break.

If you’re interested in air compressor projects, check out this setup made from an old refrigerator compressor. For more background on the TIP120, check out this article about these useful transistors.

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DIY Air Compressor Made From Refrigerator And Fire Extinguisher

July 1, 2015 by Rich Bremer 59 Comments

[Giorgos] wanted to build a pneumatic solder paste application tool but needed an air compressor to power it. Instead of going out and buying a compressor, he decided to build one himself. It sure is an ugly duckling but we’re impressed with it’s performance.

The air tank is an old spent fire extinguisher. The stock valve was removed and the insides were cleaned out. Out of curiosity, [Giorgos] figured out the volume by filling the tank with water, then measuring how much water came out. It turned out to be 2.8 liters. Two holes were drilled and threaded bungs were welded on to attach inlet and outlet lines.

The compressor portion is straight out of a refrigerator. Besides the compressor being free, the other benefit is that it is super quiet! Check the video after the break, you’ll be astonished. [Giorgos] did some calculations and figured out that his solder paste applicator needed about 8 bar (116 psi) of pressure. The refrigerator compressor easily handles that, filling the tank in 1 minute, 25 seconds.

On the output side of the tank resides a pressure switch for automatically filling the tank and a regulator for ensuring the solder paste applicator gets the required pressure. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a refrigerator compressor used as an air compressor. Check out this dual setup capable of 400 psi.

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