Extinguish Squeaks 24/7 With Refillable WD-40

It’s 10:34PM and you’ve just run out of water displacement formula #40. You could wait until tomorrow to get a new can, or you could spend the rest of the night turning an old, empty fire extinguisher into a refillable and re-pressurizable WD-40 dispenser like [liquidhandwash] did. The part count is pretty low, but it’s awfully specific.

And the emphasis is on empty extinguisher. Part of the deal involves twisting the gauge off, and we wouldn’t want you to get blasted in the face with any last gasps of high-powered firefighting foam. In order to make the thing re-pressurizable, [liquidhandwash] stripped all the rubber from a tire valve and removed the core temporarily so it could be soldered into the fitting where the gauge was. The handy hose is from a large can of WD-40, which is also where the label came from — since it’s no longer a fire extinguisher, it needs to stop bearing resemblance to one, so [liquidhandwash] removed the sticker, painted it blue, and glued the cut-open can to the outside.

To use it, [liquidhandwash] fills it up about halfway and then pressurizes it through the tire valve with a bike pump or compressor. (We think we’d go with bike pump.) Since [liquidhandwash] goes through so much lubricant, now, they can just buy it by the gallon and keep refilling the extinguisher.

Is WD-40 your everything hammer? Variety is the spice of shop life.

Fire Extinguisher Ball Mill Destined To Grind Kitty Litter

Nothing says hack like a tool quickly assembled from a few scrap-heap parts. For [Turbo Conquering Mega Eagle], his junkyard finds were a fire extinguisher, an old office fan, and a few scraps of plywood; the result was a quick and easy ball mill.

There’s very little mention of what said ball mill will be for — [TCME] said something about milling bentonite clay, AKA kitty litter — but that’s hardly the point. Having previously fabricated a much smaller version of this ball mill that could chuck up in his lathe, he scaled this one up considerably. The spent fire extinguisher was relieved of the valve and some external bits to create the mill’s drum. Plywood was used for a quick frame to support rollers and to turn a couple of pulleys for the running gear. The fan motor proved barely capable of performing, though, even with the mechanical advantage of the pulleys and an improvised drive belt. The motor just didn’t have the oomph to turn the drum when loaded with ceramic balls, but a quick adjustment to the drive train did the trick. The video below shows the whole build process, which couldn’t have taken much more than a couple of hours.

It looks like a sand casting project may be on deck for [TCME]’s milled bentonite, so we’ll look forward to that. Perhaps his other recent fire extinguisher build will make an appearance in that video too.

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Monstrous USB Power Bank

At some point, cleaning out the spare parts bin — or cabinet, or garage — becomes a necessity. This is dangerous because it can induce many more project ideas and completely negate the original purpose. [Chaotic Mind], considering the pile of  batteries he’s collected over the past decade, decided that instead of throwing them out, he would recycle them into a grotesque USB power bank.

Inside the bulk of this power bank are an eye-popping 64 18650 Lithium Ion cells, mostly collected from laptop batteries, and wired in a parallel 8×8 pattern with an estimated capacity of over 100,000mAh(!!).  The gatekeeper to all this stored energy is a two-USB power bank charger board from Tindie.

Ah — but how to package all this power? The handy man’s secret weapon: duct-tape!

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Pouring 1200° Tea: Foundry In A Fire Extinguisher

Let’s face it — the design of most home foundries leaves something to be desired. Most foundries are great at melting metal, but when it comes to pouring the melt, awkward handling can easily lead to horrific results. That’s why we appreciate the thought that went into this electric melting pot foundry.

Sure, electric foundries lack some of the sex-appeal of gas- or even charcoal-fueled foundries, but by eschewing the open flames and shooting sparks, [Turbo Conquering Mega Eagle] was able to integrate the crucible into the foundry body and create what looks for all the world like a Thermos bottle for molten aluminum.

The body is a decapitated fire extinguisher, while the crucible appears to just be a length of steel pipe. An electric stove heating element is wrapped around the crucible, PID control of which is taken care of by an external controller and solid state relay. Insulated with Pearlite and provided with a handle, pours are now as safe as making a nice cup of 1200° tea.

You’ll perhaps recall that [Turbo Conquering Mega Eagle] has a thing for electric foundries, although we have to say the fit and finish of the current work far exceeds his previous quick-and-dirty build using an old electric stove.

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Hack Safely: Fire Safety In The Home Shop

Within the past two months we’ve covered two separate incidents of 3D printing-related fires. One was caused by an ill-advised attempt to smooth a print with acetone heated over an open flame, while the other was investigated by fire officials and found to have been caused by overuse of hairspray to stick prints to the printer bed. The former was potentially lethal but ended with no more than a good scare and a winning clip for “Hacking’s Funniest Home Videos”; the latter tragically claimed the life of a 17-year old lad with a lot of promise.

In light of these incidents, we here at Hackaday thought it would be a good idea to review some of the basics of fire safety as they relate to the home shop. Nowhere was this need made clearer than in the comments section on the post covering the fatal fire. There was fierce debate about the cause of the fire and the potential negative effect it might have on the 3D-printing community, with comments ranging from measured and thoughtful to appallingly callous. But it was a comment by a user named [Scuffles] that sealed the deal:

“My moment of reflection is that it’s well past time I invest in a fire extinguisher for my workstation. Cause right now my fire plan pretty much consists of shouting obscenities at the blaze and hoping it goes out on its own.”

Let’s try to come up with a better plan for [Scuffles] and for everyone else. We’ll cover the basics: avoidance, detection, control, and escape.

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diy air compressor

DIY Air Compressor Made From Refrigerator And Fire Extinguisher

[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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bass fire extinguisher

Putting Out Fires With A Dubstep Drop

Two engineering students from George Mason University have built a rather unorthodox fire extinguisher. It uses a subwoofer to send sound waves powerful enough to extinguish small fires.

Similar in concept to a giant smoke-ring canon, the device uses a subwoofer with a tube that has a smaller aperture opening at the end. When the bass drops (literally), this causes an intense wave of sound (well, air), to be expelled from the device. And as you can see in the video below, it’s quite effective at putting out small fires.

They use a small frequency generator and amplifier to power the system, and throughout extensive testing found 30-60Hz to work best. It’s not actually one big blast of air, but a pressure wave that goes back and forth — agitating the air, and separating it from the fire. There is a catch though.

One of the problems with sound waves is that they do not cool the fuel,” Isman said. “So even if you get the fire out, it will rekindle if you don’t either take away the fuel or cool it.

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