Fighting Machine Tool Chatter With A 555 Timer

October 6, 2017 by Dan Maloney 32 Comments

Vibration is a fact of life in almost every machining operation. Whether you’re milling, drilling, turning, or grinding, vibration can result in chatter that can ruin a part. Fighting chatter has generally been a matter of adding more mass to the machine, but if you’re clever about things, chatter reduction can be accomplished electronically, too. (YouTube, embedded below.)

When you know a little something about resonance, machine vibration and chatter start to make sense. [AvE] spends quite a bit of time explaining and demonstrating resonance in the video — fair warning about his usual salty shop language. His goal with the demo is to show that chatter comes from continued excitation of a flexible beam, which in this case is a piece of stock in the lathe chuck with no tailstock support. The idea is that by rapidly varying the speed of the lathe slightly, the system never spends very long at the resonant frequency. His method relies on a variable-frequency drive (VFD) with programmable IO pins. A simple 555 timer board drives a relay to toggle the IO pins on and off, cycling the VFD up and down by a couple of hertz. The resulting 100 RPM change in spindle speed as the timer cycles reduces the amount of time spent at the resonant frequency. The results don’t look too bad — not perfect, but a definite improvement.

It’s an interesting technique to keep in mind, and a big step up from the usual technique of more mass.

Continue reading “Fighting Machine Tool Chatter With A 555 Timer” →

A Fix For The Lightweight Machine Tool Shakes

September 16, 2017 by Dan Maloney 12 Comments

No matter what material you work with, the general rule is that with machine tools, the heavier, the better. Some people can’t afford or don’t want big tools, though, even with their natural tendency to reduce vibrations. That doesn’t mean something can’t be done to help the little tools, like reducing vibration in a contractor-grade table saw.

This one might seem a little outside the usual confines of the hackosphere, but nobody can doubt [Matthias Wandel]’s hacker chops and he really shows off his problem-solving skills with this one. His well-worn contractor-style table saw has had more than a few special modifications over the years, some of which left it with a shimmy sufficient to vibrate workpieces right off the table. He fashioned a friction damper for the saw’s motor from wood, complete with ball and socket joints to allow full movement of the blade height and angle. That didn’t quite do the trick, but his incremental approach finally found the right combination of factors, and the video below shows a saw now stable enough to balance a nickel.

If the name seems familiar but you just can’t place the hacks, check out [Matthias]’s recent wooden domino extruder, his shortcuts to tapping wood, or of course his classic wood gears layout software.

Continue reading “A Fix For The Lightweight Machine Tool Shakes” →

Bulking Up A Lightweight Lathe With A Concrete Cart

March 5, 2017 by Dan Maloney 21 Comments

When it comes to machine tools, a good rule of thumb is that heavier is better. A big South Bend lathe or Bridgeport mill might tip the scales at ludicrous weight, but all that mass goes to damping vibration and improving performance. So you’d figure a lathe made of soda cans could use all the help it could get; this cast concrete machine cart ought to fit the bill nicely

Perhaps you’ve caught our recent coverage of [Makercise]’s long and detailed vlog of his Gingery lathe build. If not, you might want to watch the 5-minute condensed video of the build, which shows the entire process from melting down scrap aluminum for castings to first chips. We love the build and the videos, but the lightweight lathe on that wooden bench never really worked for us, or for [Makercise], who notes that he was never able to crank the lathe up to full speed because of the vibrations. The cart attempts to fix that problem the old fashioned way – more mass.

There are a few “measure twice, cut once” moments in the video below, as well as a high pucker-factor slab lift that could have turned into a real disaster. We might have opted for a countertop-grade concrete mix that could be dyed and polished, but that would be just for looks. When all is said and done, the cart does exactly what it was built to do, and there’s even room on it for the shaper that’s next on the build list. We’re looking forward to that.

Continue reading “Bulking Up A Lightweight Lathe With A Concrete Cart” →

Keep The Peace In The Bedroom With A Snore Stopping Sleep Mask

February 22, 2017 by Dan Maloney 29 Comments

Despite what my wife says, I have absolutely no evidence that I snore. After all, I’ve never actually heard me snoring. But I’ll take her word for it that I do, and that it bothers her, so perhaps I should be a sport and build this snore-detecting vibrating sleep mask so she can get a few winks more.

Part wearable tech and part life hack, [mopluschen]’s project requires a little of the threadworker’s skill. The textile part of the project is actually pretty simple, and although [mopluschen] went with a custom mask made from fabric and foam shoulder pads, it should be possible to round up a ready-made mask that could be easily modified. The electronics are equally simple – an Arduino with a sound sensor module and a couple of Lilypad Vibe boards. The mic rides just above the snore resonating chamber and the vibrators are right over the eyes. When your snore volume exceeds a preset threshold, the motors wake you up.

Whether this fixes the underlying problem or just evens the score with your sleep partner is debatable, but either way there’s some potential here. And not just for snore-correction – a similar system could detect a smoke alarm and help rouse the hearing impaired. But if the sewing part of this project puts you off, you should probably check out [Jenny List]’s persuasive argument that sewing is not just for cosplayers anymore.

Appliance Monitor Is Kinda Shaky

January 8, 2017 by Lewin Day 24 Comments

Lots of people set out to build appliance monitors, whether it be for the fridge, the garage door, or the washing machine. Often, it’s nicer not to cut into an appliance to make direct electrical connections, especially when mains power or water is involved. But how else can we know what the appliance is doing?

[Drew Dormann] wanted to smarten up his old washing machine, so designed a system that uses a vibration sensor to monitor appliances. It’s a simple build, pairing the 801s vibration sensor with a Raspberry Pi Zero. Naturally, adapter boards are readily available to make hooking things up easy. Then it’s just a matter of tying it all together with a simple Python script which sends notifications using Twitter & PushBullet.

It’s important to note that this approach isn’t just limited to washing machines – there’s a whole laundry list of home appliances that vibrate enough to be monitored in this way! It’s likely you could even spy on a communal microwave in this way, though you might struggle with WiFi dropouts due to interference. Build it and let us know.

[Drew]’s build is a great example of what you can put together in a few hours with parts off the shelf. For those that consider the Pi Zero overkill for this application, consider this vibration-based laundry monitor based on the ESP8266. Think you can do better? Show us what you’ve got on Hackaday.io!

Launitor Saves You From Accidentally Smelly Clothes

November 10, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 19 Comments

[domiflichi] is human and fallible. So he can’t be blamed for occasionally forgetting the laundry in one of the machines and coming back to a less than stellar result. However, while fallible, he is not powerless.

What if his washer/dryer could email or text him about his laundry? It seemed simple enough. Add a vibration sensor to the side of the machine along with some brains. When the load is done it will bother him until he comes down to push the button or There Will Come Soft Rains.

He started off with an Arduino-and-ESP8226 combination and piezo sensors. The piezos had lots of shortcomings, so he switched to accelerometers and things worked much better. We really like the way he mounts them to the side of the washer dryer using the PCB’s mounting screws as angle brackets. The case is a standard project box with some snazzy orange acrylic on the front.

It took some fiddling, but these days [domiflichi]’s clothes are fresher, his cats fed, and his appliances more aware. Video of it in operation after the break.

Continue reading “Launitor Saves You From Accidentally Smelly Clothes” →

3D Printer Enclosure Is Pleasant On The Eyes And Ears

August 2, 2016 by Bryan Cockfield 37 Comments

There’s a lot going on in the 3D printing world. Huge printing beds, unique materials like concrete, and more accessible, inexpensive printers for us regular folk. The only thing that’s often overlooked with these smaller printers is the ruckus that they can make. The sounds of all those motors can get tiresome after a while, which was likely the inspiration for [Fabien]’s home 3D printer workstation. (Google Translate from French)

After acquiring a new printer, [Fabien] needed a place to put it and created his own piece of furniture for it. The stand is made out of spruce and is lined with insulation. He uses a combination of cork, foam, and recycled rubber tile to help with heat, sound, and vibration respectively. Don’t worry, though, he did install a ventilation system for the fumes! After the printer housing is squared away, he place a webcam inside so that the user can monitor the print without disturbing it. Everything, including the current print, is managed with a computer on the top of the cabinet.

Having a good workspace is just as important as having a quality tool, and [Fabien] has certainly accomplished that for his new 3D printer. There have been a lot of good workspace builds over the years, too, including electronics labs in a portable box and this masterpiece workbench. If you’ve ever experienced the frustration of working in an area that wasn’t designed for the task at hand, you’ll easily be able to appreciate any of these custom solutions.