The Diaries Of An Un-Furloughed Grendel

[grendel]

well with the torrential rain came an issue, there was a puddle in the conservatory (not a small one either) so having ascertained it wasnt coming from above , but from the side, i started moving stuff to find the source. of course it was under the shelves, so, after removing the bottom shelf i found the source, a bad seal on one of the wall panels, and the water was pouring in, fortunately by this time the rain had stopped, so i was able to run a bead of silicon around the panel to hopefully stop the leak

[OldBerkshireBoy]

If it was the likes of CT1 you will be ok however normal silicone, even wet room stuff should only be used on a bone dry surface. 

[grendel]

dunno, it was something i got in asda while b&q wasnt open, I will check it tomorrow and see where its getting in on the outside.

[grendel]

well smaller puddle, but hopefully solved now, investigation outside showed the panel had a good seal, but the glass panel above looked a bit suspect, so that was sealed round the edges, then the inside resealed as well, fingers crossed now,

[grendel]

so after fixing the leak it was on to rebuilding a power pack for a defunct delta sander, using lithium cells, this was originally a 12V one, but i rebuilt it using 4 cells into a 14.8V one. 

[grendel]

well despite the torrential downpour last night, i seem to have fixed the leak

[grendel]

after yoga this morning a little shoppin trip, i spotted lidls have action cams for £40 each, and i wanted a spare, so i got me a couple this morning, if you want to record your trips on the broads these are a cheapish option to do so, these are wi fi enabled too.

[grendel]

well this might be that this should be in the model thread, but lets put it here for now, having recieved the rechargeable lithium cells, and some other purchases it was time to test spot welding the nickle strip to the batteries.

 

[grendel]

with the arrival of the last vital parts, i have now completed my first   power bank, outputting 5v through a usb port with a capacity of 9000mAh

[grendel]

these are made at a higher voltage reduced down to 5v on the power output to usb so they are 9Ah at 8.4V, at 5V which equates to about 15Ah at 5V, so allowing for losses in the power conversion about 14Ah at the socket, i am aiming to use these to run Action Cams for longer than the 40 minutes or so the internal batteries run for.

[Ray]

Sounds great, I really wish I could say I understand as well ☺ But I do get the point about running the action cams longer than the internal batteries can... you are without doubt a very clever man Grendel! Respect 🍺🍺

[grendel]

Well the 770mAH batteries run at about 20-30 minutes, you can get 1100mah batteries which last about an hour, this big beastie should run an action cam all day, add a 64Gb card and use a normal resolution (not 4k) and it should be able to record for a good long while, since thanks to lidls i own 4 of these plus the one i had before, i will have cameras to record my trips aboard. just got to check i have enough camera mounts now. i have i big clamp on ans at least 2 small ones, tripods a plenty,

[Ray]

Thanks Grendel, sounds like a perfect setup 👍

[grendel]

Well i have been working, the final bits needed arrived today, some additional parts were 3d printed, so i got on and assembled a further two battery units, the second of which has two usb outputs,

[grendel]

I am hoping to use these to get video as i travel on my holidays, recently there was a good deal on action cams at lidls, so i bought a couple, i got a couple more when i spotted they still had a few left, so i now have 4 4k capable cameras. now dont expect polished videos, about the best i can do is add music to videos, so all it will be is videos taken as i travel the broads.

[VetChugger]

Maybe use one of these batteries on the B A models??

[grendel]

It is a possibility, but it will depend on what voltages i can use with various other components. if I drop to 11.1V then the top speed will drop, and the next option is 14.8V, so I will have to check the voltage rating of other components such as the speed controller and sound board.

[Upcycler]

On 01/07/2020 at 20:27, grendel said:

Well i have been working, the final bits needed arrived today, some additional parts were 3d printed, so i got on and assembled a further two battery units, the second of which has two usb outputs,

I noticed 1763 written on the batteries, I do feel the model making of BA originated from this date! 

[grendel]

no, these are recycled batteries, I bought a batch of 100 with capacities rated from 1700-1800mAh, the 1763 would be the tested capacity, I pick 10 batteries all within about 10mAh of each other, thus they form a matched set of cells of similar capacity, as they are being linked as a 5 parallel, 2 series pack, giving 7.4 volts and just under 9000mAh

[grendel]

a friend wanted a bracket made up to mount a motor, so i decided not to do it on the 3d printer and machined it from aluminium instead.

[grendel]

well todays firkling in the workshop was productive, i wanted some holders for my indicators, that could be fixed into the toolholder of my lathe, also one of my indicator stands has a tiny dovetail feature for holding the more expensive type of indicator. preparing a threaded hole in the brass square bar was easy enough, drilled at 5mm and tapped m6. next for the dovetails, i have a dovetail cutter, the only problem it only has a 1/2" hole through, so a spare bit of brass hex stock was dug out.

this was turned down to 1/2" for the cutter, then a section at 12mm was turned down and threaded using a die, a 12mm nut was put on the lathe and turned down as a half thickness nut. this holds the cutter in place, the rest was turned down to 9.5mm dia to be held in a collet chuck. this completed it was mounted into the mill,

Then the tiny dovetails were cut down each side of the square bars so they could mount in the indicator support.

Sometimes you just need to make a new tool to be able to make the part you want to make, problem solving, it keeps the brain active and the fingers busy.