you know what? im gunna put this out there. is this the place? iunno. i guess so... i got... tools. workshop. metal stuff. northwest sydney. gorge, berowa waters, old northern. everyone knows my place dammit... so... on one hand, one has to make money, keep the tax man happy. pay bills. but i also i believe in you scratch my back, ill scratch yours. i got two lathes. two mills, one cnc (but in pieces and getting rebuilt... the death of XP killed me...) a flypress. an english wheel. shrinker. stretcher. a furnace. that will do 1600C... (or better? iunno! only fired it twice!) general workshop tools. tig, acdc(ali) mig, stick... can weld it, turn it, drill it, bash it with a hammer... could bash out fairings if i gave it a go... theres some tools i always seem to be lacking. where the hell are all my 13s? i gotta get some more handtools, lol... some room. 2 acres. can make some noise... decent sized shed even if it is only half built and still has the roof tied on with ratchet straps... too much crap to do. make doodads. i wanna make a dyno again, big one, did a little baby one years ago. piss easy. have a go at casting-come-semi-forging pistons... i grabbed the flypress for that reason... thinking just melt some down, pour the mould, let it cool to just past mushy, then smash it hard... used to do twostroke pipes, love them. theyre a challenge... i cant run a business for sh|t. i still live in "throw me $20" land. i dont do this for a living. im on a ... break... from being a courier at the moment... so. that being said. im happy to take jobs on if you need. if i think there in my capability... im the one that will throw a heel shifter on for you, wack some braided lines on an 83 goldwing, or just get the cruddy effin pitbike running again. im not touching anything new, under warranty, and im going to be wary of prized showroom restorations... its not my style. im the mad max guy. rat biker. i cant help it. im the tinkerer that will get those barn finds running, spluttering, or tell you you just wasted your time (sorry). but dont expect me to polish anything.... but, for the right people, that are willing to give me a hand every now and then getting the place sorted (the roof cant be ratchet strapped down forever?)... theres a shop here. you use all my gas buy me a refill. you break something fess up and replace. its all good. if you wanna whinge about the breeze help me get the wall up... panel beater there to do paintjobs (he charges...) if you can use it, go for it. if you want to use it but need a lesson or twenty seven.... we can talk... open doors... more of a private mens... sorry, "sane humans"... shed if you will... have a beer, have a smoke, no fusspots or wankers... the place is a mess, i lose it every ten minutes... theres no seats, theres no kettle, no tap or sink... so yeah... i sorta need a hand here and there. trying to get it sorted but 2 acres is a lot to deal with. or, the right person... that can run a business, deal with my BS, and... give me a reason to actually do what i do when im working for other people but cant do for myself... focus. strange that. did i say i got too much to do? i got the ideas for things, but yeah... i am NOT A PEOPLE PERSON. be warned lol metal or rock preferably... no rap
welllllllll.... when i posted this thread.... i sort of made the assumption that some people might jump at the offer of a free workshop with access to certain machinery. obviously i was wrong. so sod yas! im just going to document various little projects and rethink the offer of workshops to random internet peoples. todays project? make the sub-tank and pump for my long held off project....the EFI honda cub with turbocharged lifan 140. this one has killed me over the years, what with an ecotrons EFI kit, the lousy harness that didnt suit and all the crimps were undoing, followed by a new custom harness... then the ECU blowing up due to my mistake of assuming the two power grounds where solidly tied internally rather than externally, was fine until i actually put fuel in it and the extra load on the pump fried it. followed by a new ECU that failed in the first ten minutes. would give me spark, would hook up to the PC, but not communicate... and wouldnt do what an ECU is supposed to do! followed by every single part of the ecotrons kit failing in some way, from the regulator to the fuel pump to the CDI unit.... i had just started testing my own version of an ECU, fired up first go... and that was when the pump failed... decided to stop making pressure. this is the story of my life. murphy. bleeding murphy. and so its sat in the shed annoying me ever since. anyway! sub tank! bit of ali welding, some machining, some folding of sheet... so this needs sealing up... snip snip... fold on the dotted line aluminium is easy to weld. i also shake worse than micheal j fox and constantly dip my tip, consuming tungsten like its being given away... and looking ready for the endplate and perspex lid! right. hopefully i might even get to test my new DIY ECU! and on that area... im doing something completely out of the ballpark, non standard... from my VR signal conditioning to the entire fuelling algorithms... an 8 pin pic chip? fuzzy logic? MAP, RPM, and... nothing else? was due to this article i found all the way back in highschool, when the internet held information and promises for the future... when it was fun... if you search for this article now? its hidden behind a plethora of paywall sites. but never fear, its still available for free as well! https://rjhowlett.co.uk/papers/2004-2.pdf so heres my MAP and VR/crank signal from the other day... raw VR sensor signal, with my modified and conditioned signal for instant RPM acquisition, no counting pulses per RPM, or anything like that. no missing teeth. just measure the length of the trigger tab on the flywheel. this circuit should be patented. (if anyone can write C and can implement this into speeduino firmware i am all ears?) and then, MAP over crank signal. as you can see, two crank pulses per fourstroke cycle. some sneaking around with AD conversions and i can discriminate between compression and exhaust... right, thats it for now, aluminiums cooled down. back to the shop. and im hiding from murphy... hes been looking for me... i swear... any minute now... WTF IS GOING TO GO WRONG NOW? ahhh. yes! almost out of argon!
more stuff. i knew i was almost out of gas. no more subtank for now... project on hold, a few more weeks wont hurt. i hope? phonecall an hour or two later... fix a sump pan ASAP? sure! half an inch of weld, then bubble bubble boil and trouble... FFS! i was that close to running out? out with the stick... forgot to take any pics of before and after. sorry some nice panelbeating work, anyway. so. someone else wanted a few lil washers made. should be a five minute job on the lathe. except measuring lengths on a lathe and accurately parting off is sort of... something i never really thought about before. so it was half an our of swearing (you know who you are!) i once had a digital indicator, i set it up, used it a few times, then of course, it went and died when i needed it and got thrown to the floor in anger. that taught it! so, i bought meself a chrissy pressie, got a DRO at last. now it needs fitting... drag lathe from back of wall, see if the scale isnt too long. that checks out... so some fiddling, drilling holes, die grinding flat spots on the base, fiddle fiddle... thats one scale fitted. and fully mounted to the saddle... well, i could leave it at this. can live without the cross slide for now. and i think i might order a different scale as this one is 50mm too long. keep it for when i throw one on the mill? but... whilst the lathe is out, one better sidetrack and do something else thats been bugging me for a while now... grind the hollow out of the concrete floor so im no longer standing in a pool of water? well, after doing some dry, with no dust equipment, covering EVERYTHING, and giving myself silicosis to boot (who needs engineered stone products when you got concrete?) i did some wet... making even more mess with concrete mud sludge all over the floor... decided i better drag out my old cyclone and fix its base flange mounting thing... yes, i did concrete grinding/floor leveling/tile removal for a living once upon a time. i sort of miss it in a strange way? and well, that then moved onto seeing if the old ducted vac i rescued from the road side cleanups actually worked... yep. figure out how its wired up, just a simple latching relay setup. (yes, im a sparkie... as long as no-one wants me to produce a license? lol!) i now have a dual motor sucker that can pull a golf ball through 20ft of garden hose... sweet its a keeper! may even get bolted to the wall permanently... and then, just go grab the grinder shroud so i can finish this and get the lathe back in place and set it back up... well. it WAS in a cupboard for the last five years or so. could grab it at any time. except i moved the cupboard six months ago? found my cup wheels. thought they were with the shroud? yknow, in the box where i keep all my grinding stuff? nope. FFS! and there ends todays project. six hours of searching. still no shroud. i seriously cant handle this... searching. always searching... never get anything done because whatever it is that i need, right now? its vanished. gone AWOL.... really kills the mood when you search in every conceivable location, can find things hidden away from 1995, can find all those missing socks, can find that hammer i couldnt find the day before, can find the bits for the tractor i havent seen in a decade... but cant find what i NEED. ive never been that well organised, use the "Random Location Storage System". when i poured this slab i shoved everything into a container and its been utter chaos ever since... anyway, one must persevere, i am getting there slowly... oh well. hopefully a friend brings his makita over tomorrow morning and i can continue...otherwise im doing it wet again, though i really do not want to... so, this is it for the time being...
and other stuff thats been going on... i did this quite a while ago... strapped a vz21 turbo onto my lil tractor. even tracked down a billet compressor for it. (it was supposed to go on my postie?) i just felt it was high time to put the airfilter back on? this thing went through a few iterations... equal length headers, a compound setup, and yeah... lot of fooling around for no real reason and so far, this has been the best setup. makes a huge difference when pulling a plough? cranked the fuel up, set the max RPM a bit higher, and will pull 10psi or so. not bad for an oversized turbo on an undersized engine... (its the smallest turbo you can get? its still too big!) got some intercoolers, along with a few different bar and plate cores, but yeah... twenty eight things at once is enough. moving on... another lil project, waiting on some hydraulic rams until its finished, but anyway... grader blade come tipper trailer for the tractor. so far, works pretty well. levels the dirt out better than i expected, and the tipping part actually tips... yes, thats an 8T jack thats been modified to simply have a hose from the tractors 3-point hitch. looks a bit odd, but basically the wheels pivot so i can offset it to either side, and eventually they'll have a ram so the whole lot lifts up. then i can fill up the 500L tank for some weight on the thing. needs it. a work in progress. i fully expect that RHS its made from to snap sooner or later, its all i had at the time. once i sort all its bugs out then i will swap it for some 5 or 8mm wall stuff instead. for now, using what scrap is kicking around. ummmm. serviced the R15. its been "naked" for a long time now... actually, it was having a bit of a cough at 7K, was sort of getting to be a nuisance. assumed water in the tank. pull it all apart before remembering its done this before! hang on! yank the wires to the coil, give them a squeeze with the pliers, pop em back on. cough fixed. but while its apart, and as i hate pulling plastics off and putting them back on... check them valve clearances... wire the air horn up... finally. and of course, i NEEDED IT TWICE WITHIN THE FIRST HOUR! why cant people open their EFFING EYES? put its fairings back on. yuk i hate fairings... its mostly a matter of how many different tools do you need to get them off with? i count five on this thing. thats four too many! oh, and i had to get nasty on the gearshifter. i hate finding a bike where its flogged the splines and had it welded on, but ive done it to this one before. grind that weld off, pop the lever off, shove it in the vice and crush it so it really hangs on, grind the slot out a bit wider, put a decent hitensile bolt in and crank it up hard. i caught it ages ago when it started loosening up a bit but yeah... it didnt fix it hence the weld at some point. horrible way to fix things... but my attitude about this bike is when its dead, its DEAD. ffs, its an R15! still, its been pretty good and earned me a few dollars in its time... back to the EFI? i knew i had this somewhere! its a debugger for the chip im using on this ECU. cost a freaking fortune to get shipped. so i bought two. only six left for sale in the world apparently... the actual pic12f683 is an 8 pin device, so to debug any code, it needs this special one with 14 pins to access certain features... yes, i could simply use arduino. yes i could use any other pic-chip with more pins. but i am a masochist! and if im going to learn how to code, im doing it the HARD WAY! actually, i really like assembly language, i find its intuitive, whereas when i look at C or any other type of programming language, my eyes glaze over.... anyway. i better go bunnings and get some gas tomorrow. i really want to hear this postie start up again, but on the ECU this time. even if my initial code is basically "open injector for 1mS when crank signal detected". gotta start somewhere? its going to be a long and tedious process. i have dug through the firmware/code for speeduino, and well... i cannot figure out how theyre implementing the crank signal. i can see how i can set different trigger wheels and the like, but i cant seem to find any associated timers, etc. i can sort of figure out how to throw it onto a non-specified board, and thats it. i refuse to use toothed wheels. i have my system, im sticking with it. and its one of those things that as soon as you modify things, you find that theres a lot of other processes relying on certain procedures... i dont need knock sensors or canbus or OBDII protocols. i just want the most basic, simple EFI system possible that acts in every respect like a carb and no more. the sort of thing you can strap onto ANYTHING and dial in... like that cbr600 you got for nothing and wanna shove in a gokart... (um, its an R6 and its carbed? fool!) the issue ive found with all these aftermarket ECUs is BLOAT. like windows? all this superfluous nonsense people are convinced is necessary. it IS NOT. just deliver enough fuel at the right time. thats ALL they have to do.
well, it was a saga, but the lathe now has a DRO... felt it was an idea to change the 250mm slide for a 200mm instead. same length as the cross-slide. glad i have an air drill as there was no way i was drilling this hole without it. cordless is too fat and my only long series drill bits are the wrong diameter. and of course, i had to give it a bit of a service while it was apart. this possibly has to be the filthiest gearbox in existence. even ones at the bottom of swamps are jealous... thats about a decade of sitting under a tarp with a leaky roof. didnt really want to pull it apart but glad that i did. not sure how water even gets in there? and that started a whole new drama with chinese that cant get their drills centered or straight and broken roll-pins... for such a simple thing, took a good two days. anyway. she feels a lot nicer now! better than new! and then i got sick of looking at another incomplete job... air compressor! usual deal of back burner whilst waiting for bits and pieces to turn up. finding out they sent wrong ones... blah blah... anyway, oil cooler mounted in front of the fan, some compression fittings, bit of dodgy pipe bending, water trap, and yeah... shes filling up with some seriously dry air now yes, thats a 45kg LPG bottle. yes, they are rated. still scare me slightly? of course, i feel no urgency about dealing with that exposed terminal block and caps hanging off leads... meh. been like that ever since i drgged it off the side of the road... maybe when i get in tho mood to add the mandatory (now un)necessary drain on the tank, and another outlet... nice and humid today. already got a cup of water out by filling the tank twice.
you forgot one of the coolest almost finished projects..... the blast furnace for casting manifolds... etc
what? this thing? whats so freaking cool about this? heh heh heh... she'll definitely do iron! stuffed up, needed more hole! how to core-drill an existing hole? and, yeah, a slightly larger heat exchanger... actually started clearing the junk out from around it today, do have to get it going again. really only have to throw a new burner tube in it and shes good to go now. decided the high pressure pump and spray nozzle is not the way to go. and then, yeah... maybe throw the pyrometer on. someone asked how it would go with glass blowing? never considered that! and these arrived at last! for me grader come trailer... 50mm stroke for blade tilt, 100mm for lifting the rear... iirc, about AU$250 delivered? be about 2000 bought here... yay, australia... rip you off at every turn...
a distraction... the mower needs major surgery. some people would buy a new one. me? i am POOR! so.... transfer all the leveling gear from the walker over to a great dane deck i had tucked away for a slasher... i actually did set it up for the tractor ages ago, but soon discovered i needed to add a 1:2 overdrive to get the blade speed up to work properly, and its sat rusting away under a tree ever since... the gearbox driven blades were awesome at first... could run without earmuffs, was that quiet... then, a few bricks, some chain, several bits of fencing wire, hoses, (all mysteriously made their way into previously cleared areas after i got said mower and started pulling down someones "good fences"....? erm... yeah. bits of rusty wire separating one pile of junk from another, basically... even took pride in how they were already second hand mesh scavenged from someones rubbish heap...) finally, to cap it all off... a 3 foot chunk of 1/2" angle iron buried in the ground on the fenceline out on the nature strip that i discovered when i decided i would mow it the other way one day, would still be there lurking if i stuck to the usual method... and a truck axle buried in an old fence line inside the property (and i made SURE there was nothing there!) bent the spindles... both had been there for about 50 years... and wow, its made some horrible noises ever since! ive just been waiting for it to finally throw a blade for the last time... it did. couldnt be bothered bolting it back on now. at 1500 or so USD, i am NOT about to buy new parts! cant get the spindle by itself, have to buy the complete gearbox... anyway, the gearboxes are used above the ratings listed on the manufacturers site, and the imperial bearings are some weird narrow race type with out any provision for seals so are basically impossible to source, and the grass is growing like mad... i have no choice but to do a chop chop! at least i can throw "swingback" blades on the great dane deck... the walker? the blades overlap, and spin the same way, so you have two lumps of steel approaching each other at double rotational speed, and it all relies on synchronisation to NOT destroy them... they have since changed the design to belts or contra rotating with gearboxes, so yeah... they must have learned something... beautiful finish if you own a golf course, i guess... absolute nightmare if you dont! walkers are quite nice mowers...
