The Home Machinist!

My shop is heated by oil only. I used to have propane, but as it turns out, the oil is cheaper. The house has an oil furnace, a pellet stove and a just installed heat pump. I went with the heat pump for the air conditioning in the summer and a heater for the fall. So far, its doing very well and doe...

After reading this, I consider myself lucky. 3/4 of a mile up the street is a family owned Ace hardware store, with the very uneven wood floors. They do use computers at the checkout, and can order most anything either from their other store 20 miles away or from the warehouse. Their bolt and hardwa...

Wow! Great video!

Bill, you are right. If the model is created in Solidworks student version, it can be opened in a Solidworks "Commercial" Version as long as the two versions are the same; IE. Student 2018, Standard 2018. The model is permanently marked internally with the students name and that it was created in a ...

Dave, If you can give me the name & model number of the hoist, I can repair the board. If your interested, I'll send you a PM with my address.

Jim B

I remember that in '75 my tuition for the semester at the college was the same price as an HP calculator. But if the math professor saw you using a calculator, you flunked his course. The electronics professors didn't care. I got an associates degree in Drafting in '73 but quickly learned that there...

Harold, I finally got a chance to sit down to Solidworks and throw together what we had as water savers for our induction units. The operation of these is fairly simple. The water from the power supply and one furnace at a time drains back into the this tank. A temperature switch in the pump dischar...

Good work! Sounds like I should have come out to help!

Jim B

Be careful, that symbol is usually used for analog sensors, not digital sensors. As in measuring distance. If in question, isolate the sensor and test it.

Control Systems is my specialty, so if you have any questions, email me directly and I will answer them. Harold has my email.

Jim B

Mike of RRSC bought one of the Vulcan MIG welders and loves it.

Jim B

The oil less compressors used in hospitals are way beyond what is normally used by the hobbyist. They are similar to the compressors used for filling the air tanks that fire fighters use. The "affordable" oil less compressors that I have worked on, all use a rubber diaphragm between the piston and t...

"Is a protective layer of sand, or other insulating media, used on the floor, Jim, or do they simply work directly on the concrete?" They simply work on the concrete, no sand involved. What we did do, was to install a 24"x24"x4" fire brick right under the pour spout of the furnace. This way any "oop...