Random slightly cool stuff you built but not worth its own thread, thread

[johnnyizegem]

So, the wife has a new hobb, her aquarium. It isn't really going as she wants so next thing was to ad CO2.

The bubble counter for that system was installed 'in line' but apparently to heavy for the tube connection at the diffuser side so this happend yesterday (day 2 of the installation)

So yesterday while the potatoes were cooking and she was still working I whipped this little bracket up as a surprise:

Nothing fancy, 20min job but looks OK and does the job...

Cabinet underneeth the aquarium in a following post as not finished yet  

[waspman]

This is not something I have built, more like something saved.

Came across an old car dealer lightbox that had been painted over many years ago

It was in pieces so I paint stripped the aluminum frame, everything was covered in a thick coat or two of cream coloured house paint.

Inside of the lightbox looked good

Noticed when cleaning up after paint stripping that the ancient can of thinners I had softened the paint quite noticeably, not knowing how to remove the old house paint without damaging the plastic sign I decided to test a small piece, to my surprise it softened the paint nicely allowing me to gently scrap the paint off

After quite a few hours over a few weekends it was time to reassemble

 

[waspman]

The panels are a little sunburnt

but it has come up pretty good really

want to hook up some LED lights but have no idea of where to start, might go to Jaycar and see what they suggest

just need to get some rivnuts so I can screw the top back on, all the fastenings were corroded/snapped and the internal flouro tube setup had already been gutted.

Not sure how to mount it in the garage but will sort something.

[datlow]

some led strip lighting stuck around the inner alloy would work i reckon

something like this with remote for max lazy and all the colours

https://www.kmart.co.nz/product/multi-coloured-led-light-strip-43157112/

 

[SOHC]

A nieve Sherman tank that my son requested.

[Stu]

On 01/03/2023 at 21:55, waspman said:

 

This is a really old sign! Clearlite was waaaaaay back in the day before they became Supalite.

Throw some edge light LED's around the outside and it should light up mint

Hit me up if you need anything as my business wholesale manufactures signs.

[SOHC]

[ajg193]

Made a desk for the office, still need to put some corner caps on it and I feel like it needs some more visual stuff on the sides

 

[ajg193]

Found a home for the cow bell

[Themi]

Tig foot pedal - Arduino style 

My smaller Tig welder doesn't support a foot pedal, just an up or down button on the torch. It doesn't really give the control needed for materials like thin stainless, so here we go...

I used a knockoff Arduino uno and a cheap Jaycar protoboard. The wires headed to the welder are soldered on as the control box will be glued to the side, but the 4-pin connector is the one that will go to the foot pedal and the on/off button on the Tig torch. The pot in this case will probably be for "scaling" the foot pedal (perhaps full travel should be +/-10A, or +/-50A?).

In terms of control, the three buttons for the welder (up, down and "on/off") sit on a 5v pull-up and are pulled low to activate. There are 2 ground pins in the connector. I've got up and down switched by some transistors but the on/off needed a relay as the Arduino was being reset when the argon solenoid triggered. I used a diode to control flyback but I think the solenoid plus the HF start were enough to funk-up the Arduino.

Due to the debouncing in the welder buttons I found the minimum pulse duration to be 30ms and 20ms between pulses. This gives about 20 pulses per second, leading to a maximum amount of up or down per second to 20A, which should be plenty for a foot pedal.

I haven't actually built the foot pedal yet but I was just thinking of attaching an arm to the potentiometer to make a linkage, and using a gate hinge + spring as the pedal itself. Real welding foot pedals are surprisingly expensive!

It's not the most interesting project but it solves a pretty annoying problem...

[Hillbillyracing]

My latest project completed Steel and Kwila Shelves.I made for mate to house his HIFI gear

[tintin]

1 hour ago, Hillbillyracing said:

My latest project completed Steel and Kwila Shelves.I made for mate to house his HIFI gear

Looks awesome, puts my stuff to shame 

[tintin]

Made few of these storage/tool boxes to hopefully make moving easier and to sort out what I’ve got in the garage 

still need to paint them with some free paint I got from the refuse station 

[ThePog]

I did a couple of side projects while waiting for stuff for the caravan build, the first being a guitar kit from an outfit in the states called Stewmac, they do a shitload of musical related bits of generally high quality;

Tbh it was pretty piss easy to put together, I did it in 3 nights. I had been looking for a guitar of this type for a while and when i saw the kit and the price I thought I may as well go for it.

It has clear briwax on it but probably needs another coat. I have not really set it up properly yet, but i need some better strings and a free evening. Still it actually plays pretty nice, although i may reshape the neck profile a bit.

It was fun.

[ThePog]

Second I made another version of the stainless steel aeropress, this one should actually work when I try it out tomorrow morning.

 

Its actually a bit taller than a standard one so I can make more coffee and spaz out just that bit more than I usually do.

[ThePog]

Also to complete a trifecta of side projects, I thought I'd have another go at a guitar body, which I just finished up tonight. This has been done with the benefit of some accuracy improvements to the router and now knowing a shitload more about hsmworks programming. Thats a single big slab of macrocarpa, it has come up real nice.

Still a wee bit of misalignment from when it gets flipped over. But it is only about 0.1mm, that will buff out easy as.

 

[Tele29]

That is awesome, tele style but with the arm contour like a strat? Does it have the belly contour as well? What neck will you use?

[ThePog]

1 hour ago, Tele29 said:

That is awesome, tele style but with the arm contour like a strat? Does it have the belly contour as well? What neck will you use?

Thats it, it has the belly contour as well, should be comfy. It is 1.5mm thinner than a standard strat though, due to some dumbshittery on my part. Shouldn't be a problem though.

I have been looking at making a neck on the router as well, however it is a step up in complication in some ways. Although that body needed 15 different operations to get to that stage not including facing off the wood.

But a neck needs a truss rod and frets etc, plus probably some specialised tools. I will probably give it a go though.

[Tele29]

If it goes pear-shaped you can always order one from Warmoth or somewhere, complete with truss rod and frets. 1.5mm thickness will make no difference, I wouldn't be surprised if the factory fender ones vary by even more than that over the years. I really miss my tele, had a nice MIJ 72 custom reissue in black on black with a maple fretboard, was a lovely guitar. Sold it to pay rent when my daughter was little, single income life

[ThePog]

21 minutes ago, Tele29 said:

If it goes pear-shaped you can always order one from Warmoth or somewhere, complete with truss rod and frets. 1.5mm thickness will make no difference, I wouldn't be surprised if the factory fender ones vary by even more than that over the years. I really miss my tele, had a nice MIJ 72 custom reissue in black on black with a maple fretboard, was a lovely guitar. Sold it to pay rent when my daughter was little, single income life

That would definitely be a regret. I do have a superstrat type thing that I made a long time ago out of a Rimu mantelpiece that has a neck I got from guitarparts.co.nz. That theoretically should fit, but it works pretty well as a guitar so I dont really want to pull it apart for no reason.

I am thinking about making a resonator so might end up ordering a bucketload of stuff from Stewmac, we will see what the total looks like before adding necks to the basket.