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Kimjon builds a South African compound


Kimjon

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Well minus the razor wire, broken glass and pack of fierce Rhodesian Ridge-backs! Actually, its just a set of driveway gates to be honest and they wouldn't be that hard to climb.

Anyway, I've had this on "my list" for a while now. Some cheap steel from a demolition site became available...nothing inspires me more than cheap...so let get cracking!

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Sadly, one's not enough. So take two:

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I like the term "double swingers", as that sounds fun. Anyway, two gates that will be setup on actuators and a remote.

gate one is done, ready for paint. Gate two needs another half day to finish.

Will post pics when all done.

Kj

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  • 4 weeks later...

Posts in

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Holes drilled, hinges fitted...and gates well hung (okay, that joke got worn out a fair bit).

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Then it rained! So painting them black never happened, and the gates are now back in the shed. Waiting on a fine day to paint them outside, as I don't want to deal with over spray issues right now in my shed.

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Got a fine day to paint and let the gates dry outside.

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The special primer I used to etch the galvanizing was weird stuff, similar to rust converter as it's watery and turns gold on reaction. I did get a few runs in the primer...but I just painted over them, as after all its just a set of gates made from scrap metal. 

Overall I'm happy. I'll automate them when I have some spare money to pay for it.

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I ordered a cheap wireless remote, that controls some relays. Here it is boggied up to see if it worksIMG_20170911_203101.thumb.jpg.5472a34b07c9efd01498e54ef967bf56.jpg

Which it did. I'll use it to control a 5/2 solenoid valve via a 12vdc battery as a power supply. I calculated that a 7Ahr battery would last about 420 days of use, so I'll just run with that.

The solenoid will operate two pneumatic cylinders. I made this up this morning from a 1300mm stroke cylinder that i got for free, which I shortened to 598mm

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That's it test fitted. It took me all week to figure out the vectors, as it moves the gate 133° of arc. 90° is easy, but anything beyond that took a little figuring out. Although, now I understand the principal it would only take a minute to do next time :-)

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Fyi; here's the vector diagram for the pivot points. I did it on an old school tech drawing board first, then did it mathematically afterwards to get better numbers using trigonometry.

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I then made a 1:1 template which I used to guild my drill when drilling the anchor points.

The brackets received a coat of etch primer and I'll hopefully paint and install it all tomorrow

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Got some black 2K paint onto the mounting brackets  I welded up yesterday.IMG_20170912_090907.thumb.jpg.23b1a8877fcf2ee8fbd9d8e9a8e258f7.jpgThey can dry over the day/night (its a bit cold today) and that should be one of many steps closer towards getting it finished.

I tested the solenoid valve and that's all go too. This stuff is getting so cheap these days, $10 for a brand new solenoid valve! IMG_20170911_220138.thumb.jpg.3a18eba27d657982ac30d87427f6b0a7.jpg

I brought myself a spare one just in case it fails at an inopportune time.

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Pneumatic cylinders fitted up. The one on the left has a dummy barrel added to try balance the symmetry better, as it only had a 190mm stroke.

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They swing and stop perfectly, which was fantastic as all that maths paid off big time.

Just got to get a few pneumatic fittings and some air line and it will be all go.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I made up this control cabinet. Battery (not pictured) slots into this cabinet behind the valve.

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The cabinet works great, however my cylinders had worn piston seals and were leaking a lot of air out the exhaust.

Going to replace the leaking piston seals and then we'll be in action!

 

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So here's the solution to a true first world problem.

I need to play around with the flow controllers to set the speeds at which the gates open etc...to "time" them.

Warning, you'll lose a minute of your life you'll never get back if you watch this!

 

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5 hours ago, peteretep said:

need a couple more cylinders to lock the gate sections in place, my bet is that they are pretty easy to open even with full pressure on the cylinders

 

still, super cool, get massive lines and no fuel controls to have it racing open and closed

Haha...I kind of skipped all the safety features, so to ease my conscience I'm running 6mm lines and heavily choked exhaust side flow controllers to slow it right down. The cylinders do have air cushions so I can speed them up a bit more...I'll play around and find the sweet spot. Locking cylinders are a good idea, I have some that would work...I'll have to think about that one and test if I really need them? I have a spring open/air to close cylinder here...hmmmm that could be a nice fail safe solution?????

I've got a 1/2" dump valve (solenoid 230v ac) that I'm going to hookup to the compressor tank on a timer. The compressor itself will also go on a timer too. This way I can automate the entire system i.e.

- Compressor purges water from tank once a day, with timer set at say 10:00am for a 5 second burst.

- Then the compressor timer allows recharging between say 10:01am to 7:00pm. Then it will turn itself off overnight so it won't wake me up during the night.

As long as my system holds air, it will be sweet as to run like this. The tank has plenty of reserve to open/close the gates many times even when the compressor is turned off.

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