New to the forum, saying hello.

New to PlasmaSpider? Introduce yourself to the community and tell us a little about you.
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Mazda Carnage
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New to the forum, saying hello.

Post by Mazda Carnage »

I do not have or operate a CNC plasma cutter.
I joined this forum because of the Metal Finishing Forums.
But it has so much more.

Not sure if I qualify as a member.
I do have a Hypertherm 30 plasma cutter and spent many years using a Large Hypertherm plasma cuter to do industrial H/Vac demolition of chillers, chill towers, mechanical rooms, air handlers, steam system rooms... Many thousands of hours cutting up metal. As a millwrights there where many other jobs the company took, plumbing, pipe fitting, systems and controls, abatement, rigging, lab tech (fume hood and systems installation), H/vac installation/servicing/upgrading, welding, industrial H/Vac insulating (Really hated that one) and just about anything else that is done in a building, it was never boring, got to self learn a new skill every day and look like I knew what I was doing under the scrutiny of federal or provincial inspectors who never asked for credentials. Although I didn't have the years of schooling, training and experience the licensed tradesmen has I had an advantage, I watched some videos and looked some stuff on the internet. No that's not it, I wasn't limited to one specific way of doing things, I could look at other companies and tradesmens designs and techniques and combine the best and most functional ideas to do a better job. It is hard to come up with five functional good ways of doing something you've never done before, it's easy to look at five good ideas and steal the best parts or combine them or come up with more. (Harder to dream something up and design it than to improve on the design). Federal procedures and regulations got to a point where no job bids could meet the approved budget and projects where cancelled. He closed the doors in 2017.

I also am friends with (through cars) a guy who designs and builds CNC machines, Larken Automation. He comes up with such quick and simple solutions to automotive modification, they seem wrong but they work. (Doubt that helps me qualify as a member).

For 22 years I have rented a shop to do automotive modification for myself and the occasional customer.
I am completing a build on one of my cars that will be on its 6th year this spring.
From 2017 on I was working for a building systems control company, would work on the car some evenings and weekends and take 1month off a year to work on it, but even pushing for 10hours a day for 30 or 31 days doesn't put much of a dent in a car build. In my defense I work very efficiently but some things take time to do properly and I live in Canada, so everything rusts...
Lately I have been welding for the landlord where I rent, he runs a body shop, this gives me more time to work on the car.

I do port & polishing and metal polishing.
Welding and fabricating.
Sandblasting, powder coating.
Transmission rebuilds.
Custom wiring, relay banks and automotive electronics.
Engine and car assembly.
Repair, rebuild and customization of factory parts.
Basically I don't paint cars, do metal dipping, install tires or have an alignment machine.

In 2011 The shop changed locations and I never got set up to do powder coating, last summer I built a new powder-coat booth and started coating parts again.

My plans for this spring to upgrade my powder coating oven, from a modified kitchen range to a large oven used for curing plating that I will customize to use for powder coating.
To add a Pressure fed sandblast set up to my homemade venturi sandblast cabinet.
To build a hydro graphic dip tank, now that I have found proof to confirm dipping over powder coat with clear powder top coat is possible.
Finally to build a large vibrating tumbler to clean parts for powder coating. This is my reason for joining PlasmaSpider.com. I have some questions.
adbuch
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Re: New to the forum, saying hello.

Post by adbuch »

Welcome aboard! You have a wealth of experience and most certainly "qualify" as a member. What particular questions do you have?
David
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acourtjester
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Re: New to the forum, saying hello.

Post by acourtjester »

Welcome, You seem to be well into the DIY scene as many here, and do share things you feel will fit in too. Also do use Youtube as a source for ideas to pick over. Many of the things you are looking for are greatly represented by many and sometimes will show how to use what you have on hand.
Have fun
Tom
DIY 4X4 Plasma/Router Table
Hypertherm PM65 Machine Torch
Drag Knife and Scribe
Miller Mig welder
13" metal lathe
Small Mill
Everlast PowerTig 255 EXT
Mazda Carnage
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Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Mar 26, 2022 5:41 pm

Re: New to the forum, saying hello.

Post by Mazda Carnage »

adbuch wrote: Tue Mar 29, 2022 8:48 pm Welcome aboard! You have a wealth of experience and most certainly "qualify" as a member. What particular questions do you have?
David
Thank you.

Vibrating tumbler question:

For many years I knew about the bench top vibrating tumblers but felt they where too small to be of use.
Last summer while spending hundreds of hours in front of the sandblast cabinet cleaning parts for powder coating the idea of a large parts tumbler kept haunting me. Over the winter I started looking up DIY tumblers for ideas with the intention of improving on what I found, the search results weren't promising. Then I decided to look for industrial tumblers thinking maybe I can simplify what I found.

I found vibrating rim polishers, trough style deburr tumblers, finally the industrial Mr. Deburr style tumblers.

While most people in the world look at metal and wonder how can I polish that, here in Quebec we look at metal and wonder how can I get the rust off that.

Question 1:
Can a vibrating tumbler be used to achieve similar results to sand blasting and remove paint, rust and corrosion?

Question 2:
Can a vibrating tumbler be used (with mounting points like rim polishers have) to clean rims?

Question 3:
Are there other types of media that can be used that don't cost an arm and two legs like plastic and ceramic media does (heavy sand, fine gravel, cat litter...)?

Question 4:
Does anyone know what final rpm the off balanced shaft on a tumbler should spin at?
Haven't been able to find motor and pulley specs for the industrial tumbler I have looked into (Motor rpm and pulley reduction).

It is kismet, some of the junk I kept as salvage from demolitions over the years is everything needed to build a large industrial tumbler.
I have:
-A bunch of 4' X 5' sheets of 1/8" metal plate (Used to be air handler exhaust doors, they are reinforced with angle iron welded to them).
-All kinds of industrial springs (motor, cement slab, air handler dampers).
-1/2hp, 3/4hp, 1 hp, 2hp 120v and 240v motors, pulleys, belts...
-Hanger bearings.
-Electrical wires, connectors, electrical boxes...
-Cement anchor studs (small to 16")

I have everything needed to build an industrial tumbler (or a few).
Unless I wanted to add a timer, then I would need a time dial and a solid state relay (but I do have simple 120 volt timers and they could be used to trigger the relay).
I can build one as functional and as durable (or more because I like to overbuild things ) as any industrial tumbler I have found online so far.

What I don't have is any experience with vibrating tumblers and for the past 3 or 4 months internet searches have changed and are very limited, during the summer I was looking for powder coat info and during my searches I came across SpiderPlasma.com, ran all the same searches it never came up in the results after new years.
Just looking to confirm the plausibility of media cleaning parts for powder coating using a vibrating tumbler.


Powder coating oven:

The oven I will modify was used to cure platted colored pins and buttons, it is behind my shop, doors to the wall with all the 8th inch plates I have resting against it, The oven has perforated wood paneling in it, it is electric, I figured when I got it years ago it wasn't strong enough to powder-coat with (not setting dial just an on off breaker).
My plan when I got it was to use four oven elements to heat it, and it still is, the oven isn't huge but going by the cubic foot to watts recommendations of 150watt per cubic foot at 23.5ft3 to 25ft3 can't recall if its 1.5 or 2" wall thickness but it does weigh over 300 lbs, it is old and well built would have 400watts per square foot.
I am pretty sure it's a convection oven but I have a couple small new all metal blower fans that I salvaged.

The range oven I am using now is wired so both elements come on together, all that is left in it is the thermostat, light and temp dial. The dial has some play, it requires fine tuning using a temp gauge but it gets up to temp in 3 minutes, holds it's temp well, the on/off cycle time is under 20 seconds, when bring parts to temp if 400*F is dialed in the elements come on at 395 and shut off just above 400 and the residual heat from the element bring it to 410*, once the parts are at temp the on/off cycle shortens and the temp swing ins 395 to 405*F, never over bakes powder coat, gets thick cast up to cure temp in under 10 minutes, cured thousands of parts, heated my shop at times and never failed, from my searches it performs better than most other diy and makeshift ovens do. It is a really old White Westinghouse model, it's about 5 cubic feet and (from the info I can find) 5600 Watts = 1120watts per cubic foot.

From my research I have noticed that it is best to use a control box to regulate the elements.
Although the Auber Units are very affordable, their shipping prices are extremely reasonable and the exchange rate isn't that bad, I currently don't have the budget.
What I do have is a "new" salvaged control panel that was built to operate an air powered chemical pump used as part of a varnishing system for currency, the entire system was new, but the minting company sold to the Canadian bank note and we where hired to demolish and dispose of it all. I kept most of it. The panel has a set of Precision digital Pro Vu Process meter models PD 6000-6R7.

Although I installed, wired and designed control set up's aside from fume hood monitors I never programmed them/set them. I know they work like all controllers do, receive input signals (Volts, ohms, mA...) within set or programmable ranges and put out signals to control/operate relays or devices.

My question:
In my no budget Diy oven build can I use a 500+$ "Precision digital Pro Vu Process meter models PD 6000-6R7" to do the job of a 61,98$ "Auber 1/16 DIN PID Temperature Controller w/ Built-in Timer" ? (This sounds like such a stupid idea, in my defense I though of it before I researched the cost of Auber controllers).

The user manuals came with the panel and I downloaded a copy but with zero real experience with controllers of this type, would this fall within it's designed purpose, it is computer programmed. Learning to use it is one thing, understand it and controllers enough to know it's the right tool for the job without experience is another and could prove a waste of time.

The control panel has most of the components that come with oven controllers, I wanted to sell it assembled but it's such a specialty item and it's been sitting around for 10 years.
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