Universal Mobile Base For Table Saw and other tools - Portamate PM-1100

Description

Imagine, what would shop life be like if you could easily move any tool around? In this episode of the House of Hacks, Harley opens, assembles and installs a universal mobile base for table saw. Used in this video is a Bora Portamate PM-1100 kit that is a DIY mobile base for power tools.

Portamate PM-1100 (Amazon affiliate link)

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For a written transcript, go to Universal Mobile Base For Table Saw and other tools - Portamate PM-1100

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "Riptide"

Transcript

Imagine, what would it be like if you could move your larger tools around the workshop?

How would a universal mobile base for your table saw or other tools change your workflow?

Would you have more flexibility for storage?

Would your shop be more space efficient?

Would your tools be easier to use for different sizes of materials?

Today at the House of Hacks we’re going to be looking at how to do this.

About 18 months ago, I went to my Dad’s to pick up some tools that had been my Granddad's. When I got back, I did a video of what I brought back with me and I'll leave a link up here in the cards.

Recently, I made another trip to pick up a few more things that had been left behind. Most notably was a larger table saw that had been my Granddad's and he'd built a base for it.

It's going to be a great upgrade to my current small one but it's much larger and won't fit in the workshop the way it's currently organized.

So I looked at what I needed and what I had and changed my approach to my shop's organization.

Previously, all my large tools were set and ready to use in fixed locations. This had the advantage of being quick to setup.

But it has two disadvantages. One is it takes more floor space because you have to dedicate room around the tool in order to work.

And two, you have less flexibility in your material handling in and out of the equipment.

In addition to the tools taking up floor space, I also had two 6' snap together utility shelves that contained various supplies and small bench tools.

I decided to change to a mobile layout where most of the large tools are on movable bases.

This will allow them to be stored closer together for more compact and efficient use of floor space and it'll give more flexibility for material handling.

This more efficient use of floor space will allow me to get the larger table saw in the workshop.

It does come at a cost though of more setup time.

To accomplish this, I did two things.

First, I split the two 6' shelf units into four 3' shelf units and then hung them from the ceiling.

This allows better space utilization closer to the ceiling and it frees up a lot of floor space.

Second, I converted a number of tools with fixed bases to have mobile bases.

This conversion is the topic of today's video.

But first, welcome to the House of Hacks.

If we're just meeting, I'm Harley and I make stuff out of wood, metal and sometimes other materials. And sometimes I talk about other workshop related topics.

Today, I'm going to be showing the assembly and use of the Portamate PM-1100 universal base kit.

On my previous trip to Dad's, I picked up a large saw with a base that Granddad had made.

I didn't have a permanent location for it, so for expedience, I picked up a mobile base with metal rails.

These metal rails have holes in them in fixed locations for adjustability, but because the holes are in fixed locations, you don't have infinite adjustability.

And so it didn't exactly quite fit the base that I already had. It ended up being about an inch larger than it really needed to be on both the width and length.

I looked around and found the Portamate PM-1100.

This is a hardware kit that has wheels and all the hardware to mount them to a piece of wood.

The piece of wood doesn't come with the kit. You'd make it whatever size you want.

So this allows me to have a base that's exactly the right size for the bases that I already have.

I'll leave an Amazon affiliate link in the description below.

With this design, there's two corners that are designed for the back of the equipment that only roll in one direction.

And there's two corners that are designed for the front with castors that allow you to change direction as you're rolling it around.

The castors are also designed with levers on them so they're up when you're using the tool and it won't roll around and you can push them down, the wheels drop down, lifts the tool off the ground and you can move it.

You supply a piece of wood to connect them at the desired size.

Plywood is usually best for strength purposes.

When I originally bought them, I was planning on just attaching them to the preexisting bases without using any plywood.

However, when I actually got them and tried putting them on, I realized there were toe kicks on the bases that interfered with the hardware raising and lowering mechanism.

So in order to put them where that would work, there wasn't enough material left to attach them to so I ended up going with the plywood anyway.

I cut some plywood left over from previous projects to the desired size, added the hardware to it and attached those assemblies to the bases.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let's take a look at what's in the box and how to assemble them.

In the box are two bright orange pieces that are the levers for the cam activation and two plates to mount the castors to.

There are also four corner pieces and wheels.

Two corner pieces are designed for the rear wheels and two are for the front wheels.

There are also four flat plates that are designed to sandwich plywood between them and the corner pieces to provide extra support.

And all the needed screws, nuts and bushings are in a little baggie.

The rear wheel assembly is straightforward.

Using the appropriate bolt, put it through the axel hole from the inside of the base.

Place a bushing on it, the wheel, another bushing and then a nyloc nut on the outside.

Putting the second bushing on is a bit tricky due to the limited space but holding the wheel flat keeps gravity from working against you.

The front wheel assembly has a few more parts.

First put in the foot rest.

This is what will rest on the floor when the wheel is in the up position, keeping the tool from moving around.

It just screws into pre-threaded holes in the corner piece and is secured with a jam nut once the height is set as desired.

Then put a carriage bolt through the top square hole.

Put a bushing on the bolt followed by the orange piece, flat side up, followed by another bushing and pushed through the other side of the support.

A split lock washer goes on followed by a standard nut.

Put another carriage bolt through the other square hole and then the grey plate.

Note that the plate comes pre-lubricated with some grease.

Be sure to put the grease side towards the orange plate and don’t get it on you.

Push the screw through the assembly followed by another split lock washer and nut.

Finally, the castor can be put through the grey plate and secured with its nut.

This nut has a flanged surface that acts as a lock nut and goes toward the plate.

Next measure your tool base to determine how big you need to make your plywood and cut it to size.

The hardware is designed to work with either 1/2” or 3/4” plywood and comes with different length screws for each application.

Depending on the thickness you use, you’ll have screws left over intended for the other thickness.

With the plywood cut to the correct size, place the wheel assemblies on each corner and mark the hole positions.

Then drill the holes.

I used a drill press but you could use a hand held drill.

Just be sure to get them as straight as you can since there’s another metal piece that needs to match up on the other side.

There is some room for play, so it doesn’t have to have super tight tolerances.

But the closer you can get it, the easier it’ll be to get everything lined up.

Once all the holes are made, it’s time to attach the corner assemblies.

Put the corner piece with the wheel in place, put a flat triangle piece on top with the countersink side up and attach them with the appropriate screws.

Note that the bottom piece has a pre-tapped hole so no nuts are required for this operation.

Get all the screws started first, then make sure the corner assembly is tight to the wood before tightening the screws down.

Repeat this process for all four corners and the base is ready to attach to your tool.

How this is done will vary, depending on your tool.

In my case, I just used grabber screws to attach from the bottom of the plywood up into the bottom of the tool’s case.

My Granddad used 2x4 construction for the base’s frame, so there was plenty of wood to attach to.

You’ll have to figure out the best means of attaching this for your situation and provide your own hardware.

Once it’s attached, all that’s left to do is adjust the rubber feet on the front.

You want to adjust them so they support the weight of the equipment when the wheels are in the up position but are lifted off the ground when the wheels are in the down position.

Once in the desired position, tighten the jam nut so they will stay in place.

And, they’re ready to use.

I’ll see you in this playlist of other shop organization ideas.

And when making things, remember…

Perfection's not required. Fun is!

How to replace intermittent connectors

Description

Sometimes plugs fail. Today at the House of Hacks we tear down a Better Life Devices BLD T250 transdermal stimulator to change the plugs from unreliable barrel connectors to more reliable 1/8" audio connectors. The general process can be used for any type of small device.

Referenced video: How to desolder electronics

For a written transcript, go to How to replace intermittent connectors.

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Incidental: "Dispersion Relation" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com

Transcript

This medical device is going to get an upgrade today at the House of Hacks.

My wife has chronic back issues and the other week had a big flair up. The chiropractor showed us a home electronic stimulation unit that he was willing to sell us at a very steep discount because he wasn't terribly impressed with their reliability. He said they worked fine as long as they worked but reported they had a tendency to develop intermittent faults and then fail altogether.

As I looked it over, before buying it, I noted the connectors on the side. A similar design used to be standard for photography flashes and is a well known failure point. I guessed that this was probably the problem but, if it wasn't, figured it would be easy enough to figure out what was.

So we went ahead and bought it, knowing I would probably have to fix it at some point.

Sure enough, after about two weeks of use it started working intermittently. In this episode, I'll show how I upgraded this with a more reliable solution.

At the local electronics store I got a couple 1/8" audio extension cords. The plan was to cut the ends off and put one end in the device coming out as a pigtail and splice the other end onto the wires for the pads.

But first I need to open the unit. I start by sliding this cover off, taking off the two knobs with a gentle pull, they're just press fit on, and removing the battery. It's a good idea to make sure the power is disconnected before doing any sort of repair on electric devices.

Next is to open it up. This took me a little bit to figure out as there are a couple hidden screws. The first one is under this label. Fortunately the label is made out of thick plastic and held down with some sticky but removable adhesive, so it peels off without too much trouble. Once off, a philips head screw is revealed.

There's another screw on the back under this belt clip. One side of this clip has a slot designed to slide a screw driver into. Lift up with a fair mount of pressure to pop off the clip. And there's the second screw.

Finally there are two plastic clips accessed through the battery cover. Pulling the two parts of the case apart at the bottom causes those clips to pop apart and the case finally separates.

The circuit board simply rests in place. To remove it, the LEDs may have to be slid out of the holes in the case before lifting the board out.

And that completes the disassembly.

These are the original cables with their problematic ends. They plug into these connectors on the board.

These will be replaced with the ends from this audio cable. I'll cut the ends off the cable and replace the connectors on the board with the female audio connector and splice on the male audio connector onto the end of the electrode cable. This will result in a much more reliable connection.

To remove the connectors, I'm just going to use a bit of desolder braid to remove the solder. Once the solder's removed, the connectors just drop out of the holes.

This is a cheap brand of audio cable that I've had about 50% failure rate with. So before doing anything to this cable, I'm testing it with a simple continuity check. I make sure I don't have any shorts between the tip and ring and that I do have continuity between the tip on both ends and the ring on both ends.

Now that the cable checks out, I'm just going to cut off the ends. Then using some wire strippers I'll carefully remove the insulation. With audio cables, the outside conductor is wrapped around the inside one. So after taking off the outside insulation, the wires first need to be gathered together and twisted. Then the insulation can be taken off the inside conductor.

And then the other end gets the same treatment.

With the connectors exposed and twisted together, now I'll tin the ends. This makes it much easier to solder when things are put together.

Now the wires just go in the holes the old connectors came out of. For this particular application, it doesn't matter which wire goes in which hole. For other types of devices, the outside ring should match up to the outside ring on the original.

A little solder finishes the connection and then the excess wire can be trimmed off.

That finishes the electrical side. Now a dab of hot glue makes a mechanical connection to act as a strain relief so there's no undue stress on the solder joint.

Now to modify the cables that plug into the device.

Cut off the original ends and split the two wires down the center. Expose the wire with some wire strippers, twist the wire together, add a bit of heat shrink tubing on the wires, add some tinning to the wires and solder the new ends onto the old wires.

Generally, I like to make a mechanical connection before soldering, but this particular wire was too brittle to bend well so I used the solder as both a mechanical and electrical connection.

Finally slide the heat shrink over the connectors and heat it up to shrink it around the connection. In total there were three pieces of heat shrink tubing for each cable: one for each of the wires and a larger one around the whole thing.

And now it's time to reassemble the device. This is just the opposite of taking it apart. Drop the circuit board into one side of the box, sliding the battery connectors into place. The other side goes back on top with the new connectors coming out of the original holes. The screws go back in. The label is replaced and then the knobs slide back onto the controls. Finally, the battery can be placed in. Before the clip goes back on, I'm going to test it. Yeah, nothing like testing it on yourself. As I turn up the intensity I can feel it working. Success!

A side effect of using these connectors is they act as a strain-relief, break-away connection. If the control unit somehow has forced applied to it, like it drops out of a pocket, it simply comes apart at the new connectors rather than putting a lot of force on the wire/connector/PCB system like the original connectors did.

Finally, I'm thinking about making a DIY version of this device. If you'd be interested in seeing a video about this, let me know in the comments.

Thanks for watching and until next time, go make something, it doesn't have to be perfect, just have fun!