Does a miter saw zero clearance insert help with tear-out? In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows how to make a miter saw zero clearance insert and then demonstrates the results, showing before and after cuts.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "MTA"
Transcript
Are you getting tear out from your miter saw cuts?
There's two theories as to why this is.
One says it's a dull blade.
The other says it's because you're no using a zero clearance insert, like me.
I've got the original OEM insert.
Today I want to try to test out that theory and create a zero clearance insert and see how well it works.
Zero clearance inserts are an easy afternoon project.
It's really just a piece of wood, cut to the right shape and thickness.
Put in the saw and a kerf cut in it with the blade that's going to be used in the saw.
This means that there's zero excess space around the kerf for things to fall into and in theory it helps support the wood so there's less tear out.
Because it's an easy afternoon project, I want to test this theory.
I've got a piece of old wood flooring from a previous project that I want to use to create a zero clearance insert for my miter saw.
But first, if we're just meeting, I'm Harley and this is the House of Hacks where I make stuff out of wood, metal and other similar material.
I'm going to be using a bandsaw to cut this to rough thickness and then a planer to get it to the exact thickness.
I'll also use the bandsaw to cut it to shape.
But if you don't have a bandsaw or a thickness planer, you can use hand tools: planes, files, sandpaper and a hand saw is really all you need to create one.
So, don't let not having certain tools stop you from doing a project.
Figure out a way using what you have to make due and get the project done.
Before starting this project, make sure the saw is unplugged.
First we need to remove the old insert. This will be used as a pattern for the new one to get the right thickness and the right shape.
It's held in by six screws. The last two screws are back here behind the fence and they're easiest to get to if the table is rotated to 45 [degrees] to reveal one screw and then the other 45 [degrees] to reveal the other screw.
And once the screws are removed, it just slides straight out.
Now that I have the plate out, I'm going to put it flush with the wood and make a mark for the thickness and then I'll put it on top and mark the outline.
OK. I have the bandsaw setup with the fence so that I'll get a cut a little bit thicker than I'll need and then I'll sneak up on the exact thickness with the thickness planer.
OK, again, this doesn't quite fit because I cut it oversized intentionally so I could sneak up onto a perfect fit using the sander..
OK, let's give this a test fit. It's looking really good actually.
Wow. I'm really pleased with that. There's no discernible movement in that whatsoever.
It's a really nice test fit.
I was wondering about putting the screws back in it and as tight as it is, I don't think I'm going to bother.
I'm going to see how well it works as it is.
It's time now to put a kerf in it and then do a test cut.
So, did it make a difference?
Let's take a close look and find out.
So, this is an interesting result.
Here's the original OEM insert with the old blade.
And here's the zero clearance insert.
To me, there's no real discernible difference. The look pretty much exactly the same.
Now, just for test purposes, I put a brand new blade on and used the original OEM insert and it is much, much cleaner.
So that tells me that the blade makes a much bigger difference than the zero clearance insert does.
Lesson learned: always have a sharp blade if you care about tear out.
I'll see you over here in these videos that YouTube thinks you'll enjoy.
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.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.
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.
Wondering about an easy jack stand storage solution? In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows garage storage ideas for an easy afternoon DIY project about how to store jack stands.
Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, go subscribe and click the bell to get notifications.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: Hot Swing
Incidental: Rocket
Transcript
Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to figure out a better storage system for jack stands.
[Introduction]
Hi. Harley here.
I've been cleaning out the garage and as part of that project, I realized I have some jack stands that I've been storing on the floor and I've got a perfect place right here in the corner of the garage, between the corner of the building and the rails for the doors, to put them.
They'll fit in here perfectly if I can hang them like this.
So the plan is to put a piece of 3/4" OSB in this space because the drywall's really not strong enough to hold the weight of the hooks very securely, I don't think.
And it'll be easier to screw into OSB, plus then I don't have to worry about the jack stands messing up the drywall at all.
So, I'm going to fill this space with some OSB and put some hooks on it and I think...
There's some supports in the bottom here, some braces, that I think should be able to hook onto hooks real easily and they should be able to just hang on the wall like that and just lift right off without any problem.
I've got another style over here that has a triangular base and has a triangular support at the bottom of it that I think will also be able to just have some hooks that hook into that triangular support and I think we should be good to go.
I got the OSB securely attached to the wall with grabber screws into studs.
I picked up some #8 hooks and now I'm just going to drill some pilot holes and screw them in.
The size on mine are seven inches apart. Yours may vary depending on the size of the base of your particular jack stands.
[Drilling]
[Installing hooks]
That's going to work great I think.
Now I just need to get more hooks in for the other jack stands and I'll be done.
That's been a real quick garage project this weekend. It kind of interrupted some other things I was working on but this will be a whole lot nicer going forward.
I've really needed to get these up off the floor where they collect dust and spider webs and everything and take up floor space. This will be a real great addition to the garage.
Thanks for joining me on this creative journey we're on.
How's your workshop organized? In this episode of the House of Hacks, Harley shows 9 tips for shop organization. Some of these are pretty basic, but sometimes the simple, tried and true techniques are great ways to organize your workshop.
Accurate measuring in the workshop can be critical to the success of a project. In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley presents six tips on how to make more accurate measurements.
Controlling appliances remotely can be useful, but some ready made solutions are pretty expensive. Today Harley shows an inexpensive way he uses to turn his shop vac on and off remotely. The same items could be used to control any appliance remotely.
The central part of this system is the PowerSwitch Tail. It contains an electronically controlled switch to turn things on an off. There are a large number of ways to control this. In this episode, we talk about a very easy way to use this device. In future episodes, we’ll expand on different ways to control this switch that can be useful around the shop environment.
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Sound effect: living-room-light-switch by alienxxx at http://freesound.org
Transcript
In the comments of “How to quiet a shop vac”, Rob liked the low-voltage remote switch aspect of how I control the vacuum and he asked “Can you show me an example and material break-down that could easily then be added onto?”
Today at the House of Hacks, I will talk about that very thing.
[Music]
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.
When I converted my shop vac to a central, plumbed in system, I wanted a way to easily start and stop it. I went through a couple designs before settling on the one I used. Today I’ll show a variation on my design that's an easy way of controlling a shop vac with a simple wired remote.
While my application is a shop vac, you could actually control anything using this technique. In the future I plan to show some upgrades to this control, but for now, I wanted to keep it really simple.
Before I start, I do want to point out that there are ready made solutions from expensive to cheap. I’ve not tried any of these to be able to make any specific recommendations but I did want to mention them for the sake of completeness.
If you just want to get the job done without hassling with making something yourself, you might want to investigate these. But if you want something that’s got your own style to it, you want to learn something, you need something that’s not available off-the-shelf or just want to have the joy of making something, hopefully the following will help.
At the core of how I made mine is a device called a PowerSwitch Tail. This is a short cord that looks very much like an extension cord. It has a plug on one end and an outlet on the other. What sets this apart from other extension cords is it has an electrically controlled switch built into it.
On the side of this box are two connectors. When these connectors have between 3 and 12 volts DC applied to them, the main power is turned on. When there is no voltage on the connectors, the main power is turned off. It only draws up to 30 milliamps, so it’s pretty easy to control with electronics, like an Arduino or other digital circuitry.
However, the easiest way to control this is simply with one or more batteries, a bit of wire and a switch. In this example, I’m using some D cells because that’s what I had lying around, but a 9 volt battery would be simpler and smaller.
To use it, just connect the negative side of the battery to the minus connector. Connect the positive side of the battery to one side of a switch and the other side of the switch to the plus connector. Now, when the switch is on, the device will be on and when the switch is off, the device will be off.
And that’s the easiest way I know to remote control a vacuum, or any device. The cost of the PowerSwitch Tail is around $30 and the wire and switch is based on what you want to use. You may have something in your junk drawer that could be used, like a USB cable or network cable that could have the ends cut off. Switches could be scavenged from dead electronics.
Or you could get new materials. Low voltage wire is a couple cents a foot at the home improvement stores and they have a wide variety of switches for a couple dollars each. A box to mount the switch in could be anything from a disposable food container to something more robust. Just use your imagination.
As I mentioned at the start, I do plan to do follow-up videos talking about different, more capable, although more complicated, ways to switch the PowerSwitch Tail on and off.
In conclusion, let’s have a conversation in the comments about buying off-the-shelf solutions versus making your own, or anything else you’re interested in.
If this is your first time here at House of Hacks: Welcome, I’m glad you’re here. We’d love to have you subscribe. I believe everyone has a God-given creative spark and through this channel I hope to inspire, educate and encourage makers in their creative endeavors. Usually this involves various physical media like wood, metal, electronics, photography and other similar materials. If this sounds interesting to you, go ahead and subscribe and I’ll see you again in the next video.
Thanks for joining me on our creative journey. Now, go make something. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just have fun!
There are several ways to convert a fluorescent tube fixture to using LED lights. In this episode, Harley shows the fastest, easiest, but most expensive option to retrofit T8 and T12 fluorescent lights to LEDs. At the end, measurements are taken of the light output to see the effect of the new lights.
How to count in binary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCFcuVHB1sI
Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Transcript
Today at the House of Hacks we’re going to go from this to this. Oh, yeah!
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.
The general illumination in my shop is all fluorescent lights and for quite some time now I’ve been wanting to upgrade them to LEDs. Recently I’ve had two bulbs that were kind of on the way of going out and today they just didn’t come on at all. So I went down to the home store and decided to bite the bullet and convert a couple of my fixtures, two of the fixtures, a total of four bulbs, from fluorescent to LED.
In all my investigation I’ve found that there are kind of three principal ways of doing this conversion: the first is very quick, very easy and expensive, the second is less expensive and also a little bit more work, and the third way is the most amount of work but also the least expensive. So, today, because of time pressure, I decided to go, on these, with the first option of the most expensive but the fastest and easiest to do.
For cost comparison, these bulbs are $60 apiece and I have four bulbs to replace. So that means the total cost on this conversion today was $240. Now to put it in perspective, I think I paid $200 for the whole fixtures originally, including fluorescent tubes. So it is quite a bit more expensive but now I have LED lighting with all the benefits thereof.
Today I want to look at what it takes to install them and what the difference is in the light output. So let’s get to it.
These come in four foot long packages. There’s two tubes that snap together to make an eight foot section. They’re made by Feit Electric, Feit electric, I don’t know how you really pronounce that. They replace both T8 and T12 bulbs and the advantage of these is they work off the ballast voltages so you have to do is take out the old bulb and replace it with the new one after you put everything together and unpackaged it.
It says it’s rated for up to 50,000 hours of life. We’ll see how that actually works itself out. It uses 44 watts and has a color temperature of 4100 Kelvin. So it’s sort of in the middle of the color temperature range.
Here we have one set of ends as packed. A cap is over one piece for shipping to cover the open middle where the two pieces will be joined together. It can be removed and discarded. And the other end contains the power pin that will connect to the light fixture.
Here’s the other set of ends. One end has a clear plastic piece over it that contains a magnet. This will stabilize the center of the light. Remove it for now and set it aside. This is the other pin that will connect to the light fixture. The other piece has a connector with two spring loaded pins. Pull this out until the pin locks into place.
Now slide the clear plastic support over the end without the connector but don’t cover the small hole for the locking pin. Slide the two pieces together until the pin locks into place. Finally slide the plastic piece over the joint to help support the connection.
We can see half the tube is aluminum extrusion to provide support and heat dissipation. The other half has a curved frosted diffuser.
Installation is just like a normal fluorescent tube. Once both ends are in place, push the middle up so the magnet sticks to the fixture for support.
And that’s really all there is to it. Snap the two pieces together, take out the old bulbs and put in the new bulbs. Short. Sweet. Simple.
I really like it. It seems to work out really well.
Now let’s go take a look at what the actual light output is.
The measurement of tubes is on the left and the LEDs on the right. There is 1 EV difference between the two. In photographic terms this is one stop, or twice the amount of light out of the LEDs.
So you can see, the light output from these is quite a bit more. It’ll be nice having consistent color temperature across all my bulbs too. Working in the shop should be much more pleasant for me.
If this is your first time here: Welcome! We're glad you’re here. All my videos have to do with maker related types of topics: woodworking, metal working, shop projects in general, kind of like this. If that kind of thing sounds interesting to you, go ahead and subscribe. We’d love to see you again in the next video.
Now, go make something. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just have fun!
How well did Harley meet his goals by setting up the shop vac to be a centralized system? In this episode, the changes are quantified with measurements for noise, vacuum and air flow.
Music and sound effects under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 or 4.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Light switch effect: http://freesound.org/people/AlienXXX/sounds/151347/
Transcript
Today at the House of Hacks we compare some efficiency parameters of the shop vac's original configuration and its new one.
[Music]
In this earlier episode, I presented some problems I had using my shop vac, some goals I wanted to meet by reconfiguring how I use it and how I actually made some of the changes. In this episode I want to show some of the before and after measurements to see what actually changed.
To recap, my goals were to 1) have minimal daily setup; 2) be convenient to use; 3) be much quieter; 4) and all this at minimal cost. I attempted to do this by converting it to a DIY central vac system.
Today I am going to show how well I accomplished my goals. I’ll show what it takes to use the new configuration, a couple specifications between the old and new systems: the loudness, the vacuum pressure and the air flow.
Overall I’m really pleased with the ease of operation. I typically just leave everything plugged in, setup and ready to go. All I need to do is grab the hose and press the power button. Of course if I’m working on a piece of equipment, I have to do some setup, but that is pretty minimal. I just move the hose to the closest outlet and connect to the equipment.
One of the goals was noise reduction. I used a freely available decibel app on my tablet to measure the noise levels. Admittedly this is an uncalibrated device and won't give exact results, but it does give a good idea as to relative differences.
In the shop, the vacuum runs around 85 db.
And when it's outside the box on the other side of the wall, it runs about 70 db.
When it's inside the box I made for it, it drops down to about 62-63 db.
Overall a reduction of over 20 db. Quite a bit. For comparison purposes, that's like going from being next to a food blender to being in an office.
A side effect of adding the plumbing is reduced efficiency of the vacuum pressure and air flow. Devices are available to measure these parameters accurately, but they're not cheap and I was more interested in relative loss, so I hacked together a couple instruments.
First vacuum. This is a simple DIY vacuum gauge that I made out of a simple loop of vinyl tubing, some water and a ruler. I explained how I made it in this other video over here. One end is open to the atmosphere and the other is connected to our vacuum. The difference in water levels tells us how much vacuum is being generated.
As you can see, we’re getting about 38, 39 inches of water here. And I'll consider this 100% of baseline for what the vacuum is capable generating, for comparison in future measurements.
Connected to the first port it reads 31.5 inches.
Connected to the second port it reads 32 inches.
Connected to the third port it reads 31 inches.
So, the ports have a reading of about 31.5 inches of water on average or a loss of about 20%.
To measure air flow, I picked up an inexpensive anemometer off Amazon.
Connected directly to the shop vac, this reads as an overload. The vacuum is advertised as 150 mph, but I suspect, based on the noise of the anemometer, that it’s not really that fast. For the purposes of this test I’ll estimate this to be about 110 miles per hour (MPH). Like before, this will be the 100% baseline for the other measurements.
Connected to the first port it reads 89 mph.
Connected to the second port it reads 88.5 mph.
Connected to the third port it reads 86 mph.
So, on average, the ports read 87.8 mph or a loss of about 20%.
While there's a loss of 20% in both vacuum and air flow, in practical application, I don't really notice any difference. It still picks up about what I need it to in about the same way.
In summary, I'm really pleased with the new setup. It's much easier to work with so I'm more diligent at keeping things cleaner.
In conclusion, I’d love to hear in the comments below what you think about vacuums versus dust collectors as a means of keeping the shop clean.
If this is your first time here at House of Hacks: Welcome, glad you’re here. We’d love to have you subscribe. Through these videos I hope to inspire, educate and inform makers in their creative endeavors. Usually this involves various physical media like wood, metal, electronics, photographs and other similar materials. Thanks for letting me encourage your creativity. So subscribe and I’ll see you again in the next video.
Now, go make something. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just have fun!
Vacuum and pressure are two sides of the same coin. A manometer can measure both. In this episode, Harley shows how to make a DIY gauge to measure relatively low vacuums and pressures for shop use.
Part 1: How to quiet a shop vac
Part 2: Central shop vac efficiency: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbLElnfZmno
Music and photos under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com)
Incidental music:
“George Street Shuffle” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com)
“Mining by Moonlight” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com)
SU Carbs photo: by Cgxke at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carbs-SU-HD8.jpg
Photos under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic:
Organ pipes photo: by Xauxa at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Forkarla_kyrka_organ_pipes.jpg
Transcript
Need a vacuum gauge to sync your carbs, test your pipe organ or shop vac? Today at the House of Hacks I’m going to make an instrument to measure low-pressure vacuums.
Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.
I recently made some changes to my shop vac system and want to quantify the changes to the vacuum’s efficiency. One of the things I need is a vacuum gauge, also known as a manometer. Because I’m thrifty, I decided to make my own.
Since some people find it interesting, I want to start with the theory of operation. If you want to skip directly to the build, you can click here.
There are three types of pressure measurement: absolute pressure, differential pressure and gauge pressure.
Imagine a perfect vacuum. Like absolute zero in temperature, this is an ideal that cannot actually be accomplished, but is useful as a standard to measure from. Now let’s put a container with a gas inside that vacuum. The pressure the gas exerts on the container is the absolute pressure. Or said a different way, absolute pressure is the pressure measured on a scale where zero is a perfect vacuum.
Now let’s put another container inside that vacuum with a different pressure. If we subtract one pressure from the other, we get the differential pressure. Differential pressure is the pressure difference between two systems. If we now connect these two containers together with a U shaped tube and put some heavy liquid in it, like mercury, we can directly measure the difference in pressures. If the pressures are the same, the liquid will be at the same height on both sides of the tube. If the pressure is greater in one side, it will push down on the liquid with more force and cause a difference in the height of the liquid on both sides of the tube. Measuring the difference in heights will tell us the difference in pressures.
Now let’s add a rock that’s big enough to have gravity that will hold onto gas, creating an atmosphere. With our containers next to the rock, instead of being in a vacuum, they are now in this atmosphere. The atmosphere will create a pressure from all the gas above our containers pressing down. Here on earth at sea level, this is about 15 pounds per square inch. If we eliminate one of the containers, the U shaped tube will now measure the pressure inside the remaining container relative to the atmosphere’s pressure.
This is known as gauge pressure. It is the pressure of one system relative to the current atmospheric pressure. For convenience, we set the zero point to atmospheric pressure.
In this context, vacuum and pressure are two sides of the same thing; they both measure the pressure of a gas relative to a known point, in this case atmospheric pressure. Vacuum is simply a pressure lower than atmospheric pressure, or said a different way, a negative pressure.
And this U shaped device is what our manometer will look like.
For this build you’ll need:
A flat mounting surface; I used some left over peg board but it could be a piece of wood or even cardboard if it’s rigid enough. It does need to be moderately long. The longer it is, the higher pressure you can test. I’m making mine about 6 feet long. If it's a lighter color the readings will be easier to make.
Clear tubing. The size isn’t critical; I used some with 3/8” inside diameter and 20’ long.
A means of attaching the tubing to the mounting surface. I used zip ties. If you use wood for the mounting surface, you could also use j-hooks or tubing clamps or anything else to attach the tubing.
Some sort of measuring stick. I used a yard stick but you could use a tape measure or even mark out your own lines with a ruler and marker.
A means of filling the tubing. I used a turkey baster but you could also use something with a small nozzle or funnel.
Some water and dark food coloring. I used blue for high contrast but you can use any color you want, or no color at all.
To make the manometer, start by attaching one end of the tubing close to a corner of the mounting surface. Continue to attach the tubing in a straight line next to the edge until you get close to the other end of the mounting surface. Then create a U in the tube and run it up the opposite edge of the mounting surface.
You should have a long bit of tubing left over. Leave this attached. It is where you will do your testing from.
Attach the apparatus so it’s hanging straight down.
Color the water so it’s fairly vibrant. Again, I used blue to get high contrast, but you can use any color you want.
Pour the water into the tube. The amount of water you use will impact the amount of pressure you can test. If you fill to the half way point of your height, then you have the maximum measurement for the size of your instrument. If everything is setup properly, the water will be at the same height on both sides of the tube.
Attach the ruler so it starts at the top of the water.
Your vacuum gauge is now ready to use.
And it is really easy to use. Simply apply a vacuum to the long end of the tube. The amount of vacuum pressure is indicated by reading how high the water comes up on the ruler and then multiply that number by two. This will give you a measurement in units called “inches of water." In this example I’ve got 7 inches of water.
If you wanted to get real fancy, you could make your own direct reading scale. Just mark off every half inch and label the marks with whole numbers starting with 0. Doing this, you don’t need to remember to multiply by two.
There are websites where you can convert this measurement to other pressure measurements such as inches of mercury or bars or pascals. If you do use other units of measurement, you could mark their values directly on the ruler for convenience.
Depending on your vacuum source, you may need to make an adapter for the tubing. For my shop vac I used a flexible connector and plug found in the ABS area of the plumbing aisle along with a pronged tubing to MPT brass fitting.
I’ll put this to use in a follow-up video for the shop vac system.
In conclusion, I’d love to hear in the comments below what you think about making your own instruments. Is it worth the effort to do it yourself or is it better to just buy something ready made? Am I being too cheap?
Finally, if this is your first time here at House of Hacks: Welcome, glad you’re here. We’d love to have you subscribe. Through these videos I hope to inspire, educate and inform makers in their creative endeavors. Usually this involves various physical media like wood, metal, electronics, photographs and other similar materials. Thanks for letting me encourage your creativity. So subscribe and I’ll see you again in the next video.
Now, go make something. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just have fun!
Music and sound effects under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
http://freesound.org/people/musicmasta1/sounds/131385/
http://freesound.org/people/nothayama/sounds/172497/
Transcript
[Vacuum getting stuck between equipment]
[Vacuum tipping over]
[Loud vacuum]
In this episode of the House of Hacks I'm going to show how I made my shop vac easier to use.
[Introduction]
Hi makers, builders and do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.
In general I'm pretty bad at house cleaning. I tend to put off vacuuming and straightening up until it's unbearable. Around the workshop, this is exacerbated by the inconvenience of the shop vac. It has a tendency to tip over on its own cord. It's big and awkward in a cramped space. And it's uncomfortably loud.
I wanted a change based on some requirements: 1) minimal daily setup: it should basically always be ready to use and not take much to clean-up at the end of the day; 2) be convenient when using: I don't want to drag it all over the shop from one tool to another; 3) quiet: I want it to be really, really quiet; 4) inexpensive: I didn't want to spend a lot of money.
So to solve all these issues, I made it into a central vac system. At some point I'd like to get a real dust collection system, but right now that's outside both my money and space budgets.
Today I'll show: the box I built for the vacuum, the way I plumbed it in to the shop and how I turn it on and off. In a future episode I plan to show before and after measurements of both noise and vacuum efficiency and finally some future improvements I'd like to do.
Since noise was a big issue for me, I built this box to hold the vacuum and muffle its whine. In the junk pile from previous projects, I had some rigid insulation foam, softer foam rubber and some scrap 2x2. I figured this would work well as the main components.
I measured the shop vac dimensions, added a couple inches to each side for air circulation and the thickness of the foam.
This gave me the target outside dimensions. I went to the local home store and got two sheets of the cheapest 3/8" sheathing I could find. This is usually used under roofs and siding so it has a lot of visual imperfections, but it's good enough for this use and really cheap. When I got home I sliced up the sheathing and built the box by simply screwing it to the scrap 2x2. It's not pretty or square, but it does serve the purpose.
When I got the sheathing, I also picked up a piano hinge and some casters.
The casters I mounted on the bottom to make it easy to move around and of course I used the hinge for the door to give me easy access to the shop vac inside.
I mounted three spare electrical boxes in one corner on the inside. Two of the boxes go through holes to the back and the other points into the box. I'll get to the details of all that in a minute.
Next I cut up the foam and used spray adhesive to glue it to each of the sides.
Finally, I cut a hole in the side for the hose to run through and a hole in the top for the exhaust vent.
The electrical part has two components. A line voltage side and a low voltage side.
On the line voltage side, one of the boxes pointing to the outside has a male plug on it. This allows me to plug an extension cord into the box. This type of plug is convenient to use on projects like this but I couldn't find one at the normal places I typically get electrical parts. I ended up having to order this online. If you're looking for something like this, search for "flanged inlet receptacle". There's also an Amazon associate link in the description.
The box inside just has a normal duplex plug wired to the plug in the other box. The boxes are connected by a standard conduit connector. Combined, the two boxes provide a clean way to run power through the wall of the wooden box.
I plugged two things into the duplex outlet: a surplus low-voltage wall-wart power supply and this PowerSwitch Tail. The power supply provides low-voltage for the switch. The PowerSwitch Tail is basically a short extension cord with a relay built into it. When a low voltage is applied to these two connectors, it turns on the plug. This allows low voltage devices, like micro-controllers or other digital electronics to easily control line powered devices, like shop vacs.
I put another electrical box pointing to the outside for a remote switch. This is the low-voltage side. I installed a barrel style power connector in the electrical box pointing into the larger enclosure for the wall wart output to plug into.
On the outside of this box I installed a standard RJ-45 connector plate, like we used to use for those old-fashioned telephones. The connectors have four wires. The barrel power connector is attached to two of the connectors on the RJ-45 jack.
The other two lines of the RJ-45 run through the electrical box and go to the relay control connectors on the PowerSwitch Tail.
I then built a little switch box. It has an RJ-45 connector on the side and two switches: red and green. Inside it has a simple flip-flop circuit. Press the green button and the circuit turns on. Press the red button and the circuit turns off. A standard 4-conductor telephone cord connects the remote box on the side to the big box with the vacuum in it. I have a pretty long cord here that allows me to turn this on and off from anywhere in the shop. If you want more details of how this works, please leave a comment letting me know and I'll make another video about it. And if you're interested in the design evolution of this switch, there's a video on my second channel going into those details.
For plumbing, I used 2" black ABS drain pipe. This is pretty close to the diameter of the flexible hose that is standard on my vacuum. I ran a straight section across the ceiling with a couple sections running down in key areas in my workshop. I used sweeping connectors for smoother airflow and minimize places where dust can get caught. I held it all in place with perforated strapping tape and some screws. Most of the connections are just press fit. I didn't want to use cement in case I need to take it apart to clean it out, move it or do other sorts of maintenance. However, the sections that run down had a tendency to fall apart with just the friction fit so I put a short, self-taping screw in each one to hold them together. It's still pretty easy to remove the screw if I need to take them apart.
For the ports, I first looked at blast gates at the local wood working store. They were pretty expensive and not terribly well made. I really didn't think they were a very good value. I thought about making some blast gates of my own. I looked online and found some designs, but they were just more complicated to make than I wanted to deal with and I didn't have all the material I'd need in my scrap bin. So I made my own based on the design of the ports on the house's central vac system.
They're basically a hinged flap with a bit of foam to seal them and some magnets to hold them closed. They're epoxied to a standard plumbing fixture. The flex hose stays in with a press fit.
So that's pretty much it for the construction details. How well does it all work? I'll cover that in a future part 2 episode.
If you're interested in part 2 or other DIY type videos of this nature, click the Subscribe button and YouTube will let you know when they're released.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. I'd love to hear from you.
Until next time, go make something. It doesn't have to be perfect, just have fun!
