Auto-gate update *w/pics*

[Alan in Little Washington]

I have been making slow progress on the autogates- a lot of distractions plus a bit of "two steps forward, one step backwards" - I was never one to avoid doing things twice

Anyway, while finishing up the pneumatics I realized I needed flow restrictors to slow down gate actuation speed. I had the restrictors but had to adapt them to my plumbing. Luckily, that just required some on-hand parts and a dozen very small band clamps.

Also, since I want gate activation to start the DC (not stop it however- personal decision), I needed a way to do that. Though they are initiated almost the same way, I wanted the DC to start when a gate was opened, not when a machine was turned on, so I was initially going to add micro switches or magnetic proximity switches to each gate. That would have required making and adding a bracket to mount the switch (and maybe magnet) and additional wiring to every gate. Then I came up with another idea- since my 24V solenoid valves are all powered by the same transformer, why couldn't I use a circuit mounted to/near the transformer to sense when a solenoid valve was activated and use that to turn on the DC? One caveat, it would need to be a momentary switch, so I would still have the option of turning off the DC when a gate was open.

As I mentioned previously, tinkering runs in my family, so I posed this problem to my EE brother in CA. Not only did he come up with a circuit, he drew it on the computer, dug out some of his long unused circuit board supplies, then constructed and wired the circuit board to do what I needed!

Using a household iron he transferred his computer drawn circuit tracings from a laser printer generated paper copy (on the right) to create "resist tracings" on the circuit board blank (on the left).



Then he used an acid bath to etch away the excess copper to yield the circuit board:






The completed circuit board:



I should receive and have it installed by early next week!!!!

[Bas]

Good stuff Alan. I like the high-tech approach. Some may see this as overkill, but with that attitude, we wouldn't be able to watch YouTube clips on an iPhone. Or have good dust control on a sander. A riving knife that works. And I happen to think that those are all important!

[ptt49er]

I think it's awesome! If only everyone took the approach you did, can you imagine the really cool stuff that would be created...now to get done with school so I can tinker too!

nice work master tinkerer!

[Steve W]

Yeah, making circuit boards & gadgets are hobbies unto themselves. Your brother is a hands-on EE -- is he a ham? Did he give you a schematic?

Steve (W1ES)

[Alan in Little Washington]

Originally Posted by Steve W

Yeah, making circuit boards & gadgets are hobbies unto themselves. Your brother is a hands-on EE -- is he a ham? Did he give you a schematic?

Steve (W1ES)

He was a ham of sorts- 2 meter voice mainly- and did a lot of other electronics experimentation in his younger days. He worked for a number of companies in California's Silicone Valley. Big ones kept buying the littler ones up- eventually Compaq which was then bought by HP. He got caught in a downsizing, at about the same time he was thinking of retiring anyway, so he parlayed that into a big buyout. Now it just tinkers and flies his plane. His current project is converting his Bridgewood mill into a computer controlled CNC mill.

He designed the circuit from scratch, tested it, then did the fabrication.

[McRabbet]

Sure looks like a slick solution, Alan. I still have two more weeks of physical therapy before I can get back at my ClearVue installation, but in the interim, I'm going to start fabricating new dust ports for my machines. Most of them will be easy, since they have pretty standard 4" plastic ports attached to the base cabinets with sheet metals screws, but each new one will be custom configured. I'm planning on making them from 1/4" and 3/4" baltic brich plywood and mounting the blast gates with them (where possible) or 1/2 of a 6" PVC coupling for my flex or hard duct connections. I'm planing a manual control for the tablesaw blast gate that is accessible from the front of the saw and will document it all with pictures as I proceed.

One minor point in your last post -- I doubt that your brother worked in the "Silicone [aka "Land of the Breast Implants?"] Valley" -- I rather suspect it was the "Silicon Valley"!

[PeteM]

Originally Posted by McRabbet

One minor point in your last post -- I doubt that your brother worked in the "Silicone [aka "Land of the Breast Implants?"] Valley" -- I rather suspect it was the "Silicon Valley"!

Thinkng of the women I met in "The Valley" . . .
both Silicone and Silicon would be appropriate

pete

[WoodWrangler]

Originally Posted by PeteM

Thinkng of the women I met in "The Valley" . . .
both Silicone and Silicon would be appropriate

pete

I can see where this is going .... to the valley...

[JackLeg]

Cap'n, that's cool! Now, can we get your brother to assist you with the "dust shroud" thinamajig for the table saw??



Seriously, you made any progress with your idea? I have a BUNCH of ripping to do soon, and was hoping a prototype was forthcoming??

[TBone]

Great idea Alan. Heck I need a translator just to understand half of this post.

[ACobra289]

I think I need to stop reading your posts about this auto-gate system. Reading them makes me feel like a MOron.

Bill M.