So... What are YOU doing? - Part 8

[Lamb]

Getting groceries. It's already icky outside with the muggy weather so I think I'll put the cooler in the back of the vehicle so my popsicles won't melt.

 

[tango]

Getting groceries. It's already icky outside with the muggy weather so I think I'll put the cooler in the back of the vehicle so my popsicles won't melt.

Lazy morning, but so far I've stopped by the church to give my pastor a thumb drive with files I salvaged from his dead computer and paid my bill at the hardware store. Not exactly an impressive accomplishment list for the morning but there you go.

 

[Naiwen]

Howdy sup there! How are you doing so far with your day? Today, just relaxing online before falling asleep tonight.

 

[Lamb]

Lazy morning, but so far I've stopped by the church to give my pastor a thumb drive with files I salvaged from his dead computer and paid my bill at the hardware store. Not exactly an impressive accomplishment list for the morning but there you go.

Probably you did a whole lot more than I did after I came home from getting groceries. This heat makes me want to do nothing even though we have central air.

 

[tango]

Probably you did a whole lot more than I did after I came home from getting groceries. This heat makes me want to do nothing even though we have central air.

I know the feeling. Yesterday I struggled to stay awake for much of the afternoon and had little energy for most of the day but still slept for over 10 hours last night. It's cooler today, so hopefully I can get at least something accomplished.

 

[Naiwen]

Yo sup there! How are ye all doing today? Today, just playing some games on my phone before turning in tonight.

 

[Lamb]

I know the feeling. Yesterday I struggled to stay awake for much of the afternoon and had little energy for most of the day but still slept for over 10 hours last night. It's cooler today, so hopefully I can get at least something accomplished.

Hoping we get that cool front soon. We're supposed to get Tropical Storm Elsa tonight so who knows what will happen behind that.

 

[tango]

Today was mostly unproductive but I did make some progress with a paper shredder. A friend gave it to me years ago - he wasn't able to fix it so gave it to me as a project if I felt like tinkering with it. Now I have a workspace to play with I decided to see what I could do. Getting it apart at all was an ordeal - I ended up having to file a screwdriver to make the head narrower just to get at some of the screws - but eventually I got there. It looks like the circuit board is faulty and I don't know how to fix it, so I cut everything apart and connected a regular power supply to the motor. The motor clearly works, even if the power supply I used (12V, 0.75A) was barely enough to turn it. It did turn, and it had enough power to shred a sheet of paper, eventually.

Now I'm looking for a meatier power supply (I think I need something like 28V and 7-10A) I can connect to the motor and create the kind of mongrel paper shredder that dumps the pieces straight into a bin of my choosing. Since I cut away everything that controls the motor it won't have any niceties like paper detection, safety cutoffs etc - it will be a simple case that pressing a switch will activate it and it will turn until it either burns out or is disconnected. It will be good to be able to put it over a bin of my choosing - I'll be able to use a nice big bag and not have to worry about the regular troubles of remembering to empty a pathetically small drawer under the cutting head.

This looks like a well made cutting head - the cutting wheels are all metal and all the gears that drive the system are metal. This one won't strip the teeth if I feed it something a little more than it would like.

 

[Lamb]

It looks as if most of Tropical Storm Elsa has passed so maybe I'll get to do a bit of walking outside today.

 

[tango]

It looks like I need a meatier power supply than I first thought. I connected my shredder to a Dewalt 20V battery and it worked reasonably well but still very slowly. So I connected two batteries together and put the shredder across both of them. It worked faster but still not as fast as I expected. With the extra current available from the batteries I was able to shred an envelope with papers in it. I now suspect my 28V supplies on the circuit board means it offered +28V and -28V, meaning I need a 56V power supply to make it work. I have 60V Dewalt batteries available but don't really feel like poking bare wires into terminals of a battery that can pass enough current to literally melt the cables as I hold them - apparently these batteries can put out enough current to melt an 8ga cable almost instantly. Thankfully I learned that from an internet forum rather than discovering it first hand!

At least now I've got a better handle on what I need, and I know that a 30V power supply isn't going to cut it. Perhaps I need to geek out and buy myself a benchtop power supply, so I can connect my shredder head any time I need it. I'd rather not have it in the basement but it needs to be out of harm's way so I don't find that visitors or children manage to do anything stupid with it. Because I've disconnected all the circuitry it no longer has any of the usual niceties, like safety shutoffs or even shields to stop people putting fingers in it.

 

[Hezekiah]

I'm just puttering around online before I go to my new job as a receptionist at Camping World. I love this job.

 

[Naiwen]

Happy Friday all! How are you? Today, just playing some games on my Switch before tucking myself in bed tonight.

 

[Lamb]

Working on a few odd projects around the house. Made a really tasty pepperoni pizza today!

 

[tango]

I decided not to tinker with one of my 60V batteries. I know how to get 60V from it but to do it without a specific tool leaves me vulnerable to wrecking it, and a new one costs north of $100 so I'd really rather not go there. I may yet butcher one of the battery caps to turn it into a simple power supply.

I connected three 20V batteries together and found they make the shredder head run at the kind of speed I'd expect. Looking at the wires that feed the motor there's no way they can take 10A without melting, so I should be able to get away with a smaller power supply than I was starting to think I'd need. A local friend is more familiar with electronics than I am, so maybe he can help me construct something simple.

In the meantime I got the head mounted to a board with space for a basic power supply on it. If I can get something worked out I'll put a couple of deflectors on the bottom to contain how widely the paper shreddings can spread, then look at ways to mount it and support a garbage bag underneath it. Then I'll be able to shread directly into a garbage bag rather than having to fuss with emptying a basket and getting paper chippings everywhere. Once the bag is full I can either take it out back and burn it or put it out with the other garbage.

 

[tango]

Had a bit of a head-slapping moment today. Trying to figure out how much current this shredder actually draws it occurred to me that my multimeter will measure current. So I used my insulated pliers to jam a piece of wire into the spare terminal of my last battery and connected my ammeter between it and the motor. In normal operation it draws about half an amp and when it's working hard that increases to a little under two amps.

So it looks like I'll need a smaller power supply than I thought, and I'll stick a fuse in the mix just to be safe.

 

[Lamb]

It was a cool morning so I did a nice walk to start off my day.

 

[Naiwen]

Happy weekend all! How are you? Today, just enjoying my usual TV show before rocking myself to sleep tonight.

 

[tango]

I went for a run, but it took more than I wanted to give. I had planned to do my regular 8-mile route but I got past the 10k point (6.2 miles) and decided to quit while I was ahead and walked the rest of the way home. Not sure if the problem was the heat or just not being on top form. Still, I got my exercise in and got my heart thumping pretty well.

 

[Lamb]

We went out for ice cream at a farm. They had goats, chickens and calves near the dairy so it was fun.

 

[NewCreation435]

I rearranged my office so I can look out into the backyard while I am at my desk. Otherwise, I have been reading and gave some stuff to Goodwill today along with about 10 books that I know I am not going to read.