New Shop Thread

[Coop]

I guess I missed this. Why 3/4? Dust collection? 

[gee-dub]

HVAC calculations mostly, additional wall space . . . er . . . additionally    I want to condition the entire airspace from a pair of mini-splits in the main shop area.  You can see one over the shelf unit behind the tablesaw.

P.s. the shelf unit is just a place holder for an area I want to keep open for parts handling during tablesaw and router operations.  There is no actual shelf unit.

Trying to get a good snip of those walls and their function . . .

Behind the left wall is the spraying area.  Front of the left wall is the jig hanging "peg wall".  Behind the right wall will be PC and music system and two parts / supplies cabinets. 

All the empty space shown at the top of the pic where I am using a lathe icon as a place holder will be various shorts and lumber storage up to but not crowding the spray area.  the blue rectangle under the tablesaw area is just a SU "floor plane" object I use to measure from and is not an actual thing.

 

 

[Tom King]

One thing I had put off for too long was getting the stuff to work on HVAC house equipment.  I have the stuff for working on automotive AC, but had a good guy, that was reasonable for working on house equipment.

When my Mother moved in with us, on short notice, I scrambled around, and got the first mini-split I could get my hands on.  I got the guy I mentioned to hook everything up, and charge it.

Brand is Tosot, which was the only correctly sized unit I could get that day-short notice.

I like the way it worked through the cold weather, and starting working fine when we needed to run the AC.  Until it stopped cooling.

Long story shortened, I called the guy.  He came and put 20 oz. of R410a in it, and some stop-leak with die, to help find the leak.  He was here for about a half hour.  The bill came to over $400.

Just got a 25 pound can of R410a for less than $150 delivered.  Correct adapters for my gauge set coming.

The guy said no manufacturer warranties against refrigerant loss.

Are you putting in the mini-splits yourself?

[gee-dub]

2 hours ago, Tom King said:

Are you putting in the mini-splits yourself?

Sort of.  I got a guy . . . I'll be the unskilled labor and he'll be the brains of the outfit

[gee-dub]

Nice to have friends with toys.

 

[pkinneb]

No kidding! I wish I had access to a dump trailer  

[gee-dub]

Water tie in today.  Added a couple valves for some future stuff as well.

 

[Coop]

Nice! Did you sweat the copper pipe yourself? 

[gee-dub]

Yes. It’s one of those things that goes well as long as you follow the steps. Murphy must’ve been asleep since we were able to complete the whole job without any leaks 

[pkinneb]

9 hours ago, gee-dub said:

Yes. It’s one of those things that goes well as long as you follow the steps. Murphy must’ve been asleep since we were able to complete the whole job without any leaks 

Nice! I hate plumbing but still occasionally have to knock out a few things, one of my sprinkler back flow valves froze over the winter so I had to fix that a couple weeks back like you murphy was asleep and all went well :).

My hate of plumbing comes from 30+ years ago. I thought it would be a good idea to cut into the main water line (finishing our basement bath) the day before my oldest daughters baptism, it was not! I could not get it to seal up hard as I try so ultimately we had to move the party to my in-laws. I probably spent 6-8 hours trying to get it fixed before I finally swallowed my pride and walked across the street to my neighbor who was a licensed plumber. He walked in looked at it and said get me a piece of bread. I was like huh? Got him a piece of bread he put a chunk in each side of the pipe, sealed it up and said you will never sweat a wet pipe. I learned a lot that day the biggest lesson ask for help when you need it LOL

[wtnhighlander]

11 hours ago, pkinneb said:

 

My hate of plumbing comes from 30+ years ago. 

My hate for plumbing repairs stems from the nearest hardware store being 20 minutes away, and that 3 trips (minimum) are required to obtain all the correct parts.

[gee-dub]

I can relate.  Plumbing is right up there with my "never do unless I have to" things.  Drywall and painting are up there too ;-)

@wtnhighlaner I had to laugh.  I can always tell when I am plumbing . . .three trips minimum here too.  The only thing that saved me here was that my cohort did the materials list and double checked me when I said I had everything.  That and Murphy taking a rare nap.

[Chet]

Another plumbing hater here.  But I have an ACE hardware that is a half mile from the house and It's kind of old school there in that the workers all know there stuff.  I think it is partially from the fact that probably 75 percent of his business is pro's so his people can't BS their way through thing.  The other thing I try to do is take a picture with my phone of what I am working on so they can see the situation. 

[Coop]

I agree and unlike the big box stores where the employee worked at DQ two weeks prior, most of Ace’s  employees have been there for years. Unfortunately, we lost our Ace to HD and Lowe’s a couple of years ago.

[Chet]

12 hours ago, Coop said:

Unfortunately, we lost our Ace to HD and Lowe’s a couple of years ago.

I think I am safe there.  His whole operation sits on about 5 or 6 acres.  It includes a large nursery, sand and gravel of all sorts most construction lumber, premixed concrete, pavers, stones and boulders for landscaping and when you buy in large quantities he has a full line of trucks that deliver to your home.

[gee-dub]

On 3/25/2021 at 10:28 AM, gee-dub said:

Final on building today.  Final on electrical Tuesday or Wednesday and then the inside work starts.  I'm hoping to move machines in within 2 months.

I just had to flash back to my confidence level in March .  I could never have guessed that pricing and availability solutions would be so slow in coming.  Folks are really milking the situation. So. . . , maybe start moving stuff in by July??? 

I really wanted to be "in' before the warm weather started.  To be fair, my primary partner in crime on this build was called out of state unexpectedly.  Since his return we have almost caught up.  Focusing on the 6' x 6' DC shed right now.

Pad area.

Blocking for connection points.

[wtnhighlander]

@gee-dub, given the climate, are you planning to return filtered air from that shed, or exhaust externally? Also wondering if you planned to put an air compressor there, as I have thought about doing so, but worry about heat management.

[Chestnut]

On 5/21/2021 at 8:39 PM, wtnhighlander said:

My hate for plumbing repairs stems from the nearest hardware store being 20 minutes away, and that 3 trips (minimum) are required to obtain all the correct parts.

I usually hedge my bets and buy double of everything i need and a couple of what I don't need but could see a possibility. I just return what I don't use. This was the advice the guy gave me in the plumbing department.

Given that the stuff is $1 buying 30 pieces you don't need doesn't add up to much compared to the lost time in the extra trips. Especially when you can just return them later. To save them the extra expenses on transaction costs i just get store credit, i usually spend it right away anyway.

[gee-dub]

22 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

@gee-dub, given the climate, are you planning to return filtered air from that shed, or exhaust externally? Also wondering if you planned to put an air compressor there, as I have thought about doing so, but worry about heat management.

Exhaust externally.  So little spoil gets past the cyclone that I will just vent it outside trough a folded baffle to control noise.  The shed will be insulated.  Such structures remain fairly stable around here despite the external weather.  However, as you point out I will be generating heat with the cyclone and will have to see how much it is and then develop a way to deal with it as required.  I hope to be able to handle it passively or with solar fans like I use on other outbuildings on the property.

As to air, I went through the trouble of running an air system around the previous shop thinking it would be handy.  I found that I used air so seldom that it was not worth the effort for me to do that again.  I plan to have my quiet little 4 gal. California Air compressor ride in the bottom of a shop / assembly cart with a hose reel for use as required.  I'm still using brads and pins out of the boxes I bought along with the tools nearly 20 years ago .

[gee-dub]

Got a little more prep done.

 

I'm not sure if I showed this before.  This is the general idea for the exhaust.

Although not shown in this quickie version of the baffle tower, the shelves will be changeable as I am unsure of the impact of the captive air mass in that chamber.  I am building in the ability to go to an upgraded unit if required but am hoping I can make my little 2HP unit do the job via careful duct and exhaust pathway resistance planning (fingers crossed).

[Chestnut]

Fog horn design? JK I am assuming that the baffle is to reduce noise from the exhaust? Is that designed with varying baffle sizes? The spacing doesn't look consistent. That sounds interesting i hope you post some on your findings on how it works and how different configurations change the impact.

[Mark J]

Just a thought, but I think the sound baffles would work just as well if mounted at an angle rather than horizontal.  But at an angle dust would be more likely to move to the bottom chamber where it could be easily vacuumed out.  Might even be able to vibrate the chamber "clean" without opening it using an old 1/4 sheet sander. 

[Tpt life]

The way to reduce pressure vs resistance (which creates the noise) is to taper from smaller to larger as you wind around. Not is a straight linear way, or you get the megaphone affect. A stepped design should work. 

[gee-dub]

@ChestnutThe perspective on SketchUp makes them look graduated.  In the drawing they are consistent.  This was just a quickie example to indicate that I plan to do 'something'.

I foresee some mad scientist efforts with an ammeter. Running the DC with the exhaust unobstructed and the shop doors open to get a base line and then adding things to observe impact. The muffler, the baffle, the shop with doors open, the shop with doors closed, etc.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) my work in debugging protocols and designing failure resiliency into complex systems has made me painfully systematic in my testing methodologies. I'm not trying to sound like a smarty-pants. I'm just saying that I'm the guy who will sit in one spot and go through 146 variations of something and duly document every variation (to find the 145 ways I don't like) without getting bored.

The baffle plan is indeed to reduce noise.  My best case would be that I could eliminate it completely. If I could just run the exhaust pipe out through the wall of the shed at a high level I wouldn't have to worry about critters nesting in the opening quite so much

[Chestnut]

31 minutes ago, gee-dub said:

. I'm just saying that I'm the guy who will sit in one spot and go through 146 variations of something and duly document every variation (to find the 145 ways I don't like) without getting bored.

I wish i didn't have to work 45 hours a week because I'd also be that person. It's interesting to see how changing something minor can lead to larger impacts. Though this sometimes is part of my job as an engineer (often i wish a larger part of my job) so i probably enjoy it more than most.