Frankenswitch Part3, Its aliiiiiive!!

I was mulling over an insulating material to form the base of the knife switch. Wood technically works for the application, but I wanted something a little better on the insulation side, and wood can rot. This may sound hypocritical because my welder case is wood, but i never depend on wood as anything but a structural component. Poking around the house I came up with an old cutting board (a good 3/8" thick!) that my wife hates (woohoo!). I cut it to size and have plenty left over for the second switch.



The handle is scrap plastic and held to the blades with some metal screws. I greased the pivot points with some high temp grease, and there are lock washers to set the tension as it wears. Given this isn't going to be a high use switch, I imagine it will last forever.



The handle design prevents this from being used for live applications - your index and ring finger come into contact with both poles when it is operated. This is to be placed under a rotating panel in my welder to facilitate polarity and ac/dc switching applications when the welder is switched off. Sticking your hand into an operating welder chassis is a good way to get dead anyways so that covers that.



The second switch should take a lot less time since I was designing as I went on the first one.

Frankenswitch, Part 2

So I bought some more copper pipe at Home Depot to make the center poles for the uberswitch.

Cutting the pipe is easily accomplished with a pipe cutter. This one came with my MAPP torch. MAPP torches are similar to propane blowtorches but they use methylacetylene-propadiene to provide a hotter flame. I need a hotter flame because I do brazing occasionally, which occurs at much higher temperatures than soldering and propane doesn't have enough moxy.



The cutter is placed on the pipe and spun around it. The blade is tightened every few revolutions, and thats all it wrote. Helps avoid crushing the pipe or coming up with an uneven cut.



Now that I have the pieces and I start flattening them on the anvil. I found that rotating to balance out the blows helped avoid scars from the hammer edge.



Going slow gives me better feel. I keep flipping the piece to even out the stress.



All flat. Its easy to thin the copper in one spot if you are really laying into it.



Getting too late to cause more racket so I drilled the other contacts for bolts with my drill press, it has big old humming induction motor that is smooth and quiet.



Tomorrow I will fold the center poles and solder them up. Looking at what I've made so far gives me the impression that it will be able to sustain much more than 200 amps. We'll see.

FrankenSwitch, Part 1

I need two honkin' DPDT switches that can sustain 200+ amps for my arc welder. They are for AC/DC and polarity selection. So I am building some of the type shown in the monster films - knife switches:



No worries, they will be under a cover and therefore shielded when energized.

In this episode will be constructing the pole clips.

Got a length of 1/2" copper water pipe, cut it with a pipe cutter, and hammered it flat. Copper is very malleable and ductile, so this is relatively easy to do. I wore ear muffs because it is loud! Then I bent pieces in vice with hammer to form the clip components:



Soldering copper pipe is not hard, but there is a process. First, I cleaned the copper with soap and water to remove oils. Then I used a wire brush on the parts until they are shiny. Next, I applied flux with a clean chip brush - ideally you use an acid brush, but I didn't have one:



I had to arrange my vise and these vise-grips to keep it all together as I soldered it with MAPP torch. Soldering copper involves heating the center or far side of the joint, and then letting the joint melt the solder on the near side. The solder wicks into the joint and flows to wherever there is flux.



After soldering I washed the clips at my sink under cold water and then soaked and rinsed them in a solution of baking soda and water to neutralize the residual flux. Flux should always be cleaned off after any soldering, brazing, or welding operation. Flux is highly aggressive and will corrode the shit out of damn near any metal. The finished clips - they are now very strong and quite heavy:



What is left is to drill holes for terminal bolts and mounting screws. Next on the list will be the throws (knives) and the center support poles.

more to come...

The arctic caps are melting..oh no!

According to NASA, the polar ice cap is now melting at the rate of 9 percent per decade. Arctic ice thickness has decreased 40 percent since the 1960s. The current pace of sea-level rise is three times the historical rate and appears to be accelerating.

Yeah, right. Unfortunately, the first two sentences are not related to the second. They could very well be true independently. However, for now, the above paragraph is a lie, wrapped in a thin shell of truth.

The arctic ice cap is floating in liquid water, displacing its weight, in water. Try this fun home experiment:

1.) Fill a glass half full of ice cubes.
2.) Fill glass with water until the ice is floating in the water (ie not touching the bottom).
3.) Mark on the glass the water level with a marker.
4.) Wait until ice is completely melted.

Did the level change? DIDN'T THINK SO. Yes, Antarctica melting will raise the level. The arctic ain't gonna do shit but piss off whitey. See below:


"Humans meltin' mah burg. Does PB gotta choke a bitch?"