I spent most of today ordering some new equipment, and figured some of the purchases were worth mentioning.
GoPro Hero 3+ Video Camera
What is it?
The GoPro Hero 3+ is a compact sports/action/extreme conditions video camera. It’s tiny, supposedly outputs decent quality video, comes with a durable outer shell, and can be mounted and supported in many different ways.
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Why do I need it?
To capture video footage of operational tools at distances too close for my regular camera and video camera.
Get your own (via Amazon)
80/20 T-Slot Framing
What is it?
Aluminum framing extrusions, joining plates, and accessories that allow for custom structures to be created, adapted, and modified with relative ease.
Why do I need it?
I’m building a testing apparatus and needed a quick and easy way to get the fixture built without much hassle.
Get your own: Amazon, 80/20 Ebay “Garage Sale”
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Emergency Stop Switch
This is something I’m still looking for, but I have narrowed it down to a few ideas.
What is it?
An emergency switch is a big red button that you press when you need a piece of equipment to be de-energized. It’s a normally-closed switch, and when you push the button the contacts are opened, cutting power to the circuit.
Why do I need it?
I am planning to do some tool testing where an AC tool might be powered on and mounted such that there isn’t easy access to the on/off switch.
Most E-switches are sold for installation into custom panels, which is something I don’t really plan on doing.
Technically, I could purchase an emergency switch, fuses, a relay, an on/off button, housing, female receptacle, male outlet extension cord, cable relief, wiring, and quick connects/disconnects, but it seems like it might easier to just buy one.
There are a few flimsy-looking consumer models, and some very expensive industrial-grade ones. Pricing is a bit high for the few industrial ready-to-connect solutions I’ve seen, but the premium might be worth it.
Criteria: 120V, 10-15A or so (110/120V), possibly with power-outage protection.
Pricing via an automation company for a UL-rated 10A model is $170, and the 20A model is $300, which is a LOT more than I wanted to pay. Consumer models run $30-$75.
What Have You been Buying?
Enough about me and what I’ve been buying for the ToolGuyd testing bench. What have you been buying?
Allen
A new project has necessitated me buying some router bits from Whitside, some profiles that I haven’t used before. This has breathed new life in my router use.
I also recently bought the little Products Engineering 4″ square from Epstein, which I have eyed for sometime but never thought I needed another square. Man was I wrong, I reach for that little thing the majority of the time now.
I also bought new keyless chucks for three older drills I had around, they wouldn’t even hold spade bits anymore. I got them from Amazon, made by LFA industries in France, haven’t received them yet but I expect to be happy with them.
I also spent 8k on tractor tires, but I don’t find much joy in that.
Matt
Got a deal on a refurbished Festool C15 drill set, out of the blue, not planned, but I love the thing. Also put in an order for the Domino DF500 ahead of the April 1st price increases here in Canada. Ouch. I need a cooling off period after this month.
Dale
I recently bought the new Porter Cable 20V Max Cordless Oscillating Multi-Tool. I am super impressed with it’s ability to do a variety of things. Took down wallpaper great, cut out grout and even cut small pieces of tile quickly for a new back splash. A real handy tool. Very impressed with all of the new Porter Cable 20V Max Cordless tools. Highly recommend.
Greg W.
Makita one handed 18 volt bandsaw just arrived today. Makita 18 volt nibblers for a project cutting 18 gauge stainless . An after market 4.5 battery since Makita won’t sell me a 4amp battery.
Daniel Lawson
I Ordered an air filtration unit for my garage to help filter the air in my garage. I have a small garage and a three year old and an eighteen month old I don’t need them breathing dust or bringing it inside with me.
fred
Here’s what I’ve been up to buying:
AMANA 54304 OVAL FLUTING BIT
AMANA 54306 OVAL FLUTING BIT
AMANA 54308 OVAL FLUTING BIT
ARNO 705688 VENEERING HAMMER
EVENFALL WOODWORKS VERITAS SHOOTING BOARD ULTRA
FESTOOL 583129 POCKET STICKFIX SANDER
GLEN-DRAKE TH#2 TITE HAMMER #2
GLEN-DRAKE TH#3 TITE HAMMER #3
GLEN-DRAKE TH#4 TITE HAMMER #4
VERITAS 05P38.21 ROUTER PLANE BLADE
VERITAS 05P38.32 ROUTER PLANE BLADE
VERITAS 05P51.34 SMALL PLOW PLANE BLADE
VERITAS 05P51.35 SMALL PLOW PLANE BLADE
VERITAS 05P51.36 SMALL PLOW PLANE BLADE
VERITAS 05P51.37 SMALL PLOW PLANE BLADE
VERITAS 05P51.38 SMALL PLOW PLANE BLADE
VERITAS 05P51.40 SMALL PLOW PLANE BLADE
VERITAS 05P51.42 SMALL PLOW PLANE BLADE
VERITAS 05P51.46 SMALL PLOW PLANE BLADE
VERITAS 05P51.48 SMALL PLOW PLANE BLADE
VERITAS 05P51.65 SMALL PLOW PLANE TONGUE BLADE
VERITAS 05P51.66 SMALL PLOW PLANE TONGUE BLADE
VERITAS 05P51.67 SMALL PLOW PLANE TONGUE BLADE
VERITAS 05Z15.01 SHOOTING SANDER
VERITAS 50F01.30 T-TRACK TOGGLE CLAMP PLATE
WHITESIDE 1470 OVAL EDGE BIT
WHITESIDE 1474 OVAL EDGE BIT
WHITESIDE 1476 OVAL EDGE BIT
WHITESIDE 1478 OVAL EDGE BIT
WHITESIDE 1480 OVAL EDGE BIT
WHITESIDE 1726 STAGGERTOOTH PANEL BIT
WHITESIDE 9510 BASE PLATE REDUCER SET
Bill K
I recently purchased a Phase II rotary turntable from Enco. Fast free shipping and good price after seeing your recent posting. Haven’t used it yet, but it looks great.
I am shopping for a good shop apron. So far from my research the Duluth Trading Company apron comes with good reviews. Do anyone have any favorites?
fred
At 5’8″ – I’m happy with the Arsenal 5700 that I bought recently from Amazon to replace a 40 year-old canvas no-name that just wore out.
http://www.amazon.com/Ergodyne-13690-Arsenal-16-Pocket-Apron/dp/B000LBK7WO/
Allen
Look on Etsy. There is a lady who will make one to your specs. Her store is :
https://www.etsy.com/shop/dowhatcomesnaturally?ref=l2-shopheader-name
Search for :
dowhatcomesnaturally
If the link doesn’t work. Canvas duck or denim.
Alan S. Blue
It sounds like you want one with an enclosure, but the price of the $7 Woodstock D4166 Safety Locking Switch makes it not at all bad for adding to your own enclosure.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005W17ISE
I’m also not clear on what you’d want all of the ‘other’ pieces for. Plug (or socket with male prongs) out one side, receptacle out the other, the box, the switch, and the wiring.
Wiring it as “just another switch with a handy -off-” skips the relay, fuse, etc.
Stuart
I saw Rockler and MLCS models as well, but some users complained they were somewhat flimsy.
A delay fuse helps prevent tripping from temporarily high motor inrush current, and a power relay helps prevent equipment from starting up after a temporary power outage. If I hit the circuit breaker or surge protector switch instead because it’s more convenient, I’d like the E-switch control box to reset to *off*.
For the time being I ordered a 10A solution, but when I have a chance I might order the necessary components, wire it up, and ask an electrician buddy to check over the work. I’m perfectly competent with building DC circuits and wiring, but AC is new territory.
Alan S. Blue
Maybe more like this then?
http://www.powerswitchtail.com/Pages/default.aspx
Set up whatever sort of DC circuit you like, all the AC fiddling is already enclosed.
(I’ve made one of these myself with both the male and female ends replaced with connectors. Handy.)
Stuart
Looks like a good product, but it’s not quite what I had in mind.
fred
We had several different variants of Allan Bradley safety switches installed on many of our machines – you might take a look at their offerings
Jerry
I have had good luck using an extension cord with an inline GFCI in it, as an on-off switch, for things that don’t have their own. Doesn’t have the big button for a quick emergency stop, but it would allow you to cut power safely from the other end of the cord.
Phil
I got caught up in redoing and expanding the network infrastructure for the house and garage. I’ve spent a lot of money on a 48 port PoE Gigabit switch, a mighty fine 8-bay Synology NAS, network cards for the servers for teaming ports for bandwidth, a small PoE-powered 8-port switch for the garage, a couple UPSs, a set of enterprise APs, cat6 cabling, plugs, jacks, patch cords, etc, etc. This is more prep for additional camera and home automation that was outgrowing my current gigabit setup. Trying to run cabling when one can barely walk at times is frustrating.
The little home studio got new Mackie active monitors and a Big Knob. The workstation computer got a nice terabyte SSD. I also got a few SD cards for the GoPro I got for xmas last year. I am trying but failing in my attempts to suppress my wanting a quadcopter for making aerial shots and movies with the thing.
As for tools, a couple of Milwaukee Fuel impact wrenches (1/4 and 3/8″), two Milwaukee powered grease guns (12&18V), an SK 1/4″ master socket set in SAE and metric, a Gearwrench 1/4″ master set of impact sockets in SAE and metric, various trim tools for cars, two different puller sets for harmonic balancers, gears and such.
I have several repairs and upgrades on the house and garage in the works, a new entryway and door, skylights, painting, lighting, a subpanel replacement (20 slots isn’t enough) and a few other things. Coming off a serious back injury and surgery last year sidelined me and I am in a near panic from being unable to do these things. Slowly making progress though!
Pete
The safety relay is going to be the expensive part.
If you really want a rated safety device, spend some time on the Allen Bradley website and pick the correct push-button, safety relay, fuse holders terminal blocks etc. for your application. You can buy din rail, an enclosure, and any other misc. parts you’ll need from McMaster Carr at a pretty reasonable price. It won’t be cheap, but the functionality you’re looking for goes beyond home hobbyist territory into the realm of industrial safety.
Stuart
I have received a number of recommendations for Allen Bradley products thus far, I will definitely check them out for future projects.
For the time being, I went with the Lovegreen LRM-115. It’s rated at 10A, but costs almost half as much as the 20A unit. It looks to be appreciably smaller as well.
It’s UL-listed and looks to fit the bill. If I think I’ll need more than 10A of protection later on, I’ll upgrade or build an appropriately-rated unit.
I also found a very insightful circuit diagram (PDF) for their 20A version which has a connection for an external switch/interconnect.
The wiring diagram looks straightforward, with the power relay being an Omron G7L-2A-TUB-CB.
I’m not sure what the difference would be between the 10A and 20A versions. Beefier relay? Switches? Definitely the wiring.
If I want more of these units in the future, I could probably build them myself. Right now, though, the timing is a little critical.
I started looking into E-switches for a simple stop, but most of the ones I saw had 6A ratings.
Then I started looking into switches, contact blocks, fuses, and realized that I’ll need to do a lot more research than I can currently afford.
For instance, what’s the difference between a complete switch and a switch + contact block? From what I’ve seen, with contact blocks one switch can have different and even stacked outputs depending on the contact block used. There’s a lot for me to learn.
Update: This Eaton training doc (PDF) is a great primer on industrial switches.
Pete
As far as specifying parts I’ll agree it can be a bit daunting trying to figure out the correct part number the first couple times through, especially with the buttons being separate from the contacts and so on. If you ever go down the build if yourself road, I would suggest that before you buy any parts you sketch up a schematic and take it with you to your local Allen Bradley dealer (often a local electrical supplier) or other industrial electrical supplier and talk through the parts you need with them in person.
Stuart
Very good advice, thanks!
I think I’m figuring things out slowly but surely. For component selection, I would work off of the Lovegreen schematics and select other components if necessary.
One thing I keep seeing is that switches seem to have 6A max current ratings at 120V. I suppose what this means is that for loads greater than 6A, relays or other components are implemented, as with the Lovegreen control box referenced above.
I suppose this explains why I couldn’t find E-switches with ratings higher than 6A or so either.
The Omron G7L relay has load rating of at least 20A, with coil current rating of a couple of mA.
So as with DC circuits, the coil draws a little current and then the main contacts do the heavy lifting.
Here’s my current understanding:
The emergency and off switches are normally closed. Pushing either de-energizers the relay and cuts power to attached devices.
The on switch is normally open. When closed, it energizers the relay, with one of the relay’s switches taking over for the released on switch and the other allows attached devices to be energized.
With loss of power or toggle of E-switch or off switch, the on switch must be pressed before relay will re-energize.
I still don’t understand why the 20A control box is priced so much higher than the 10A one. I figure it has a larger enclosure, 20A fuse vs. 10A, and thicker wiring. But the on/off switch, E-switch, switch contact blocks, and relay (with >20A load rating) should work equally as well to deliver 10A and 20A currents. Right?
I suppose the wiring, extension cord, and female receptacle must also be rated for the higher amperage, but I don’t see how these things would amount to a $130 price difference.
Scottthetech
I was just looking to get some T slot framing for prototyping, but couldn’t remember what it was called or were to find it. Thanks Stuart!
Stuart
You’re welcome! There are a bunch of other brands as well, but I have only used 80/20.
Garrick
Recent Purchases:
Centre Finder, for locating the centre of dowels or round things. Also works on square and octagonal stock.
Bosch 12 Volt Radio, to replace the humungous Bosch GML24VCD
A 3rd Bosch PS31 Drill… I really like those things.
More L-Boxxes.
Small Parallel Clamps. 6, 12, 18 inch. “Can’t have too many clamps”
Made:
Masking Tape dispenser. Looks like a scotch tape holder, but larger, and in my case, much more used.
KenZ
Two completely different types of buys:
TYPE 1: OLD SCHOOL
I bought a used craftsman scroll saw so I could make plywood jigsaw puzzled for my daughter. Actually came up with a sweet plan, and each puzzle had a ‘missing piece’ which connected to the next one, so her valentine’s day card (a jigsaw puzzle) connected to a puzzle picture of us to an easter basket puzzle to a halloween pumpkin puzzle to a gears puzzle to an xmas tree puzzle to a new years eve puzzle. Her entire year of puzzles connect together in one giant item.
TYPE 2: NEW SCHOOL
Home automation gear. Not really ‘tools,’ except that it’s doing stuff like controlling the schedule of the dehumidifiers, allowing coded access to the house, soon to be installed window and door sensors, and most importantly to be installed: a hot tub heater controller so I can turn it on before I get back from skiing, but not have to leave it on all weekend.
Paul
80/20 T-Slot Framing! I love it. Un-Strut for the homeowner. The price is right too.
Just bought the display Craftsman Miter-Mate from my local Sears for $56! It just what I need to finish the trim in this old house.
Dave
Kill switches: have you thought of these approaches?
13 amps-
http://www.amazon.com/Woods-32555-Outdoor-Control-Converter/dp/B001Q9EFUK/ref=pd_ys_ir_all_96
or
15 amps-
http://www.amazon.com/MLCS-9089-Switch-Continuous-Running/dp/B000LJNJOY/ref=pd_sbs_misc_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1X9A40KNZH71P1NHX2GS
Hope this helps.
joe
Some soldering/electronic tools to add a third macgyver switch to my PS4 controller
http://i.dslr.net/syms/750c522e9f569edecd7c821024f5459e.jpg