The made in America project.

[MXBNW]

Lance: good thread and I may start posting a few of my projects here if you don't mine. I mostly mod things but have a few things on the table that I am working on.

I have a Grizzly G0704
G0704 Drill/Mill with Stand

and a Grizzly G8688 Mini Lathe
G8688 7" x 12" Mini Metal Lathe

We will be moving soon and I will be setting up a larger shop and will be going to the G9972Z
G9972Z 11" x 26" Bench Lathe w/ Gearbox
Or
G4003G Gunsmith's Bench Top Lathe with Stand Depending on funds after we move.

Its nice to have a Grizzly shop in town As well as a Harbor Fright outlet.

All hobby gear

 

[Lance_Wallen]

right now the main tools I've got for 'making' things are my taig micro lathe, sherline model 2000 CNC machine with the damn near useless 4th axis (it's not useless, I am), a 9 inch bandsaw, huge collection of dremel 'stuff', a dremel drill press and a standard drill press, a mig and an arc welder, variety of drills hammer drills, variety of forming hammers, couple angle grinders and a table saw and more random little hand tools than I can count. A lot of my tools were purchased for doing art stuff, mostly modern metal sculpture but some of that stuff is coming in handy for modding

 

[MXBNW]

Nice spread of tools, Got most of that and then some. I am big in to wood as well. I will be expanding in the up coming months when we get moved. I will have a bigger shop I am running out of room at this point to ad to much more.

I will move in to CNC after we get moved. Dad said I need to learn to walk before I can run LOL

right now the main tools I've got for 'making' things are my taig micro lathe, sherline model 2000 CNC machine with the damn near useless 4th axis (it's not useless, I am), a 9 inch bandsaw, huge collection of dremel 'stuff', a dremel drill press and a standard drill press, a mig and an arc welder, variety of drills hammer drills, variety of forming hammers, couple angle grinders and a table saw and more random little hand tools than I can count. A lot of my tools were purchased for doing art stuff, mostly modern metal sculpture but some of that stuff is coming in handy for modding

 

[Lance_Wallen]

well, my current "shop" is half a garage space and I only have that cause I drive a mini

I'm moving as well in Feb. and I"ll have a 2300 sq ft shop in it's own ACed building with plumbing and everything. We'll probably turn around 1300sq ft of that into a party area but I'll still have 1000sq ft, plenty of room for all my stuff.

I did manage to machine the part though I screwed it up. Did some math wrong somewhere and ended up making a few segments longer than they need to be, I can compensate by making my tubes longer since I'm testing with delrin tubing, I"ll have to make another one at the exact right dimensions for when I order the pyrex tubes though, no room for error on that one. I'll plot it out better on paper next time. I think I forgot to compensate for the radius of the tool or over compensated a couple of times. some stuff ended up 4mm instead of 2mm, a pocket ended up almost exactly the diameter of my endmill too wide. I'll turn another piece of stock down this weekend and try again. Gonna focus on machining the case and lid first though and just compensate for my oopsies with longer tubes assuming I don't jack it up when I drill out the coil posts.

 

[Lance_Wallen]

Progress! Found a small machine shop not far from me that's willing to make one of my RBA inserts at a reasonable price. Should have the part by next weekend. Going to work on milling the case tomorrow or this evening depending on how long I"m out at this art festival thing my wife wants me to go to. The only thing I'll be missing will be the glass tubes, still have to talk to that vendor tomorrow but i have some delrin tubing I can use as a substitute to test with if that takes longer than a week.

If all goes well, I should be soldering and testing a completed all delrin prototype next weekend.

Still have to model the lid and cut it out but that shouldn't be too hard.

 

[Skyway]

Cool, can't wait to see the hear/see the results.

 

[retird]

Haven't read this thread in awhile....good to see lance is making progress on his mod project....

Can't wait for the DNA 20D so I can build a new one......Things in the e-cig world move pretty fast since new stuff comes out almost daily....The constant, at least for me, is that Evolv has the best technology for power regulation.....and the 20D will go up to 20 watts and have a oled screen.....thinking new mods will be designed around this new chip/screen.....but the DNA chip is a great one....

 

[Lance_Wallen]

damn DNA20 ><

I just saw that yesterday and now I'm thinking I need to hold off and re-design for the new chip. Maybe I can talk Brandon into giving me a dead chip or something to model with so I can have the new design ready by the time they launch.

 

[Skyway]

Well, according to the video Busardo has, they will be ready before Christmas. Not too far off. Will be nice to not have to worry about a pot and a switch. Could be easy to build something around them. Maybe a lever design built inside your unit or a dowel style nub inside the unit.

 

[retird]

A PBusardo Video - VaperCon 2012 Part 2 - YouTube

 

[retird]

You could always complete your work with the DNA and design another for the DNA 20D....then you would have 2 mods....

damn DNA20 ><

I just saw that yesterday and now I'm thinking I need to hold off and re-design for the new chip. Maybe I can talk Brandon into giving me a dead chip or something to model with so I can have the new design ready by the time they launch.

 

[Lance_Wallen]

I am moving forward with the 12, at the very least it'll be a good learning experience. I just PM'd you as well but I figured I'd toss this in the project thread since it seems relevant.

I soldered up a test blob (basically components, wires, that's it) to fiddle around with and test some functionality like recharging, output, etc. Had a hell of a time getting the coil set up to read something that made sense. Ended up, my nichrome wire was crap. wild resistance readings across the length of hte cable. Threw some kanthal on there I had and it works fine. At 2.5ohm coil I'm getting a max of 10w and a min of 4w with the pot in both extremes. Little confused by that, but this test bed has some shady connections that might be causing an efficiency issue. I'm going to break it down and clean up the parts a bit then put it all together in the case (which I still havn't milled!) hopefully this weekend.

 

[Lance_Wallen]

Only reason I'm moving forward with the 12 is cause i have it and I've put a lot of time and effort into this thing (and I have parts otw lol) so I might as well finish this one.

 

[retird]

Sounds good...pm'ed you about the 10 watts...may save ya some research time....my dna mods are good to go up to 12 watts.... I seldom vape above 9 watts, so even 10 is good for me....

as you know the DNA specs are 5 watts to 12 watts....so what you are getting is close....alot of things come into play in testing including meter error tolerances....

 

[Lance_Wallen]

yeah, I'm pretty sure the failure is on the front of my slip shod assembly. I had to do all the board solder joints without a magnifying glass so I'm sure they're dirty as hell. I've got good eyes but I'm not superman.

I'm starting the machine job on the case in about 10 minutes, enjoyin my starbucks and a vape first First case failed horribly because i tried to space some slippery delrin on top of some other slippery delrin and it shifted during the first path and screwed up the alignment. I'm bolting the next attempt down. I'm still a novice with the machining stuff.

 

[Lance_Wallen]

Stupid F*ing machine! I set up the default support bridges my CAM software adds and set the machine to make the case. I'm having to cut it alot slower than I'd like because I'm using a real long 1/8th inch bit (my tooling options are limited at the moment) and it flexes in the delrin....but I just noticed after 8 hours of cutting that it's cutting AROUND my support bridges, so when it takes the last layer off it's going to cut the part loose from the stock before it finishes the entire job and it'll rattle around, which is obviously bad. I'm hoping I can catch it and shim it in the stock or something to salvage this but if not I"ve just wasted 10 hours total of machine time, a nice chunk of delrin, and lost the largest window I had to do this this weekend ><

 

[Lance_Wallen]

I think I salvage it, aborted the job and skipped ahead a bunch of steps to bypass the final layer on the perimeter of the part and resumed the job so it starts cutting inside again. Gonna increase the mount of clean up I have to do and make removing the part a pain in the .... but it'll be salvageable at least.

 

[MXBNW]

Pics would be cool

I think I salvage it, aborted the job and skipped ahead a bunch of steps to bypass the final layer on the perimeter of the part and resumed the job so it starts cutting inside again. Gonna increase the mount of clean up I have to do and make removing the part a pain in the .... but it'll be salvageable at least.

 

[Lance_Wallen]

I'm hoping to have the assembly done this weekend, I know the thread is pointless without pics I didn't wanna post pictures of the 3d model just to find out I couldn't do it and look like a tool

 

[zoiDman]

I’ve seen a Hundreds of parts that people have made.

But what is Cool is to see the Tooling / Setup they used to Hold them.