What’s been happening with the machine?
If you follow me on YouTube, you may have noticed there hasn’t been a whole lot of machining content. There is a good reason for that. Before I give you the story, I want to be clear that the issue has nothing to do with a failure of the machine or the American Rotary phase converter. Both of those things have performed with zero issues. The issue also wasn’t caused by improper installation. The job was done by a professional electrician and inspected by the Minnesota electrical inspector. My electrical panel is rated for 200 amps and everything in the panel is setup properly for all of my electrical needs.
Forced air electric furnace
If you aren’t aware, I live in Minnesota on the Minnesota/North Dakota border in the upper half of Minnesota. It gets cold here in the winter. It’s not uncommon to be in the -20f range for real temp during December, January, and February. As you can imagine, a heat source is pretty important. When the house that I live in was built, the builder installed a forced air electric furnace for cost reasons. Not to the benefit of the homeowner, but to keep the building cost down. The far better choice would have been to use a natural gas furnace. This furnace consumes a significant amount of power when running.
Rising heating costs
It isn’t uncommon for my utility bill to be $600 to $700 during the winter months. To try to improve that, this past summer I worked on things like better insulating doors and windows, insulating the attic over the garage with blown in insulation, and hiring a garage door company to improve the sealing of the garage door and the outer frame. I also set the thermostat considerably lower than I have in previous winters and tried to dress warmer. When I received my December bill I was quite surprised to see that I spent more money in this year than I did for the previous year.
Utility company inspection
I know the cost of energy has increased. However, I was still surprised to see my utility bill increase year over year for the same time period. Like many other places, our electric meters aren’t read by a utility company employee. Instead the meter is read remotely. I contacted the utility company and asked them if they ever had any problems with their meters reporting incorrect readings. They told me it was very rare, but to be sure, they would send an inspector by to run a test to make sure everything was functioning properly. Later that week the inspector stopped by to do the check and told me that he believed there would be little chance an issue with the meter would be the problem. He told me he would be back in about ten minutes to give me the results of his test.
burned up
A few minutes after the inspector went to run the tests on the meter, there was a knock on my door. I opened the door and the inspector told me to grab my coat and come with him. We walked outside to the meter and he pointed to and said “how much power are you using anyways?” The unfused power lines that supply the power that get connected to the electrical meter had their insulation melted off and some of the aluminum strands that make up the wire had been melted together. Both the utility company worked and later the county electrical inspector believed that at some point, there was a flame in the meter box.
What next?
It is now March, and as every elementary kid in Minnesota learns, March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Generally the weather starts to change considerably in Minnesota in April. It is'n’t guaranteed, but it happens more often than not. The speculation is that when the machine, the garage heater, the furnace, the dryer, the oven, etc. all run at the same time, there is more of a power draw than when the supply lines are rated to deliver. Soon I won’t need to run the furnace to heat the house, and soon after that, I won’t need the garage heater, That should give me the amperage buffer that I need to not get anywhere close to maxing out the power draw. Keep in mind that everything was installed and all wiring was done by a professional electrician and inspected the the county electrical inspector. Everything has been properly set up for 200 amp service.
New furnace
Before next winter, the plan will be to install a new natural gas furnace. Not only will this significantly reduce my utility bill, it will also use considerably less power. The utility company is also going to come back this spring to measure the total power draw with all appliances and the machine running at the same time (minus the furnace) to find out what the total power draw is to ensure their feeder lines meet the needed power requirements.
New Machining projects
As April arrives, look for new machining content to arrive. Over the previous summer and fall I helped Autodesk develop machining curriculum and content. I used the Syil X7 to do a test run of all the files to verify that all of the files were good learning content for CNC machining. As part of that project, I created reference setup sheets showing order of operations and the tools used. However, no step by step vides were produced. I intend to remachine those projects showing both the CAM toolpathing as well as the parts being run on the machine. I also have several “shop”improvement projects that I want to machine. The first being a manifold for the air supply in the garage.
If you have any suggestions for projects you would like to see machined, please leave them in the comments below.