Next two weeks at Tog

Hello all, we have another fortnight of our regular events coming up, along with an Open Social on Saturday 17th.

Monday June 12th – Coding Group Night from 19:00
Tuesday June 13th – Lockpicking Group Night from 19:30
Wednesday June 14th – Crafts Night from 19:00
Saturday June 17th – Join us at our Open Social from 19:00
Monday June 19th – Electronics/Microcontroller night is on from 19:00, as is our CAD & 3D Modelling night also from 19:00

Welder repair

An ancient proverb says that power tool failures occur in threes. During the same week that the lathe motor burned out and the compressor wire meltdown has turned it into a scary noise machine, we also had a mysterious malfunction in one of our welders. It didn’t release any smoke, didn’t make weird noises. It just didn’t weld. 0 volts across the output.

Inside of the welder (top view) before the repair attempt. Note that a large number of similar – but not identical – top boards can be found on Aliexpress.

This machine, a small 180A TIG/MMA inverter welder, has recently been repaired. It was not used heavily, as TOG has only so much use for welding. In fact, it was only used by a couple members to practise their welding skills.

On one hand, this machine was 5 year old, has been used extensively in the past and could have been written off as death of old age. The cost of a commercial repair would probably exceed the value of the welder. On the other hand – why not try to repair it ourselves before scrapping it?

Continue reading “Welder repair”

Late May and Early June at Tog

Hi everyone, we’ve another two weeks of Tog’s regularly scheduled events for you to enjoy.

Monday May 29 – Coding Group Night from 19:00
Tuesday May 30 – Lockpicking Group Night from 19:30
Wednesday May 31 – Crafts Night from 19:00
Monday June 5 – Electronics/Microcontroller night, and our CAD/3D Modelling night are both on from 19:00.

Hope to see you there!

Air compressor fixed

Air compressor in workshop died few week ago and finally getting around to taking it apart to see what issue is. Seamed like motor might have ceased however it was quick fix. 

TOG Calibration

If you work in industry or business, you probably have your electronic test gear and multimeters calibrated regularly. If you’re an amateur you probably don’t. We don’t have a fancy calibrator at TOG which can cost 1000’s and need regular calibration in itself. We do however have a 2 Euro voltage reference based on an Analog Devices AD548 voltage reference. Checking some of the multimeters that we have around, and the results are surprising.

The reference outputs 2.5, 5. 7.5 and 10V. Now this is a bit of a crude test, because this little reference is not calibrated or traceable to any standard. If you assume however that the voltages it gives are “exact”, a 20 year old Fluke multimeter is reading almost perfectly . Some other multimeters that we checked are a bit off, but still not too bad. We’re going to check some of the ultra cheap meters that we have too.

Fluke 77: 2.499, 5.00, 7.50, 10.00
Standard ST-3343 Clamp Meter: 2.495, 5.01, 7.51, 10.02
Velleman DVM890: 2.47, 4.96, 7.44, 9.92

TOG May Open Social

Our May Open Social evening takes place on Saturday 20th May from 7PM.

If you’ve never been to our Social, you’ll find it a great alternative Saturday evening in town. Come in and look around. If you’ve never been in before, we’ll give you the grand tour of the space. Talk to members and visitors about projects or things you’d like to do. Ask us about the next phase of our plans for the space and our big cleanup. If you like what you see, ask about joining as a full member. If you see lots of excited people playing with small robot cars, don’t worry. We were running our Electronic build-It workshop earlier in the afternoon!

Hopefully there’ll be, caint, ceol agus craic as usual. The space stays open until the last member is left……usually the small hours of Sunday morning. The evening is free to attend for members and visitors alike. No need to book…. just turn up. You can drop in for 10 minutes, or stay the whole night. We have parking available. Bring beer, food, gadgets! Our doors are open from 7PM. Hope to see you there.

https://www.meetup.com/Tog-Dublin-Hackerspace/ 
https://lists.tog.ie/mailman/listinfo/tog
https://twitter.com/TOG_Dublin
https://www.facebook.com/togdublin