Everything’s fuzzy,
I’m going blind. mmmmmmm.
I can’t see how beautiful you look today.
After a few rustlings of the newspaper it eventually was lowered into her lap. Can you see the look on my face now she asked? It’s a bit blurred, but I’m getting the jist of it I answered.
Is it something for the workshop again she asked, emphasis on again. It might be, or might not be, but could be, I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to finish the sentence, but didn't matter as I was cut off with the words. What is it this time, with the emphasis on this time.
I have very dangerous machines in the workshop I explained, and although their primary function is to cut etc, their secondary function is to kill or main me. And lately I am having to get a lot closer to the cutty end to see properly. So, I thought why not throw a bit of extra light at the blade.
What’s likely to happen she enquired. Worst case scenario I could lose a hand and wouldn’t be able to help you about the house.
At this point I had to step back a little to let the fit run its course. Took a couple of minutes, but standing there if felt a little longer. As she composed herself I noticed there wasn’t much left of her newspaper. Thankfully it had taken the brunt of the seizure
You better go and get your lights, she said, don’t want you losing both hands, then how would I manage about the house.
My thoughts as well
So, lads here we go again.
Now my first thoughts were to go down the route of led on a roll. Cut them to length fit a transformer and away you go, but on a little investigation found you only get one transformer with each roll and extra transformers needed. So Finally decided on a small Led flood and as luck has it I was in B&Q equivalent of Home Depot and there they were £8 each. Bought 4 and trialled it by fitting one in my new router cabinet. (Previous post) As far as I can see they only have one drawback. You will see from the photos it’s the shortest cable in the universe.
I opened one up and was initially going to desolder the phase and neutral from the board, but decided against it as didn’t know what the heat factor might do. So, cut, soldered and shrink sleeved them.
Decided on one for the band saw, mitre saw and lastly the radial arm saw. I wanted to wire each one to light up not manually, but with a switch wire linked to start-up of each machine. On single phase this is fairly easy but in my case all of my machines are 3 phase.
So, let’s start with the bandsaw. I wired a temp plug to the light and tried every way but which. Finally decided that a stationery option didn’t cut it, so my inner plumber came to the rescue. And as you can see from the pics I fitted a 15mm chrome plated pipe down the length of the upper carriage and ran the cable up and over using 9mm cable connectors and terminated with a plug into the bandsaw vacuum that comes on when the saw is switched. I just swapped out the single gang for a double. I made the light so it can travel about 12 inches vertically and full swivel with a handle fitted to the chrome pipe. I used chrome because it slides so much better in the Teflon pipe clips. And I set stops to inhibit travel.
So was it a success. oh yes, works a dream with full travel and axis in both directions I actually worked out better than expected, absolutely delighted.
I was so excited when it worked I got my wife out to see it in action....... that’s nice dear.
Now it’s the Radial arm saw. Now you might say why bother as they have kinda gone out of fashion with the advances in mitre saws, but my mitre saw is over 20 years old an Elu, but still performs like the day I bought it and the smaller blade makes an excellent accurate cut but doesn’t trench and this saw cuts a sheet 620mm wide and it can swivel to cut longitudinal and you can fit a router to it. I use it mostly for trenching.
No while the bandsaw was fairly straight forward in that the cutting surface is stationary, my first problem was the blade on the radial has a 2 ft travel and no matter where I placed the light at some point there was shadow. I therefore decided to fit it on the traveling carriage in order to follow the blade.
After a fair bit blinding myself I fitted it without too much bother, my problems started when I started to wire. Now most of my machines are 3 phase 415volts and If you have some knowledge of the wiring process you will be aware some machines have phase, phase, phase, neutral and earth, but many omit the neutral and on the Dewalt there is no neutral only earth, and because it didn’t need one I terminated in the isolator. So, had to run a neutral all the way from the isolator to the switch box on the cradle. Wired it so light comes on when I pull the trigger to start blade. Took a couple of hours, and you might be tempted at this point to say why bother, and the answers is simple, retired 24/7 and it’s a challenge that keeps the juices flowing.
So lastly my old faithful mitre saw. It’s been a loyal tool, only attempting to remove my digits on half a dozen occasions, which over 20 years is not so bad. Again, couldn’t install light stationery as when I tilted to 45 degrees I had serious shadow, so again used the cover and wired into vacuum circuit that comes on with saw.
So that’s it lad. Total cost £32 not bad and a good couple of days speaking to myself.
Colin
Scotland
I’m going blind. mmmmmmm.
I can’t see how beautiful you look today.
After a few rustlings of the newspaper it eventually was lowered into her lap. Can you see the look on my face now she asked? It’s a bit blurred, but I’m getting the jist of it I answered.
Is it something for the workshop again she asked, emphasis on again. It might be, or might not be, but could be, I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to finish the sentence, but didn't matter as I was cut off with the words. What is it this time, with the emphasis on this time.
I have very dangerous machines in the workshop I explained, and although their primary function is to cut etc, their secondary function is to kill or main me. And lately I am having to get a lot closer to the cutty end to see properly. So, I thought why not throw a bit of extra light at the blade.
What’s likely to happen she enquired. Worst case scenario I could lose a hand and wouldn’t be able to help you about the house.
At this point I had to step back a little to let the fit run its course. Took a couple of minutes, but standing there if felt a little longer. As she composed herself I noticed there wasn’t much left of her newspaper. Thankfully it had taken the brunt of the seizure
You better go and get your lights, she said, don’t want you losing both hands, then how would I manage about the house.
My thoughts as well
So, lads here we go again.
Now my first thoughts were to go down the route of led on a roll. Cut them to length fit a transformer and away you go, but on a little investigation found you only get one transformer with each roll and extra transformers needed. So Finally decided on a small Led flood and as luck has it I was in B&Q equivalent of Home Depot and there they were £8 each. Bought 4 and trialled it by fitting one in my new router cabinet. (Previous post) As far as I can see they only have one drawback. You will see from the photos it’s the shortest cable in the universe.
I opened one up and was initially going to desolder the phase and neutral from the board, but decided against it as didn’t know what the heat factor might do. So, cut, soldered and shrink sleeved them.
Decided on one for the band saw, mitre saw and lastly the radial arm saw. I wanted to wire each one to light up not manually, but with a switch wire linked to start-up of each machine. On single phase this is fairly easy but in my case all of my machines are 3 phase.
So, let’s start with the bandsaw. I wired a temp plug to the light and tried every way but which. Finally decided that a stationery option didn’t cut it, so my inner plumber came to the rescue. And as you can see from the pics I fitted a 15mm chrome plated pipe down the length of the upper carriage and ran the cable up and over using 9mm cable connectors and terminated with a plug into the bandsaw vacuum that comes on when the saw is switched. I just swapped out the single gang for a double. I made the light so it can travel about 12 inches vertically and full swivel with a handle fitted to the chrome pipe. I used chrome because it slides so much better in the Teflon pipe clips. And I set stops to inhibit travel.
So was it a success. oh yes, works a dream with full travel and axis in both directions I actually worked out better than expected, absolutely delighted.
I was so excited when it worked I got my wife out to see it in action....... that’s nice dear.
Now it’s the Radial arm saw. Now you might say why bother as they have kinda gone out of fashion with the advances in mitre saws, but my mitre saw is over 20 years old an Elu, but still performs like the day I bought it and the smaller blade makes an excellent accurate cut but doesn’t trench and this saw cuts a sheet 620mm wide and it can swivel to cut longitudinal and you can fit a router to it. I use it mostly for trenching.
No while the bandsaw was fairly straight forward in that the cutting surface is stationary, my first problem was the blade on the radial has a 2 ft travel and no matter where I placed the light at some point there was shadow. I therefore decided to fit it on the traveling carriage in order to follow the blade.
After a fair bit blinding myself I fitted it without too much bother, my problems started when I started to wire. Now most of my machines are 3 phase 415volts and If you have some knowledge of the wiring process you will be aware some machines have phase, phase, phase, neutral and earth, but many omit the neutral and on the Dewalt there is no neutral only earth, and because it didn’t need one I terminated in the isolator. So, had to run a neutral all the way from the isolator to the switch box on the cradle. Wired it so light comes on when I pull the trigger to start blade. Took a couple of hours, and you might be tempted at this point to say why bother, and the answers is simple, retired 24/7 and it’s a challenge that keeps the juices flowing.
So lastly my old faithful mitre saw. It’s been a loyal tool, only attempting to remove my digits on half a dozen occasions, which over 20 years is not so bad. Again, couldn’t install light stationery as when I tilted to 45 degrees I had serious shadow, so again used the cover and wired into vacuum circuit that comes on with saw.
So that’s it lad. Total cost £32 not bad and a good couple of days speaking to myself.
Colin
Scotland
