I learned many years ago never to travel on the roads at Easter.
It's long enough to tempt people to try and go further than they should in the time available. Combined with double demerits : a guaranteed recipe for disaster .
The idea for me is just to do whatever comes into mind without trying to set targets for work to be done etc.. Just do whatever at a relaxed pace : including nothing at all if that appeals on the day.
My neighbour was taking his boat to Rottnest and invited me along to go diving but unfortunately a cold put paid to that.
So it was just pottering work as the mood took me . . .
First thing was to put the second motor I had obtained to work.
The first idea nearly caused a disaster!
I intended to put one motor on each of the primary drive gears. It would require that one motor worked backwards while the other went forwards. Not a real problem as these DC motors can run either way and in fact run one way to raise and the other to lower. I wired them up to do this while they were loose on the bench to make sure it would all work OK.
Not a Problem.
Now bolt them in position and try it . . . lots of blue smoke.
Both from the motors and the following long strings of rude words.
I had completely forgotten that the frame of the motors was part of the circuit and bolting them together made an electrical connection between them so that when I put a +ve cable on one and a -ve cable on the other I had made a dead short!!
Liable to melt things if not stopped quickly.
Fortunately no damage was done and the motors were still usable.
Implement plan "B" !!
Both motors driving on one primary gear in the same direction.
(Sorry about the green cast in all the photos but I had the overhead lights on and I set the camera white balance to match to try and get the colour right but apparently that just makes it worse!!)
The motors are mounted against the back wall between the main beams which is just wasted space anyway. Wiring is very temporary at the moment just using the original car harness as cut out of the wreck.
From the outside - to be sheeted over.
and from the inside of the storage compartment under the floor where it will have a partition between it and the rest of the compartment (to keep things from getting jammed in the gears :) ).
The next thing on the list was the brackets connecting the chains to the bed frame. They were modified from the original experiment with cords by having a threaded bush welded onto them. All in all not a very pretty solution. So new ones were milled out to a more elegant shape and altered in order to position the chains further back into the tracks so no grease would get onto you if you leaned back against the track. The wire was temporarily holding the other end of the chain before a spring was fitted. (Flash changed the colour cast again!!)
A spring was fitted which showed that a different attachment method was also required here to also position the other half of the chain back into the track as well. So that's now on the to-do list for tomorrow as a different shorter spring will be required and I can't get them until Tuesday.
I also went around and measured each corner of the bed frame from the floor and discovered that I had about 25mm difference between some of the corners. This would have added to the effort required of the motors as it all needs to be "square" to minimize effort. It took about an hour to get all the corners at the same height and with the same tension on all the four chains. Thank goodness I had decided to put in the adjusters.
After all that another load test was in order.
Just a small portion of the run up and down.
It takes 70 sec's for up and 60 sec's for down.
Just about perfect I think but it's too long to stand and hold a switch for the full travel. So the next item will be proper wiring with "UP" and "DOWN" switches and limit switches at the top and bottom to stop it tearing itself apart when you turn on the switch and then get distracted!!
Parked at the top of the "up" allowing for mattress and bedclothes etc.. It will have a timber valence all around to hide everything during the day.
And with a temporary seat just to make sure that head room is adequate when using the "dining area".
The seats form the main storage areas for outside. One for the generator and one for all the outdoor living necessities like barbeque, small table and a couple of folding seats etc..
The eagle-eyed will notice I have changed sides with the generator as it looked like too much weight was going to one side and I believe the off-side will be better served with the outdoor equipment. Two birds with one stone. Also the floor area under the table between the seats hinges up and gives access to quite a large storage area which is only accessible from in side.
There is an ingenious moulded hinge (which I am not sure if I have mentioned previously, anyway . . .) made of some miraculous plastic and rubber materials which flexes like crazy, supports good loads and lasts through millions of cycles. I am going to use it outside on all bin doors as it is stylish, waterproof and simple to install. What more could you ask for.
I'm also going to use it for this lifting floor section as it will be unobtrusive and being impervious will ensure no wet, muddy or sandy materials can get into the storage area from this arrangement. A sample piece is inserted here for spacing calculations. From the "outside" it is quite unobtrusive as it is only about a 2mm protrusion.
Quite happy with progress for a holiday period :)
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