HackerSpace Bloggin'

[Robert Powers]

Hello,

In case it's a little invisible, just a reminder that we've been trying to post a few things to the 'space blog so everyone can see the awesome things going on at the CCHS. 

It's here: http://www.hackmelbourne.org/blog/

Recent items include everything from props to needlework to 3d-printing to frickin' lasers. You should check it out.

Web fellows - can we get some RSS capabilities/instructions for those that would like to follow along without too much trouble?

Thanks,

Bob

[David Lyon]

Awesome !

[Angus Gratton]

On Wed, May 08, 2013 at 10:31:57AM +1000, Robert Powers wrote:
> In case it's a little invisible, just a reminder that we've been trying to
> post a few things to the 'space blog so everyone can see the awesome things
> going on at the CCHS.
>
> It's here: http://www.hackmelbourne.org/blog/

Awesome. :) Irked already that I missed out on lasering last night. :)

> Web fellows - can we get some RSS capabilities/instructions for those that
> would like to follow along without too much trouble?

If folks just add the above URL to their feed reader, it should find
the feed link in the metadata automatically and add the feed, no
problems. RSS is pretty user-friendly in that regard.

(Is that what you meant?)

- Angus

[Dave Chanter]

I added the RSS button to the site, since it now subscribes to something ;)

You'll see it in the top-right corner, its called "Subscribe"

DC

[Stuart Young]

The RSS feed is at http://www.hackmelbourne.org/feed/

On the page itself, it's in the top right corner, has an RSS icon and says "Posts" next to it.

BTW: If the name isn't useful, let me know and I'll change it to something else.

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[Stuart Young]

Never mind me.. Dave just changed it. ;)

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[Robert Powers]

If folks just add the above URL to their feed reader, it should find
the feed link in the metadata automatically and add the feed, no
problems. RSS is pretty user-friendly in that regard.

I'm not terribly familiar with WordPress and if it would publish the appropriate metadata without enabling something administratively. If this 'just works', awesome. I sort of suspect it should, but wanted to prompt the right people if it doesn't.

Thanks,

Bob

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[Luke Weston]

Does anyone have access to any thin wood such as plywood about 3-4mm thick?
(Think of the wood used for the Makerbot and OpenPCR chassis, something similar to that.)

I'd like to try laser cutting some.

Cheers,
  Luke

On Wednesday, 8 May 2013 10:31:57 UTC+10, Bob Powers wrote:

[Scott Penrose]

I have quite a large amount of marine ply. Marine vs normal just is the type of glue.

I think it is 6mm though - will measure it tomorrow.

Scott

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Scott Penrose

sco...@dd.com.au

http://scott.dd.com.au/

[Andy Gelme]

hi All,

On 2013-05-9 21:27 , Scott Penrose wrote:

... just is the type of glue.

Based on the number of mentions the other night about fumes ... should get the ventilation properly sorted out before going too much further.

And, ensure that a fire extinguisher is mounted in an appropriate position.  Along with a fire blanket.

The Sydney HackerSpace had a fire in their laser cutter.  There are enough other examples of mishaps ... that we should take heed.

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[Scott Penrose]

On 09/05/2013, at 9:38 PM, Andy Gelme <an...@geekscape.org> wrote:

And, ensure that a fire extinguisher is mounted in an appropriate position.  Along with a fire blanket.

Is there also an appropriate fire extinguisher which is likely to cause less damage. Because likely hood is high, it seems you don't want to cause damage. I know nothing about fire extinguishers but I am sure there must be different types.

Scooter

[Darren Freeman]

On Thu, 2013-05-09 at 04:26 -0700, Luke Weston wrote:
> Does anyone have access to any thin wood such as plywood about 3-4mm
> thick?

I have some off-cuts of 3mm ply that I use on model aircraft.

> I'd like to try laser cutting some.

I'd love to see the results. Laser-cut ply is great for making planes :)

It's now in my bag, so next time I see you at the space I should have it
with me.

Have fun,
Darren

[Luke Weston]

CO2 is the most desirable ideal type of "non-destructive" fire extinguisher I think.

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[Darren Freeman]

On Thu, 2013-05-09 at 21:41 +1000, Scott Penrose wrote:
> Is there also an appropriate fire extinguisher which is likely to
> cause less damage. Because likely hood is high, it seems you don't
> want to cause damage. I know nothing about fire extinguishers but I am
> sure there must be different types.

Good point. I would think the first thing to do is to install
appropriate guards that block as much fire and extinguisher material as
possible, from entering places where it will cause damage to the
machine. You can't use the safety of the machine as an excuse not to use
the right kind of extinguisher.

But I would think a CO2 extinguisher would be well suited. Not water,
due to electrical hazards, and preferably not dry powder just because
that really will mess up the machine.

I have a small dry powder that I can bring, but pray it isn't used :/

With acrylic I would expect to be able to take the burning item out and
dump it into a water bucket with plenty of time to spare. (Or throw a
fire blanket over it on the ground.) Perhaps with plywood, if you notice
the smoke early enough, this is also feasible.

Putting a smoke detector on the air exhaust could help save the machine
from becoming a fireball, assuming it doesn't false trip all the time.
The detector could be wired to the emergency stop, which would also have
to stop the forced airflow. This could really add to our peace of mind!

Have fun,
Darren

[Dave Chanter]

In all matters of safety the people are what matter first and foremost, if you have to damage the laser cutter to prevent a hazard such as a fire then you should do so, that's the same for all of our equipment. Under no circumstances do I think you should handle burning acrylic in an attempt to save the equipment.

I'm also going to raise a safety concern about operating the laser without fume extraction, I think we should have something sorted on that prior to any more usage. 

DC

[Stuart Young]

If we're worried about cutting causing ignition, then perhaps we should investigate options for using an inert gas to reduce the chance of it happening?

A simple option is putting a CO2 canister on the air assist input to the laser cutter. The advantage here is that the area the laser is cutting is going to have the most chance of ignition, so having the gas enter the laser cutter nearest that point (right at the laser) should reduce any possible ignition.

Re; Obtaining CO2 gas - anyone got an Old Sodastream so we steal the screw-on valve system, as the bottles are fairly cheap for testing (and I have a few on-hand).

Note: There are of course other gases (and many more friendly to the environment than CO2), but CO2 is cheap to obtain for testing purposes, and it's a good idea to confirm it's usefulness before we consider attempting other types of gases.

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Stuart Young (aka Cefiar)

[damie...@gmail.com]

Perhaps look into getting a cylinder of Dry Nitrogen for this purpose?

The laser-cutter is ideally positioned to be fitted for a flue that leads to a vent in the roof -- ISTR this not being mere coincidence.

I'm happy to help on Tuesday night if people want to plan/install ducting.

Damie...@gmail.com

[Dave Chanter]

I reckon we have some more basic requirements to tick off before we start injecting CO2 into the chamber. Not that I don't think its a neat idea,

Fume Extraction

Plumbing improvements

Software

Good write up of usage procedure, eg: How do I get from idea to product in X steps?

All that good stuff ;)

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[Darren Freeman]

On Thu, 2013-05-09 at 23:00 +1000, damie...@gmail.com wrote:
> Perhaps look into getting a cylinder of Dry Nitrogen for this purpose?

Yes, dry nitrogen and argon are commonly used for this.

That is, if we are into spending the money. It's been a while since I
looked into the cost of rental but I expect it's around $30/mo for a
cylinder from BOC, plus usage. And you have to buy a regulator for about
$200. Like I said, it's been a while, but that gives you an idea.

> On 9 May 2013 22:48, Stuart Young <cef...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Note: There are of course other gases (and many more friendly
> to the environment than CO2), but CO2 is cheap to obtain for
> testing purposes, and it's a good idea to confirm it's
> usefulness before we consider attempting other types of gases.

CO2 is in fact quite friendly to the environment. It's obtained from the
atmosphere in the same process as argon, oxygen and nitrogen. You're
just returning it to the atmosphere.

There's nothing stopping us from trying it. But apparently, compressed
air is a good choice for nonmetals. And with a small compressor, it's
very cheap.

Have fun,
Darren

[Russel]

I get throw away sheets occasionally. I have a bit now, what sizes are you needing for the laser and I'll chop it to size and bring them in.

Peter

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[Russel]

If I could chime in, anyone using an extinguisher does need training. I worked for a racing team years ago and we were shown the right and wrong ways of putting out fires. Part of the demo showed creating a bigger fire by aiming the co2 at the wrong spot and drawing in more air and fanning the flames, the instructor also restarted a fire by squirting the extinguisher at a smouldering piece of car and causing it to burst into flame.

Does the local fire station do community training/evaluation days? Does the space have a safety plan? I'm not trying to scaremonger but the space is a fairly confined space and I think the priority should be "everyone out" and then those in the know sort the problem. Should the key holder on the day be responsible for safety and first aid and be trained in those areas?

Peter

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[Gareth Pye]

On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 3:54 PM, Russel <russ...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Should the key holder on the day be responsible for safety and first aid and
> be trained in those areas?

Sounds like a good policy to me. All the fire extinguisher training
I've had was woefully inadequate, but I still think I'm the better for
it. (I think that training was to make people confident they could use
one, I'm not sure that was a good idea)

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Australian MTG Forum: mtgau.com
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"Dear God, I would like to file a bug report"

[Luke Weston]

Material sheet size to fit in the laser needs to be less than about 300x500mm IIRC, I should check that next time I'm in that part of town.

[Geoff]

Please see the following before cutting Marine plywood. 

Gluebonds

Australian Standards specify tests for four types of gluebond:  Types A, B, C, and D.

A-BOND - produced from a phenol formaldehyde (PF) resin and forms a permanent glueline that will not deteriorate under wet conditions, heat or cold e.g. used in the manufacture of Marine and Structural plywoods.

B-BOND - produced from melamine fortified urea formaldehyde resin (MUF) resin and is suitable only for limited exposure e.g. formply, door skins.

C & D BOND - produced from urea formaldehyde (UF) resin are both for interior use only, and should not be used in structural applications or wet or damp areas

http://www.sharpplywood.com.au/Facts-About-Plywood-pg17485.html

Formaldehyde is highly toxic to all animals, regardless of method of intake.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formaldehyde

On Thursday, 9 May 2013 21:27:59 UTC+10, Scott Penrose wrote:

I have quite a large amount of marine ply. Marine vs normal just is the type of glue.

I think it is 6mm though - will measure it tomorrow.

Scott

On 09/05/2013, at 9:26 PM, Luke Weston <reindeer...@gmail.com> wrote:

Does anyone have access to any thin wood such as plywood about 3-4mm thick?
(Think of the wood used for the Makerbot and OpenPCR chassis, something similar to that.)

I'd like to try laser cutting some.

Cheers,
  Luke

On Wednesday, 8 May 2013 10:31:57 UTC+10, Bob Powers wrote:

Hello,

In case it's a little invisible, just a reminder that we've been trying to post a few things to the 'space blog so everyone can see the awesome things going on at the CCHS. 

It's here: http://www.hackmelbourne.org/blog/

Recent items include everything from props to needlework to 3d-printing to frickin' lasers. You should check it out.

Web fellows - can we get some RSS capabilities/instructions for those that would like to follow along without too much trouble?

Thanks,

Bob

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[Darren Freeman]

Geoff,

you're right to point out the glues as a source of nasties that you
wouldn't get from burning wood, and there should be adequate fume
extraction anyway, but..

On Fri, 2013-05-10 at 14:22 -0700, Geoff wrote:
> Formaldehyde is highly toxic to all animals, regardless of method of
> intake.

Formaldehyde is not the same as a resin that was made by reacting
something with formaldehyde. After that, the formaldehyde is gone and
something new is created. When you break it apart with heat, you get
something new again. You don't simply release the formaldehyde.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenol_formaldehyde_resin

The breakdown products would include substances "worse" than
formaldehyde, but in small quantities. I would treat the fumes with the
same caution as cigarette smoke, which has every permutation of every
nasty substance known to science, and unknown to science :/

Have fun,
Darren

[Luke Weston]

Yes, you can cut plywood, people do it all the time of course.

Yes, the exhaust should be ducted through a filter or outdoors anyway.

The only things you really shouldn't cut as far as I'm aware are the halogenated polymers - PVC, PTFE, polychloroprene, PVDF, etc - since the HCl or HF produced may etch the surface of the zinc selenide lens in the laser.

To be fair, the anti-cigarette fear-scary-chemicals campaign is a bit of woo, and there's nothing special chemically about cigarette smoke.

You expect to get traces of formaldehyde, and traces of HCN, and traces of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and what-not from the burning and/or pyrolysis of any organic material, whether it's plastics or wood or whatever.

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[Darren Freeman]

On Sat, 2013-05-11 at 11:05 +1000, Luke Weston wrote:
> To be fair, the anti-cigarette fear-scary-chemicals campaign is a bit
> of woo, and there's nothing special chemically about cigarette smoke.

I'm not trying to scare anyone, I'm trying to minimise the fear that
comes from reading too many MSDSs out of context :)

The chemicals you get from burning plywood will have a lot in common
with those from a cigarette. We've all been exposed to cigarette smoke,
whether we approve or not. Suddenly jumping on someone for a mishap with
the laser cutter is not warranted, but ignoring a faint plume of smoke
every time it's used is probably not wise either.

Have fun,
Darren

[Luke Weston]

Not quite relevant to the laser cutter, Darren, but here's my favorite example of a stupid fearmongering lawyer-invented arse-covering MSDS:

https://jr.chemwatch.net/cg3/msds.exe?mode=SAP&passop=checkpass&user=officemaxbp&pwd=fe79rs&partno=2521334

:)

Have fun,
Darren

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[Chris Fryer]

I'm not terribly familiar with WordPress and if it would publish the appropriate metadata without enabling something administratively. If this 'just works', awesome. I sort of suspect it should, but wanted to prompt the right people if it doesn't.

 If its the latest version it should just work. I had a look at the meta data in the header, it looks ok.

You should enable comments and maybe get some more people posting articles. It makes blogging much easier with multiple authors.  :)

If you need to know anything about blogs just send me a mail.

[Stuart Young]

The problem with enabling comments is that:

1. It opens us up to a lot of spam, which then needs to be managed. Getting people to take care of that aspect is unlikely, and automated systems only reduce the flow, they don't stop it. I know that I personally don't have the time to do this (I already do this sort of thing for a web forum - it takes many hours out of my week). Also, our web server is provided as a free service to us, and I'd like to avoid it being hit by the many hundreds of thousands of spam bots posting comment spam.

2. It fractures the community. We don't want people posting stuff in comments that could simply go on the email list. Not long after, we'd have half the community communicating in the comments, and the other half on the list.

FWIW: We have more than one blogger. We only meet a certain number of times a week, so that puts a bit of a limit on what we post, as it's all related to stuff that happens at the space. We're not a general tech blog, we're a hackerspace blog.

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[John Spencer]

If anyone else in the community is interested in joining the "blogging" team let myself, Stuart or the committee know!

At the moment Bob and myself are writing most of the posts.  We're more interested in getting "something" up, which is why they are picture heavy with very few details.  We aim to have at least one post per meeting, even if it is only people chatting and having a good time :)

John

[Chris Fryer]

Thanks for explaining the comments thing. 

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