Mr. Sheldon, Please report for duty

Shop Time:

Well, it's alive!  Programming this VFD wasn't too daunting.  First time for everything....  Some things I get into are way past my experience and become overwhelming!!  But this just took time and working in the cool of the morning.  It's been over a 100 F nearly every day this month.  Coupled with the humidity, I'm stuck in the puddle of cool air right in front of the ac during the heat of the day (1100 to 1900).  

Side note:  did you notice that they report the heat index now, instead of the actual temperature?  They started that sometime before last year.  I guess since the temps aren't reflecting the current "thing", they have to inflate the numbers to justify what they want to do.

Pushing through the mornings into early afternoons, I got it running.  Yay me!  Now to finish the controls and extend the control panel.  Woohoooo!!  Looking for some flags (proper term is legends) for the buttons (Reverse and Forward).  I dug around and found the proper contacts for them.  Normally open momentary.  They are Square D 9001 switches, the buttons themselves are called operators.  Learning the proper names is part of the deal I reckon.  You can swap out the contacts on the back.  NO, NC  and you can stack them up for multiple poles.  Really kinda cool.  I got some new button covers coming.  The black spots in the push buttons will be different colors eventually.

I cut this out on the plasma table, then used a 30mm hole saw for the three buttons.  The pot was 5/16".

Color is off.  The Sheldon is blue gray.  But this'll work for now.  May be a nice contrasty part.

 

I have some 14 gauge wire for this, but darned if I know where.  Gotta dig. I also decided on the contactor, so that needs inserting into the controller box.  And I need to fab up a mount for the extended vfd face plate.  Saving up for a braking resistor.  They have one for this unit, 15 ohm 1KW for a 10% duty cycle.  I will probably mount it under the controller box with forced air.  It's just over a C note*, kinda spendy, but it'll slow the lathe way quicker than the normal vfd can.  This thing will spin a buffalo without even noticing.  *EDIT:  It's over 200 bills now.  I found a firm that makes them to order for about 40 bucks. 

Kitchen Update:

Managed to not ruin the kraut.  I added some carrots and asian red pepper to this batch.  Got about a gallon out of it.  It's tasty stuff!!  I really do like to ferment.  Kinda of addicting actually.  It so blasted warm here that a root cellar and a pressure cooker are similar.  Might as well ferment and put in the fridge.  I haven't pressure canned any yet.  I can do that anytime really.

I got a pretty good deal on a tiny wood stove.  It's missing quite a few parts, but that's no hill for a climber.  I found a pro wok burner so i can dual fuel it.  Wood or gas.  Being able to can in the shade of a tree is appealing.  Heating up the house in summer isn't much fun.  Just boiling the jars for the kraut was crazy hot.  On the bright side, I steamed out all my wrinkles...  

 I'll edit the post with pictures in a bit.  Right now, gotta get ready for a parts run.  See you in a bit. If I can ever figure out how to edit a video, I'll get some of those up as well.  I've got a few.