Thread: BobL's shed fit.

Just running the gas line to the shed for the forge.

Originally Posted by BobL

. . . . and started digging another trench yesterday (for the 4th time) for a gas line.
The trench for the electrical cable was through paving, under a bunch of retic and through about 3m of assorted hard rubbish which included a cast iron bed head, and heaps of broken glass.
The mains water was the worst; through a bunch of tree roots, under storm water and retic pipes, through a buried tree stump (fortunately somewhat rotten) and then under two limestone retaining walls.
Sewage was just through tree roots and under one retaining wall.
The gas line runs parallel to the mains for a while but have decided to go the long way around so I skip the stump and one retaining wall.

I just spent 2 hours on the trenching shovel. I just missed the stump but struck what looks like a metre long builders rubble dump. So much for going the long way around, tree roots everywhere. 2m of roots and the retaining wall to go!

Well those last 2 metres were a bit harder than I thought they would be. I forgot that as well as going under a limestone retaining wall, I also had to go under 2 retic lines and a mains water line all in that 2 m space. The whole thing was root bound with some roots as big as navies forearms. It's a bit hard to swing an axe with all those lines around.

Anyway I finally got the 22 m of 19 mm copper pipe laid - just as well as rain is forecast for tomorrow. I used the pipe bender to bend up 4 bends but when I needed tighter right angles I used those capillary junctions. I borrowed a bunch of plumbing gear from a mate (flaring tool, pipe bender and cutter) which made things a lot easier.

Here are a few pics.
Take off from the line to the BBQ bayonet.
For added safety, that yellow handled stockcock will be turned off when I'm not using gas in the shed.
down the wall over the footing and under 4 m of paving


Under two rectic lines and across 8 m of dead lawn - that's where I hit the builders rubble
The 2 45º bends were a bit tricky, I managed to mangle one of them so I just cut it away and used the flaring tool to rejoin the pipe and repeated the bend. I found applying a dab of Vaseline helped the pipe bender work a bit smoother.


Under the limestone retaining wall, 2 retic lines and mains water line - roots everywhere.
The more trench I dug the more the dogs felt like they had to fill it with their stuff.


6 m run around the side and back of the shed. This was relatively easy and quick - still need to fix the pipe to the Colorbond with those pipe clips.


And finally inside the shed.

Tested for leaks again this morning - all good. Now the fun part - fill the trench in and re-lay the brick paving AGAIN. I really do hope this is the last trench I have to dig to this shed.

You're a glutton for punishment.

I admire your endurance.

Enjoy the forge.

Originally Posted by Scally

You're a glutton for punishment.

I admire your endurance.

Enjoy the forge.

Cheers Scally. Now I am re-plumbing about 1/3rd of the forge to see if I can get better performance with the improved gas flow.

The forge heats up shed too quickly even in the middle of winter and the welding booth venting fan was not able to keep up so I upgraded the fan.

Old fan on right New fan on left - more details here

.

That looks bright and breezy.
Regards

We recently upgraded the 20 year old stereo in the family room so I replaced the 1970's era 30W TEAC amp with the scratchy volume pot in my shed


with the 100W 1990's JVC home theatre amp from the family room.

This thing also has more of a booming bass end than the smaller Teac had
So now I can really crank it up - not that I do it often,Remote control is handy too.

The inbuilt radio/tuner on the JVC is hopeless even with an external antenna and seems to pick up interference from everything inside the shed so I've kept the 1970's Sony analog receiver and just use the JVC as the amy for that.

Looking really good.

Pleased to see the hammers ready and easily accessible for when the not the 'a' nor 'b' but the 'c'RAP music comes on.

It helps to have good thinking music on when you are working.

This is a shed machine upgrade the electrical developments for which are discussed in the Metal work (https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/3-phase-compressor-vfd-184473) and Electronics Forum (https://www.woodworkforums.com/f271/compressor-control-circuit-184962) but I thought I would summarise here and show the final installation.

I have for the last 7-8 years had a 40L, 2.5HP cheap compressor in my shed and when I built my new shed I built a dedicated enclosure for it outside the shed but made the enclosure big enough to hold a 60L unit if and when I upgraded (this is detailed further back in this thread). Anyway 2 years on and I am still waiting for said compressor to die so I could use that as an excuse for upgrading but it seems to go on and on without so much as skipping a beat. Recently my son became interested in shed stuff so plan B about donating it to his shed development was sufficient for me to thinking about up upgrading. Just by chance I stumbled across a 3 phase 4HP V4 Clisby in good condition. It had been fitted with a new 3 phase plug and lead, pressure switch and new fluid filled pressure gauge.

I don't have 3 phase in my shed so I bought a 5HP VFD and could not get the original 4HP motor and VFD combo to operate satisfactorily but I did managed to swap the motor out for a 5HP motor I bought for $30 some years ago and the trio (VFD, compressor and motor) just purr along very nicely.

Here's the new setup, its a 70L tank and I can JUST squeeze it into the enclosure.


While I was testing the compressor out with the new motor I made a couple of control circuits for the new setup.

And this afternoon after a lot of mucking about I installed everything in place.
The VFD starts the compressor motor as required as triggered direct from the compressor pressure switch

The compressor enclosure is directly behind this wall and all cables feed through a 50 mm conduit through the wall shown near the bottom of the picture above.
I will put all the hanging cables behind a vertical half conduit when I am completely finished with testing.
There are 6 cables going through the wall
- 3 Phase power from the VFD to the motor
- Sensor cable for digital thermometer
- 24V AC power to open the Venting solenoid (It's just a standard small retic solenoid)
- pressure switch sensing line for the VFD - starts and stops the motor
- power for the enclosure fan
- pressure switch sensing line for the fan -switches fan on/off.

The box marked "A" is the general power control supply for the VFD/motor via the chunky orange cables.
It has a built in 24 hour timer and turns off and vents the compressor at a preset time every day.
When the timer turns the power back on the VFD will not start up until that no volt switch is triggered manually

The thing marked "B" is a digital thermometer that measure the temperature in the enclosure.

The box marked "C" controls a ventilation fan that vents the enclosure and runs the fan while the compressor pressure switch allows the VFD/motor to run. The circuitry inside C also allows the fan to run for an operator predetermined time after the compressor has been running as this helps to cool the motor and compressor better than if the fan was only to run while the compressor is running.

I am very happy with the way its running except for a couple of irritating slow leaks that I want to fix.

Good thing that your son has shown interest in shed related things. Depending on how close he lives he might be by to borrow more things, just needs to ask permission from his mother.

Great little addition to the shed.

Even the most crappiest compressors seem to last for ages.

Originally Posted by Christos

Good thing that your son has shown interest in shed related things. Depending on how close he lives he might be by to borrow more things, just needs to ask permission from his mother.

Cheers Chritos, son (and father) is going to do pretty well out of his new interest.
Conversation with SWMBO goes something like this.
"I was thinking of upgrading X and giving the old one to [son]?"
"That's a good idea Darl"
She likes it whenever we do stuff together.

Great little addition to the shed.

Even the most crappiest compressors seem to last for ages.

I pulled the old compressor out of the enclosure and it still looks in pretty good shape. It's not even as loud as I remember but I thing that's because I might be getting deafer

Nice!! A Clisby!!

Bob, I'm beginning to think all your VFDs are worth more than your shed!!!

Originally Posted by artme

Nice!! A Clisby!!

Bob, I'm beginning to think all your VFDs are worth more than your shed!!!

Not really. All up I have spent about $1000 on the 5 VFD's I have on my machines; WW and MW lathes, my DP, the belt sander and now the compressor.

I do have 3 more uninstalled VFDs waiting in the wings and have one of these set up to test motors, but I have just about run out of things to put VFDs on - NO wait, an upgraded DC/cyclone could use the 3kW VFD but that is about 3 (give or take) projects away.

Cheers