Instructables ..... HOW TO.... Do WHAT?

About a month ago I was selected to be a sponsored monkey for Instructables, the online " How To - Show and Tell " website where people can add their own How Tos  on to a large data base of crazy projects for others to enjoy and build from.

If you havn't went to the website, I encourage you to take a look ...

Instructables.com

The program I am getting involved with is called the AIR program or Artist in Residence .... Which because I am not a Artist, I have changed the name to MIR, way more space age sounding and stands for Machinist in Residence.

So either way I am taking my MIR timeslot in the amazing shop to write some really cool How Tos and also just classic Tips and Trick for the shop.

Here is one of my Instructables I have make so far, take a look around the site and see all the other cool things people are building. Just do a random search for something and see what turns up, some really good food stuff on there and always really neat contests going on.

How to bend thin tubing - this is one of my first Instructables that really has taken off, I really watched the search hits on the MLS blog and seen what people were always coming to my blog to check out so I figured I would write an Instructable on it and it happened to make the home page as a featured article.

Some days I feel more like a photographer and writer then a fabricator...

Gabe gets to have all the fun these days....

Expect some really cool projects coming up from me... I am building them now.... So warm up the welding torch I will be posting them little by little so add me to your Instructable follow list!

And if you think you got what it takes to make it to the next level of building and want instructables to help you fund building the madness... Check out the page here to apply for the MIR ( AIR ) program and maybe you can come join me and the rest of the monkeys building away in a mind blowing shop in San Francisco.

Instructables AIR details




 

Amazing project after Amazing Project

The last months for me have been a real ass kicking ... The 7 am wake up until 2am in the morning has started taking a tole on me physically and mentally, but with all these amazing projects non-stop, theres no way to say no.... Lucky I have Jen to sometimes grab me by the ear and tell me to leave my damn shop to enjoy life other then behind a welding mask....

Just over 1 inch thick stack of blueprints of parts I have made in the last month

Jen and I had to check out the solar esclips so we took out the welding gear to the beach...

Think it was the first time in weeks I had left my shop it felt like.....

The Red Wing boots off and happy dogs.... Robots are done, now for another project.

Between being part of robotic projects changing the world of science on a daily basis to green energy projects to save the world on a daily basis.... the fun doesn't let off and I must be part of all this amazing madness..

One of the projects that has been a huge one, was one I had to join in on because it had a meaning to me with it being created for not only helping the worlds energy problems by making it more green and enviromentally correct, but it was for a college university not far from where I grew up in southern Minnesota. 

The project was funded by the US dept of energy and teaming up with the Unversity of Minnesota to build an completly mobile green energy generator that can run off of field waste generated during corn harvest or debaris from a desaster!

Nope, you can relax..... were not using the food part of the corn..... that gets used but we are using the cob waste that flys off the back of the machines during harvest, it is something that has never been used for anything, until now.........

The project was to build a large scale gasification power generator unit that can produce 100 KW of GREEN electrical power, with the fuel source being everything from corn cobs to wood chips or other waste.

The process is nothing new to the world, as gasifcation has been around worldwide since the early 1900s but the company I have been helping called All Power Labs out of Berkeley, CA has put a cool modern twist to an old idea.

I don't want to get to crazy talking about how it work because that should be your lesson to search up "gasification ", but the idea is very simple.

heres a quick MLS "how to" in a nutshell idea or something like that -  Super heat wood chips, corn cobs, nut shells or other flammable material in a air tight vessel, only allowing in a controled amount of oxyge(air) in to created a hot glowing ember.

 Here is the crazy part, during this glowing state of the charring material, the gas is extracted from the glowing ember using vacuum, the reason this is possible is because there is no flame to actually burn off the gas.

Its kinda like blowing on a glowing camp fire without a flame, and getting the fire coals red hot but the actual flame isn't there, unil you stop blowing in which that gas that is created off those coals is ignited and it burst in to flames, well.... What if you kept on blowing the coals and never let it light.... then you use that gas that should burn have ignited near the coals and you use it to run a engine or burn it in another place to heat.

Its a crazy idea but really simple at the core..... Theres a lot more fine details that have made this project a bit more fun then just the simple idea.

The goal of this project was to build a 20 foot classic shipping container in to an " all in one power generator" called the "gasification powertainer" that can be brought to the place of use and utility grid connected....

At the core of the container is some radness ready to make some energy out of almost anything that burns....

Example -  lets say you have a field of nut trees or corn....

You can drop this container out in the field and plug it in to the utiltiy pole next to the field....

Next step is to pick your crops and collect the left overs and dump them in to the hopper.

The machine feeds them in to the gasifier and turns them in to a usable gas that can power the Cummins natural gas engine creating 100kw of power dumping back in to the grid....

Thats Nick M. on the left and Nathanel on the right

these guys, myself, Gabe and a crew hammered this thing out.

Thats the gasifier in a full stainless steel.

Not only did you not need to move the waste from the field, you also get the ash created from this process that can be put back on the field and you maximized your possible revinue from your field by using everything including the waste and creating energy that can be sold back to the utility company at a cost.

Once in the field you need to feed the beast.

The big Cummins engine is ready for anything.

fueled on coffee, mt dew and passion for what I do.... working around the clock to make sure with my team we got this bad boy up on the truck headed for Minnesota.

Loaded and headed for Minnesota....

California to Minnesota.....

the two states I talk about the most....

Jim Mason, Bear and I were on a flight days after shipment to set it up.

Look at that shot of MLS skunkworks from overhead located somewhere in this photo,  Its always so damn beatuiful around the Oakland bay area, I need to leave my shop more...

When we got to Morris, Minnesota

it was all ready to set up... just connect some wires and double check some stuff

Bear was so stoked to learn about humid Minnesota summers.....

When it comes to Green Energy....

Don't mess with the U of Minnesota....

Almost the whole town of Morris, MN is run off green energy

either wind turbines, other biomass energy projects and solar...

I love Minnesota not only because I am from here but they really push for the future and the pratical thinking of whats next....

This view shows where the material is fed in to the hopper on the end of the container.

Some times I pretend to be the boss....

When really thats Jim Mason the real boss working...

Whoops, I shouldn't post this I think....

Get ready to party.....

I will give you a quick tour...

Your all invited to Morris, Mn to the U of M for the main running of this beast

Thursday June 28,2012

Be there or be square..... All the cool kids will be there....

getting the shop ready....

Maybe you know and maybe you don't know, but theres going to be some cameras running around MLS soon doing some filming for a pilot tv show....

So its time to make the shop look pretty...

I built my idea of a " Prototyper Material Rack " to look ultra cool on camera and just overall speed up building times in the shop.

think it turned out pretty good :)

 I am happy

Its all made out of 1.5" square mild steel tubing

to fit those kick ass milk crates

A story told by a master gunsmith machinist I worked with - 

"Every time a calipers was damaged in this aerospace shop I worked at, it was considered no good so they threw them at the wall covered in " bad " calipers... 

One day the owner was so pissed off he grabbed the good caliper off the bench and threw it so hard it went thru the dry wall and into the next door tendent's shop...

 Is it true? 

Who knows-

So I tried, and it was far from going thru the wall.......

Myth busted !