Author Archives: CA

4-8-15

Over the weekend Professor, Joshua, Sharon and myself helped moved the forward and vibrating grate to room 511A. Professor Berri has allowed us to clear the space there to continue our work giving us more room to do things.

We performed a test run of the vibrating grate and used the raspberry pi and monitor to observe the movement. After 15-20 minutes the motor gave out on us. We purchased a used one online and the gear and the spindle came off of the Speed reducer body. Before it wasn’t an issue because it was assumed to be in tact but because of the heavy vibration coming from the motor we realized after the fact that it wasn’t screwed on at all allowing it to come off after a while. This occurred over the weekend.

On Monday, Lynne, Sam, Alice, and I went to home depot to buy the necessary bolt and nuts to keep everything in place. Sam and I were able attach the bolts and nuts on the motor and speed reducer. We also added an L-brace to provide stability between them.

Yesterday Professor, Joshua ,  and myself finally completed the assembly of the server.

Yesterday Joshua and I were able to install attachments to the L-brace connected to the motor and speed reducer to create more stability.

 

Finally Up and Running.

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After months of toil the replication of the Martin Reverse Acting grate is running smoothly. A speed reducer was added to give the mechanical arm driving the grates more power. More work needs to be done stabilizing the motor in place but other than that the combustion chamber is moving smoothly. Experimenting will soon commence using round spherical tracers of three different sizes.

 

Recent Updates

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Chamber has been working pretty good. Thanks to Luca, Lynne,  and Curtis for their contributions. Will post videos once it starts working smoothly.

photo 1

photo 2

photo 3 Case for motor, controller, and wormgear

photo 4wormgear

IMG_0929 video of moving grate. Since then we have improved the movement of the grates.

Update

My hands on involvement will be postponed until certain scheduling conflicts become resolved.

At the moment Thomas Lynn has finished painting the grates and the back of the model to have the moving and non-moving grates better defined and for overall clarity purposes.

Congratulations to Thomas for receiving the Materials and Energy Recovery Division Scholarship from ASME.

I will have pictures shortly.

My personal portfolio has been created here

Day 16

Lynne was able to attach the arm to push the moving grates earlier this week.

Modified the arm; needs space for the key to fit in.

Began painting wall of the sectional view of combustion chamber.

 

Day 14

Lynne and Professor Nakamura broke down pieces from previous students’ projects.

Broke down combustion chamber model and reinforced base for reverse acting grates.

Day 12

Discussed topics/syllabus for CollegeNow Students (flying car and wind turbine)

Disassembled frame and added stronger members. The wormgear is too close to the grate to allow the arm attached to the wormgear to move freely.

New batteries are needed for drill/saw.