Another Lab lock thing

This job is to install lock tabs on 54 cabinets. It is a tedious job, but done in two days! Not bad.

Lab finished... Boat work (in between)... Next lab

This is a USGS boat they use up and down the delta and bay to pick up monitors and sensors for various on going studies and research projects.


It is about 37 feet and very nice and rugged. Our task is to hook up a foot switch, with attaching plug, that will be used to operate a winch. In addition, we will mount a panel inside the center console that holds two solenoids, breaker and terminal blocks.




This is the center console. Just below is a cabinet that the solenoids for the electric crain will be attached. This is a great boat! The computer in the picture is attached to gps and a sonar with ability to up load maps through an SD card.




The solenoids mounted to a fiberglass plate is mounted and wired in.




The reason we are here, The aluminum pipe holds a crain that has an electric motor attached. The foot switch below runs to the solenoids in the console then back through a plug to the wench.




The plug for the wench. This way the wench can be stowed away or a replacement one can be used.

Finishing one Lab up

I now went on to build the separator for the cabinets. They are to have a front face about 2 inches wide and from top to bottom in addition, some way of screwing them to the back of the cabinet. This picture is of the jig I made to drill the back cleats at the 22.5 degree angle






Here all 12 of the dividers are made up then tested.



All 12 fit tight and now off to laquer...



While I waited for the laquer to dry, I went on to make a round hole into a square one.. the carrage bolts have a round head and square on the other. This square head keeps the bolt from being turned.



The padlock loops came with the most wimpy of bolts and nuts. So I changed the bolts to carrage and punched a square hole in each.





The Drake press is a bit over kill for this operation, but it made it so much easier than the small arbors we have. Handle is out of view. Its about 4 foot long and counter balanced. The wheel is used to bring the press back to the height to start another press.
Once I started the keyway punch it progressively cuts a square out until it has reached the end where the square is the same size on the end as my carrage bolt square. Since I have to put padlocks on each cabinet in this lab and the next, the total being 78 sets. As a result, I have to pull this handle down 312 times!


Here is the end result. Two cabinets from one. Now students can have there own lock and cabinet as opposed to old combination locks and sharing glassware. Also one can not get into the other cabinet without breaking past this partition. The cleats in the back ore on both sides. So unscrewing them from one side is fruitless, because the other side is attached as well.

On to the Lab!

Chemistry has a lab that is in dire need of some changes. The lab shown has three long benches, each bench side has two double door cabinets. The Cabinet can take care of one student only. So what is needed to accommodate more students in the lab is to make a separator for each of these cabinets. Tree benches, two per side so four a bench total of 12 separators are needed.

Glass ware on the tables is due to the work I am doing to cabinets.


Here is a view of the cabinet open. It makes tons of sence to separate them into two.



On all cabinets most of the accessory hardware is to be removed. They will be replaced with more secure components later.



Here is the a view of a top runner in the cabinet. I inset the screws so the center board will not hang up.



The top and bottom rails installed. Parallel, centered and secure. The cabinet was small once I was in it to install these.



This is the most common part of my job. Design. I took this picture because it is a vital part of the process and I do hundreds of these types of drawings but don’t think about it anymore. I measured the cabinet for the dimensions that I will need to make the separator. I either use exact measurements at the time I drew this or I will compensate the measurements (include my tolerances). In any case, I will note it.

Rat Table Two

After flipping it and determining where the holes are to be placed it is off to the paint room.



This is where the center table gets attached. It will stay stationary, yet be slightly above the large table that spins.





Here is the top and bottom view of the center table. I had to stack and glue 3/4 ply to get the height from the base to above the table. As well as, I put in some recessed screws so the table will remain centered and stationary.



This is the ram in the closed position (above) to lock the the table. The open position (below) the table will free wheel.



This is a view of the complete mechanism. I used a horizontal hold down ram and lengthened its ram and made some brackets out of Al and delron.





The bottom is complete. The wood slats on each side of the holes are brackets for the cage.



The table right side up on cleaned and painted tripod. This shows the cage in one hole slot and the lock mechanism.




This is it! Finished. Notice the scale it is too big for the hall. The rat, blindfolded , is set in the center and the nest (cage) is in one hole. They take the rat and replace him on the center and spin the table to a different position. Then they track how the rat navigates with minimal external information.