Paper Roll Holder

Nov26
by Thomas Yoon Chee Tuck on November 26, 2021 at 11:52 pm
Posted In: DIY

I had a paper roll holder which was made of plastic. It was installed behind one of the doors of the kitchen cabinet below the sink. Unfortunately, it was broken off when I was trying to move about while trying to troubleshoot something not working with the kitchen sink drain pipe, while the cabinet doors were open. It was truly unforeseen, but it did leave me with a broken paper roll holder.

I tried to repair it by plastic welding because it could not be glued back. For a while it was working again, although it was not pretty anymore. But after some time, the joint broke off again.

So I decided to fabricate a new one out of wood, since I have a movable gantry cnc milling machine at my disposal. After a few hours of designing and generating a g-code for control, I was able to start machining. I had some scrap wood taken from dismantling pallets leftover from my other projects and I chose 2 pieces that would make a perfect pair for the two sides of the paper roll holder.

My design calls for a 1/2″ pvc pipe to act as the center shaft for the paper roll. It would also be easy to remove, so that I could take it out and replace the paper roll in it. Once the pvc pipe and paper roll is in place, it should be able to stay in place and the paper could be torn off for use from the roll.

In addition, it must be lightweight so that it would not bear down too much on the hinges of the cabinet door. It must also be able to be attached securely on the cabinet door.

Once the design was done, the machining was started. The video shows the milling of the paper roll holder. The paper roll holder was successful.



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Laser Exhaust Flexible Duct 30

Oct26
by Thomas Yoon Chee Tuck on October 26, 2021 at 1:41 am
Posted In: CNC, DIY

The Movable Gantry CNC machine fitted with a laser module moves about the work space according to the program g-code interpreted by LinuxCNC. As the machine was not totally enclosed, I had fitted a protective shoe to the laser module so that no stray laser light would be able to emerge from the target spot. Another important function of the shoe would be to act as a collection hub for any smoke. Smoke generated when the laser light burn the work piece had to be remove to prevent damage to the lens or to the work piece.

In my last blog, I discussed how I fabricated some fixed pvc piping and installed the exhaust fan for them. In this blog, I discuss how the flexible ducting was fabricated. It’s true that I can buy ready-made flexible ducting on the market, but in the spirit of diy and cost saving, I did it with raw materials that I already had available.

Some of the materials that I used included thin polyethylene sheets cut out from hotel laundry bags, 3″ diameter PVC pipes, some cellophane tapes, some galvanized wire, an empty sardine can, an empty PET bottle, and some small magnets.

As the fixed ducting was placed quite high above the cnc machine, I made the flexible ducting long enough so that it would not be stretched too much even when the movable part had to move to the furthest reach in the machine. I found out during testing that in order for the flexible duct not to collapse due to the suction pressure from the fan, the ribs needed to be placed close together. This would mean more ribs had to be installed for it. Ultimately, I had to strike a balance between having more ribs and therefore requiring more work cutting them, and producing an acceptable working flexible ducting.

One end of the ducting was attached to the top fixed PVC pipe, while the other end was attached to a cut-out sardine can. The sardine can formed quite a good fit to the laser module part.

With such a long ducting, how did I store it when I didn’t want to use it anymore? Remember, I use this cnc machine also for milling, plotting and drag knife cutting. At these times, I just replace the laser module with a milling spindle, pen holder or drag knife holder respectively whenever I need to change the nature of the work.

Since the flexible ducting could be compressed like a concertina, I compressed it like so and enclosed it into the cut-out body of a PET bottle. I then used some small pieces of magnets taken from earphones to attach it to the sardine can end. These magnets effectively holds the flexible ducting in place in storage.



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