Note: This is not what I wrote. I copied it from the net and put it up here for reference.
How to Harden & Temper Mild Steel
Hardening steel is an essential part of any blade-making process. When exposed to heat, carbon molecules in steel realign themselves in a harder, stronger pattern, allowing a blade to hold an edge. Two processes are necessary to harden steel: the initial hardening, or heat treating, and tempering.
Things you need:
1095-grade steel, blade thickness
Charcoal grill or gas torch
Lighter
Motor oil
Pliers or calipers
Steel wool
Leather gloves
Eye protection
Kitchen oven
Instructions:
Light charcoal or a torch. Use pliers to insert your steel blank into the center of the coals or torch flame. Allow the steel to become a deep cherry red and remove it from the heat. Do not let the steel become bright red or orange.
Poor motor oil into a shallow pan. Quench the steel in the oil. Dip the blank vertically, since rapid cooling on one side can cause the steel to warp. Slide the steel into the oil until the blank is covered, and hold for five seconds. Remove the steel and set aside to cool completely. The steel is now heat-treated.
Clean off the oil when the steel is cool to the touch, and use steel wool to remove corrosion on the surface. The steel should be bright and reflective.
Place the steel in a preheated oven at 204 degrees Cor 15 to 20 minutes. Remove and allow to cool. This will temper the steel. To temper steel without an oven, place the cleaned blank back in the heat source you used for Step 1. Watch closely and remove the steel as soon as you see discoloration on the surface. Normally, the steel shows yellow striations. Allow the steel to cool at room temperature.
Many a times it is difficult to find the screw driver of the right size. Some of us have our favorite size we use most often and do wish we had one more of the same. To our dismay, despite a rigorous search across many a shops we might still fail to find it. If you have been in this or a similar situation, here is an easy way out, make one for yourself following these simple steps.
Construction:
Here is what you would ideally need. If you don't have the exact same stuff you can improvise and may come out with an even better idea.
A screw of the required size. [ Temper it by making it red hot over a stove and then dropping it in cold vegetable oil]
A wooden piece.
Superglue.
Grinding wheel or File.
Angle Grinder or Hacksaw blade.
For more details on tempering click here. First of all take the screw driver you wish to replicate and measure. The idea is to drill a hole in the wood and screw the screw in. Once screwed in the length of the screw + wood should match the total length of the existing screw driver. Mark a point adding the extra length for the screw inside the wood.
Once this is done cut the wood and proceed to drill the hole at the exact center of the wood. Make sure that you use the right size drill bit and ensure that you drill the hole exactly perpendicular to the surface of the wood.
Now proceed to screw the screw into the hole that you drilled. Make a mark on the screw at the depth you should stop or tie a string at the point so that you know exactly where to stop driving the screw in.
Add a drop of superglue at the point where the screw enters the wood. This will strengthen the wood as the glue penetrates into the wood and also aid in fastening the screw securely. Once the screw is secured properly, use a file or cutting wheel to cut off the screw's head.
Now proceed to form the tip of the screw driver. You can use a file or a motorized grinding wheel to shape the tip according to your required size.
Occasionally compare the tip with your existing screw driver for width, slope and thickness at the tip. The thickness at the tip is very crucial to get the correct grip on the screw.
One you are happy with the result proceed to finish and paint the screw driver. For ease of painting, storage of paint and quick drying I highly recommend using the compressed can of paint that you get to buy in most hardware stores.
IMPORTANT: These are some of my views and research findings. Time may prove them right or wrong. Some of it may seem very unorthodox. I put it up here so that it may be useful for some and interesting to others and may some day benefit mankind.
Life energy as I see it:
Life energy I believe is a charge much like energy in a battery. The very essence of our body and every other living organism is electric in nature. This is the same reason that most of the equipment used in modern medicine to diagnose and treat us rely on electric charge of our body. ECG, EEG, pace makers and physio therapy equipment are examples from a huge list.
Homeostasis as we know is the body's nature to stabilize itself to an optimum state. When there is a depletion of energy in the body, it tries to balance itself by taking energy from the store, in our case mostly 'fat' cells. Every living organism has its means of storing excess energy for emergencies and day today activities. The depleted storage is topped up processing the food we eat. The bigger life forms much like the humans and other animals are multicellular where as there are microscopic ones that are unicellular.
What ever the size of the organism from a single cell to a collection of cells most of the communication and energy transfer happens as an electric charge. Our entire nervous system works on electric charge being transmitted across the system. It is a bio chemical reaction that produces the energy and then transmits and uses it. So much like a generator and battery, the living being has the ability to produce and store energy that can be converted to the electric potential as and when required and in the required quantity.
Let us consider homeostasis again. When there is a change in the system, the system tries to neutralize the change and bring it to say, a base state ,a state of comfort so to speak. Here is the interesting part, this is what happens in a battery too. A healthy battery much like the human body, likes to maintain its healthy state.
Looking at the battery from the human bodies point of view:
I found it interesting to look at it this way. The battery like the human body discharges its energy to do useful work.When there is a drop in energy and the battery uses its stored energy to meet the demand. When it gets depleted, it takes external charge to replenish itself much like the food we eat.
So if there is a means of taping the energy stored in a living organism and then to give it enough energy to replenish itself as and when required, we have a wonderful organic system supplying us electric power......
FEEL FREE TO USE THIS DESIGN AND PROCEDURE FOR NON COMMERCIAL APPLICATION
I have christened the device the OWL.
Kitchen waste disposal is often a problem. There are methods of making compost out of the organic waste which could become a really messy affair and requires substantial amount of space. This is of course an excellent method of producing organic fertilizer but is not always ideal for small spaces. So I thought I would develop something that could be used in urban homes without the mess and the smell.
Caution: do not add citrus waste into the liquidator [ lemon, orange etc..]
If you want to skip the literature and head straight for the construction head for the title : Construction
The evolution of the idea:
I have an aquaponic system [ growing fish in tanks and pumping the water into vegetable growing beds above and draining it back into the fish tank ] where I grow my vegetables. About a year ago I had introduced an organic waste digestion system into this. This was a rather simple technique. One of the growing bed's had a container with holes drilled at the bottom. The container had gravel to about 1.5 inch, covering the height of the hole ; the height of the container was 1 ft. Every day the lid was opened and kitchen waste was dumped into this container. The aquaponic system is an ebb and flow system which means that the growing bed fills with water from the fish farm and is flushed out according to a pre-programmed cycle. So each time this happens the container fills with water and flushes out filtering the liquid through the gravel. I noticed amazing improvement in the growth rate of vegetables and a substantial improvement in output and taste.
In an aquaponic system bacteria likeNitrosomonas and Nitrobacter convert the ammonia produced by the fish into useful nitrate through the nitrogen cycle, which is manure for the plants. These bacteria develop in the growing media naturally over a period of six months to one year.
I noticed that the rate of decomposition in my test container was so rapid that even after a period of six months the container was only 3/4 full and stayed that way. When organic waste decays a percentage of ammonia is also produced, the quantity is more in anaerobic systems. So I reckoned there were two primary groups of bacteria , one the bacteria responsible for the nitrogen cycle [ producing nitrates in the container ] and the other group, similar to the ones in bio-gas units, was responsible for the decomposition of the solid mass into fluid. The primary difference here was that the bio-gas was an anaerobic where as here it is mostly aerobic.
Taking it out of the Aquaponic System:
I thought it would be good if I could replicate the same outside the system as a stand alone device. Since the system was going well in the aquaponic medium it was a safe bet to assume that the bacterial action has stabilised/matured to a degree of perfection. So I prepared a container outside the system, this time a regular container without holes at the bottom. I then added vegetable waste from the kitchen into the container and then the key ingredient, a portion of the content from the container placed in the aquaponic system. I went for a 50/50 propotion of kitchen waste to the aquaponic container mass. More waste was added on a daily basis and to my delight the container was not filling up beyond a certain level. I noticed a substantial amount of liquid form at the bottom of the container. So I strained a little out, leaving some , making sure not to dry the container. The strained liquid was then used on a test batch of potted plants. I had five pots that was observed with and without the liquid treatment. Over a period of two weeks the pots with the liquid treatment showed rapid growth and darker , bigger green leaves.
Delighted with the results I set out to construct the OWL - Organic Waste Liquidator.
Construction:
These are the key points that I considered :
A moderately sized container with a lid.
A tap that can be fixed near the base of the container.
Gravel to act as a filter.
Maintaining safe liquid level after filtering out the liquid.
It is important not to drain out the entire liquid from the chamber as it contains the bacteria that aids the process. So the tap is fixed at a height of 2 inches from the base.
Select a contained based on your requirement. For a family of four a container of 15 inch height and 12 inch diameter would suffice.
Use a drill to drill a hole as per your taps diameter.
The hole should be about 2 inches above the base of the container.
Use an appropriate coupling to fasten the tap.
Wait for the glue to dry. Check for leaks by pouring 8 inches of water.
Clean the container for dust, dry it and paint it. I used a spray can of matte black.
An old U bend was used to prevent liquid from entering directly into the tap after filtration through the gravel.
The U is positioned and not fixed. It can be removed for future cleaning if the need arises.
Cleaned and washed gravel is added to a height of 3.5 inches. This acts as a filter medium and also aids undisturbed bacterial growth.
Construct a stand to your required height or get a ready-made one.
Here is the construction plan with dimensions.
Hope you find this useful. Feel free to share it with your friends for free non commercial use. I hold the rights to the design so do not under any circumstance use it for commercial purposes.
Click the link for the test results in PART 2 : Click Here
Everything is going green these days. I thought it might be a good idea to convert a regular radio controlled car into a solar powered car. This would mean hours of fun without the need to change the batteries and would also make a good school science project. Here is what you will need:
A radio controlled car
Appropriate Solar Panel
One diode
Soldering Iron
Screw driver
Wires for connection
The car:
You can choose any radio controlled car. It would however be a good to idea to check the available solar panel first. I chose a car that uses 4x1.5V AA batteries. This would add up to 6V.
The Solar Panel:
Since the car requires 6V I bought a small 6 volt panel from eBay.
The Project:
The first part involves taking the car apart. Most probably you would find the appropriate screws right below the car. The one I bought had four screws. Once these were unscrewed the top part could be easily taken off revealing the electronic circuit.
You will find two wires [ mostly red and black] coming out of the battery box. The red is the positive and the black is the negative wire. These are the two points that we will connect our solar line to. The car that I used had head lights which went on when the car moved. This was directly connected across the motor that drove the wheels. To save power I disconnected the head lights.
Some radio controlled cars come with rechargeable batteries that are not AA or AAA but the connection would still remain the same. Our aim is to connect the output of the solar panel to the battery terminals.
The under carriage of the car houses the battery box , open it and replace the AA batteries with rechargeable AA batteries. Your car might come with non-rechargeable batteries like mine did. Make sure that you have rechargeable batteries in the box or this project wont work. I took off the seats and the wind shield to facilitate the fixing of the panel there. A piece of acrylic was cut out to cover the empty space and prevent dust and moister from directly falling on to the circuit below.
Cut two pieces of wire, red [+] and blue [-] and the same is soldered on to the + and - terminals of the panel. At the far end of the red [positive] wire the diode is soldered. The diode has a silver ring to denote the negative side of the diode and the other side is positive. The positive side of the diode is soldered on to the positive wire coming from the panel.
The acrylic piece has screw holes drilled at the exact places where the seat fixture had screws. So the same screws were used to securely fasten the acrylic panel on to the car body. I then used rubber based glue to attach the panel to the body of the car.
Make sure that that there are no batteries in the battery box while you do the following. The bare end of the red wire with the diode [ silver ring end] is soldered to the positive terminal of the battery box and the blue wire to the negative side. It would be good to recheck the connection before popping the batteries back in.
Explanation for the School Science Project:
A photo voltaic cell converts the light from the sun into electricity. The panel mounted on the car produces electricity that charges the on board battery bank. The diode is a component that lets current flow only in one direction. When the panel is not producing current there is a possibly for the power from the battery to drain out into the panel. The diode is kept to prevent the reverse flow of current from the battery into the panel. We could say that this is a very simple charge controller. In larger electric cars that are seen on the street, a more sophisticated charge controller is used to control the charging of the battery in the car. The components in any solar car would be the, solar panel > charge controller > battery. The rest of the circuitry would control the motor drive. This same technology one scaled up can be used to build bigger solar powered cars.
There is a room on my terrace that I use for my hobby projects and fun research. When the room was build a year back I had given a provision for a separate inverter connection for the room, isolated from the rest of the house. I hadn't fixed one as the need never arose. Of late there has been quite a few intermittent power outages and I decided that it was time to fix one. As I had a functional spare inverter lying around, it was the first choice. So I decided to get myself a new battery and hook this up.The power outages normally last from 10 min to 1 hour.
Shift to the UPS:
I have a few electronic test equipment which are sensitive to the power fluctuation, and so is the computer in the room. So I decided that the regular inverter was not a great idea. The next option was a UPS. Considering the load in the room a 600VA power source would suffice and I decided to buy one. A day passed and something struck me, it occurred to me that the computer UPS that I used in the room for my PC was a 600VA UPS. The internal battery was however a 7 AH 12V battery which drove a 300 watt computer for approximately 15 min. So if I bought a computer UPS and swapped the battery with a higher capacity external battery it would be perfect for my use.
Charging and stuff:
The AH reading on any battery stands for the 'Ampere Hour'. If a battery is rated 12V 7AH it would mean that if you draw 7 ampere from the battery it would last for one hour until it is discharged. Like wise if you draw 3.5 ampere it would last 2 hours and so on. To charge a battery efficiently you have to give it 10% of its current rating. So since we have 7 AH on our 12 volt battery the charger will be designed to charge it at .7 ampere [ 700 milli amps]. The important point to note here is that, if we connect a lower capacity battery [less that 7AH] the battery will heat up while charging and will eventually die faster than its life span. If we however connect a higher capacity batter all that would happen is that it will take proportionality longer to charge.
List of items required:
A 600VA computer UPS
12V DC computer fan
Drill for drilling vent holes
2 x High gauge wires and terminals
26 AH SMF Battery
On with the build:
When we use a higher capacity battery the UPS will run longer and so it is a good idea to fit a cooling fan. Since we use an external battery we remove the internal battery from the UPS ; this provides us ample space for the fan. I drilled some holes under the UPS and placed the fan in such a way that the air gets sucked in from below and goes out through the side and top of the company cut vent holes.The 12V fan was connected in parallel to the battery and is always on and continuously cools the ups. It draws very little power and barely adds to the load.
The battery I selected was an Exide 26 AH sealed maintenance free [ SMF] battery that needs no attending to what so ever. This would give us approximately 4 times the backup of a computer UPS. The computer draws 300~400 watts of power and lasts 15 minutes on the built in 7AH battery and we have replaced it with a 26 Ah battery. A regular25 watt cfl light consumes 25 watts of power and a fan consumes about 50 watts if it is very efficient. So assuming that the computer has been shut down, [ I have a second ups connected to the computer which gives me ample time to shut down without taking any load from the extended UPS] the average load in the room would be around 100 watts if there are 2 x 25 watt cfl and the fan running.
This would mean that I should easily get 1~2 hours on the new setup which is more than enough. For extending the wire from the UPS, wires of the same gauge should be used and connected securely or there is chance for loose contact.
I have had the system running for over a week now and so far it has worked well and switches perfectly. Since it is a UPS the electronic devices don't reset when the power goes off and comes back.
Cost of the project:
600 VA Wipro UPS - Rs.1,500 [ Bought it from a friends shop and he took back the inbuilt battery and gave me the UPS for Rs.1000]
26 AH Exide Battery - Rs.2,300
Wires and miscellaneous - Rs.200
Total cost of the project: 1000+2300+200 = Rs.3,500
The final outcome
p.s: The extra length of wire is for future upgrade.
