Posts

Posted on

Generator Transfer Switch

I’ve been wanting to install one of these for a while. Especially since we moved into this new house. The house we are in today, has a sump pump. On on rainy days like today, you can hear it kick on about once an hour or so.

Not long after we first moved in a couple years ago, it was a rainy winter day, the sump pump was kicking in on regular basis, and we lost power. Yikes. So I did what any reasonable person would do, I panicked ad rushed out and bought a generator.

I assembled it, filled it with gas, and ran an extension cord through my basement window, after cutting it’s screen, to the sump pump. It must have been pretty full (I didn’t take the lid off to check) because it ran for what seemed like 4 times its normal duration.

Since then, we’ve had a few other outages, and I have had to do the same thing. But I got creative and ran a second cord to the TV and internet modem so we could have something to watch. I even ran another cord upstairs to keep the heat lamp for our bearded dragon on.

And now that my wife works full time at home, and since I have been working at home for the past couple of weeks due to the Coronavirus shut down, I decided now would be a good time to direct wire a generator transfer switch into the breaker panel.

All in all it was a fairly easy job. I just had to choose which six circuits I wanted to have operating off the generator. I installed an outlet in the side of the house for the cord to the generator. Ran some #8 THHN building wire through some conduit into the transfer switch. And then wired the transfer switch into the breaker panel.

Also grabbed some scrap metal and welded up a hook for the power cord and mounted it below the transfer switch.

The system tested out fine. I was able to run our boiler, the sump pump, the fridge, the internet modem and wifi, my office, my wife’s office, the downstairs TV and an outlet in our master bedroom.

Now I just need to wait for the next power outage. 🙂

Posted on

Horizontal Band Saw

Finally waited long enough to buy one of these Harbor Freight horizontal band saws.

Didn’t bother keeping the stock blade. Bought a new blade right off the bat and used it to set the alignment of the blade. It took a little doing, but it’s dialed in and cutting straight.

I found this document for aligning the blade and adjusting tracking. It’s still not tracking 100% on the lower drive wheel. But I think I have a plan on how to fix that with some help from the internet.

Posted on

Finished the welding table

After work today, I went ahead and assembled the leg kit for the welding table from weldtables.com. I didn’t take many pictures of the process. Started by tacking it from underneath with the MIG welder.

I could have finish welded it with the MIG, but I really need the TIG practice. In hindsight, I should have just stuck with the MIG. I ended up having to weld a good part of it out of position, and even blew through some of the thinner leg steel in the process. Managed to fix those mistakes and just kept trying and taking it slow.

The welds are a bit ugly, but it’s together and is almost exactly the height I expected it to be. Once I replace the work table top with a piece of 3/4″ plywood (it’s currently 1/2″) it’ll match the height.

Next step will be to make some minor improvements. I want to skin the bottom shelf with expanded metal or sheet metal. It’s the perfect height for the TIG foot pedal when I am seated on the shop stool. Plus, I would like to make something to hang my angle grinders from off on one side, and a place to hang clamps on the other.

Posted on

Welding table legs

The kit for the welding table legs from weldtables.com came in yesterday. I started by welding in the nuts for the casters.

The kit comes with inserts that fit into the bottom of the square tube that makes up the legs as well as some nuts. Taking this as an opportunity to practice my TIG welding a little bit more. I tacked them up first before finish welding them.

Set the Primeweld TIG 225x on pulse to get that nice stack of dimes look.

I really do prefer TIG welding over MIG for some stuff. It’s rather therapeutic.