In the fall of 2014 the Detroit Medical Center, Children’s Hospital contacted i3 for some help with an art project for the New Children’s Hospital branch in Troy Michigan. This facility was set to open by early 2016.
Roger S and Greg S volunteered to help and made contact with Grace Serra the Art Director for DMC. I3Detroit also contributed money for the material and laser time.
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We weren’t really searching for unusual handmade gift ideas, this opportunity just sort of came upon us. You’ll see why soon enough.
Almost a month ago, a few i3 Detroit members decided that the wait was over: we had been talking about it for over two years and we couldn’t wait any longer. We were ready to reach out and take our place boldly, sharing our thoughts with others through the filter of experience and across the bandwidth of our maker community.
All we needed was a few good people, and our plan started to resonate.
Recently, we discovered that the dust collection vacuum unit for our LPKF Protomat C30/S was leaking powdered fibreglass dust all over the under-desk cabinet in which it lives. This of course being unacceptable from a safety perspective (powdered fibreglass is not a carcinogen, but is a major irritant in general) and from a cleanliness perspective, we took it upon ourselves to figure out what went wrong.
It turns out that the machine had been operated for an indeterminate amount of time without pre-filter bags, and the filter had failed under the load of nearly 3mm of caked-up fibreglass and copper dust. D’oh.
So, a quick Google search yielded exactly zero sources for filters (but LPKF will sell you the bags, $35/5).
In true hacker spirit, this did not phase us at all. After all, how hard can it be to build a dust collection system from scratch?
I’ve discovered a fatal flaw in my beloved 1998 Jeep Cherokee – the armrest storage is too deep to be useful. However, there are dividers for cassette tapes in there that provide a nice support for a tray insert, allowing for much more organization.
