Garage Drawer Humidor in ACTION! So... I'd been giving a LOT of thought to one difficult question -- HOW, exactly, to make the sliding drawer humidor MOVE? I looked into available liner actuators -- there are a TON of them available, but they're all so darned expensive, and all require some kind of 'programming' to make them work... Prices seem to start at around $1,500 without controls -- YIKES, that's a lot of money! So I 'backed up' to consider pneumatic cylinders and valves -- I've already got a small but very noisy compressor, and a cylinder and valves might run closer to $500 -- still too much, really. So I thought I'd just use ropes and pulleys and counter-weights and struggle with it manually -- but this humidor/drawer moves awfully far -- about 70 inches and this didn't seem like a very cool or efficient solution.

Finally, I had a major "AHA" night before last when Linda, my wife, hit the button to open our automatic garage door! YES, that's IT! So... Yesterday I did a little research on the Internet and found a nifty 'screw driven' garage door opener manufactured by Genie and widely available for about $170! I ran over to Home Depot and bought one -- they had about 50 of 'em on the shelf -- includes all the electronics and controls I needed, plus the linear actuator -- they sell so many of them that they are CHEAP for what's in the box, I think!

Last night and this morning I assembled the thing with some modifications to the limit switches so they'd work upside down which was the best way for me to mount the thing to my humidor drawer. Went together EASY and works like a charm! The seven inch per second action is pretty ideal for the way I want to use it, and I can actuate it by foot or by knee very easily -- even came with three remote control devices (which I don't imagine I'll need), so I can very easily open the drawer, register the paper to the block while the drawer holds the paper up above the inky block, hold it in place with both hands and hit the switch to close the drawer -- looks to me like it will work like a charm! I'm VERY happy today!

Here's the humidor in action (remote in one hand, camera in the other, animated from still photos as the drawer moved from closed to open) -- YOU GOTTA LOVE IT! That's a full 4x8 foot drawer moving easily back and forth -- it's working so very well!

Here's the view from underneath and behind the humidor with the drawer closed. The slide has actuated the garage drawer opener's 'open' limit switch at upper left and the linkage from the slide to the drawer is visible at the top left to center. The opener is supported at the far end by an aluminum triangle visible on the right, and the wire coil to the 'foot switch' is visible in the background.

Barely worth mentioning, as I might actually disconnect this and go with one of the remotes -- but this is the 'foot switch' -- modified by hot-melt gluing a small block of wood to the button so it extends far enough above the body of the thing to be 'clicked' by a tap of the foot...

-- Mike

Labels: big_press, Woodblock

  ¶ 6:23 PM 1 comments links to this post

  Sliding Humidor nears completion...

March, 2004 printing table with sliding drawer humidor -- very sturdy table made of 1/4" plywood pieces which 'lock' together with simple hooked tabs and slots. Takes about five minutes to assemble or break down and packs into a 2" thick box for transporting.

This 'small' humidor is a sealed plexi box which dovetails onto the table. It has two open-top drawers with blotter in the bottom to keep paper damp and ready for printing. The bottom drawer slides open just over the block by pressing a foot 'pedal'. A sheet may then be pulled up over the lip of the drawer and registered onto the block while supported by the drawer. As the foot pedal is released, the drawer slides closed under the paper allowing it to settle onto the block very sweetly!

The new humidor is a very scaled up and mobile version of a traditional Japanese damp-stack. The bottom of the drawer is a 4 x 8 foot sheet of 6mm Coroplast (corrugated plastic sheet) which supports the damp stack -- 1st the damp blotter, then the dampended sheets (up to 4 x8 feet), then 'sealed' with another sheet of Coroplast. The top sheet will be supported by a simple lifting bar, similar to the way silkscreens are generally supported above the paper until the screen is dropped -- a pair of short retractable legs will hold the Coroplast above the paper stack during registration (while the drawer is open over the block). When the drawer is allowed to close, the 'legs' will be retracted by the structure of the drawer support and the Coroplast will settle back down, sealing the dampstack until it is time to print the next sheet. Printed sheets will be peeled up from the back and slid down over the front rail of the press into a similar drawer (not yet completed) which opens to the front mounted under the lower rails of the press. When a press pass is completed, the whole stack of printed papers will be picked up as a sandwich and flipped neatly back into the open paper delivery drawer (I HOPE)!

Because I want to be able to move freely around the press while brushing up the block, I've left a 24" aisle open between the press and the closed paper delivery drawer, so the drawer has to move quite a long way to arrive over the block! Each 'glide' of the large drawer is a bit over 87 inches long, stiffened by a 30x60mm aluminum extrusion. To prevent tipping, the drawer frame will be bolted into the floor (which is my hardware store visit, as they supplied me with the wrong size mounting hardware late last week -- ugh)...

side view of paper delivery drawer (slid back a bit to allow drilling into floor underway)

detail showing drawer corner and glide assembled to end plate -- simple 'stops' (not shown) are bolted into the ends of the fancy extrusions to prevent over-travel in either direction.

The drawers are quite simple -- the long front and back are 1" square x 1/8" aluminum tube with 1-1/2" x 1/8" flat bar screwed underneath to provide a lip for the CoroPlast bottom. The sides are 1-1/2" x 1/8" aluminum angle, and there's another bar mounted in the center between the front and back tubes to prevent bowing during open and close actions.

The drawer support is a simple trestle, held parallel by four lengths of 1/2" galvanized pipe tensioned with all-thread running the length and piercing the the 3/16" aluminum end plates and the 2" square tube legs -- tightened with four nuts and washers on each end. Bottom tube is bolted to legs and floor to prevent tipping.

press and paper delivery drawer which is shown partially open over the press bed

Next step: assemble the vacuum plenum for the press, assemble the bottom printed paper receiving drawer, and finally decide how to get the drawer to open and close while I hold the paper registered to the block with both hands! Getting REAL close to printing again, at last!

By the way, the press 'action' is a dream come true -- glides so easily and surely across the bed regardless of pressure setting -- I hope the thing PRINTS every bit as smoothly and beautifully as it seems to operate!

-- Mike

Labels: big_press, Woodblock

  ¶ 8:41 AM 4 comments links to this post