Regolith

Came up with an idea for collecting regolith on the Moon.

The rover will ride across the surface with the sweeper spinning fast and moving the material to a fast moving conveyor that will accelerate the moon dust and slide it up the U-ramp and over the containment box. It will make quite the mess but be a very simple design. As long as most of the parts are sealed or covered with a non-degrading rubber like boot to keep the regolith from penetrating any joints or bushings it should last a long time with very little maintenance. The rover will have sensors and connectors on the front bumper to know where it is going and to connect to a terminal to recharge and deposit its cargo. The terminal will remove the cargo box much like a ground based garbage truck. 

Rocket Engine Casting

First time using my furnace

First time using my furnace

Finally got a day to cast one of the my rocket engine parts. Did two castings, first one failed, sand was too moist and not enough venting. Second attempt went perfect. The furnace worked great, I have three more pieces to cast and very little free time to get it done. It takes me about 4 hours to do a casting so hopefully I get get some Saturday mornings to finish this off. 

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2017 Recap and New Year Goals

It has been a good year, very busy taking care of the baby born last year on Dec. 20th and keeping the 5 year old boy happy. I had a set of molds almost ready but scrapped them because I wasn't happy with the accuracy of the dimensions so I ended up purchasing a FolgerTech FT-5 R2 large format 3D printer and was able to print everything without splitting anything up. I did need to use some Bondo to clean up the prints a bit though. Putting the printer together was very enjoyable, nothing like getting a box with hundreds of pieces to put together. I had a few days for the Christmas holidays to finally build my furnace, I had a water heater go out on me this year so when I replaced it I kept the old tank and stripped the insulation and used the torch to cut it down to size. Then I used the grinder to clean it up and some high temp paint to make it pretty. Still need to build some tongs for the crucible and a few other steps before I start actually making some engine parts. 2018 should be an exciting year, hoping to finally get a ignition test by September. 

Happy New Year!

 

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Space Mining

I am excited about Luxembourg's new asteroid mining law giving companies ownership of what material they mine which is falling into line with recent US laws. The more countries that support the move into space the greater chance space mining can move into the mainstream. The rocket engine is still coming along, I have just finished the molds and will start building a furnace. Time is in short supply but I like to wake up early on the weekends while the family sleeps to get several hours of uninterrupted work done. It is a good feeling putting the molds together, seeing something that started from a 3d model turn into something substantial that you can hold.

Quick Update

My second child was born on December 20th, 2016. She is very spirited but loved. I finally 3d printed my rocket engine parts, the printer isn't large enough to print whole parts so I had to print them into pieces. I am currently attaching the pieces and cleaning them up. Soon I will be creating latex and Plaster of Paris molds and will create wax casts to use in sand casting. Not all the pieces will need to be wax casts, some of the simple ones will be easy enough with just green sand. Free time is limited but I enjoy what time I get to work toward my dreams. This time next year I should be test firing the engine.  

Thermoelectric Experiment

Just finished with several months of experimenting and trying to find a more efficient Thermoelectric generator.  Each unit is sized at 19 mm x 15.8 mm x 9.5 mm and produced an average of .735 volts at 132 degrees Fahrenheit (55.55 degrees Celsius). Wired 13 units together to produce 9.56 volts. Pretty happy with the results, will have to create a more efficient way of wiring and mounting if I decide to move forward with this tech. Almost finished with my new rocket motor design, will soon be 3D printing pieces and will use the prints for casting. It will take time to save up for the metal casting equipment, so hopefully by the middle of 2017 I will have some more updates. Have a new baby about to be born so extra time will be hard to come by.