Wow, winter came to visit without warning this year! Went from decent to below zero overnight and brought snow.
I decided to work out in the frozen North and finish the hinges, which are the most complex mechanical parts of the chassis.
It was a bit cold out there in the snow, but the temperature let up to a balmy minus 5, so not too bad!
Time was not on my side, so I didn't make a 3D model, but instead resorted to old-school NCAD...
The hinge is 1.5" flatbar with a 3/16" thickness. Good and robust since it will be connected to a motorized linear actuator.
The hard part was making the hinge hidden inside the case. Yeah... it was way more complex that way, but it avoids ugly outside hinges or bolts and makes the entire car hood style keyboard almost hidden until it is activated. Much more of a cool reveal that way!
I hacked up the pieces needed to make two hinges, and welded them...
So far the hinge construction went well, but I still had no idea of the idea would work, since it was only guesstimated on paper.
The actual hinge pin will be a set of bolts that screw into these nuts that are welded to more pieces of flatbar.
This is done to keep all hinge parts inside the cabinet. I will not have to drill any holes in the chassis and give away the secret of the hinge...
With a set of temporary bolts installed, the hinge system worked perfectly!
Welding is not fully completed yet, but everything worked with proper clearance when lifted up to 180 degrees...
There is still a bit more work to do on the base chassis, such as some edge reinforcing and the edge to edge welding.
It was nice to get to this point so far, and if the weather stays decent, I might just continue the metalworking next Sunday.
Either way, the Vulcan-74 shell can move indoors soon and become a base for sizing up the massive hand wired board.
Soon I will be able to answer that question we all ask when designing a two headed computer using only 1970's logic parts...
..."Will a 3 foot by 2 foot board be large enough to hold all of the ICs"?
I think it might, although the 4 channel sound system is also going to eat up a good chunk of real estate.
That's all for now, got to go and shovel the snow.
Later,
Radical Brad of the Frozen North.