MEP EP#319: Work to Automate the Work

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MacroFab Updates

• KiCad 6 support!
• PI DAY Contest
  • March 14th (3/14)
  • Stop by the MacroFab website to take a pop quiz for a chance to win some free pizza

Testing Ratchet Wrenches

• Wrench qualifications
  • Ratcheting Wrench
  • Non-Reversible
  • Zero-degree offset
  • ½” hex
  • 12 or 6 point
• Have collected 20 ratchet wrenches so far
• Why? Broke one and wanted to try out all the different styles and brands before buying a set
• What are we testing?
  • Thickness of the wrench
  • How does it feel?
  • Max torque to either failure or cam out
  • Any other tests?
    • Thickness to torque rating
    • How much mechanism play
    • Measure ratchet dimension
• How?
  • Quick tests show I need more than 100ftlbs but less than 250ftlbs of bolt torque
  • Load cells to measure the clamping force between 2 plates
  • Need a “screw” drive to handle the force
  • A normal ½” bolt is usually 5/16-18” which handles ~30ftlbs before pulling the threads
  • Two Paths
    • Take a ¾” bolt and machine the head into a hex
    • Take a ½” allen socket with a ¾” square drive and attach that to a bolt

Automate the Boring Stuff

• Spending 20 hours to save 1 - the engineers life
• Making API calls with the requests library
• Requests: HTTP for Humans
• Openpyxl for creating excel
• Commenting code
• Automate the Boring Stuff