My computerized table saw jig is controlled by this
10-year old Think Pad computer in a dust-proof enclosure.
It's running Quick Basic under DOS.
Connected to the computer is this stepper motor controller.
On the left is the power supply from an old printer,
on the right is a transistor board, which I modified
for my purposes, it came from some old piece of equipment
I don't know what it was for.
For the power resistors, I just used hundred watt light bulbs
because power resistors are actually kind of expensive.
The light bulbs are also kind of handy to see which coils
are powered up at any one time, I can see right now
one of the coils is active.
Normal operation of the software is done by the mouse buttons.
Every time I push the left mouse button,
the motor is turned to the next cut position.
As you can see by the light bulbs, depending on where
the motor stops, one or the other coils may be active
at the stop position.
The stepper motor turns this threaded rod,
which moves this wooden board side to side.
The work piece is mounted to the wooden board,
and then the whole assembly is pushed past the saw blade.
So, I have my jig all set for making the cuts.
The computer program is ready.
And, I'm gonna load a blank piece in here,
which will make two pieces for one of these burrs.
So, we're ready to make some cuts.
So, here we have the rough part for two of these pieces shaped.
I still need to remove a few cubes from this because
some of the internal cubes it's not possible to remove
with the table saw.
So, here I have two of the pieces I've just cut,
which needs some additional pieces removed.
So, this part here for example needs these two cubes
removed, as well as this cube removed,
to resemble those two pieces.
And, this part needs these two removed, and another
one here removed, to resemble that part.
So, next I'll use the drill press.
and start roughing out some of those parts.
I couldn't remove everything with the drill press
so now I have to chisel the rest of it out by hand.
Now I need to round some of these inside corners of the burr
so that the edges don't get caught against each other,
as the burr is solved.
I now have the burr puzzle all assembled.
Assembly of the puzzle is actually far too difficult,
and time consuming for me to show it in this short video.
But, I'll show you how to get it apart, so we have to make
a bunch of sliding moves on this thing.
And, eventually we get the first piece out,
and once the first piece comes out, the rest of it comes
apart fairly easily. But, if I take it apart
any further than this, right now, it's gonna take me about
10 minutes with the instructions to put it back together, so
I'm just going to
reverse what I did,
so that I don't have to go through all this trouble.
I've really never actually ever assembled one of these
without the instructions, but it's fun to
give it to a co-worker or somebody who will then
after a few minutes manage to get it apart
and then you challenge them, "Now put it back together."
Nobody's ever actually put one together after they've had
it completely apart.