Tools you didn't know you needed

A job at Windsor airport in the fall of 1985 involved some 10,000 feet of 2, 4" ducts. The 20' lengths were laid out along the route prior to installation. After the ducts were all buried, came time to install string, then cable. To install the string (poly twine, actually), it was tied to a sponge which was then sucked through with a shop vac. Since the duct lengths had lain in the grass for several days, field mice had taken up residence, and when the sponge was vacuumed through, they ended up in the tank. The operator of the vacuum soon discovered that his machine was much lighter to carry if he emptied the mice out daily. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Which reminds me....got any good tips on using a Jet-Line gun?

Pistol which launches a Co2 cart with a string attached through conduits?

Im gonna need one tommorow.

Gunner

On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 04:06:47 -0800, with neither quill nor qualm, Gunner quickly quoth:

Sounds cool. JPGs at 11?

Remember to leave an extra pull line in the conduit when you're done.

-- My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life. -- Miles Davis

Ugly Stik makes a 18" ice fishing model. Around twenty bucks, IIRC.

Steve

"Brent" wrote

Personally, I'd buy a Wrist Rocket and a Zebco pushbutton reel. IIRC, the wrist rocket is made of steel rod, and it would be easy to MIG a handle facing forward to mount the reel with hose clamps. I've seen those work, and they are sweet. I am a pretty good caster, but am not sure I could toss the nut where I wanted it with any regularity. Especially if I was shooting for a particular opening.

Steve

Any recommendation on a brand/model? I've got a space on a piece of machinery I would like to monitor. Not terribly small, maybe 3"x3"x4", but there is the possibility of water spray and a slightly corrosive atmosphere.

Bill

Pocket Fisherman is still around. Take a look and choose your poison, everyone and their brother sells them:

It would be good to attach one to the RC of your choice too. Then the RC vehicle would be paying out line as it went, not having to drag it along. Just don't get too carried away, eventually you will have to reel it back in from some spot.

I wouldn't go for the hottest slingshot either. When I used to fish with a bow & arrow the critical moment for the line is right at launch. If the line wasn't up to snuff it would snap right when it started stripping from the reel (commercial reel setup too). You would want a sling with a long weak draw, more of a lob type shot. The best method would be to shoot the reel. Maybe a shuttle used in weaving would work (shrug).

Thanks Clare for the confirmation. I always though it would work great, but the "proof is in the pudding", or so they say. Sometimes you run into unforeseen problems with great ideas :)

Not much info on the net

I always leave several.

Shop vac and an appropriately sized foam rubber ball (with the first small pull string run through it) is one standard approach to the conduit problem, at least for empty conduit needing the first string run through. I suppose that compressed air at the feed end could also be used, but the shop vac at the far end is what I'm familiar with being actually used, and it seems easier to seal on.

If there won't be idiots working in the conduit (and it there are, nothing will help as they'll yank out the extra pull strings, too) you can run a loop a few feet longer than the run and pull new wires without "using up" a pull string.

I know someone who recently called the plumber with a raw sewage welling up out of the basement toilet. The plumber ran a snake 35 feet down the clean out until it all drained. Then the plumber send his TV camera down the drain and a group of family members watched the rat's eye view of going down 35 feet to verity there were no more obstructions or breaks in the pipe. During the viewing, Grandpa flushed a toilet upstairs and the group got to see the drain in action with the toilet paper finale.

You might ask on alt.machines.cnc . IIRC I saw a mazak nexus or something like that with a camera mounted inside the machining center a few years ago when I was at the Mazak facility in Kentucky.

My post concerned using a digicam in an unpowered machine to get a peek at things I can't get my head in to see.

Wes

Work area cameras are an option with many EDM machines. Maybe because they already had flame detectors.