2025-07-02 Transcript
Roll Call: Aaron, Edgar, AJ, Max, Ben, Colette, Douglas, Chris, Alistair, Paul, Ian, Bob, Nathan, Nick, Jon, Shane
(3D Printing Team) AJ (Bike Team) none (CNC Team) Douglas (Comms Team) JonW, (Craft Team) none (Electronics Team) Aaron (Infrastructure Team) none (Laser Team) Edgar (Membership Team) Nick, Edgar (Metalworking Team) none (Network Team) Aaron (Snackspace Team) Shane (Software Team) Aaron (Woodworking Team) Ian, Edgar, Nathan, Bob (Trustees) Shane, Aaron, Edgar, AJ
Announcements
Radio Group is up next week. One Shot Wonders is being run by Dee (Shane thinks, at least). Film night is not yet decided. Coffee and CAD is going strong. Wiki Cleanup on the same week.
HtS day is down for Sunday 10th August. Breakfast again! These will run every two months.
Woodworking Support is coming up too. Come along for any woodworking advice.
Aaron's Build and Arduino workshop is fully booked now.
Zine workshop on the 26th with Dee. 3D printing. A1 has been fixed. Hurrah! And there is now a link to the wiki from a QR code.
Happenings
HtS was good!
subcut's woodturning group was great! Well attended.
Downstairs Metalworking
We've had one quote so far. Around £20,000. Much, much higher than we thought/hoped. We expect this might have just been a "I don't want to do this job" quote.
We're reaching out to others still. Informally, less than £10k has been quoted.
AJ has been putting trays up for the electrical wiring. They're hoping to put the containment up ourselves which might bring down the price.
How much can we approve if £20,000 is too high? We have some thoughts around £5,000. £7,000 might be the higher end of what we want. We have some expensive board installed, where the breakers are really quite expensive.
Can we recyle some from upstairs? Probably not. They're different boards. If it ends up being too expensive, do we have to reconsider metalworking? "Something has to change." We need to wait for more quotes before we can make a decision.
Can we do this in phases? Is a "PHase 1" practical? Yes - if we ditch welding and deal with that later. It wouldn't be impossible to focus on "Phase 1" and then deal with "Phase 2".
What should we do with the freed up space?
Lets talk about this at the AGM. We'll need more members to weigh in.
A reminder one of the reasons we need to move downstairs: upstairs doesn't have enough space. Grinding and welding are contaminating the other tools. Extraction has been highlighted. We need to ensure the plan for welding includes extration. (Does the current plan?)
Team Updates
Laser
- New hinges are fitted! The lid should now move a bit better. Inductions are all filled - if you're missing a response then get back in touch.
Woodworking.
- Nathan has fixed a number of tools. Including the belt sander, the planer-thicknesser is mostly working but needs re-truing to stop wobbling. It's not usable until this is fixed.
- Induction paperwork has been started too.
- Riving blade on the tablesaw needs replacing - though no longer for sale, we'll need to rebuild one ourselves.
- The planer-thicknesser shouldn't be used by anyone - even when working. No one is inducted. (We should lock the plug to stop use?)
3D Printing.
- The A1 is fixed.
- Fusion 360 has been added to the PC next to it.
- The 3d printing team plan to rehome the Ender 3s - we just need to announce this. Ender 5 is staying, but we're not sure how much use it has.
Suggestion that we build a Voron as a community project.
Comms.
- Blog club is going well! We're sticking to the 1 per month. We do need more volunteers though. The blog posts can be any length (or even all photos) about anything! Please do come forwards in the comms channel if you have any ideas.
Membership team.
- Feels healthy. Not long ago we were struggling there, but new volunteers have really helped out.
Snackspace.
- Club Mate is a big success. Well stocked!
Metalworking.
- Some inductions (bridgeport) inductions will come back inhouse. We're hoping to get the inductions started soon, but we need to design the session first. It'll take some time, but this will unblock us hugely.
Any Other Business Any progress on the classroom change over? Last we heard Gareth was going to put some rough costs together.
End of meeting - thanks everyone!
Post meeting discord chatter
Steve Hackett — 02/07/2025, 20:48
Sorry I couldn't attend, on holiday. From reading the minutes, I have some questions: Why has phase 1 of metalworking become 'ditch welding'? In a lot of ways the welders and grinders would be the easiest things to move and provide a decent benefit in terms of protecting the other machines. How is 'nobody inducted on the planer thicknesser'? People have paid for inductions - are they suddenly just not inducted? This feels more like an admin error?
Shane [HACK] — 02/07/2025, 21:13
Cc. @AJ and @Ian Turner who I think can expand on my rushed minutes to answer Steve’s points
Sam Roberts — 02/07/2025, 21:36 Sorry I missed this due to my being busy with the tour - also a couple of points: Someone on the tour expressed an interest in buying one of the Enders I'm still keen on the idea of a metalworking tiger team of anyone else is up for it Also -thanks Shane for typing the minutes
Aaron Hackson — 02/07/2025, 21:45
They definitely are still inducted, and they're in HMS, I think it was just someone saying something incorrect.
I don't think the plan is to ditch welding. What was discussed was to talk to metalworking about figuring out what we can move down first, if the electrics are cost prohibitive to do all at once.
AJ — 02/07/2025, 21:50
I was the origin of "ditch welding" because of how expensive the parts are relative to the rest of the build, but we can probably recycle quite a bit from upstairs which I'm not yet accounting for. It could easily be "just do welding to start with" instead
Ian Turner — 02/07/2025, 22:57
The yellow jointer / Planer is operational again and can ve used by anyone who has been inducted. The Planer/ thicknesser is still out of operation. Planer induction procedure and documentation is nearly conplete needs to be tested and approved.
Someone has been using the planar / thicknesser even though it has an our of order tag on
AJ — 03/07/2025, 11:59
That, and the room for the surfacing grinder needs physically finishing before it would make sense to do electrics in there - and that's definetely out of my wheelhouse. (My carpentry is criminal at best)
Fundamentally, I'll (ofc) follow metalworking team lead, so if you think start with welding/grinding that's what I'll do! I see the sense in it 100%.
Can someone(s) else think about non electrical things such as finishing of the small room, extraction setup, and stopping grinding dust from getting into the rest of the room and wrecking the lathes etc Probably this is where someone with a project management hat comes in handy... ( @Dee ?)
I think a door needs moved, also?
Steve Hackett — 03/07/2025, 12:29
Let's organise a catch up about it with interested parties
I'm not sure what a tiger team is, I don't think they have the dexterity and I'm concerned someone might get mauled. More seriously I think Sam is offering to project manage.
(just exited the Chunnel so currently speeding through France towards the Netherlands, will be back in the country next week)
Nathan1010 — 03/07/2025, 12:37
I can help with the building / project management stuff if its needed . 😁
Aaron Hackson — 03/07/2025, 12:39
Nathan, more like NathCAN
AJ — 03/07/2025, 12:39
What can't you do Nathan, because you're making the rest of us look bad 😆
A catch up would be good, although I'm in Newcastle next week and then back to Coventry for two more weeks of "electrical training". And then Edinburgh...
- o
Steve Hackett — 03/07/2025, 12:46
It sounds like we have no shortage of project managers. 😛
I'm not sure how much building work there is to do - the plumbing is partially boxed in but was left unfinished so we could plumb in the disabled toilet down there I think.
Possibly the wrong door is in the frame, so would need swapping so the leaves go the right way.