Sat. March 21th, 2009 - Electrical Tech day. (1 Viewer)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

H2o

Joined
Oct 12, 2005
Threads
134
Messages
780
(NOTE: watch this first post for updates and changes)

Sat. March 21th, 2009 - 9AM Lorton Arts Foundation - Electrical Tech day.

Cost CLCC Members: $7 to cover food and drink will be collected (plus $25 membership fee if not yet paid). If you have paid your membership within the last week or so, please bring a receipt with you since our records might not be up to date.

Cost Non Members: $17 (non members can sign up for membership on day of event and receive discount)

RSVP: reply to this thread or send me (h2o) email or pm. Please include your name, phone number, and email.

Topics to be discussed:

  • Discussion on how alternators, batteries and dual batteries interact during charging & discharging cycles
  • Ways to wire a second battery
  • Differences between conventional automobile batteries and deep cycle batteries
  • Winches and batteries
  • How relays and solenoids work and how to use them (I have a bunch of relays we can wire up on the bench)
  • Basic schematic reading - bring the schematic for your vehicle if you have one
  • Troubleshooting with a voltmeter - bring your voltmeter if you have one, I have 4 or 5 we can use
  • Fuses, circuit breakers and burning wires - Yes we will make fire :)
  • Crimping, soldering & heat shrinking
  • Anything else anyone has a desire to discuss
We can certainly be flexible and do overviews or in depth discussions with hands-on "labs" for each topic based on interest and time.

We have reserved at the Lorton Arts Foundation Lorton Arts Foundation Workhouse Arts Center Workhouse Arts Center The classroom will be in the hot glass studio, building W-07. See map below.
We can do a variety of electrical hands on "labs" in the classroom, move out to the parking lot and play with the vehicles if the weather is nice and the significant others can visit the all of the galleries on the campus. We can go to lunch or order in. There are lots of eateries in the neighborhood that deliver.

Yes, it is the old Lorton Prison on 123 just north of the Occoquan River bridge. The place has been historically restored and renovated and turned into art galleries, similar to the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria.

The brand new official address is: 9517 Workhouse Way, Lorton, VA 22079
The old address for GPSers and MapQuest is:9601 Ox Rd (Rt. 123) Lorton, VA 22079

Directions from I-95:
Take I-95 to Occoquan, VA
Exit 160 North - VA Route 123
Take Route 123 North approx 2 miles
The Workhouse Arts Center is on the right before the intersection of Route.123 and Lorton Road

Directions from Route 7100 (Fairfax County Parkway) and Route 123 (Ox Road):
Take Route 123 South for approx 8 miles
Turn left onto Lorton Road
Take immediate Right into Workhouse parking lot

Look forward to seeing everyone there.



download








 
Last edited:
I just updated the write up for the tech day. Please RSVP as indicated. The tech day is free for members but we will charge $7 to buy food (probably pizza).

Hope to see you there.
 
If everything goes good I'll be there.
 
Hi John,
The last electrical tech day we had went all day. I think we ended around 5:00. There are lots of things we can do, so I suspect this one will last most of the day, as well. We have the facility for as long as we need it. Please come when you can, no problem showing up late or leaving early.

Thanks,
Ed
 
Electrical Tech Day registration

H2O -

Pls count me in...Ed knows I'm coming.

:beer: Stale Ale
(aka Jon Sourbeer)
sourbeer@att.net
 
Sounds good. Anyone else?
 
Awesome. I'll definitely be there. maybe even bring may bits and pieces of unexecuted projects for show and tell.

Ez
 
If you have paid your membership within the last week or so, please bring a receipt with you since our records might not be up to date.

Thanks
 
I will definately be there.... electrical is such a mystery to me.
 
trying to make it... def going to be late as i have meeting with my accountant in the morning.
 
For those interested in the Lorton Art facility or if you want to bring significant others:

The galleries open at 11:00. There are 7 artist's buildings each with studios and galleries. Each building has a different type of art; hot glass, pottery, weaving, photography, painting, etc. There is also a main gallery. Everything is free. You can easily spend a couple of hours wandering through the galleries. There is a film festival on Saturday, it may be for kids, don't remember, check the website Workhouse Arts Center Unfortunately, there are no places to eat on the grounds, yet. Potomac Mills is not to far away.
 
I will be there as well.
 
Three :cheers::cheers::cheers: for Ed. This was an excellent presentation.
 
Hey everyone. It was great seeing you all at the Tech day. Ed did an incredible job and seems like most everyone was happy with the wealth of knowledge they gained.

As a follow up, I would like each of you who attended to give us some feedback so we can make these tech days better in the future. What you liked, disliked, suggestions, ideas for other tech days, etc...

For one, we were a bit short on food and drink. Next time we might get a little more cash from people to make sure we have more of a buffer when ordering. Sorry about that.
 
I was happy with the topics that we covered. For those that couldn't attend, we covered different dual-battery set-ups and their use v. installing a larger alternator, circuit-breakers, importance of selecting the correct gauge of wire-->fire-test, benefits of using relays, how to use your multimeter, basic electronics, and a few other areas that as of now escape my mind. I'll check my notes later. I left a bit early, so I don't know what topics i missed.
Suggestions:
Learning to troubleshoot electrical problems might have been useful, but would require a greater understanding of the electrical systems than a day of instruction would allow.
Pro:
The location was close to where I live, a def bonus! The classroom was nice and comfortable with good facilities. The instruction was informed and questions were fully answered. The battery handout was very informative.
Con:
Can't think of any really
Ideas for other tech days:
Welding[(brazing, arc, mig, tig.)+(selecting welders, techniques, local sources,...)], body work, paint and bed-liners, ADDRESSING RUST, differentials and gears( adjusting backlash, lockers, ...), winches(selection, installation, how to maintain, ...), adjusting carbs, installing assorted gauges(spedo, tach, vacuum, ...), communications and installing radios(cb and ham radios), etc...

Just some ideas floating in my head after midnight
-Sam
 
Thanks for the thanks, everyone. I hope everyone had fun.

If anyone is interested in a part II, we can cover the things Sam listed above. We kind of ran out of time and didn't get to do much with the meters or talk about diagnostics and troubleshooting.

We can also do a communications tech day as Sam suggested. I spent 20+ years building infrastructures for public safety two-way radio communications, almost 40 years (God, I'm old) as a licensed ham: WA3TOL, and I have commercial test equipment to check radios for; transmit power, SWR, receiver sensitivity, frequency, modulation, and more.

Anyone interested?

Thanks again,
Ed
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom