So I had what I thought was a good idea that has proven not to work well at all. Maybe some of the collective creativity here can help me save this. I made some 6" blast gates that open and close on a pivot based off this design:
https://www.shigshop.com/blast-gate-plans.html
Above the pivot point I have a piece of steel barstock that extends and has a hole and grub screw tapped into it. This bar works as a lever to open and close the gate. The grub screw clamps down on a piece of wire that rides inside a semi flexible steel tube. A push/pull control like you would use for a manual choke on an older vehicle.
If I loosen the 2 halves of the blast gate to the point that it is barely together, this setup works about half of the time. I am not convince it would ever work with the added pressure of the DC running. Part of my problem is I need to reduce the friction opening and closing the gate, but I am not sure that will be enough. I could also move the connection point of the cable further up the steel bar to get more mechanical advantage, but that will require more travel on the cable than I think I can get with the parts I have.
Any other brilliant ideas? I need to be able to operate this gate from a distance as it will not be easily accessible once my outfeed table is back in place. I would like to avoid the expense of the off the shelf automated blast gates as one of them costs almost as much as my DC and I will need at least 2.
Anyone else tried something like this?
https://www.shigshop.com/blast-gate-plans.html
Above the pivot point I have a piece of steel barstock that extends and has a hole and grub screw tapped into it. This bar works as a lever to open and close the gate. The grub screw clamps down on a piece of wire that rides inside a semi flexible steel tube. A push/pull control like you would use for a manual choke on an older vehicle.
If I loosen the 2 halves of the blast gate to the point that it is barely together, this setup works about half of the time. I am not convince it would ever work with the added pressure of the DC running. Part of my problem is I need to reduce the friction opening and closing the gate, but I am not sure that will be enough. I could also move the connection point of the cable further up the steel bar to get more mechanical advantage, but that will require more travel on the cable than I think I can get with the parts I have.
Any other brilliant ideas? I need to be able to operate this gate from a distance as it will not be easily accessible once my outfeed table is back in place. I would like to avoid the expense of the off the shelf automated blast gates as one of them costs almost as much as my DC and I will need at least 2.
Anyone else tried something like this?