[vote] for electrical and lighting upgrades

General
1

Hi everyone,

If you’ve been following the mailing list you’ll have seen the request for opinions on electrical upgrades.

It is time to start those upgrades if we want to be able to use the laser when it arrives in the next week.

We’re asking for $1800 to complete this upgrade. It may seem like a lot, but we badly need to do this upgrade.

The upgrade will consist of:

  • A new sub panel in the dirty room for easier future expansion (this is probably the most costly part. The panel + running the wire to it will be about $900)
  • New lighting in the dirty room, wood shop, and over the meeting area
  • A 220V and 120V drop in the fab lab so we can run the new laser, gigabot, etc without draping extension cords around the room.
  • Multiple 120V 20A outlets in the dirty room
  • one or two new 120V 20A outlets by the electronics area

The deadline for this budget should only be a month. Greg and Dave Lear already started installing the 220v outlet in the fab lab since we /have/ to have that if we want to use the new laser. (lots of thanks to them!!)

I’m aiming to vote on this next week /after/ the elections.

Feel free to ask any questions on here, I want to avoid talking too much about it at the annual meeting.

Jon

2

That budget seems highly reasonable, given the scope. I’d heartily endorse that amount.

If it’s worth a trip, you may be able to save a buck Mendelson’s in Downtown dayton. They have lots of salvaged sub panel boxes, bus bars, terminals, ground wire, etc. I didn’t look at this section when I was there a week ago, but you could at least save on the expensive parts that are really just chunks of metal… Can’t guarantee they’ll have anything, but maybe Jim could take a look when he’s up there apartment hunting?

3

I vote yes

4

I agree with Lorin. Mendelson have circuit breaker and all that stuff for very cheap. We may can reduce the bill by a third even more.

Julien

5

We decided to expand the deadline two months since Greg will be out of town for the next week or two.

Jon

6

I vote yes.