Monday, October 19, 2015

On the path of Houdini

Houdini could open any lock. I'm almost there myself with the front door locking mechanism. Today my electro magnet arrived from China.

The magnet apparently runs off 9v so after a long hunt I located a pp3 battery. It was inside a radio transmitter detector that had been lurking in my drawer since I'd had to track down some unauthorized listening devices in my old home. The battery was several years old yet it powered the magnet very successfully. Indeed, it even grabbed onto the door locking mechanism strongly enough for me to lift the latch.

As the magnet didn't seem to have much grabbing range its probably going to be best used as a repelling magnet. I'll mount a permanent magnet on the underside of the latch and the magnet can repel it in order to lift the latch. That's the plan anyway.

Also arrived today was my Nema 5-15P socket. I tried it with my plugs and it all worked perfectly. Now all I have to do is to rebuild the battery/cable compartment. I tried both plugs and they both fit nicely into the socket as can be seen from the combined socket, plug photo.

Speaking of the battery/cable compartment, the bolts and lock nuts arrived that are intended for use in the new compartment. I'd been afraid they'd be too thin but looking at them, they'll be fine. I'll use many more than I think I'll need, just for security.

I can't find the sheet strength for the bolts but given the entire weight that needs to be supported will be probably 20lbs for the compartment frame plus 55lbs for each of two batteries plus say 30lbs for luck then doubling it all in order to allow for rough roads. That's a grand total of 160lbs. Assuming each bolt will bear 10lbs then 16 would be needed. An unverified online source states 200 lbs sheer strength per bolt. That sounds doable. Another online source quoted 700lbs. I'm being conservative and reckoning 20lbs per bolt. I don't want 160lbs of battery compartment falling on the ground!

No comments:

Post a Comment