203BrownSt

Mailing Address

The make shop address is not active with the postmaster. Snail mail correspondence should be sent to:

Makers Local 256
PO BOX 2234
Huntsville, AL 35804

Calendar

• May 30 2009, 12:00pm - 5:00pm: Arrangement of Storage Shelves according to proposed plan at shop

Planned Organization of Areas

These layouts were agreed on at the May 2009 meeting and will not be altered until the Nov 2009 meeting.

Lobby with front door

• This will be used like a kitchen.
• Convert corner closet to a shower
• The panty will continue being used for servers
• There is no problem with an oven/stove being in the kitchen, but the shop will not buy one.
• Knock out one, if not both, of the windows and replace them with glass/lexan and blinds.

Large common area

• Predominant work and learning area. It will remain mostly clear except for 4 large work tables and large active projects in need of space.
• A table dedicated for electronics work.
• The projector will stay on the media cart.

Kitchen Loft

• General chill out space, used for hanging out more so than working on projects.
  • Lighting needs work.
  • Semi-permanent ventilation needs to be installed (box fans or case fans).
  • Pipe insulation needs to be added to prevent ouchie boo boos.
• Wood storage area next to the bottom of the staircase.

Space next to rollup door

• Tools (in general) will reside here. Wood working and welding will occur in the space in front of the garage door (preferably with it open) or outside.

Storage shelves

• Arranged with non-electronic supplies to the left and electronics in the middle "devolving" into electronic components to the far right.

Storage Loft

• Railing needs to be installed.
• Full stairs are not feasible, so we will use an angled ladder approach and a dumb waiter to move bulkier objects.

Unlit room

• Storage for items such as the engraver, plotter, computer cart, etc for use either in that room or to be brought out into the main area and returned when not in use.
• Setup 3 to 4 small personal areas for no more than a weeks use (3 month trial basis)
  • Basically just a 4' table and power with a short 4' or 5' wall dividing up each section along one wall.

Issues with the Landlord

Point of contact is Korc

• Roll up door
  • The door needs repair on the top and bottom two sections.
  • It should be openable by a single person for safety reasons.
• Plumbing
  • This has become an issue again.
  • Like before, the toilet seems to back up after two or three flushes.
  • It seems to be less severe than last time.

Insurance Info

The meeting with the insurance agent 23 April 2009 didn’t go as well as planned. He doesn’t seem to share the same enthusiasm for the new shop as all of us do.

The insurance inspector came by on 5/15 and didn't seem to hate us, we're waiting to hear back.

We have insurance at the previous rate. All is well.

TODO

Here is a list of the thing that needs to be accomplished:

1. Dead light bulbs need to be replaced and the fixtures cleaned.
   • tool area (VERY IMPORTANT, using power tools in the dark is dangerous)
   • paint booth room (fairly important, as there is no other light in this room)
   • main area (mostly adequate for the time being, but flaky lights are annoying to everyone)
   • materials storage room (low priority)
2. Makerslocal sign
   • fix frame
   • seal sign
   • mount sign out front
3. front door
   • paint trim
   • develop USB authentication hardware -Omegix and Ratmandu meeting on this soon
4. mount XM radio antenna outside on a pole
5. find an appropriate place to mount the dart board and do so
6. Outside
   • Any remainder of debris needs to be removed from the outside of the building.
   • The outside of the building could use a good pressure washing.
   • The front left corner between the front door and the roll-up is damaged. All the major holes like that where insulation is exposed needs to be repaired.
7. build Shop Tables
   • Three tables are finished
   • We need materials for 1 more table, at least
8. The inside walls need to be scrubbed and/or bleached and painted.
9. Electrical needs to be refurbished
   • Someone needs to count the outlets so we can get an accurate count of what needs to be replaced.
   • Make special note of any that have damage at the electrical connection. Those that are cracked or are not in good condition need to be replaced.
   • The wiring that is NOT run through conduit need to be removed NO EXCEPTIONS.
10. 36" Railing needs to be installed above the storage area.
11. Stairs to the storage loft
    • It would be great if these were built to code, but I'm not sure this is possible with the amount of space we have available.
12. We need to remove the broken tiles and replace the missing tiles in the drop ceiling.
13. find missing items
    • brimstone's SPA942 linksys sip phone
    • brimstone's box of digium cards and appliances
    • jimshoe's wgt634u netgear router
14. find ways to conserve energy
15. finalize design/location of electronics bench

Cooling

Attempts

• Attempt #1:
  • Placing a tray of ice in the air collection chamber of the furnace set to fan only. The goal being that it would cool the air passing over it and circulate it through the ventilation.
    • No noticeable change in temperature.
• Attempt #2:
  • Placing ice water in a styrofoam container with the water pump to circulate cool water through copper tubing placed over the intake vent to the air collection chamber of the furnace. Blocked the outside intake so it would only pull air from inside the building.
    • No noticeable change in temperature.
• Attempt #3:
  • Mounting a 15000 BTU loaned air conditioning unit in the west window.
    • Temperature change localized primarily to a single bench. No noticeable change in temperature elsewhere.

Proposed Solutions

• Proposed Solution #A
  • Shop Fans
    • Looks like these run around $100.
      • Omegix can throw $30 towards this or a rolly air conditioner
  • Roll-Around air conditioned units (like what Tuttle from HC mentioned
    • Where do you find these?
    • How much do they cost?
    • Where is the heat vented?
  • Ask landlord to install Air Conditioner
    • This would be a costly solution and we may be unable to afford it.