We had the Monolithic Dome Convention this weekend, and there were a lot of people that weren’t able to come to it. I have taken my presentation and made it into a pdf available for download.
My presentation was about equipment. I kept it fairly general except for the new Paxis Scaffold. Go through it, and if you have any questions, just ask them in the comments and I will answer ASAP.
You will hear a lot more about our new Paxis Scaffold in the future on Monolithic.com, but in the meantime I will post some raw video clips. It’s hard to describe how nice this scaffold is, but with the new drive motors and the 10′ stance, this scaffold makes one of the sturdiest, safest platforms I have ever seen.
Now that we have used our new polar scaffold for a couple of weeks, we have reports from the crew that the motor is still running a little slow. So, this is what we’ve done.
Original Scaffold
Current Motor
New Motor
Gear Box
60:1 Gear Box
60:1 Gear Box
30:1 Gear Box
HP
3/4 HP Motor
3/4 HP Motor
1 HP Motor
Drive
MD-60 Drive
MD-65 Drive
RPM
Electricity
110v Single Phase
220v Three Phase*
220v Three Phase*
* The drive unit is 220v single phase, and puts out 220v three phase. So it should work on any jobsite.
Just in case you haven’t read the first article, we are switching from the single phase to three phase powered drive system so that we can have adjustable speeds. The longer the scaffold, the longer it takes for one rotation. For instance, spraying consistent concrete at the end of the scaffold might be just the right speed, but spraying towards the middle will be a lot harder with the slower speeds.
The biggest difference is the drive. The original drive that we used had most of the same features that the new one does, except the ability to drive more power to the motor. The new MD-65 has the ability to increase the frequency of the power. So instead of adjusting the power from 40 hertz to 60 hertz, we are able to go from 40Hz to 120 Hz. I use the number 40 Hz for the minimum, because if the motor turned much slower than that, the motor wouldn’t be able to cool itself. I adjusted the drive to 120Hz for the highest setting, because I was concerned that any faster, and we might have to install seat belts on the scaffold.
The only remaining worry is that the increase in speed will decrease the power. Enabling its ability to climb over objects like pipes and rocks in the dome, but I think we have overcome that with the powerful new drive motor. Javier is going to take this scaffold motor with him on Monday, and I will post a report on its progress. Thanks for reading.
I am posting some of the raw video from the job in Commerce, Texas. The plan is to make a video about church construction and using the block stem walls. Click read more to see the video. Read the rest of this entry »
Problem: Scaffold an 88 foot dome that has only 4 36″ standard doors?
Solution: Expand our already proven Polar Scaffold to fit that size of a dome.
We started by expanding the scaffold width to 10′. This has really made the scaffold a lot sturdier. We are still using the same end frames, but different cross pieces and longer planks.
Then we redesigned the beams so that they are interchangeable pieces vs. the other expandable left and right pieces. This makes them easier to carry around, and more versatile. With the shorter universal beams, we could easily make a scaffold for any size dome from a 20′ to 100′.
One of the biggest concerns was the motor. We were concerned that the existing motor would be perfect speed for the outer edge of the scaffold, but when we are spraying in the middle it would be too slow. Also, the motor has a tendency to stop abruptly making long scaffolds hard to stand on. We purchased, with AAA Electrics help, a single phase to three phase inverter that would also double as a controller for the three phase motor. Using three phase allows us to adjust the speed of the motor. The controller does a lot of cool things for us, best of which is it lets us control the accel and decel time so that we have smooth use.
The scaffold is now complete and is going to be on the jobsite Monday. I will post more pictures as they are available.
