May 2022 - Board Meeting

5/4/2022 Area 515 Board Meeting

5/4/2022 Area 515 Board Meeting

Attending:

  • President: Dave

  • Vice President: Jake

  • Treasurer: Meg

  • Secretary: Brad (remotely)

  • Director: Carlin

  • Director: Tom

  • Director: Ryan

Absent:

Approval of Minutes from Previous Meeting

Vote to approve minutes from April board meeting

Yes: 6

No: 0

Result: Passed (Note: Carlin was in Metal Shop at this point.)

Financials

  • So far this year we areabout $1700 in the black. We've only made 1 major purchase so far.

  • At the last member meeting the idea of putting some of our savings into an iBond was discussed, a type of bond that's designed to adjust for inflation and may yield around 9.62%. Our treasurer has not researched how to do this yet.

  • NFT jokes were told. (Yes, this sentence was redundant.)

Current Membership: 89

  • One member had a question regarding what minors can do at the space. The board pointed out that according to our Code of Conduct non-members are not allowed to use tools at the space. (Note from the future: the member later clarified his question asking if a 14 year old could become a member. In response, our bylaws state that any member under 18 must have an adult with them while using the space.)

  • Regarding membership payment automation, Jake has made a few minor fixes. Specifically there was a family issue which revealed itself on Bill Carlson's membership.

  • The automation is sending test-welcome emails when new members join. The test emails are only sent to the board, not the new member. They are generated whenever a membership payment comes in from an unrecognized PayPal address. Since expired members are moved to a different Google sheet, returning members aren't recognized and therefore they get the same welcome letter as new members. Language needs to be added to the Welcome letter to inform returning members that they need to contact the Board to have someone restore their expired account. The same needs to be done for any member changing their PayPal account. For the time being, Brad will continue sending the new member welcome emails.

  • Our PayPal system was set up a while ago to send invoices to some specific members every month. Since those people are no longer members Jake volunteered to go into PayPal and stop them.

Front Door

  • Members had discussed how often they arrive to find the front door unlocked. It was assumed that not everybody was closing the door enough to latch it when they left.

  • On April 26th, Carlin and Brad were talking in the classroom when at 12 noon they heard the front door click. Carlin walked over to the door and found that he could pull it open without pressing the green button. (To Brad and Carlin, the door appeared latched when the click occurred so they assumed the door unlocked itself. Subsequent attempts to reproduce the problem didn't work, so it is possible the door was simply not latched before the click occurred.) Brad emailed the board, and a group of people including Caroline, Ray and Dave examined the code that runs the door. It was then updated such that the latch solenoid no longer activates when the door updates its list of acceptable keys. (aka. There's no "click" when the door updates.)

  • Jason has an idea for something we could use for a new front door handle. We need one that can always open from the inside, but remained locked from the outside.

TIG Welder Proposal

  • Chris wants a new Prusa printer in exchange for his TIG welder, bottle, and (maybe) cart. The TIG is a barely used Lincoln, AC/DC with foot pedal. It can weld aluminum and uses up to 60amps.

  • The board agreed that it was a reasonable deal and decided we would give Chris a check for the cost of the Prusa. In the meantime we'll talk with Jason about whether any of our current electric circuits in the Metal Shop can support the TIG. (See what I did there?)

Miscellaneous

  • Frank has offered to commandeer a medical kit cabinet from atop the textiles room, fill it with gear and put it in the Metal Shop.

  • The carpet guy Meg knows measured the classroom and laser rooms and will give us a formal estimate to replace the carpet, should be something like $1500 max. He left us a sample of the new carpet and all agreed it was better quality and backing than what we have. It was mentioned that some time in the next 3-4 weeks might be good since we'll need people to help move everything out of the rooms when they're recarpeted.

Trello Items

Vacuum Former

  • Little progress on this

Lasers

  • No change to FS lasers

  • Somebody donated an old laser to us despite knowing we would likely resell it. It's a 40W, with a much smaller bed than our FS lasers. It was purchased off eBay about 7 years ago and worked the last time it was used. Brad is planning to see if it works, then we can sell it.

Auto Shop

  • Dave will purchase the large, unused air compressor in the autoshop.

  • Dave also planning to rearrange the space at some point.

Metal Shop

  • Carlin sold the Atlas lathe for $250.

  • Carlin also gave us $100 in proceeds from a class.

  • No progress has been made repairing the drill press rack. The idea of getting a secondary drill press was briefly dicussed, but a better solution would be some kind of mill.

  • The new metal lathe is waiting on Caroline to fine tune it. It also needs to find a permanent location and be leveled.

  • Stewards are planning a big rearrange sometime in June or July.

Textiles

  • Some people have been trained on Carlin's Tippman Boss leather sewing machine.

Wood Shop

  • Jake has the new jointer together, it still needs tuning.

  • To power the new SawStop an outlet will be changed to use an extension cord. Eventually the cord will be moved to drop from above. Cord will use twist lock plug.

  • Jake talked to Darron concerning his lift, it is still in Kansas City.

  • An "In for $10" was discussed to buy a press brake for our hydraulic press.

  • An "In for $10" to purchase an actual cyclone in our dust collector was mentioned as well.

  • The tubing size in the dust collector needs to be larger.

  • The Wood Shop drill press requires repairing.

CNC

  • The Piranha needs a PC to run OpenBuilds Controller. Tom brought in a computer for the purpose but its power supply was unreliable. Several members brought in power supplies for the cause. Ultimately, Brad opted to use a different computer that Dave brought in since it had much less ventilation that could be clogged with Wood Shop dust. (Besides, Tom's old computer looks waaaay too cool to sit unseen in some dark corner.)

  • Brad is also working on a place to put the PC once it's ready.

3D Printing

  • Caroline took the MMU off-line again for general member useage.

Meeting Adjourned

  • Said during the Financials discussion... "We'll just mint NFTs of Brad doing different things and sell them on the interwebs." "Yeah, there are plenty of suckers."

  • Said in reference to the quality of something ... "It's not Harbor Freight!" response: "Do we know how to handle that in here?"

  • "Wires can work as fuses as well." - said in a discussion about a fuse box.

  • Also: "When the fuse box is glowing red that's a bad sign." - Tom

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