Your property used to be my wife's great grandparents old home place. It was in that family for at least three generations. From my research his parents and grandparents are buried in that cemetery on the property. I hope it's in yours for just as long.

Great thinking in taking one of the least expensive saw mills available and making it very usable. Here are a couple of ideas. 1) Use a locking squeeze brake from a stand-up walker when the carriage is at the start-of-cut position to stop one roller wheel - carriage stays put. Release to cut. 2) Add a laser eye on the back side of the carriage looking down the length of the mill at the height of the blade to a reflective rail at the end. If one of the backstops breaks the laser beam, power is interrupted to the movement box. Never again cut into a backstop.

I can't believe you even find he time to share the diagram and all. You are amazing. I wish you the best.

Nice Mandalorian insert in there lol "This is the way!"

I sure wish I'd learned to weld stuff. It's a great skill to possess. You'll really appreciate those berry bushes when they fruit out.

Impressive. You’re one smart dude. And, Meg’s one smart dudette.

Well, I can get a sense of what John did in his prior life... this was a very impressive and interesting episode.

Great project! It's been a few years since I've done much with a sawmill. Spent most of my career programming applications. More recently I've been doing more embedded programming and actually teach a class where one of the projects is to control DC motors. A couple of things to look out for. First starting with your code. The Amtel processor in the Uno R3 has an int size of 16 bits which means integer values range from -32,767 to 32,767. So you should be careful of hitting those limits in your counters. If you do hit those limits things can wrap around and your logic will go sideways. Definitely put in the stop button... Another thought, I'm not sure what your current requirements are for your mill. My gut reaction is it seems like the 10 amps at 24V that you are providing is way more than you need. That said, you may be able to get away with a 12V supply with battery and charger powered off of your sawmill engine. Another thing to look at is the new Arduino R4 (not yet available) which if I recall correctly can be powered by a 12V supply. Finally, a small OLED display could be added to show the current state of your settings. With a little bit of work you should be able to take the buttons you have and make them control a menu system where you could manually set the thicknesses you want. Additionally, you could store the thickness setting in EEPROM so once you key them in they would be there even after a powering off the MCU. Another thought on wiring is to design and have printed your own PCB. You could arrange to have a display, buttons etc. to be soldered to the PCB along with terminals for your wires. Sorry about the long post. This is a really interesting project. At one point in time I contemplated building a dry kiln controller. Basically, a temperature/humidity sensor, heater, and fans to move air in or out to manage the humidity with a schedule to take the humidity down in a controlled manner over a period of time.

I am SO impressed. Marvelous job of explaining it all. I think I even understood the gist of the code. Watched to the very end. Glad you have residents in the bird house!

Jon this is terrible for me to watch because I just bought a HM130Max which is just 2 steps of the HF you have and I spent $900.00 on a power lift when I had a drill in my shop!!! And the feed is something I need to have my grandson n law look into for me. I’m 82, one eyed and feel the old man coming up my driveway. GREAT JOB

Excellent Arduino application and elegant solution. Thanks for including the follow-up technical details.

I absolutely love y’all’s videos. A little long, but always worth the time to sit with a few beers and live vicariously!! Thanks, and I can’t wait to see the foundation work

Love the build John, very clean install. Can't wait to see what u do next.

Pure joy to watch! John is a man with a hole bunch of tiny grey under the scalp

Outstanding Jon, can hardly wait to see it in action.

I wait patiently for every new episode. When I don't hear from you for ten days or so I begin to worry. Are you OK? Have you quit? Then when you finally post a new episode, you always explain why it took so long, and I'm glad I waited. Thanks for letting me live the dream vicariously!

That is impressive John, wow!

Wow, nice upgrade to the mill. I'm looking forward to seeing it in use.

I'm impressed too, don't forget the sticker 🙂

great job on this set up John

Dude, you're next level. Awesome work.

Great engineering work, Jon. Getting the mill ready for the house build! Tractor Hard! 🚜💪

Awesome build Jon. With all the plans you guys have in front of you, I bet it feels good to ✓ another box! Can't wait to see the walls get framed with all that precise kiln dried graded two by. 🙂

You need to make this kind of lumber. I'm liking the approach. I always thought the 2 Electrical Engineering classes I had to take were useless until I watched you reason out this problem.

Great job John, learned a bunch on this one. You should be so proud.👍👍reminded me of my basic and dos programming from school.

I don't understand code but do understand having a goal in mind, thinking about pros and cons, and then making a plan work! Both of you and what you do and will create are impressive as you move forward and also take time to smell the roses.

Impressive work Jon! This was pretty interesting content. You and Meg have a great channel, always fun to watch 👍. Honestly, don’t know why you guys don’t have more subs. Thanks for sharing your “projects”.

Thank you, John, for an excellent tutorial on the practical application of a stepper motor using Arduino. Two small criticisms of the physical installation though, firstly, at the Ammo box, to achieve cooling (especially on a hot day) a second vent hole will be required, that box is going to be an oven, and digital equipment doesn't like getting hot! Secondly, your retractable flex will get really dirty when out and may jam after a while when retracting and covered in damp sawdust from the accumulation below it. I would strongly suggest that you make a series of hooks on the back of your sawmill rail legs, so the flex can lay in it, and sawdust falling down can fall off, making cleaning out the reel casing a rarer event. ( Flat bar bent to the diameter of a bucket would do it). To successfully bend plastic conduit using heat, gather up some fine dirt (ideally fine sand, but I have used dirt, and you have that!) and heat this, not the pipe. Use an old can or similar (NOT a pan from the kitchen!) and heat the powder with your blowtorch, using a metal funnel ( can again, flattened sideways and forming a vee, like angle iron) and, with one end of your plastic pipe resting on a bit of wood pour the hot dirt/sand into the pipe, gently tamping it in place, and after maybe 3 seconds you can bend your pipe, as soon as you lift it to empty it, it should set in shape. This worked during my electrical apprenticeship back in the early 70s, when pre-formed bends were rare and expensive!

Wow!!! Great info for a big mill upgrade.😊

I love your genius shenanigans! If you ever need electronics parts in a pinch, I have some there.

Absolutely the BEST video y'all have done! John, whoa, impressive! You keep saying get a Meg, well I say get a John! The amount of awesomeness is off the charts! You just put all the mill makers to shame for their overpriced, under utilized head adjusters😂 The cool thing about this is once you get your grading stamp you could potentially mill other peoples lumber and charge for that service, milled, graded, stamped lumber ain't cheap. Y'all are making dreams come true for yourselves keep it up.

Meg ensure patient😂😂😂 👍👍👍😎🇨🇱 glad you got your confidence back 😂😂😂 👍👍👍

That is really good. I have a woodland mills that might get rigged up with something like that. Good job on your code - tight, clean, and to the point.

You'll probably want a switch or something to tell the Arduino to lock the stepper in place while the saw is doing a cut. A pair of A23 batteries in series would give enough power to keep the Arduino running, while it's cutting but probably not enough to run the stepper. All in all, a pretty cool project! Cheers!

What a ripper, good work

I haven't watched the series in awhile. I am a subscriber. This was a goodin' to watch.

Great job Jon. :)

Glad I stumbled onto this video. I play with the Arduino Uno as well and this is the first video I've seen on KZfaq for using an Arduino controller for a practical application. Most examples show you how to blink LEDs. DUH, what a practical application! Thanks for the wonderful and informative video.

I have watched your videos from epi 1! I truly appreciate what you guys are doing and partly living through your dreams! I pray that when you finish - NO, you will never be through!! I have spent 30 years in construction until health went; therefore, I have had moments of laughter and cringe moments! Here is one suggestion for mill - add two large eye bolts on each leg closest to the reel. Run your power cord through them so the cord doesn't drag through the saw dust and clog the reel. Off setting the second one lower will wipe part of the dust off and the closest one high to get the bottom of the cord. Hope that made sense, if not get Meg to decipher my code or just tell me to keep living my dreams to you guys! Wait John, wait a couple of episodes and the reel clogs and you make another video of how to clean the feel! Just kidding guys, that was for the cringe moments.

You are a genius renaissance man. Impressive.

Great video, Jon. I know you guys did this to improve productivity and precision for your home build efforts but after you're done with your home and have some time to think about life after the home build, you could sell this as a custom design product. Great job!

Another improvement on the mill, well done ! At 14:25 , may I suggest to add two small brushes at the entry of your cable reel to keep the inside of it clean (specially the rotary contact). To keep your cable reel and your cable safe and clean, you'l need to park your mill close to cable reel. Another point of attention in long term : the wide frequency / energy of vibrations of the mill can cause some trouble on your control box full of electric and electronic component : switches false contact, ventilator bearing damage. Soldering wire like you did is a solution against vibration.

It's been a while! Glad to see the new vid. I was afraid Meg was busy burying you with Ricky.

I do like your stuff you are videoing, I have a mill and want to upgrade the engine then I see all this and wow! Dude you are smart, If I can figure all this out I'd love to do this to mine. You have me, I'll be watching over and over! Man the production is unreal.

Hello Meg & Jon, Happy Easter! I thought this video would have been an Easter hunt for your girls on Sunday, but I can certainly now understand why there is a larger than normal gap in video release dates. Wow, You guys have done so much by yourselves: carpentry, plumbing, electrical, logging, milling, excavating, road grading, concreting, designing, drafting, welding,.....( the list goes on), and now you add computer programming. Not only that, but you have developed excellent skills in all the work behind the scenes in creating videos, and we all know how much time, effort, knowledge and skill it takes just to put out one single video, and you have heaps of them. All of this while raising a family with two wonderful children (and a couple of fury ones too). I'm impressed. You must be so proud of yourselves to have come so far all on your own. Cheers, EJ

You might look into adding a brush or something to remove sawdust from your retractable power cable. That way you minimize chance of getting contamination inside the retractable cord housing. Great video. Now to watch it in use.

That was one very detailed and well explained video ! Code an Arduino and do the wiring - Hats off to you ! To all the Megs out there - Go get a Jon !

Someone has been watching The Mandalorian . “This is the way’

Jon, thoe Harbor freight gun boxes make excellent weatherproof wiring boxes also. I use them for putting my truck winch relays inside, relays and winch controllers on my Yamaha Rhino with a snow plow, I mounted 7 inch radios in them to mount on the front porch to play music. I have mounted test meters in them too. They are cheap and sealed well.

Great job ... My experience in this arena includes automation of three 600' mountain wells and delivery points. I had a time with Mother Nature and properly grounding electronics. You are in charge and good luck.

Awesome job.

Great job. I play with the arduino as well and have great interest in home applications. I really enjoy your channel and can’t wait for the next episode. Keep up the good work. By the way limit switches for max and min travel are often referred to as end-of-travel switches.

Greetings from the BIG SKY. The snow left today around here finally. I think we might be getting Spring..

Awesome. I'm working on a very similar project. I am hoping it won't overcomplicate the mill.

Nice setup. Thanks for sharing, I look forward to any upgrades. I'm in the process of resurrecting an old Timber King B-20 that's been setting out in the elements off the shores of Lake Erie since 2005 without any shed or tarps. Nothing to protect it but the wind and sun and rain lol. Anyway the electronics are toast and I've almost got it functional to be able to saw and the Arduino is something I think I'll try but my head is extremely heavy so a extra heavy duty motor is in order. may be able to use the 12 vdc that's on it if I can just add an encoder. If I can integrate something similar I'll share it here since I will be building off your setup Peace be with you my fellow journeymen.

Great video

Fantastic job! Loving this idea. The only other thing I would add that you didn't address was an inlet for air into the controller box. Being a sealed box with only an exhaust doesn't provide any way for make up air to come in to the box. This will choke the fans and cause things to overheat, especially that NEMA 34 driver. Thanks for showing the wiring diagrams and the logic involved for the Arduino! Best way to help others doing a similar project. Immediate Subscribe and Like... looking forward to seeing more of what you do.

34:38 love it Thanks for the vid 49:08 blew my mind. Using this today!

Great video......now include, horizontal feed, toe board, dogs up and down clamp, log turn and board return ..... Been want to do this for years....thanks

Very interesting Arduino project, thank you. I am thinking if it make sense to anchor the power cable at the mid-point of the track and run the cable to the top of the saw with some slack, and do away with the yellow retractable reel.

Those plastic ammo cans are great for instruments and panels.

First off let me say I love you kids and was getting a bit concerned not seeing a video from y'all. After watching this video I understand.. John I'm a old man and I'm computer dumb. I was in highschool when the calculator first came out and only the rich people had them, us poor folk couldn't afford them... LOL... And if you were a rich brat and got caught with one in school you were in a world of HURT!!!! OKAY back to my point.... I would love to say I understood everything you said. BUT I'd be lying!!! BUT I DID FIND IT ALL VERY INTERESTING. Yes I watched every minute of the video all the way to the bloopers. I'm totally impressed with the knowledge God has blessed you with... That kind of learning came hard for me. I could never even understand algebra and many people tried to help me understand it. They called me simple minded. Which means if it ain't simple I ain't understanding it... But the way you explained everything it made since. I didn't really understand it all but it made since... I didn't totally understand how you wrote the program but I understood where the wires went and how the buttons work... You took a $3,000.00 sawmill and turned it into a $10,000.00 sawmill... NOW MY QUESTION IS. HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU FROM START TO STOP TO MAKE IT ALL WORK???? Also that did seem like a hour and forty minute video... Now you can get cutting wood and get it okayed to use and start building y'all's home... Much love and prayers, be blessed in Jesus name...

thanks for the code!

I had an apostrophe. (From the movie Hook with Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman). What if it were possible to turn the entire saw carriage 180 degrees? Your cutting would begin at the drying building with the power cord fully retracted so no need for any brakes. Also as operator you would be standing on the log stop side so you could see if they might interfere with the cuts so no laser eye. This would only work if the log stops wouldn't interfere with the carriage as you cut. The sawdust expelled would end up on the 'front side' of the platform just needing to be raked from time to time. For me I would build a small storage unit on the side of the drying building for blades, gas, tools and other accessories needed for the sawmill. I know it took some 10 hours to think these thoughts but I was also watching some movies in the mean time.😊

Nice build. It seems to me that it woulda been much simpler to use a 12v to 24vdc boost converter (@10 amps) connected to your head battery. This would eliminate the cord reel and the power supply on your kiln. Most importantly it would eliminate any possibility of electrical interruption.

Here’s an idea for your curtain inside the kiln. Not sure if it will work but I know your creative mind will work it out if it will. A retractable awning hung up to your fan wall hanging down. Then mount the crank on the end wall.

I enjoyed this video guys. Electrical systems are not within me. I am a mechanical man as you may have an idea. I see your Background and you make it sound so easy to do.

As Meg say’s pretty impressive John

No Walmart in Lewistown yet, that C code was interesting to see make a device do things.

used that same power supply on some of the backlit LED signs I've made. I've had one fail and others have worked fine.

Great job 😊😊 the only thing that is missing is an LCD screen and rotary pushbutton - like on 3d printers for navigating menu 😊

Impressive build and future tweaking insight. But the only thing you're going to see when operating is that sticker.

Thanks for the update. I was wondering what your core competency had been before you became a master of all trades! I take it that it was programing, I had though perhaps finance. I am going to start with an electric drill and a DRO before making the full on jump to Arduino. All the best.

Now that's very cool.

Just watched first 10 min and I can see you are going too deep in to it. Nothing wrong with it but I am inclining to use simpler methods and DRO was my choice - $100 and one hour installation for more than accurate reading of 0.01 mm, and using increments for individual cuts - with press on the button I am able to see where I am in relation to structure of my bed. At the moment building motorised head with forward and reverse but also with variable speed drive so I can be precise almost like stepping motor can, We talking tolerance within tens of millimetre. Just finished building laser blade level - more than happy for those first cuts estimate. Nice video, will continue to watch it - my thumbs up !

If you could get a 24 volt dc generator with a voltage regulator to run off the engine you could eliminate the power cord coming to the sawmill as well as eliminating the reel you modified to allow the cable to wind up when the saw moves. Then every thing you added would be on the carriage with the saw with no external connections.

Very impressive, John n Meg. I hope it all works as you intend it to. Loved the long video. Thanks for sharing guys. Be safe n well 🙏🏻

i am impressed it's way over my head but have better understanding i assuming all use same basics that they tweak to thier spec

As many times as I've sworn at store-bought lumber, I would be the last to say the stepper is overkill! (but I confess I love the sound of a stepper motor even if it does nothing useful)

Obviously John, Putting Electronic Systems, robotics... together ... Is Your Forte'!

Great john😊

The error you're speaking of has a name. It's called Parallax Error. It's something they taught us in school (in Canada) during shop class. You have to look at the measuring tool straight on, or else you'll regret it later.

seem while back where they used whole bag of cement/concrete placement for road repair where it easily damaged from traffic was also thinking that might work for cellar floor

Cool content John, right up tell you started talking computer nerdy stuff. I’m sure that there are followers of the channel, are interested, I for one, ( well let’s just say I gotta good nap, thanks I needed one. ) now don’t get wrong, this is leading to a bigger and better picture. Y’all stay safe, will be patiently waiting for y’all’s next recording. 👋🏻😎👍🏻

I attended MSU back in the 80s and obtained a degree in Computer Science. We saw a lot of languages but the code you wrote sure looked like the code for internet stuff. I heard about it but I don't know the name of this language.

Good idea, I use Arduino for a lot of things. However I see your task much easier accomplished with a 3D printer or a CNC motherboard and screen as it would add lots of expand ability but is already set up with software to run stepper motors and MEASURE so with the turn of a dial and a button push it does many tasks for you including X, Y, and Z travel with a visual display to boot. amazon $39 and up

Very cool now build a auto feed that you can move the mill back and forth at a desired speed run it chain drive like a simple bicycle chain

You guys are pretty impressive. Where are the comments in that code ...? 🙂

I graduated from MSU with a C.S. degree and what you describe to me is a for loop.

You might want to consider a weather guard on the control box. Is auto feed and retract next on the saw mill?

Nice job!! I wonder how a linear encoder would handle the exposure to the elements... would give a lot of flexibility for board sizes without needing permanent limit switches.

Watched every minute of, some of 2 or 3 times. Amazing the talent. Tried to download the code. No luck. Could download the wiring diagram and the picture of the switches,but could not get the programming. Also ,what if you already have a feed motor and an up and down motor and want to have a sensor on the pulley that comes off the motor for setworks like you programmed? What type sensor and programming would that require ?

Just watched more of video and I got lost after the drill SO by!!!

i am curious of how well it will stand up to repeated use wear and tear was thinking that an heavy air hose reel would be stronger but doesn't have the electric contacts inside

I LIKED #58 IT!!!

Great video with a high impact potential. Just curious if you looked at some of the competitive "setworks" type systems which seem to do the same things yours does but at a faster pace than your arduino based design. Assuming you have been using your system for a number of months are satisfied with its reliability, accuracy and speed capability? Many thanks for taking the time to share your efforts with others.

Is there a way for water to get out of the bottom of the box on the saw in case some manages to get in? Expensive stuff in that box that doesn’t need water around.

Pretty cool stuff. How do you account for kerf in your steps? Did you program it in to the next?

What prevents you from going next level and driving the sawmill w/another stepper motor? (some cables required). Also, nice job including the wiring graphic with the source code.

When you need to bend straight plastic pipe in angles. Heat sand & pour it into the pipe & heat it inside out. Hang inthete you,re great.