moominmolly | (no subject)

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Does anyone around here have the tools to break a Kryptonite U-Lock? Not a bic pen; I'm talking actually destroying the lock and not the bike that's in it.

Unrelated: My email works again! Hooray!

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It should be noted that you'll need electrical power to run said angle-grinder, so if said bike's not near an easy power outlet it could be a problem.

I have a power inverter and a car, is what I was thinking...

I've never used an angle-grinder, but I can generally be trusted with tools (despite appearances to the contrary). Think it'd be okay?

It's a pretty hard to mess up tool, I wouldn't be worried about it. Just so long as you don't hurt yourself with it! (Wear safety glasses and watch for kickback.)

Sweet!

might worry about messing up the bike...

eh, drape a piece of canvas over the bike where sparks might hit. ^_^

I didn't do this when I cut through the kryptonite on my bike with an angle grinder, and didn't have any blemishes on my bike as a result. I was not pointing most of the sparks at the frame (even in cramped quarters you'll have a little room to adjust).

But they have very little mass (smaller than sand) so the don't hold enough heat to really do anything to the paint (which they're only touching for the shortest of time as they bounce off), and while they are sharp they don't have very much momentum. I think that acetylene cutting makes much larger hotter sparks than grinding.

A survey of smaller angle grinders on amazon says they're typically 6-7.5 amps, which is about 700 watts.

A car battery can certainly deliver this much current (they can typically do stuff like 6600 watts for short periods of time) but few inverters can do this much (a "regular" one is probably around 100 watts, and you can get others that do more. A 750 watt inverter can be had for only $50!). You'd have to clip it directly to the battery directly, since cars typically have a fuse on the cigarette lighter that will certainly not let 700 watts through.

How far is it from an outlet?

Surely some burner around there has a generator or deep cycle marine battery and high capacity inverter you could borrow!

It is in fact a 750 watt inverter that I have, I think! I will go investigate and find out how far it is from an outlet, because that's clearly superior -- it's in a parking garage bike cage.

Oh ho ho!

Electric motors typically have a momentary higher draw when starting, so it's conceivable that it'll blow a fuse anyway, but it seems like it may work for a 6A angle grinder. 7.5A is more like 825 watts.

Please post updates!

I have some wicked long extension cords.

6A is a lot of juice; you might want to check what your cords are rated for.

6A is not a lot of juice. Most three-prong extension cords are rated for 13A or 15A. Even a 16 gauge extension cord 100 ft long should be able to handle 10A safely.

However, If you have a real long cord, it's good to uncoil it before drawing any significant power through it though - I once melted the insulation off a cord by running a computer & projector (Probably around 6-7A) on a (fat enough) cord on a spool (for 10 hours, though).

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