Browsing BoingBoing today I saw this article. I clicked through and looked through the photos posted on the auction website. It’s worth a look. Here’s the story: wikipedia Chrysler’s Newark Assembly plant in Newark, Delaware built tanks between 1951 and 1957, and cars between 1957 and 2009, including LeBarons, Town and Countrys, and most recently Dodge Durangoes. The property and facility was bought by the University of Delaware for $24.25M, as it is adjacent to campus. They plan to re purpose the property for research and future expansion. The sale was made in October 2009, now they are auctioning all the industrial machinery, tooling and fixtures that made the plant run. $24.25 seems like really a pittance for such a facility- 3m sq. ft., chock full of everything needed to run a production car manufacturing operation.
The pictures really struck a chord with me. Usually when pictures are available of a closed factory, or other “urban relics”, they’re in rough shape- they’ve been looted and explored, the roof leaks, flaking paint and light filtered through broken windows illuminate scenes of decay and rust. Not here- this factory is fresh and clean. The pictures could have been taken over a holiday when the workers were at home, aside from the acres of empty stock shelves. And indeed- the emptiness is not due to flood or famine or disaster, but just the management deciding to close up. The employees cleaned up one night, and never came back. They’re still around- but not working here anymore.
And equipment! What equipment! Mills, lathes, a Haas VMC and toolroom mill, stock racks and bandsaws, in the manual machine shop alone. All installed in a solid, spacious, well lit facility. Not to even mention any of the production facilities, or testing/QC areas. Auto lifts, toolboxes, spacious rooms with everything needed to do anything with cars.
It’s hard to put my finger on what I’m trying to get at, because the screw-up represented here is so fundamental to the issues I see at play in the world here. Simply, it is insane that everything Chrysler built here is being taken apart and auctioned to the highest bidder. The “service economy” or “knowledge economy” that America has been and is still purposefully heading towards excludes manufacturing. And here we have a university taking over an American manufacturing facility and instantly liquidating everything they can, including facilities that could be used in industrial engineering education programs, and demolishing it, ready to build whatever fits their vision. Research space and future expansion. In order to crank out more B.A.s who don’t understand how the food gets on their table, and B.S.s who don’t know what to do with a wrench or drill.
Even if the plant was built to make cars and the car market has been pulled out from under it doesn’t mean that the established manufacturing facility it left behind is worth most as empty land for a university. Considering capitalism, a plant full of machines should have more earning potential, and should be worth more than a plot of land. And from a “doing what’s right for the world in the face of impending energy crisis that will destroy every foundation of American life” perspective, that plant should be building wind turbines, or electric motorcycles or electric cars or anything to prepare for a post-petro world, regardless of profitability. I would pack up and move to Delaware right now, plus give my right kidney for the chance at using 1/100 of that facility to work on things that I think are important for the future of the world. It really kills me to see this kind of an opportunity taken away. As well, America does not need everyone to go to university, many of the kids “served” by the University of Delaware would be better served by the opportunity to work in the trades, in a facility like the one that is currently being destroyed.
Here’s the list of items to be auctioned (189 6-axis robotic arms. Jeezus).
And here is a mirror of all the images on the auction page.
P.S. 50th post! Woo hoo!
In order to get the Skateboard (Facebreaker) a little less rough I’ve worked on a few things over the last couple weeks. Build process previously documented 
Then stained it to reduce the show-uppiness of shoe marks, to the state in the first picture. I also reworked some of the component mounting strategy, extended and tidied the potbox-controller wire and adjusted the potbox lever. I have ordered a 4QD VTX40-24 controller to replace the Curtis 1208C, for the sake of being able to adjust the acceleration/deceleration ramp rates. Unfortunately that controller will not drop right in with the potbox setup, so I will have to set something up to make it work. I would like some sort of neat-o pistol grip style controller but I’ll probably just slap something together for now.
Laying out the slices
The “IKEA” phase
The paint is Home Depot’s cheapest high gloss interior/exterior, applied by foam roller. It looks really fantastic. Now- for the rest of the theme…
I set this system up for my Northwest roadtrip, as 
One of the prime objectives of the system was to power up my subwoofer system- because what’s a roadtrip without a subwoofer? You may be thinking to yourself, WTF? So let’s get this straight. I mounted an 80watt polycrystaline PV panel to the roof of my station wagon. I ran the power to a charge controller and 90AH SLA battery pack behind the drivers seat. And with the resulting charge I ran a small inverter and a subwoofer amplifier.
It’s anchored to the Camry’s factory-installed roof rails by way of 2×2 lumber, U bolts and plastic tube
Note to self- beware that the distance between the rails on the Camry gets bigger toward the front of the car!
The cable is run forward to the driver side rear footwell
From there, the charge controller and batteries are hooked up, as well as the loads.
I used the parts I had on hand- 2x tired old PowerSonic batteries, a BZ Products M20 charge controller. The terminals are insulated with tape, I neglected to add fuses aside from the charge controller’s internal fuses- not a good idea, but I was lucky and was spared any disasters during my trip.
I put the sub amp under the passenger seat
And used this sweet pushbutton I scavenged from an old junked BMW to activate the amp