BalusterPro vs WeldCalcs

***Named one of the top 100 new home products for 2011 in This Old House magazine*** BalusterPro is a unique and handy tool designed for carpenters and woodworkers, but useful for do-it-yourselfers and homeowners alike. BalusterPro makes the chore of calculating spacing of handrail balusters a quick and elementary task.  It can also be used for any job requiring equal spacing between boards or slats.  Use for picket fences, bench/chair backs,decking or column flutes. ____________________________________ What users are saying: Punch in staircase and handrail dimensions, choose the configuration, and this app saves you the tedium of calculating baluster spacing. Hallelujah. This Old House Magazine BalusterPro is an awesome app and can be used for a multitude of layout tasks, at your desk, on the job, in your car—wherever your phone goes, and it only costs a few bucks. Gary Katz - Master finish carpenter and publisher of THISiscarpentry.com BalusterPro makes building that stairway more heavenly homefixated.com ____________________________________ Instructions for Use: BalusterPro offers calculations for six different common handrail situations which you may encounter.  First, tap the settings button to select your measurement input method, then select the desired type of baluster installation. Use the keypad or sliders to enter your measurements for ‘Run Length’ (distance between the newel posts) and the ‘Baluster Width.’  Finally, just drag the ‘Balusters Needed’ slider to see your required number of balusters. As you adjust the ‘Balusters Needed’ slider, the “Spacing Between Balusters” will simultaneously update. Stop when your ‘Spacing Between Balusters’ meets your specific code requirements. Tap the view button to see a list of all the centers and edges of the balusters. No longer will you need to keep pressing the add button on your traditional calculator to list your centers....they are all shown on one screen! It’s just that simple! You can display your measurements by selecting 1/16, 1/32, or metric on the main screen to determine your precision level. If desired you can also display your result down to 1/64. To do this, once you have done your calculation, simply tap the 'Spacing Between Balusters' result and if possible it will be further reduced down to 1/64 and displayed for 5 seconds. This is handy if you want to cut all your fillets at once as it nearly eliminates cumulative error. Tap the speak buttons at the bottoms of the list columns to have the app speak your measurements. ____________________________________________________________________ Check out my other construction related apps...StairBuilderPro for a stair stringer layout tool & TilePro for a simple tile layout tool. ____________________________________________________________________ Check out the video demo at my website to see BalusterPro in action.

Useful for the preliminary sizing of fillet welds, WeldCalcs is an engineering calculator app that computes the section properties for typical welding patterns used in steel construction. After selecting a Weld Group, the user enters the dimensions for the depth and width, along with any combination of applied forces and moments. The section properties for the Weld Group, including the area, section moduli and polar moment of inertia, are instantly calculated. The app also determines the maximum resisting resultant force and the initial fillet weld size. The calculations performed by the WeldCalcs app are based on the Elastic Method. This approach treats the weld as a line or a group of lines. This allows the weld group section properties to be determined without knowing the size of the weld. The section properties and the applied loads are used in structural engineering formulas to determine the maximum resisting resultant force along the weld. This resultant force is expressed in terms of force per unit length. Since the weld is evaluated based on a force per unit length, in lieu of stresses, combining the effects from different load types (shear, axial, moment, torsion) is easily accomplished. The applied moments and torsions are resolved into vertical, horizontal and axial components and then vectorially combined with the directly applied shears and axial forces. All of the applied loads are assumed to act through the center of gravity of the weld. Therefore, each segment of the weld resists an equal share of the direct shear and axial forces and a proportional share of the bending moments and torsions relative to the weld segment's distance to the neutral axis of the weld group. The fillet weld size is determined by dividing the maximum resisting resultant force by the available strength of the weld. For practicality, both weld dimensions 'd' and 'b' are limited to a minimum value of 0.25 inches and a maximum value of 100 inches. Dimensions 'tw' and 'tf' are limited to a minimum value of 0.125 inches and a maximum value of 10 inches. The applied forces are limited to a range of -99,999 to +99,999 kips. The applied moments are limited to a range of -99,999 to +99,999 kip-inches. The equations for the section properties and resultant forces used by the app are available for reference and manual verification by the user. The general equations for the resisting forces in each quadrant are based on the applied forces and moments all acting in the positive direction.