The Mechanical Philosopher

Out in the Cold Rain and Snow

2012-01-19T10:52:00.000-08:00

Last week it snowed.
Then it melted in a warm rain.

This is the route we had to take to pick the kids up from school yesterday. We didn’t bother making them go today, only one route is open and we didn’t want to chance it getting closed off…

Pictures taken today at the corner of Powderhouse Rd. and Fern Rd. In Philomath.

Glad that we live at 330’ rather than in the floodplain.

A Story Of Failure In Two Pictures.

2012-01-13T10:26:00.000-08:00

Good coverage, checked before the phone was ordered.

Fail. Phone returned.
So our dreams of an inexpensive smartphone plan are dashed…

December Cleaning

2011-12-14T11:54:00.001-08:00

Just a few random pictures and links from December so far. We’ve been absolutely hammered with orders in our Etsy shop (which is wonderful!) so I haven’t had any time for projects or much of anything else.

I did finally start playing around the with Attiny 45 and 85 chips, programming with an Arduino. More on this after the new year.

I had to diagnose a malfunctioning cassette player for Max’s teacher.

4 screws to remove the back.

A couple more to remove the circuit board and the culprit was found, a broken drive belt. I found a “close enough” replacement in my pile of miscellaneous drive belts and the player works.

Henry turned 9 on the 30th of November. We had a big party at the Wacky Bounce.
Some links:

A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design
Art Of Money Getting (P.T. Barnum)
Tinplate Girl
Moroccan Bow Lathe (Amazing!)
William Gibson, The Art Of Fiction No. 211
Salae Logic Analyzers (I really want one)
There’s a new Humble Indie Bundle, I bought it just for Super Meatboy.
Gamma World: Over 30 years of I have no idea what is going on.
One of the VP’s at Parallax bought a lathe and was kind enough to send me Propeller and Basic Stamp dev. kits along with some sensors. Very generous and I hope to play with them soon. The Propeller chip is amazing.
Innovation Starvation by Neal Stephenson

Machinery’s Handbook 27 PDF CD Problems

2011-11-18T09:40:00.001-08:00

So I tried to fire up my Machinery’s Handbook 27 PDF the other day and it kept giving me an error whenever I tried to view the encrypted/protected content. I assume it had something to do with the current upgrade of Adobe Reader X.

“FILEOPEN CLOCK FAILURE(1):
You must re-install permission to open this document.:

This was a new problem. I clicked “OK” and got this:

The buttons sent me to the Industrial Press website. So I did some googling and tried installing the latest FOPEN plugin from the Industrial Press resource webpage (you can’t use the FOPEN plugin from FileOpen, something I learned the last time I had problems with the Handbook). All the suggestions on the Industrial Press troubleshooting page concerned much earlier versions of Adobe Reader.
So I fired off an email to Industrial Press from their contact page form. I got no answer back. Then I dug through my last email I sent about issues with Adobe Reader 8 (in 2008) and tried “Info@IndustrialPress.com” which worked as I received a reply almost immediately:
Unfortunately, some changes in Adobe Reader X and Acrobat X are incompatable with Machinery's Handbook 27. That is the reason you are getting the message "FILEOPEN LOCK FAILURE(1)". You are likely to get this even if you have your Handbook authorized. The symptoms are most severe in Reader X. Problems in Acrobat X may not be as severe, although there will probably be some.

It is possible to get your 27th edition Handbook working in Reader X, however, it is likely that you will not be able to print, and you may have other issues as well such as occasional or frequent crashes of Reader X.

To get the Handbook to open in Reader X, open Reader, go to
Edit->Preferences and select the General category. At the bottom right of the Preferences dialog box, look for the Application Startup area and find the checkbox for "Enable Protected Mode at Startup" and uncheck it, then close Preferences and close Reader. Reopen Reader and try to open the Handbook. It should open this time. You also need to make sure that you have the plugin from the link below installed: http://new.industrialpress.com/sites/all/applications/foClientInstaller.exe

So I opened up Adobe Reader X and unchecked the “Enable Protected Mode at startup” box.

Notice the warning. Adobe has gone to great lengths to make Reader somewhat safer, the Protected mode is the latest attempt. So I guess I’m no longer as safe as I could be. Probably the best thing is to disable it only when reading Machinery’s Handbook.

Yup, “Print” is greyed out. This is a pain as I often print out tables from the handbook for use when doing 3D modeling or making something in the shop. So I’ll have to take a screen capture or copy and paste in order to then print a part of the Handbook out for offline use.
I emailed Industrial Press back, asking a few questions:

Does the 28th edition work without these problems in Reader X?

What's the long term plan for handling the fact that Adobe Reader will be
updating over time? It seems that as Adobe updates Reader this problem could
occur with future versions of the CD rom and really reduce the life of the
product (compared to the print version which obviously has no such
problems).

And again received a quick reply:

The 28th Edition, and the upcoming 29th Edition do work with Adobe X.Unfortunately, we can't help when an update from Adobe causes theseproblems, but we'll always do our best to try to fix them. These problemsalso generally come to pass in aging versions of the Machinery's Handbook.At this point, we're about 8 years past the release of the 27th Edition, sounfortunately, that software is beginning to show its age.

So that’s the ultimate problem. Industrial Press considers the CD version of Machinery’s Handbook to be software, not a book. Books last almost forever, when physically taken care of. Software does not. I applaud their desire to continue to support the 27th edition as best they can. But I can’t help but feel that issues like this are a large part of why people pirate e-books. I should mention that I did receive this CD for free a while back from Industrial Press as way of thanks for using a blurb of mine. So I can’t really complain. Hopefully this will help someone else having this problem, at least.

Autodesk 123D Catch - Mini Review.

2011-11-08T14:15:00.000-08:00

Autodesk released the Beta of their 123D Catch 3D scanning software. I figured I’d take it for a spin. It’s supposed to leverage the “power and speed of cloud computing” by taking a number of pictures shot around an object, uploading (to the cloud!) and processing into a 3D mesh.
I do want to say that this is profoundly cool software and any quibbles (of which there are a few) I have are dwarfed by the fact that it’s a free way to generate a 3D mesh using only a digital camera. That’s amazing and Autodesk should be proud. However…
My first complaint is that the only manual consists of four short youtube videos. This is all too common so it’s not only Autodesk’s fault. But seriously, you can’t get a couple of paragraphs and screen captures together? Of course I couldn’t be bothered doing the same, so you just get some random pictures as I go along. Their help forum is empty right now but I figure it will get going as people try the software.

This is the first test subject, a dusty ceramic chicken. The video was clear that a flash is not supposed to be used. This picture is actually brighter than the original as I deleted the darker original during a tantrum earlier…

A series of pictures, 30MB total, were uploaded.

After 15 minutes I was greeted with this notice.

I checked the pictures and they seemed much darker than what I had uploaded. So I bumped up the brightness and uploaded them again (15 more minutes). I think it would be good if the software had a preliminary check of the pictures to determine if they are below a threshold for brightness before uploading… I have 6Mbs DSL but my upload speed is only about .4Mbps. This is the #1 problem with cloud computing, at least on the consumer level, slow upload times.

Success! As you can see not only was the chicken captured, but parts of my desk…

But I wasn’t done. I had to select the chicken and upload it again to generate a “medium” mesh, but that only took 5 minutes.

Thankfully the software allows export in .DWG and .OBJ formats. They could have gone with something that required an Autodesk product but they didn’t. I chose .OBJ and opened the file in Rhino.

It’s a mesh!

Trimming the mesh shows a pretty low resolution scan. Notice the magenta edges – I used Rhino to show the “naked” edges. The mesh is pretty good and would require little work to make “watertight”.

Not content with the detail I made a new mesh, selecting the maximum resolution. This only took about 6 minutes to process. It certainly does look more like a chicken. I should note that the texture came through in Rhino as well.

The only problem is that it hides the low level of detail, or rather makes it seem more detailed than it is.

So I decided to try scanning a pistol grip. I had previously painted it flat white for an attempt at laser scanning. This is the level of brightness that I uploaded. I took the picture outside (It’s overcast) and I figured it would work…

After 30 minutes I was notified it had failed… Arghh..

Again the pictures seem much darker in the software.

So I bumped up the brightness and contrast in Paint.net. I also reduced the picture size so that upload would take less time.

Success after only 15 minutes…

Not a bad mesh.

The nice thing about having the texture is that it will make it easier to trim the mesh away. See what I mean about the texture making the mesh seem more detailed than it actually is? The checkering of the grip just didn’t come through in the mesh at all but seems to exist with the texture overlaid.

I’m sure as I play with the software I’ll learn (although I’d love to have some help from Autodesk in the form of more detailed instructions…) what it needs in the way of picture quality and brightness as well as how to capture the maximum detail. Whether it’s enough for high resolution scans of small objects remains to be seen.

Making A Third Hand Jig

2011-10-23T10:46:00.001-07:00

This is a great lesson in why it is often easier and cheaper to buy something than make it. You can get a 3rd Hand Jig for under $7.00 which functions reasonably well and even has a magnifying glass. But as with many things that is too easy a route to take.

Some 3/8” steel chucked in the lathe.

Groove cut.

A Shaplane radius tool is used to turn a ball end. Setup takes a while but once done it’s easy to get relatively uniform results.

The finish is pretty good.

One down…

I needed 6 but I cut seven, just in case. Notice there’s a bit of variation in the turned down shanks. As you can see by the precision CAD drawing I’m not that worried about tolerances. The goal was to make a functional third hand tool as rapidly as possible.

Dressing the stem a bit.

Drilling a hold for a push fit on the shank of an alligator clip.

The alligator clip ends are a bit springy so they will stay put in the hole. Later I may make a better tweezer to replace them.

Setting up the vise so a hole is drilled on center. The ruler trick works well.

Drilling…

Three pieces with 1/4” holes.

Drilling for a #8 tapped hole.

Three pieces done.

Drilled and reamed a 5/8” piece of steel rod for the shank of one of the ball pieces.

Drilled for a #8 screw.

Another part done.

Drilling three pairs of steel plates. Two holes for the balls and one for the #8 screw (one piece clearance, the other tapped.)

Tapping.

Almost done, sort of.

Matched pairs screwed together.

Ends radiused for clearance and aesthetics.

Drilling some brass rod for a press fit on the heads of the #8 SHCS.

Knurling.

Cutoff.

Knurled heads pressed on the screws. Note that I sanded and polished the parts.

All together. It mounts in one of my Panavise bases. Once tension was set on the screws it holds well in position and adjusts relatively easily. Whole thing took about 4 hours not including the time spent cleaning up the shop afterwards…

Links I’ve Found Useful Lately

2011-10-14T15:44:00.001-07:00

Just a dump of links I’ve found useful or interesting lately.

How to install Android-x86 in Virtualbox
Totally pointless but fun.(?)
French Pneumatic Mortars in WWI
Connecting to NXT on Windows 7 64 bit
This was really helpful when I installed my old Lego Mindstorms NXT software on the new PC.
The Braun Lectron
Stylish electronic learning tool.
DC Motor Control Using an H-Bridge
I am hoping to play with it this weekend, have the ICs.
Control a DC motor with Arduino and L293D chip
Another helpful page on the subject.
Programming an ATtiny with Arduino
Via Make:, this is also on the plate for a weekend project. I just received the ATtiny45 and ATtiny85 ICs from Mouser yesterday. My clever plan is to combine it with the H-Bridge and make a PWM case fan control. Failure expected.
Beaver Bar Camp 8
I’m probably going to climb out of my shell and check it out.
Vintage Computing and Gaming Blog

I Used All Three Lathes

2011-09-27T17:25:00.001-07:00

Henry’s teacher from last year had me come in and get her classroom printer hooked up. I noticed a box sitting on her desk.

I asked what it was and she said it was one of the listening stations and the nuts holding some of the audio jacks in had been lost. She was unable to find replacement nuts. Apparently these stations are expensive.

I took it home to fix.

Each of the audio jacks is threaded for the retaining nut.
I measured with calipers. So it’s probably a 6mm thread. A little research and measurement to check and I was left with a 6mm x 0.5mm pitch thread. Unfortunately I did not have a tap that size.

I drilled a piece of brass and gave it a straight knurl on the South Bend (lathe #1).

Set up the largely unused Jet 920 lathe (lathe #2) to cut the metric thread.
Yes, I single pointed the threads. I did about a 1/4” of thread at a time, then removed the piece and…

Cut off a couple of nuts (on the Taig, lathe #3). I did this four times to make the required nuts and a couple of spares.

I put the jacks in place, I used blue loctite on the threads just in case. The two spares were taped inside the case with a note.

Mine aren’t chrome plated and don’t have a spanner slot, but there you are. I need to find a source for the nuts or just buy a tap. I assume this is a problem that will arise again.
I also had two cap-plugs samples that I squirrelled away years ago to put on the two exposed potentiometer shafts.

Salad Spinner Disassembly

2011-09-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

The salad spinner cord broke.

You can see the problem…

There’s a plastic two eared nut on the underside of the top.

I had to drill out the plastic plugs that hid the screws.

And removed the screws.

Then more screws to get at the mechanism.

The gears. The small gear functions as a ratchet.

It slides in that slot. Notice all the fuzz from the frayed cord.

The spindle is removed.

The hub contains a flat spring.
The cord has a knot at the end and another knot to keep you from pulling the cord out too far.

The handle was the only part that I had to destructively disassemble. It was pressed together and seemingly glued.
I decided the easiest thing was to lash the two halves together. I might have a friend print up a replacement on his Makerbot or I may just live with it as is.

By the faint green blur around the periphery you can see that it functions. The replacement cord is the same that we use for our jewelry. It’s pretty tough and we have a ton of it laying around.

Monthly Miscellany

2011-09-22T15:55:00.001-07:00

Just some pictures from the past 30 days…

Henry installed a new toilet seat all by himself (although I did hacksaw off the old seat bolts…)

Hard at work.

Philippe (and Jeff) visited and made us dinner.

I tested the readings from an accelerometer at different angles. (more to come on this later, possibly).

Henry tested Windows 8 (running in Virtualbox) while eating an Oreo.

I needed to mount a hard drive in a hard drive cage that used mounting rails. As it was a used case the rails weren’t included. So I used rubber instead.

Seems to work fine.
Next post will be a tremendously exciting tale about repairing a salad spinner.

Interlink SuperMouse

2011-09-13T11:28:00.001-07:00

Perusing the junk I don’t need at our local Goodwill I spied this odd mouse.

Being a sucker for vintage computing peripherals I had to buy it ($2.99)

It has two buttons and a pad that seems to function as a joystick.

I began my investigation by unscrewing the bottom.

Which yielded nothing except a rusty weight attached to the bottom plate.

Then I discovered that the mouse was a two piece unit! It just snaps off the base. Note the two channels for the cord in the base, allowing you to orient it with the buttons at the top or bottom.

It’s an Interlink Electronics SuperMouse. There isn’t a whole lot of information available on the internet about this mouse. I found the CDW page that shows it as being discontinued as of Friday, May 16, 2003. Scrolling down, the page has a tiny bit of detail:

On your desk, on the go, in your hand, three mice in one
SuperMouse is a mouse for today's computing realities--long hours on crowded desktops and quick setups on cramped tray tables. Its desktop cradle fits comfortably under your hand, positioning your fingers for hours of effortless pointing with none of the repetitive wrist motion common to desktop mice and trackballs. SuperMouse is also versatile. Use it at your desk, or pop the portable unit out of the cradle and take it on the road with your notebook computer. It can even be used a a hand-held pointing device. SuperMouse is one tough mouse. It has no rolling parts or mechanical assemblies to gum up or wear out and comes with a limited lifetime warranty.
Compatibility
OS Compatibility: Windows 3.1, 95, 98
Keyboard and mouse options
Connector : Serial or PS/2
Ergonomic : Yes
Mouse scrolling device : None
Mouse type : Mouse
Number of buttons : 2-button
Number of keys : 0
Wireless : No
Warranty Information
Warranty Terms: Limited lifetime warranty

I pried the rubber pads off of the bottom and found two screws that hold the unit together. As you can see, it’s fairly simple.

Those two posts actuate little clicky switches on the PCB. The rubber pad bears against the central pointing unit.

The rubber pad does not make electrical contact with the PCB. I'm not sure whether it functions as a simple switch or as I think is more likely is a pressure sensitive device. There are a number of patents referenced on later Interlink products that seem to hint at that, especially the one for a Force Sensing Pointing Device. But I don't know for sure. If you are insane you can look at patents#: 6084572, 4489302, 5296837, 5302936, 5659334, 5828363.

Notice the traces are labelled E,S,W,N and if you follow the traces you can see how each one covers a triangular field overlapping with the adjacent ones.

The underside of the PCB has the connection for the serial cable, resistors, capacitors and a couple of chips.

I assume this is the one that does the grunt work.
I hooked it up to one of my old PCs and found it worked but was somewhat unresponsive. You can scroll up/down/right/left easily but diagonal scrolling was slow. Of course I didn’t have the proper driver and Windows XP just identified it as a generic device. So it’s hard to say how well it worked on a machine running Windows 98 and what extra features the software enabled. In any case a neat little vintage peripheral.

Cleaning Up The Month’s Photos.

2011-08-29T13:38:00.001-07:00

Just putting up some random pictures from August.

My bench went through several different messes.

The trundle bed I was assembling had an unthreaded nut. No problem to tap it, but normal people would have been annoyed.

A sunny day at the Oregon coast.

Children playing in the sand.

A tiny landslide.

Brothers.

Hannah, Felice and Anne.

I like taking pictures of people taking pictures, Eric.

I also like taking pictures when people aren’t posing correctly.

Henry noticed something hanging above the gate to the driveway…

A bald faced hornet’s nest…yikes!!!! Jim DiGiulio will be coming to vacuum it up.

Steam Up 2011

2011-08-14T14:13:00.001-07:00

One of our family traditions is the annual visit to the Brooks Steam Up.
The Flying Merkel.

The annual picture in front of the big cat.

I love Stirling engines and fans.

Recoiless rifle jeep.

Tanks for the memories.

On the electric trolley.

We had a great day.

Remote Power Switch For A Computer, Part 2

2011-07-29T16:18:00.001-07:00

UPDATE! See end of post for code change made on 08/04/11
With the circuit working al I needed to do was install it on the HTPC…

For power I could have grafted into the ATX power supply wires as Simerec does (PDF) but I found that the Biostar A780L3L motherboard I used in the HTPC could supply standby power to the USB ports by moving a jumper. This is obviously much easier. Another alternative is to use a powered USB hub to power the Teensy when the PC is off. Notice the yellow power cord attached to the motherboard as well.

The HTPC pulled apart for testing, as you can see from the TV, the PC is on.

Satisfied that it all works, I set to work duplicating the circuit on a prototyping perfboard from Radioshack. Note that I have a couple of Teensy-s. $16.00 each is so cheap for what they can do.

I soldered pins to the Teensy (for $3.00 they will do it for you…) and soldered headers to the perfboard.

Soldering…I am still learning this skill.

Slowly moving everything over. Note I had to re-label the perfboard as I didn’t pay attention and had it backwards…

All done. Please don’t make fun of my poor layout.

Testing again. Such a mess in my shop.

The last item was a “Y” cable for the power switch so I could either power on the PC with the switch or the remote. I used some ethernet twisted pair wires.

I needed a male pin.

Bent…

Soldered and heat shrink to insulate the wires from each other.

Then some heat shrink over that to stiffen it up.

The finished cable.

I mounted the board on a piece of aluminum. This is semi-temporary until I figure out an enclosure. I’m thinking a transparent plastic box.

Set up on top of the HTPC. I could mount it inside the empty 5.25” bay, but I want to leave it out. I can change things, easily reprogram, etc. as well as having a monument to my poor layout and soldering skills.

The power cable snakes in through a vent in the side.

Now I just turn the PC on while laying ensconced in the comfort of my bed. It’s a lot of work being lazy.
I added some functionality to the code. The remote also emulates the arrow keys, enter key, mouse (R/L, U/D only), right and left mouse buttons, scroll wheel, CTRL++ and CTRL—for screen magnification in Internet Explorer (and other browsers), it will also launch Internet Explorer directly into Hulu, launch Media Center, Media Player. I still have a few buttons left over.

Here’s the code as it stands right now:

#include <IRremote.h>

const int RECV_PIN = 6; // pin that the IR receiver is on
IRrecv irrecv(RECV_PIN); // receive IR on that pin

decode_results results; // the code sent by the remote
int relayPin = 1; // pin out for relay pin and LED

void setup()
{
Serial.begin(9600);
irrecv.enableIRIn(); // Start the receiver

pinMode(relayPin, OUTPUT); // set the pin for the relay.
digitalWrite(relayPin, LOW); // turn off the relay.
}

void loop() { // main program loop

if (irrecv.decode(&results)) { // if a result is received, put it in results

if (results.value != 0) { //this prints the remote value to the serial monitor if value received.
Serial.println(results.value); // print to serial monitor
delay(25); // 25ms delay. This can probably be decreased to 16ms per 62.5kps, but I don't know if I want it polling constantly?
}

if (results.value == 332 results.value == 2380) { // Power button pressed
digitalWrite(relayPin, HIGH); // actuate the relay to turn on or off power
delay(500); // waits for a second
digitalWrite(relayPin, LOW); // stop relay
delay(10000); // waits for 10 seconds, seems like more.
}

if (results.value == 2421 results.value == 373) { // Play, UP arrow
Keyboard.set_key1(KEY_UP); // set key up arrow
Keyboard.send_now(); //send up arrow
Keyboard.set_key1(0); // set key blank
Keyboard.send_now(); // release key
}

if (results.value == 2422 results.value == 374) { // stop, DOWN arrow
Keyboard.set_key1(KEY_DOWN); // set key down arrow
Keyboard.send_now(); //send up arrow
Keyboard.set_key1(0); // set key blank
Keyboard.send_now(); // release key
}

if (results.value == 2418 results.value == 370) { // rew left arrow
Keyboard.set_key1(KEY_LEFT); // set key left arrow
Keyboard.send_now(); //send left arrow
Keyboard.set_key1(0); // set key blank
Keyboard.send_now(); // release key
}

if (results.value == 2420 results.value == 372) { // FFWD right arrow
Keyboard.set_key1(KEY_RIGHT); // set key right arrow
Keyboard.send_now(); //send right arrow
Keyboard.set_key1(0); // set key blank
Keyboard.send_now(); // release key
}

if (results.value == 2397 results.value == 349) { // menu open IE with HULU
Keyboard.set_modifier(MODIFIERKEY_GUI); // winkey
Keyboard.send_now(); //send keypress
Keyboard.set_key1(KEY_R); // winkey+r
Keyboard.send_now(); //send send keypress
Keyboard.set_modifier(0); // set winkey key blank
Keyboard.set_key1(0); // set key blank
Keyboard.send_now(); // release key
delay(100); // 100ms delay. seems to work.
Keyboard.println("iexplore www.hulu.com"); // enter that in the run box as a line "ln"
}

if (results.value == 2417 results.value == 369) { // clear open media player.
Keyboard.set_modifier(MODIFIERKEY_GUI); // winkey
Keyboard.send_now(); //send keypress
Keyboard.set_key1(KEY_R); // winkey+r
Keyboard.send_now(); //send send keypress
Keyboard.set_modifier(0); // set winkey key blank
Keyboard.set_key1(0); // set key blank
Keyboard.send_now(); // release key
delay(100); // 100ms delay. seems to work.
Keyboard.println("wmplayer"); // enter that in the run box as a line "ln"
delay(100); // 100ms delay. seems to work.
}

if (results.value == 2383 results.value == 335) { // status/exit hit enter!
Keyboard.set_key1(KEY_ENTER); // enter
Keyboard.send_now(); //send send keypress
Keyboard.set_key1(0); // set key blank
Keyboard.send_now(); // release key
}

//mouse! A very slow and annoying mouse...
if (results.value == 2370 results.value == 322) { // 2 up
Mouse.move(0, -10);
}

if (results.value == 2376 results.value == 328) { // 8 down
Mouse.move(0, 10);
}

if (results.value == 2372 results.value == 324) { // 4 left
Mouse.move(-10, 0);
}

if (results.value == 2374 results.value == 326) { // 6 right
Mouse.move(10, 0);
}

if (results.value == 2369 results.value == 321) { // 1 left click
Mouse.set_buttons(1, 0, 0);
Mouse.set_buttons(0, 0, 0);
delay(100); // 100ms delay. seems to work.
}

if (results.value == 2371 results.value == 323) { // 3 right click
Mouse.set_buttons(0, 0, 1);
Mouse.set_buttons(0, 0, 0);
delay(100); // 100ms delay. seems to work.
}

if (results.value == 2400 results.value == 352) { // ch up scroll up
Mouse.scroll(3);
}

if (results.value == 2401 results.value == 353) { // ch down scroll down
Mouse.scroll(-3);
}

//end mouse!

if (results.value == 2423 results.value == 375) { // rec/otr opens media center, somewhat convoluted
Keyboard.set_modifier(MODIFIERKEY_GUI); // winkey
Keyboard.send_now(); //send keypress
Keyboard.set_key1(KEY_R); // winkey+r
Keyboard.send_now(); //send send keypress
Keyboard.set_modifier(0); // set winkey key blank
Keyboard.set_key1(0); // set key blank
Keyboard.send_now(); // release key
delay(100); // 100ms delay. seems to work.
Keyboard.print("%windir%"); // enter that in the run box as a line "ln"
Keyboard.set_key1(KEY_BACKSLASH); // backslash
Keyboard.send_now(); //send send keypress
Keyboard.set_key1(0); // set key blank
Keyboard.send_now(); // release key
Keyboard.print("ehome"); // enter that in the run box as a line "ln"
Keyboard.set_key1(KEY_BACKSLASH); // backslash
Keyboard.send_now(); //send send keypress
Keyboard.set_key1(0); // set key blank
Keyboard.send_now(); // release key
Keyboard.println("ehshell.exe"); // enter that in the run box as a line "ln"
delay(100); // 100ms delay. seems to work.
}

if (results.value == 2426 results.value == 378) { // speed ctrl-- size
Keyboard.set_modifier(MODIFIERKEY_CTRL); // ctrl
Keyboard.send_now(); //send keypress
Keyboard.set_key1(KEY_MINUS); // - key
Keyboard.send_now(); //send keypress
Keyboard.send_now(); //send keypress second time
Keyboard.set_modifier(0); // set ctrl key blank
Keyboard.set_key1(0); // set key blank
Keyboard.send_now(); // release key
delay(100); // 100ms delay. seems to work.
}

if (results.value == 2409 results.value == 361) { // still/pause ctrl++ size
Keyboard.set_modifier(MODIFIERKEY_CTRL); // ctrl
Keyboard.send_now(); //send keypress
Keyboard.set_key1(KEYPAD_PLUS); // + key
Keyboard.send_now(); //send keypress
Keyboard.send_now(); //send keypress second time
Keyboard.set_modifier(0); // set ctrl key blank
Keyboard.set_key1(0); // set key blank
Keyboard.send_now(); // release key
delay(100); // 100ms delay. seems to work.
}

irrecv.resume(); // Receive the next value
}

}

This keyboard and mouse emulation can be used for projects like the Awesome Button or something more evil like the Rubber Ducky. The Hak5 Rubber Ducky project is where I first heard of the Teensy. This same circuit could be used for all sorts of automation and/or practical jokes. I love the Teensy.

EDIT 08/04/11
I found that the remote wasn't working every day or so. I spent some time puzzling over this, testing all the wiring, but couldn't find a solution. Then it occurred to me that I was writing to the serial monitor every time it received an IR code. This could somehow fill whatever output buffer it has up. I was unable to find any reference to a problem like this, and it still may not be the problem, but commenting out this line:

Serial.println(results.value); // print to serial monitor

seems to have fixed the problem and I have not had a similar failure to communicate. Checking what other remotes were picked up, it seems as though the Roku remote puts out a very large number each keypress, I forget exactly but at least 6 or 7 digits. I often press the Roku buttons 20 or 30 times when surfing at night. So that's a lot of data that might have been piling up. Or not. I'll keep an eye on the problem over time. (As of 08/16 it's working perfectly!)

Remote Power Switch For A Computer, Part 1

2011-07-28T13:11:00.001-07:00

My friends know that I am an incredibly lazy person. So lazy that one of my irritations is that the HTPC (Home Theater PC) in the bedroom requires that I actually get up out of bed to turn it on. This is fine if I remember to switch it on before getting into bed, but most of the time I only remember after I have swaddled myself in blankets.

The solution of course is to have a way to use a remote control of some sort to turn on the PC. The first option is to not shut down the PC at all, but leave it in “sleep” mode. This is probably the most sensible option and I believe that I could set it up so a key press from my beloved IOGear wireless keyboard would accomplish it. But I don’t like sleep mode. I like computers to either be on or off. I’m cranky and old fashioned.

So how then to power on a PC remotely? There are again a couple of options. I could use Wake Over LAN to start it with the laptop I keep on the bedside table (roll your eyes). I could use a PS2 keyboard or mouse to power it on remotely, which would entail some wires strewn across the floor. I tried to get the USB wireless keyboard to power it on but was unsuccessful. Possibly I should have tried harder, but I wanted to try something different.

So my option is an IR remote controlled power switch. The nice folks at Simerec will sell you a kit or assembled IR remote power switch for the PC for about $30.00. This is probably the best option so you should just stop reading this post now and head on over there and order one.

You’re still here? Fine, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I did not buy the Simerec switch because I’m somewhat cheap (although in the end this project has cost 10 times that amount as it has spurred on new-hobby-buying-syndrome). I also was fresh from the high of Henry and my Awesome Button project and thought that a Teensy would fit the bill.

The Teensy can use Ken Shirriff’s IR remote library to receive and transmit IR remote control signals. So all I needed was to get an IR receiver and remote, figure out how to wire it up to receive input, figure out how to wire a relay to turn the PC power switch on, and program the thing. Easy! It will practically make itself!

So where to get the IR remote components? Well I happened to have several VCR’s laying around in case the sole surviving unit breaks (not that the kids have watched any VHS movies in the past year). So I decided to take one apart…This was too much fun to take pictures of. I was able to use my Edsyn solder suckerthat I bought a few years ago at the thrift store “because it looked handy”, to remove the IR receiver and a whole bunch of other useful bits.

The VCR bits. All non electronics went in the trash, anything left over from this pile will ~~go to the electronics recycling dumpster~~ be hoarded.

The bonus was a pile of little clicky switches. Those cost about 20 cents a piece! Awesome. Plus some other stuff I might use.

The Teensy on a breadboard with the IR receiver and a LED wired up to let me know if the power button is being pressed.

Another view. I wasn’t sure whether I should leave that shielding on the IR receiver.

The receiver gets power from the Teensy on one pin, the other is hooked to ground and the middle one is hooked to an input pin.

This is what the code looks like:

#include <IRremote.h>

const int RECV_PIN = 6; // pin that the IR receiver is on

IRrecv irrecv(RECV_PIN); // receive IR on that pin

decode_results results; // the code sent by the remote

int relayPin = 1; // pin out for relay pin and LED

void setup()
{
Serial.begin(9600);
irrecv.enableIRIn(); // Start the receiver
irrecv.blink13(true);

pinMode(relayPin, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(relayPin, LOW);
}

void loop() {

if (irrecv.decode(&results)) {

if (results.value != 0) {
Serial.println(results.value);
}

if (results.value == 332 results.value == 2380) {
Serial.println("power");
digitalWrite(relayPin, HIGH);
delay(1000); // waits for a second
digitalWrite(relayPin, LOW);
delay(10000); // waits for 10 seconds
}

irrecv.resume(); // Receive the next value
}

}

The code is simple and I’m not going to go into great detail about it but basically it starts the receiver, then in the main loop sees if a button press has been received. If the press is received it prints that value to the serial monitor (which makes it easy to decode each button as it is pressed). If the code received is either 332 or 2380 then the power switch has been pressed. You can look into IR protocols and learn more if you want. It is fascinating. If the power switch has been pressed then it sets the relay pin high for one second, then turns it off and waits ten seconds before resuming the loop. I did this to prevent accidentally turning it on and off in rapid succession.

Here are two short, grainy and boring videos of my turning the LED on and off as well as fading it (not applicable to this project, but neat nonetheless).

Next I had to figure out how to run a relay. Apparently with relays you need to protect the actuating circuit from the collapse of the coil field (snore…) which dumps a ton of voltage the wrong way ‘round into your circuit. This would be bad. So I found a schematic (PDF) that showed the parts I needed to avoid the problem.

LED off…

LED on…The button is mimicking the 5V signal from the Teensy. The LED is standing in for the PC power switch.

It’s a simple circuit. The 1N4005 diode was scavenged from the VCR. My suffering mentor (Thanks Gregg!) told me that a 1N4005 would work as well as a 1N4004.

This will make it more or less clear. Ok, maybe it won’t. This is the relay I used.

Then I grafted the IR receiver breadboard to the relay breadboard.

Then I carefully moved all the IR components to the one breadboard. I tested all along the way to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes.

An extension cord I whipped up runs from the PC power switch header to the breadboard.

Plugged into the breadboard.

Did it work? Yes. See this incredibly boring and thankfully short video:

More to come in part 2…

Quick and Ugly Stroller Repair

2011-07-24T21:15:00.001-07:00

Friends of ours are going to be needing their old abused stroller soon. Unfortunately there’s a stress crack that broke the frame.

It would probably be a better idea to weld it, but I don’t have an easy way of welding aluminum, nor am I a particularly skilled welder.

I sketched out a plate.

Sawn and about to be copied.

Filing the contours of the two pieces to match.
Almost done…

Two pieces. I figure sandwiching the stroller frame between the pieces will hold it together for at least a couple of years.

Test fit.

Hole locations marked.

Drilled. Note that I did the holes with the pieces clamped together.
Test fit. I used #10-32 stainless button head cap screws and painted nylon insert lock nuts. It shouldn’t come apart although if these guys could crack the frame…

I hit it with some black spray paint so it wouldn’t be as noticeable.

Disassembly of a Logitech Quick Cam

2011-07-16T16:44:00.000-07:00

I picked up this Logitech Quick Cam Chat for Skype (worst product name contender) at the local Goodwill for $2.00 the other day. This is the third Logitech webcam I’ve bought for $2.00 or less in the past year. This was the first that didn’t work well. The image was incredibly blurry. So I figured I would take it apart and see what the problem was.

I started with the obvious screw.

And two not so obvious screws under the rubber pad.

Unfortunately they only held the stand together.

So I looked for the next obvious ingress, a notch in the back of the shell.

A quick pry with a jewelers screwdriver and the blue piece came off.

There’s a light pipe that transmits the light from the LED that tells you the camera is on.

The main guts removed.

The lens focusing adjustment ring slips off.

I unscrewed the lens and cleaned it with a precision optical tissue (one of those wipes for glasses) and some rubbing alcohol.

I screwed the lens back on and hooked the camera up to my shop PC. I adjusted the focus and…

A nice grainy, yet typical for the era, webcam picture (of me taking a picture of the webcam with my camera while it takes a picture of me taking a pic of it…) I think that what had happened is that somehow the lens had been screwed in too much, jamming it somehow. In any case it works.

A Nice Picture and A Few Links

2011-07-13T16:59:00.000-07:00

I took this picture of Felice for an upcoming blog feature (details later if it materializes). I think it came out well. She’s really hard to photograph as she usually starts cracking up by the second or third picture.

Some Links:

Neverball, which is sort of an heir to Marble Madness. It’s free and somewhat fun but not nearly as sinister.

Learn Python The Hard Way, a free (the HTML version) set of somewhat harsh and uncompromising lessons in the Python computer language.

The Wikipedia entry on the TRS connector (AKA that thingy at the end of your headphones you plug into the thing the music comes out of.)

Sorting algorithms as folk dances. Watch them all and try and tell me you’re not a nerd.

Soldering Is Easy (PDF). It’s not that easy.

Soldering Iron Stand

2011-07-12T16:29:00.001-07:00

It became apparent that I needed a better soldering iron stand. Rather than buying one for around $5.00 I decided to waste the better part of an hour and probably $5.00 in materials making one.

A small tapered mandrel held in the vise

Wrapping some 12 gauge brass wire around the mandrel. Felice uses this wire to make brass shawl pins so I stole some from our large supply.

The springy thingy.

I set up the mill with a piece of scrap aluminum.

Milling a pocket for the sponge.

Almost done.

A piece of sponge fitted.

Drilling the hole for the springy thingy.Testing.

Testing.

Drilling a hole in the end of the stand.

Tapping #10-32 threads.

Cleaning up all the surfaces. This could have been done first but I didn’t think I ‘d care about how it looked when the project began. Then I did.

The setscrew locks the springy thingy in place.

Now I can solder more easily and worry less about the iron rolling off of the bench. I might tweak the angle of the coil to the base, not sure yet.

Repairing a Targus Laptop Cooler

2011-07-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

I was visiting with our friends Amy and Ryan the other day and noticed a laptop cooler in their garage (a Targus Lap Chill Mat). I asked whether it was any good (as I’m considering getting one for my laptop) and Ryan said that it was but the cord was broken. He was going to repair it eventually (as he’s certainly qualified) but hadn’t found the time. So I took it home to see if I could repair it.

The laptop cooler.

The broken cord, right at the grommet junction. The Amazon reviews show that some people have this problem.

The screws for the cooler grill are inside the case…

Ryan had started to pry it apart but experience led me to believe this was the wrong way to start.

The cover seems to just be a round sleeve.

So I tentatively started peeling it up. The adhesive was not strong.

I was particularly careful when peeling the narrow bits.

The top and bottom pieces that tuck under the grill have a toothed piece attached.

All peeled up.

The USB cable goes through this notched piece that slips around the grommet.

Naked cooler. There are two rows of four screws top and bottom.

Top row.

The screws removed and the fan housing exposed. It is held by 5 screws.

The USB cord strain relief at bottom. 5 screws removed from the housing.

Two dirty fans.

Untangling the cord from the various strain relief posts and tabs.

The fans are liberated.

The grommet doesn’t seem to move on the cable, so I snipped it off at both ends of the grommet.

Done.

I drilled out the bit of cable left, it seemed to pop out.

Slid the grommet onto the USB plug end. Notice the fans have been cleaned…

Stripped the cable ends. This is a power cable so it only had two conductors. There was annoying nylon stranding with the copper that I had to separate and cut off.

Twisted together and ready for soldering.

Testing!

I insulated the soldered wires with little pieces of electrical tape. I need to buy some tiny shrink tubing.

I used shrink tubing over the whole length of the splice.

I reassembled (in the reverse order of disassembly) and massaged the cover back into position.

All done. It works.

Philomath Classic Car Show 2011

2011-07-06T15:27:00.001-07:00

Time for the Philomath Classic Car Show! I can’t really add anything to the pictures with text, so just enjoy the sights. That’s what we did.

After the show we went over to Amy & Ryan’s for Lauren’s fifth birthday party. Henry took a ride on the zip line.

The Awesome Button

2011-07-02T21:43:00.001-07:00

Henry noticed a Staples Easy Button while we were perusing the wares at Goodwill last week. He immediately remembered the Make: Online “"Awesome Button” project and told me we should buy the button.

When we returned from our shopping trip I fired up the internet and reviewed the video. Apparently I needed a Teensy USB development board. So I ordered two, one with pins for breadboard prototyping and one for the Awesome Button. Honestly I’m itching to order a couple more now that I know how AWESOME they are.

The Teensies (Teensys? Teesii?) arrived and I collected the rest of the needed items from my hoardings and downloaded the needed software from the Teensy and Arduino sites.

Henry disassembles the Easy Button.

The button is exposed.

Testing the button with an old Radio Shack 300 in 1 project kit (bought years ago at a yard sale and hoarded for just such a use).

Henry’s new favorite tool, my Ideal wire stripper. He also learned that horseplay and soldering irons don’t mix. It was some good father-son time and I didn’t take any process pictures because we were having too much fun (and trying to keep him from burning himself again on the soldering iron.) I do need a better soldering iron and soldering station, a small gauge wire stripper and I could stand to buy some more fun electronic components. I’m almost as new to electronics as Henry so it’s nice that we can learn together.

Testing…

It’s Awesome.

Still making him smile.

I Cleaned Max’s Keyboard

2011-06-13T18:10:00.001-07:00

How-To Geek just posted on cleaning your keyboard in the dishwasher. I decided it was time to clean Max’s keyboard. As you can see it’s somewhat filthy.

Ok, it’s disgusting. But what do you want, he’s 6 and has been using it for at least 3 years.

I took apart the keyboard. I decided to not use the dishwasher and instead manually wash it. I only cleaned the top half as one of the commenters in the How-To Geek article suggested. The bottom half I just wiped clean with a damp rag. I scrubbed all the keys and surfaces with a toothbrush and dish soap. After that I hosed it off outside. I shook all the water out and allowed it to air dry.

I’m glad I didn’t put it in the dishwasher as I almost lost the clear plastic bezel for the LEDs. I found it sitting on the ground outside.

Much better.

See the difference? Now to clean the rest of our keyboards.

Small Side Projects

2011-04-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

Just some fun/needed projects I’ve done lately.

A friend gave me two old beige mid tower ATX cases. I painted one black and decided to add some ventilation slots (this is the same case I punched the fan vent hole in) as the existing vent was minimal.

Nothing fancy, just did it by eye.

It needs some front bay covers still.

I also forgot to paint the reset button. More work is needed. My growing pile of PC parts.

The glass knobs I bought (from the Habitat for Humanity store) kept separating from the metal stem. Terrible glue job.

So I pulled them all off.

Use the lathe to remove most of the old adhesive and turn the rim to the same angle as the glass, for a better bond.

It wasn’t that exciting.

Some 2 ton epoxy and they are happily joined. the problem seems solved.

Several Shop Nights

2011-04-07T17:31:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from the past month of “Open Shop” nights at my buddy Kent’s shop.

He built the lock for his son’s upcoming wedding. Locked…

Unlocked…

That’s phosphor bronze spring wire.

One of the hinges he made for the box which the lock locks.

George was sorting out some problems with an M1 carbine action.

Kent cutting a groove in a Honda motorcycle clutch for Carey.

Tapping on a band, which fits in the groove, to tighten up the clutch.

The lock is finished.

Kent and Bill messing with their electronic lighter project.

Nichrome wire glowing.

Max Is Six

2011-04-05T14:00:00.001-07:00

Max turned 6 on Sunday. We had a party in the Philomath City Park. It was cold and blustery but didn’t rain.

Kids frolicking on the playground.

It was rather windy so Kiko held up the cake box lid to shield the candles. As an aside, Kiko Denzer is an author of many books on earth ovens and other earth art and building projects and Ryan Mayfield (he of the moustache in the back) is the author of Photovoltaic Design and Installation For Dummies. I really need to write a book.

Max blows out the candles.

Kids eating cake.

Aidan tries to break the piñata. Notice the children don’t have blindfolds…this is as much for our sakes as theirs.

Max and Eben playing.

Making A Large Hole The Easy Way

2011-03-28T15:13:00.001-07:00

I wanted to remove the perforated fan grill on an old ATX case I’m rehabilitating.

First I drilled a 3/4” hole with a step bit.

Then I got out the largest Greenlee punch I have.

And my hydraulic driver. One of the best tool scores of my life, I paid $7.00 at a yard sale. Look at the price of a kit on Amazon.

Assembled through the 3/4” hole. A little easy pumping…and the punch makes the hole.

Releasing the hydraulic pump.

The hole and slug. This is a lot easier than using a hole saw.

Windows 7 and Computer Price Update

2011-03-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in the Computer Love post below, I bought the Windows 7 family pack. It's on sale right now at Amazon for "only" $99.99

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Family Pack (3-User)

As I said, this is only an upgrade, not full version but the price is the lowest I can find, right now. The price seems to change almost daily... Obviously the reason I'm posting this is to drive a little Amazon Affiliate traffic, but it is a good deal...and I only found it because I was surfing for some other stuff...I'm such a shill...

UPDATE: It's back up to $123.99. It's interesting to look at historical Amazon pricing with camelcamelcamel.

The power supply I used is on sale at Newegg as well, 10% off using a promo code (An10psu ends 3/27, and I don't make any money off of it...)

The Goodell-Pratt And Millers Falls 188A Push Drills, Disassembled

2011-03-21T21:36:00.001-07:00

One of our neighbors is retiring and moving to the coast, so he had a shop garage sale this weekend. I picked up a little of this and a little of that. Included in my haul were two old push drills. One is a Goodell-Pratt and the other a Millers Falls. Both are model 188A as Millers Falls merged with Goodell-Pratt in the early 1930s. There’s a comprehensive set of pages on the Millers Falls company here, with detail on the push drills here.

The two drills.

Ok, bear with me, this is a little boring…follow the text around the handle…

Pulling down on the catch allows the cap to rotate, exposing the drill storage compartments by size…

The other one…

I know, exciting!

End on, with another earlier Greenlee drill I have. The caps on the 188As Seem to be riveted to the handle, where the earlier one uses a screw.

To disassemble I pushed down on the drill slightly to take up some tension.

And unscrewed the barrel.

It’s stopped by the chuck…

The chuck. Notice the pin.

The chuck cap unscrews, although that wire ring acts as a spring detent so you have to wiggle and pull to get it all the way off.

I clamped the knurled ring in the plastic jaws of a vise.

And unscrewed the nut from the handle.

The spring has a wooden guide – which is interesting, if you think about it.

The other 188A has a screw instead of a pin retaining the jaws. I was unable to punch or press the pin on the other one out, so I gave up…

With the screw removed the jaw assembly comes out. Notice how dirty it is.

Two pieces and a spring for tension.

The drill shanks are cruciform in cross section.

They engage the jaws thusly.

The screw and nut are a fast helix.

An 8 start thread.

When the drill is pushed down, 1-1/2” of travel turns it one revolution.

A little cleaning and oiling and the drills are almost nearly as good as new. And every now and then I’m sure I’ll use one.

Computer Love

2011-03-12T12:06:00.001-08:00

And computer hate…

The PC that’s out in our barn/studio was having some issues so I had the bright idea of building a PC from components.I spent many hours on Newegg’s site looking at components, deals on components, reviews of components, compatibility of components, well you get the idea.

Henry unboxing the Antec Two Hundred S ATX case.

It’s big.

Henry opens the BIOSTAR A770E3 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard box.

By the time we had the CPU (AMD Athlon II X2 245 Regor 2.9GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor) installed his interest was flagging. But it was quality time while it lasted.

There’s a lot of room in the case.

Once it was all put together I hit the power switch and…nothing.

There’s a tiny jumper (red circle) on the motherboard for BIOS reset that was in the wrong position.

It’s alive!

After an attempt at cable management.

Here’s a list of all the components:

1 x ($49.99) CASE ANTEC| TWO HUNDRED S RT
1 x ($39.99) MEM 2Gx2|WINTEC 3AXH1333C9WS4GK R
1 x ($39.99) PSU ANTEC| EA-380D GREEN RT
1 x ($59.99) CPU AMD|ATH II X2 245 2.9G AM3 RT
1 x ($59.99) MB BIOSTAR A770E3 770/SB710 R
1 x ($-14.99) DISCOUNT FOR COMBO #581112
1 x ($-6.00) DISCOUNT FOR PROMOTION CODE
Total $228.96

I had hoped to use an old DVD burner (notice the IDE cable in the last picture) but it was so old it wouldn’t recognize several DVDs. So I later purchased a LiteOn DVD burner for 15.99 w/ free shipping that was on sale.

The 500GB hard drive was out of an old machine. I cloned it from an 80 GB drive I did the XP install on. That way if I screwed up the Win7 install I had a backup.

The video card is an old 512MB Geforce 8400 graphics card that I bought for $3.00 at a yard sale I hit last summer.

First I installed an XP home upgrade ($28.50 at Goodwill!) that I had laying around, then I installed Windows 7 Home from their “family pack” upgrade. It was $109.99 on sale at Amazon for 3 licenses ($36.67 each license). I installed the 64 bit version. I had a few problems at first as I forgot to install the Win7 drivers for the graphics card and motherboard. It’s a good idea to do a system image backup when you first install Win7 so you can revert back to a good configuration if you get constant cascading BSODs. Thankfully I had done just that.

My strategy on picking components was to buy the least expensive highest rated components with the smallest percentage of negative reviews. Seems to have worked as the PC has been up for weeks now without problems. But you never know. It has more than enough speed for web surfing and entertainment while working and will be upgradeable (The motherboard will accept more ram and a faster processor and it has the latest AMD socket type and ram type.) either as a backup for Felice and my computers should anything go wrong, or for the boys in a couple of years.

I Must Have Taken A Wrong Left Turn At Albuquerque.

2011-03-12T11:20:00.001-08:00

We took a short trip to Albuquerque to visit with Felice’s parents. Her Brother and his family made the trek as well.

This is what I look like when I’m terrified. The flight to ABQ was somewhat (extremely) bumpy and we landed in at least a 40mph wind. My new friend Fred kept me talking the whole flight so I managed without being sedated by the flight crew. Yes, that’s a piece of gum in my mouth, I was chewing the whole time to keep my pressure equalized.

The whole family, minus myself and my sister-in-law.

That’s my sister in law. I have a number of pictures of her like this.

A view out the back of the house.

It’s in the foothills of the Sandia mountains.

Joe (Felice’s dad) has a number of his sculptures around the house.

He’s creative. All the paintings in the house are his as well.

We went to old town

Felice, Fran and the kids went up the mountain on the tram.

Cable!

I saw a Wombat at the zoo. I decided that the Wombat is my favorite animal.

We also saw the Petroglyphs.

Kitchen Fun

2011-02-14T19:54:00.001-08:00

We put in some new cabinets.

Nothing exciting. They’re stained cherry now, but I still haven’t put up any molding. I hate molding.

This was exciting. A sudden flash of white hot electric light, flames and much hissing...

and a full pan of water exits through the hole into the stove...

The stove store (Stover, Evey and Jackson) said this is what happens when an element burns out. Usually it isn’t as dramatic but they had seen worse. Nice thing about SEJ is that they assumed I’d fix it myself, sold me new parts and told me it would be no problem.

Always take a picture of the wiring before you replace a switch.

The old switch. See how the contacts on the right are melted?

Procrastinating With Computers

2011-01-26T17:25:00.001-08:00

I have a lot of projects going on right now, my regular jewelry and machine tool stuff, an air rifle that’s about 50% done and a lengthy kitchen semi-remodel. But sometimes you have to work on projects for the heck of it. Out in the “barn” I have a Dell Optiplex 270, in the small form factor. We use it to watch Netflix and Hulu when working or running on the treadmill. Unfortunately the other day it wouldn’t power on, and the power button was blinking an ominous yellow.

The Motherboard looked fine (some Optiplexes had bad capacitors) so I assumed it was the power supply. Being a small form factor a new power supply would cost as much as the used Dell had cost. What I ended up doing was mounting it in a Dimension 8200 case, figuring that at some point I’ll mount the 8200 motherboard in another case or just leave it around to trip over. The 8200 cost $3000 in 2002, now it’s not even worth $30.00, nor is the Optiplex. I get all these old Dells at the OSU surplus sales. The Optiplex has a P4 3.0 Ghz and 2GB of RAM, so it will run Hulu fine. That’s about the minimum antique processor for internet video, according to my unscientific tests. But I digress.

The main problem with putting the Optiplex motherboard in the larger case is that there was no way to use the existing 8200 fan and shroud from the case as it hit the CPU fan, and the Optiplex CPU fan has a shroud that wouldn’t reach the rear of the case. So it was just blowing hot air around the inside of the case. Still awake? No? go back to sleep.

I decided I’d mount an old case fan somewhere along the back grill to suck more air out of the case and hopefully provide better cooling. Unfortunately the motherboard only has one fan plug, which was used by the CPU cooler. I could have bought an adapter but decided to waste some time. I dimly remembered buying some female 4 pin molex connectors at a yard sale 12 years ago, searched for them and found them.

The three pin fan connector.

Male Molex from a power supply.

Female Molex and pins.

Wires stripped. (I ignored the blue fan sensor wire).

Pins crimped on.

Checking to make sure I get 12V, although at this point I thought Red & Black was 12V. It isn’t. I should have checked wikipedia first.

Pins inserted in the female connector body.

Optiplex in a larger case.

Here’s the fan wires and connector used by the CPU fan.

Plugged my new fan wires into a spare plug coming from the power supply.

(Can’t use the flash or you won’t see the blur). The fan spins. But it seems to be spinning slowly. This is when I discovered my voltage error.

I rewired so that I was getting 12V rather than 5V…much better. Now all the hot air is being sucked out of the case as fast as it’s produced. I ziptied the fan to the case grill for now, leaving it to run for a while to make sure there are no problems.

Unexciting Air Compressor

2011-01-19T11:20:00.001-08:00

My old air compressor needed a companion. This was precipitated by the need to fill the tires on the Sienna during a cold snap. Because the old compressor is not exactly portable I needed something that I could lug around easily. I used to thread a hose through the shop window out into the driveway just to avoid lugging the compressor.

My old “portable” compressor. I bought it at a yard sale for $25.00 and it sounds like is beating itself to death every time I fire it up. It takes a long time to fill the tank. But it does work.

My impulse buy at Home Depot, on sale during the holidays for $69.00, and not the most exciting purchase.

It does have cord stowage in the back.

It came with an unregulated hose permanently connected to a tire chuck, one which demands that you lock it down on the tire stem. So you have to unlock it when you check the pressure, reseat, relock, etc. until it’s filled. The other regulated quick connector doesn’t fit any of my connectors. So both of those get replaced.

I made sure the gages read zero…

New regulated connector.

New unregulated connector. Now I can use all my old hoses and not have the irritation of connected hoses snagging on things as I carry it around. Until it dies. I’m assuming that will happen soon as it’s just a cheap oil-less compressor. It’s not as loud as I thought it would be but it does take a while to fill the tank to 110 PSI (115PSI on the gage which makes me nervous…) although less time than the old compressor (smaller tank but higher pressure).

How’s that for a boring slice of my life?

Link Dump

2011-01-13T13:33:00.000-08:00

I won't bother apologizing for not blogging more, lately. But I plan to blog more. Part of the problem was that I hate the camera I was using (Nikon Coolpix L20), it had poor battery life and the white balance was always hit or miss. I just bought a Fuji FinePix S1800 so I hope to have more and better pictures. Still figuring out how to make it do what I want. So this post is all words.

Speaking of products I love or hate...
Love:
I bought two more of the IOGear wireless keyboards, one for the kitchen and one for the barn. It's held up well in the bedroom for the year and makes HTPC (home theater PC) viewing easy. Only problem is it doesn't work as you tilt it above about 40 degrees as the trackball is a bit loose.

Hate:
The Nesco Coffee Burr Grinder. I bought it on impulse at Bi-Mart. I should have been warned by the low price. The grinder does an pretty good job of grinding the coffee but the container it grinds into is so poorly designed that when you take the lid off the coffee flies everywhere. There's more coffee dust that I would want from a burr grinder and it seems to cling with a static charge to the container walls. In short every morning is met by a large mess and cursing. Read the 1 star reviews on the Amazon link, you'll see I'm not alone.

Love:
I finally hooked up a digital antenna to get OTA (over the air) broadcasts, the DISH feeds are often poor quality and they don't carry the additional local sub-channels. I bought a Philips MANT940 Antenna at a garage sale for $15.00, put it up on the 12' pole that was used by our old antennas. I was surprised that I could get all the local channels! The only down side is that I was hoping to save some money by giving up the DISH feed - but they have anticipated my move and rolled local channels into the main packages they offer - you can't remove the feeds anymore.

I'm off in an hour to take the kids to the Scratch Club, a guy at the local charter school started an after school club where kids could get together and learn the Scratch programming language. All part of my plan to turn the kids into nerds, or inoculate them against it. while our kids don't go to the school, it's open to all kids in the area. I help out as needed. Fun.

A few links:

Open URL in New Tab, an IE add-on that is handy when there's a plain text URL and you don't want to copy, open a new tab, paste and hit return.
Free OCR, which is a pretty good, free as you can imagine by the name, optical character recognition program. I found it useful when I was shopping for ram on Ebay and didn't want to type long strings of characters from the pictures of labels on pieces of ram for sale. if that makes sense...
I forget whether I've posted this already, but it's an automatic bagpipe reed making machine.
Our friend Kiko's essays on "The Work of Art".

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T11:47:00.001-08:00

We've been quite busy but today we get to relax a bit.

All wrapped up.

Spider Man

Joy.

A lovely card.

Triops...

Lego Books.

All unwrapped...

Making Some Hooks…

2010-10-19T11:48:00.001-07:00

I had to make a larger jewelry display for the local food co-op. The hooks the earring cards hang on are somewhat expensive and not really available in the length we want at a smaller wire diameter. Besides I wanted less of an “L” hook and more of a gentle bend at the end. So I made some to suit.

Drilling some steel rod.

Milling a 45 degree angle on one end…

One short piece of rod drilled only 1/2” deep.

Other piece slips over the end of the rod.

Bend down to 45 degrees.

Look at that…

That’s the type of bend I want to make it easy to slip the earring cards on and off the hooks.

Here’s my high tech setup for whacking up a bunch of bronze welding rod (which I had laying around) to length. That’s a rivet trimmer (scroll down to "Rotary Rivet Cutters") held in the vise.

The stop allows me to cut them all to the same length.

A pile of blanks.

Used a cup bur to round the hook end of the blanks.

I set up my Geometric die head with #6-32 chasers.

Done…I love my die head. I could have theoretically set the turret up on the lathe to part the rods to the same length, round the ends and cut the threads but that seemed like more work than the method I chose.

Here’s a short video of the operation.

This is what happens when you don’t lock the tailstock…

A pile of threaded blanks.

All the blanks bent.

I ran them in a tumbler with some walnut shell, wood pegs and rouge for a day. Didn’t completely remove several decades of oxidation but made them acceptable.

And all the hooks screwed into the display.

10/10/10

2010-10-10T17:02:00.001-07:00

I didn’t realize it had been so long since I had blogged…hazards of the information age. You haven’t been missing out on much. Here’s the latest fun project, a home aquarium:

Home with a bag of fish.

Such excitement.

Max is the fish obsessed one but Henry likes them as well.

Four fish. Poor doomed little fish.

Besides normal life I’ve been working on some 3D modeling work for TDC and their website will someday be updated with the new designs. It’s nice to have a third part time job, I think I was slacking with just the Taig sales and jewelry.

In hobby news I finally found a few new airguns to play with and blog about, although I’m a bit heavy on bb guns right now. It had been a whole two months without getting a new airgun and I was going through a bit of withdrawal.

I finally gave up on getting Photoshop Elements 1.0 to play nicely with Windows 7. I’m trying out Paint.net although I find It’s easier to do file saving and renaming as a batch job in Irfanview after editing and color correcting the pictures in Paint.net. I find it hilarious that Paint.net’s homepage has google ads that tout other photo editing programs. In any case it’s a good piece of software and free.

As part of the above mentioned modeling job I often have to illustrate steps taken in Rhino so we can keep on top of the process. Turns out Windows 7 has a neat program called Problem Steps Recorder (just type PSR in the search bar). It captures everything in a .mht archive file that’s .zipped. Unpacking the .mht into html and separate pictures was giving me fits, I finally decided to just save everything out from IE separately as the unpacking programs I found didn’t work. Wake up! You fell asleep from the boredom.

Felice and I both transitioned to using a dual monitor setup on our PCs. I can’t believe I used to suffer with only one monitor. One thing that will drive you crazy is trying to get the displays to have the same color and brightness, etc. I found that by opening this picture in separate windows on both monitors was a good reference for tweaking the settings.

I know, I’m not being nerdy enough. Last month I also installed Virtualbox on my PC then installed Ubuntu linux on the virtual machine (yes nerdburger, I did just upgrade to Maverick Meerkat). Virtualbox is pretty slick not that I have any real use for it.

Oh yeah, I checked a bunch of rechargeable batteries with my multi-tester. Some days I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.

If you grew up in the Boston area in the 70’s you definitely remember this from almost every movie you saw.

George is working on rebuilding a Whizzer bicycle engine:

And I found this at a yard sale for free:

but I donated it to Goodwill. I didn’t have a Colecovision which was needed to get it working and it took up a ton of space I don’t have.

So that’s the last month and a half or so.

Latest Things

2010-08-16T14:51:00.001-07:00

August has been a bit busy, so you get a dump of pictures and links…

Here’s some pics from DaVinci Days

Max Likes Bugs

Off to save the galaxy.

And some from the Steam Up:

Evey year we take a pic in front of the biggest Cat.

Kindly fireman.

Spotted a time traveller…

And his wife.

Walker Bulldog.

Yes it is.

Neat home made rail bike/cart.

Spud took Max and me fishing down the Long Tom.

Small fry.

Going back into the river.

So that’s the last month in pics, at least the high points.

Besides that I’ve been messing with computers a bit (I’ve bought a bunch at yard sales dirt cheap). So here are some computer links:

I bought this IOGear Keyboard for use in the bedroom, works well although the trackball doesn’t work well beyond about 40 degrees tilt.

How to boot from a USB or CD even if your BIOS won’t let you. Very handy, allowed me to restore a $3.00 laptop purchased at a yard sale.

CPU-Z tells you everything you need to know about a PC. Great for dealing with unknown hardware and figuring out what’s what.

Guimark is a great way of benchtesting a machine’s flash performance (I use the “Flex 3” test). Amazing the differences a little ram or CPU speed make when rendering Flash streaming video.

I installed a Netgear WG111 wireless PCI card (no Amazon link because I wouldn’t recommend it…) on one of the Barn PCs. It disabled “Fast User Switching” – AKA the normal XP login screen. Here’s an article on how to get it back. It’s 2010, Netgear, get your act together!

Online “Crap, I left my Caps Key on while typing that 10 paragraph blog comment” converter.

And some other non computer links:

Telegraph Instruments of Europe

The Making of a 15th Century Cannon

Harry Epstein Closeout Tools

Kolbasti Dancing.

Old Telephone

2010-07-02T17:20:00.001-07:00

Picked up this old telephone at the thrift store today.

Interestingly enough there’s a twin of this phone in the Benton County museum. I’m guessing they came out of the same place, but that’s just a guess.

Not really ergonomic.

“Property of American Tel & Tel Co 323 Pat USA Jan 14 191?”

“Western Electric”

They really want you to know who owns it.

MIssing the bell, if it had one.

Old wire bundles.

The bottom…

If anyone knows about this model I’d love to hear about it. Googling hasn’t turned up much beyond the museum link above.

EDIT: My friend Kent says: "With no dial it came out of the Julian, Corvallis, or Benton Hotel, if local. That way it was hooked to a switch board. When the reciever was lifted a light came on at the switch board, the operator then plugged a 1/4 phone plug into that hole and asked what number they wanted. The switch board operator had a dial, and dialed the number wanted, then plugged the lines together. If they were real nice they unplugged their line or else they didn't and listened to the conversation. Either way when the phone was hung up the light went out and they unplugged the line."

Henry Assists

2010-06-25T16:02:00.001-07:00

Henry Volunteers…

Being dressed.

A look he loves.

Parallel Port Card for the Dimension 5100

2010-06-24T09:28:00.001-07:00

This is more for my future reference than for you, my dear readers. Henry is now using my old desktop. This presented a problem as the old Deskjet 722C was hooked to his old computer that had a parallel port. My Dimension 5100 lacked such a port. So I ordered a Startech parallel port PCI cardfrom Amazon. The instructions on the manufacturer’s site worked perfectly and the printer is hooked up again.

Leaky Hose Nozzle

2010-06-21T17:27:00.001-07:00

Our old Italian hose nozzle was leaking and was clogged.

The nozzle. I like writing “nozzle”. It’s a funny word.

The barrel unscrews from the nut that retains it.

Full of rust and the two rubber seals/o-rings were hard.

The 2/3 steel clip was malleable and easily removed. The metal (not sure what alloy, didn’t look at it closely) washer is important. I wire brushed the corrosion and minerals off of the stem.

I scavenged in my o-ring collection for suitable replacements.

Everything back in place, lubed with petroleum jelly. The barrel was screwed back on and it works 99% as good as new. The tension on the nut is important, too tight and you can’t easily adjust the flow by hand. You can tighten it up to the point where it binds then back it off just to the point where it adjusts easily.

Printing from Windows 7 (64 bit) to a 722C Networked Printer.

2010-06-21T09:34:00.001-07:00

I know, all this computer stuff is boring, but it’s my blog. I’m mostly writing this entry so I have the info collected for future use.

We have an old workhorse HP 722C printer hooked up to Henry’s PC. While I usually print to the printer on my desk, for larger runs, such as a PDF manual, I print to the 722C which is more economical. Unfortunately Windows 7 64 bit has some issues setting up to do this. Windows 7 32 bit does not have this problem, apparently.

Here’s what I had to do.

From this thread on the HP forums (2nd post on the page):

“Install the printer as if it were connected to LPT1:, then go to the Devices and Printers folder, right click on the Deskjet 722, Printer Settings, Ports, Add Port, Local Port, \\XPname\Printershare name (with the proper XP computer and printer share names), Next. Do not print the test page. Before printing to the shared printer from the Win 7 machine apply the patch.”

722C did not appear on the menu of printers so I selected 720C instead.Once installed I downloaded, unzipped and copied the patched DLL files as noted in this thread and referenced in the above thread:

“The attached file contains a patch for this issue. Apply the patch as follows: First make sure the driver for the printer is installed. Log into the computer with an administrative account. Download the patch by clicking on this link or on the paper clip at the end of this post. Save the patch file to your computer, then unzip it. Next copy the three DLL files to the following directory:
%windir%\system32\spool\drivers\x64\3
This can be done from a DOS prompt if DOS is opened with the "run as administrator" command, or from explorer with a copy and paste. Depending on your UAC settings you may need to provide confirmation. Also allow the current files to be overwritten if prompted. This patch is not required and should not applied to a 32 bit version of Vista or Windows 7.”

The printer share name was not “\\Henry\DeskJet 722C Printer” as appeared on my other machines, instead it was “\\Henry\Printer”.

Anyway, it works fine now.

Trackball Museum

2010-06-20T20:56:00.001-07:00

Found while cleaning out the shed.

New Computer

2010-06-18T10:55:00.001-07:00

Well I finally gave in and bought a new PC. The old Dell 8100 still works fine but was definitely old technology, with a 3Ghz Pentium 4 and only 2 Gb of RAM.

So I spent several weeks looking at various models online from a variety of manufacturers. I had many decisions to make and there were a variety of unknowns. Would all my old programs work on a 64 bit machine? Would I hate Windows 7? What type of system would last the 5 to 7 years before an upgrade without driving me nuts?

In the end I settled on a Dell Studio XPS 8100. Then I started looking at the various options and each time I added them up I got well North of $1000…sigh.

So I looked at the Dell Outlet. They offer “scratch and dent” and refurbished models at a not insignificant discount. I found a system that was pretty much what I wanted. It has a Core i5 750 processor, 8 Gb of RAM and a 512Mb GeForce 310 graphics card, running Windows 7, 64 bit. Not the most powerful system, but plenty for the sort of stuff I do. I also ordered a 23” monitor from the Outlet at the same time.

The delivery date was the next Friday. So I waited, and checked the status daily. I noticed that the monitor had shipped but that the computer was still “In Production”. That seemed odd as the systems are sold as-is, off the shelf. So I went to their Facebook page and asked what that meant.

The extremely helpful woman who manages their Facebook presence got right back to me and said that it means they lost the system and were finding a comparable system to send out. Not a problem, these things happen. That Friday I received the monitor and shoved the box in the corner. Then on Sunday I decided to open up the Monitor and hook it up to my old computer to see how it looked. When I opened the box I found that it was not a monitor but was the computer that they had lost!

So I contacted them again to let them know what had happened as I didn’t want them to ship two computers. What happened next was quite unexpected. They told me to keep that system for the price of the monitor, $159! They cancelled the rest of the order. So I zipped over to Staples and bought a 24” Acer monitor.

I just want to say thanks to the Dell Outlet for providing customer service that was personal, timely and above and beyond what I expected.

As for the system…well it took me a couple of days to set the new PC up with all my old programs, passwords, etc. Windows 7 was pretty easy to tweak although many features such as the Quick Launch bar are hidden. I found out how to enable it here.

The dreaded UAC doesn’t annoy me at all but I have to say that I hate the Library file system. I can see how it’s great for people with large amounts of homogenous media types, but most of my folders consist of mixed file types. It’s easy enough to ignore the libraries and directly use the old file system. I’d love to hear how wrong I am about the libraries.

I though the Aero Snap was gimmicky when I saw it touted in ads, but it’s quite handy for my workflow.

So overall I’m just having tons of fun with the new, exceedingly fast by comparison, machine. Now to get back to work and do all the things I put off while learning the new system.

One last note, I’m composing this on Windows Live Writer. Seems like a much easier way of posting to my blogs than the tiny little interface that Blogger uses. Microsoft isn’t allowed to include the Windows Live software with PCs for some complex reason but it’s a free download.

Here’s a picture that I’ll use to test that functionality:

Well that worked.

Ubuntu Fun

2010-05-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

With the new (used) PC installed in the kitchen running XP, I decided it would be a good test bed to see how I liked running Ubuntu Linux for all sorts of common browsing tasks.

Since I wanted to do it with a minimum of fuss and the ability to revert back to just XP on the system I used the Wubi installer. It installs (and uninstalls) Ubuntu and other varieties of Linux as though it were a Windows program. Worked well and I now have a dual boot system.

While I haven't decided whether I like it enough to use in place of Windows (not going to happen on my main work PC) on most of our PCs, and I haven't used it enough to see if it's as good as XP for web browsing/media enjoyment, it seems just as good. Here's a great guide on How-To Geek.

So I also installed the Ubuntu Netbook Remix on the Toshiba Netbook we have. Used Wubi as before. It was very slow (10+ minutes) on bootup however. Luckily the internet is full of information and a few minutes of googling produced this forum thread that had me change a setting in the BIOS. Now it boots quickly. There's another page on How-To Geek about doing this install.

Now I just need to get Felice to learn how to use it. She managed to get hit by a virus (fake antivirus/trojan/etc) on the netbook a few days ago and I'd like to avoid that in the future.

If you're wondering how I cleaned the virus up? Well that's how I first found the How-To Geek site as they have a good lesson on doing just that. Avast failed miserably in preventing the infection, so I now run MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) instead. I'm doing a scan a day with MSE and Malwarebytes just to make sure it's all gone. Here's hoping. Having Linux on the netbook will at least assist me in fixing future problems should they arise.

On the other blog...

2010-05-29T08:46:00.000-07:00

I put up a post about Inkscape and the David Scanner...you may find it interesting.

EZ UP, Easier

2010-05-28T10:53:00.001-07:00

Felice has been having a hard time putting our EZ UP, up. The instructions helpfully show two people deploying it. Unfortunately she usually sets it up on her own.

Turning some acetal plastic...

Pressed into the end of a piece of conduit.

And the other end.

By pushing up on the middle of the EZ Up, the shelter deploys. Certainly not optimal but hey.

With the pole holding up the center it's a simple matter for Felice to snap each corner into place. A piece of broom stick probably would work just as well.

Separation Anxiety

2010-05-16T16:44:00.000-07:00

Been a bit busy lately as Felice had to fly out to Albuquerque earlier this week to help her folks out for a few days. She's back now. But I much prefer this type of separator:

Picked it up at a yard sale for Kent as he likes blacksmithing ephemera. I'd love to know the story behind it. I also found a variable speed Delta scroll saw, which I've been wanting for a while.

Since I couldn't get into the shop much while watching the kids 24/7 (or more accurately, 24/4) I spent a good deal of time continuing work on my first (in a long while) computer program. It's developing nicely but I had to ressurect all the dormant trig in my brain. I'm still using "Just Basic" which is simple enough that I can code without looking stuff up every two minutes. Most Basic commands are etched in my brain. But the whole GUI thing took a bit of effort to get right. The program is a simple conversion of a linear g-code axis to a rotary axis, but I'm adding in a bunch of functionality. A nice hobby activity.
This trig. page was quite helpful. As was Machinery's handbook.

At the last open shop night a fellow named John Heinz showed up. He makes some interesting tools! He came over later in the week to borrow the use of my surface grinder but we couldn't get the chuck to hold the M4 steel with enough force to surface some tiny plane blades.

Speaking of blades, my airgun co-blogger Derrick sent me a link to his uncle's knife blog. Great writing and stories.

Bending Brackets

2010-04-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

I had to bend up some brackets. Nothing fancy.

Vee block in the arbor press.

It was a little hard to line up the square bar.

Bend.

4 brackets.

Spring Things

2010-04-22T16:57:00.001-07:00

It's spring.

I don't know why they are wearing gloves, frogs don't cause warts.

The frogs love the abandoned hot tub.

Work...

Down by the duck pond at Starker Arts Park. It was a bit muddy and Henry fell on his rear.

Feeding the ducks.

One of the variety of ducks.

Max enjoyed it.

I found a neat free version of the Basic programming language, Just Basic.
I wrote my first Windows GUI. It was tremendously exciting.

Kids and Water

2010-04-09T17:12:00.000-07:00

We took the kids to Martin Luther King park in Corvallis last week.

The parking lot had an odd safety feature. To prevent you from hitting the rails in the parking lot...

They put a moat in front of it.

The kids playing on the swings. Remember doing that when you were a kid? I do.

Henry is sopping wet.

We took a walk along the path which had a stream running alongside. The kids stopped often to get even more drenched.

Last Saturday was Max's birthday, Felice made a fish piñata for the festivities.

One of my Taig lathe guys made this lifesize Bender (from Futurama). He's putting up posts showing the construction on his new blog.

A Quick Drill Press Setup

2010-03-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

Working on some new extrusion slices for our Etsy shop. I have to drill a hole in the face of the slice at the top and needed to do it fairly accurately.

I made some fences on the drill press x/y table (actually an old Palmgren x/y rotary table, be jealous.) with steel parallels. Found the edge of one and moved over to the theoretical centerline of the slice.

Because I didn't have that much travel I used a 1-2-3 block to pick up the location of the other fence and moved the spindle to exactly where the hole needed to be.

The slice placed in position, it was easy to repeatedly drill the holes in the right place.

Some links and pics

2010-03-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

Went over to the neighbors the other day...

Aleaha pulls the boys in a wagon...

All around the yard.

Some links:

Silver and Deming Drill Index

2010-03-17T18:40:00.000-07:00

Steve the Locksmith asked if I could take some pics of my home-made Silver and Deming (S&D) drill index. S&D used to mean drills made by Silver and Deming, but now it's come to mean any 1/2" shank twist drill bit. The 1/2" shank allowed use in a Blacksmith's post drill, now it allows the use in the ubiquitous 1/2" Jacobs chuck.
You can buy a Huot drill stand for S&D drill bits, but $40.00 is a lot to spend on organization and Steve is as cheap as I am.

My drill index. No, I don't have a complete set by 64ths of the S&D drills. I pick them up used and resharpen them. Sets can range from a cheap import set by 1/16ths to an insanely expensive US made set by 64ths.

The top surface is a sheet of self stick label paper. I printed up the layout for the holes with teh sizes beneath plus a number of unlabelled holes. I then used a sheet of laminating sheet over it.
I stacked all three pieces together and drilled the holes using the printed locations as a reference. I made the holes slightly over size. And yes, I really need to clean the grime off. It has stayed surprisingly readable over the years.

The panels are held apart by aluminum spacers I made on the lathe. 4 long flat head machine screws hold it all together. The panels are made out of scrap plastic, probably ABS, that I had laying around.

The countersunk flat head screw.

It's a good idea to keep the sides open so all the chips and such can fall out.

Making Wheels From a Scotch-Brite Pad

2010-03-12T09:42:00.000-08:00

A friend wanted to know where to buy Dremel 511E EZ Lock Finishing Abrasive Buffs cheaply. Looking around it seemed as though they were a bit over priced (about $1.50 a wheel). I haven't examined them up close but they seem to be a standard non-woven abrasive made into a wheel.

I use Scotch-Brite pads in my shop all the time.

They're available in a variety of grit sizes and the price is about $1.00 a 6"x9" sheet. On Amazon they are $20.00 for a box of 20, Scotch-Brite 6-by-9-Inch Hand Pad, 20-Pads. They are available all over the internet and from most industrial suppliers.

Mandrels are ubiquitous as my drawer shows. You can get mandrels with a screw for about two bucks as well.

So I traced a circle on a pad.

Wow, high tech.

I cut it out with scissors and mounted it on a mandrel. The mandrel screw can just be poked through the center. A washer in the center would make it work slightly better, be more aggressive on the edge. You could even stack a few together.

I also tried using an arch punch. This would dull the punches over time...

This is a finer abrasive.

Some test scratch patterns on silver. They seem to work fine. I'm not sure if they hold up worse than the Dremel branded ones, however from a 6"x9" sheet you can make about 54 (assuming you're perfect) 1" wheels so you can imagine the cost savings if they even last 1/10th as long.

Some Machining Content

2010-03-01T14:01:00.001-08:00

Just a few machine pics:

Turning the OD of a magneto pole shoe.

Pressed onto a mandrel and driven by a lathe dog.

Kent made this holder for his tap wrenches.

And tap handles, these are made from Panduit scrap.

A Nice Walk to the Covered Bridge

2010-03-01T13:47:00.000-08:00

We went to the annual Library Book Sale on Saturday at the County Fairgrounds, afterwards the weather was nice so we crossed 53rd St. and went for a walk through the OSU research farm.

This is pretty much in the city of Corvallis. Not bad.

A long asphalt road that goes all the way to the campus downtown.

Looking north.

There's a covered bridge!

Max was a little slow.

Turnbuckles tension.

The dramatic rapids...

Trusses.

An exciting plaque.

That's the muddy creek, those rapids above were an illusion.

Babies and Nature

2010-02-24T10:11:00.000-08:00

Just some pics of what we've been doing lately.

Max making a bird feeder out of a pinecone, peanut butter and birdseed.

Max and Henry enjoying a teeter-totter.

Henry en route to a duck molestation charge.

Adoring our friend Bev's baby.

Henry was nervous holding the baby.

Some links:

Energy Efficient

2010-02-19T18:30:00.000-08:00

We received a card saying that we could receive free testing and sealing of our heating ducts. A quick check with the power company confirmed it and we made an appointment.

A nice guy (also working on his Masters degree at OSU) showed up and got to work. He sealed off the front and hooked up fans and gages.

I felt a pang of sympathy as I hate going into the "attic". The guy found multiple problems and was working until about 7:30 at night. End result was our duct air leakage going from 250 CFM to around 50 CFM. That should save us money.

We also bought a new front loader clothes washer. The old one was on its last legs.

The new drain hose was smaller in diameter than the old one which left space for air to get into the house.

I took two pieces of plywood, butted the edges and drilled a hole at the edges.

Some weatherstripping and we'll paint it in the summer.

Now for other pics.

Henry with one of his latest Lego creations.

He put a small flashlight inside the vehicle.

So it lights up the dark.

Max is a bit obsessed with those Big Mouth Billy Bass talking fish. So we made a paper frame for his head. That's his impression of a talking fish.

It kept him in place for toothbrush time.

Here's Kent working on something at shop night.

Drilling the end of a long piece of flat stock.

Brace Yourself

2010-02-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

Our friend Kiko is a bit of a luddite. He asked me if I could make an adapter for his bit brace so he could use 1/4" hex screwdriver bits. Being lazy I checked to see if such adapters are available and indeed they are. Lee Valley tools has them for $8.50. So Kiko ordered it. I decided to try making one anyway.

There isn't a standard for bit brace tang dimensions as far as I can tell. Easiest way to measure the taper was with my vernier protractor. All the bits I measured have different tapers.

Here's another way of measuring.

Measure twice...

or thrice.

It seemed that 10 degrees was a good average so I selected a 5 degree angle to support the work.

Then I drilled out some 1/2" tool steel to be a press fit on the hex circle of a magnetic bit holder.

And reamed it for a slip fit on the outside diameter of the holder for about 1/4".

Then I pressed the holder into the steel.

I knew it wouldn't run true so I checked it against an indicator and whacked it to get it within about .005" which is way more precise than needed.

I then turned a taper at the other end.

I set up the mill with the angle clamped in the vise.

Then put a 5C collet block in the vise against a stop.

It was a simple matter of milling a flat, turning the block 90 degrees and milling another flat.

About halfway done.

I then turned down the shank so it was smaller in diameter than the tapered section.

And it works.

I figured that since I had the mill and lathe set up I'd make another adapter.

Turning the other end 3/8"
.
I used a die to make 3/8"-24 threads. The tailstock chuck keeps things square

And a drill chuck threads right on.

More milling...

And turning...

And I have a nice adapter.

I gave them to Kiko and he gave me a wooden spoon.

I'm a Twit

2010-02-12T18:37:00.000-08:00

Way back at the dawn of the internet, well 1998 or so, there was a network called ZDTV. ZDTV became TechTV. I used to watch it often. It had many shows that helped me get up to speed with the new technology of the internet. The anchor of TechTV was a guy named Leo Laporte.

Then in 2004 TechTV was bought by Comcast, moved to LA and gutted. Sad times. So I went for many years without a TV technology fix. A few months ago my Roku box added the Twit Netcast Network. So I checked it out and found that many of the old TechTV people were on this new internet network, started by Leo Laporte. (besides Twit there's also Revision3 which has some of the other guys, like Patrick Norton)

It's worth noting that non-techie Felice likes watching them as well, which says that they are somehow making tech accessible to non-nerds.

So While watching some of these new shows through the miracle of high speed internet I decided it would be fun to make a pair of earrings with the TwitTV logo and send them as a gift of thanks, as my ability to use the computer for jewelry design and production is partially due to the lessons learned from watching all those old shows. Unfortunately it's harder than I expected to figure out where to send them. I may end up listing them on Etsy and waiting for them to sue me:) (gratuitous emoticon).

Anyway, here's how I made the die and earrings:

The Taig CNC mill set up with a block of aluminum for the die.

The Mach3 screen showing the toolpath.

Milling the die.

The die as milled.

Cleaned up with a disk of silver next to it. Note that the logo is reversed.

My stamping press and an old laptop running Puppy Linux so I can listen to podcasts on Twit!

Stamped disk.

The finished earrings. Because of my use of computers I can prototype and make dies quite rapidly.

I'll keep you updated if I ever figure out how to send them to Twit. I figure they can give them away, auction them for charity or something. I probably should have thought this out further.
EDIT: Success, managed to get in touch and get their address!

Long Overdue

2010-02-02T13:05:00.000-08:00

Apologies for such light posting, we've been busy with everything.After Christmas we thought we'd take time off but work continued, as well as various projects. Now work has slowed slightly which makes us worry and work harder, so we basically just work all the time. Could be worse and we're not complaining!

One project was to get a bunk bed for the kids. We ordered one off of Amazon.

They key to success in flat pack construction is to separate every component including hardware so it's easy to find.

Max tests the ladder.

The kids room is too small to take a picture of the whole bed. The boys love it and get to sleep slightly faster.

George is almost done with his 5 cylinder model aircraft engine. He brought it over to shop night.

He's a master machinist.

Tiny details like bronze bushes for the rocker pivots.

I bought this box of misc wrenches for $1.00 at an estate sale, mostly for the ignition wrenches as I have a strange compulsion about them.

The hex keys in masking tape are actually Bristol wrenches. I didn't have any until now, not that I needed them.

In any case I'll try and take more pics of the kids and I'm working on some interesting projects.

I'm waiting for the software CD to come for a QX5 microscope I picked up at the thrift store the other day. Why they don't just have the software downloadable is beyond me. $5.00 for the disk and $5.00 shipping...They did have the drivers so I could test that it worked, at least.

One of my projects was loading Puppy Linux on my old Thinkpad. It's now out in the barn so I can listen to Pandora, podcasts and BBC radio. Emboldened I loaded Ubuntu on an old desktop, it works but won't recognize the wireless card. So that project has stalled. I am not an expert or even enthusiast of Linux but it can be handy. I came upon a neat site about PC power connectors while I was breathing life into the desktop.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-26T16:48:00.001-08:00

Recovering from our insane schedule the past month...

Our tree, festooned.

The Saturday previous, Josh and Colin came to visit. Josh had never seen Snap Circuits
before.

Children tend to listen to adults who are not their parents more patiently.

Brotherly love on Christmas.

The tiniest Clone Warriors.

Henry looked up the instructions for building this on the Lego website.

The proud Lego maniac.

My mother gave the boys gift certificates to the local toy emporium. Max picked out two science kits involving slime and slime-like substances.

Felice measuring out chemicals.

Max is holding colorless slime in his blue gloved hands.