Henry Assists

Henry Volunteers…

Being dressed.

A look he loves.

Parallel Port Card for the Dimension 5100

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

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.

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

Found while cleaning out the shed.

New Computer

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

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...

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

EZ UP, Easier

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

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

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

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

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

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

Went over to the neighbors the other day...

Aleaha pulls the boys in a wagon...

All around the yard.

Some links:

• Adrian posted his use of scrubbing pads on an arbor. Clever!
• Cool Japanese toys
• A cool sine bar interactive demonstration
• Sandvik has a free online machining course
• Wasan Geometry

Silver and Deming Drill Index

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

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.