Life Strikes Again!

Life Strikes Again!

Ok, so the summer is almost over! School is about to start, work it taking off like a mad hornet, and the kids keep getting harder to chase down. That being said now all the fun projects are about to come to life. So keep posted, you may see some of the things on this list.

1. Welding sculptures
2. More 3D printing
3. Drafting and functional design
4. Rail gun (I know it has been on my list for a while)
5. Odds and ends projects in the stage shops (Both of them)
6. Maybe in a few months we will start working on the addition to the house!

Lets have fun!

Selling the 3D printer

Selling the 3D printer

You read it right. I am selling the 3D printer. Two reasons. 1. I need the money. 2. I want to see how much it is worth in the real world. I have built it and I know I can do it. Someday, I will build a bigger one with a better print quality. My next projects will have more to do with school as I am going to be working on my MFA at UW Madison. But I do want to build a rail gun so keep your eyes out for that. You never know when I might have some crazy idea.

Google+

Ok, it has been 24 hours that I have been on Google+ I have got to say I love it. I cannot compare it directly to Facebook. it is different and better at the same time. It does almost everything Facebook does, but more and better. This is based more around integration of information and control of who sees what in a world where privacy is being thrown out the window, Google is trying to bring back a bit of it.
1. If you want to delete something it is actually deleted from the server. If you want to download files from the server in batch form you can. 2. If you have things you want some of your friends to see and not others it does that easily through circle of acquaintances. 3. It is fully integrated with all the other Google software. This is the part I love the most. I use Google docs and I have been using it more and more. I also use Google's photo storage Picasa, along with several other Google services. Even though there was one sign for all of them I always thought why don't they have them linked together? Now they do. You can store all your files on their servers and access them from any computer or smart phone that you can log into. Because it is integrated you can collaborate and share files and pictures. I have a friend I am working with on a job. Now in Google docs I can share the file with him we can both look at it and change it, and work on the same file. No need for emailing different copies back and forth it is all together in one location. Soon they will be integrating Google calendar so you can make events and share them with others onto their calendar. So you say what if I do not use Google calendar or email. They have done everything they can to make it work with other programs. If you want to use Outlook (I do not know why) they can sync with that. This is an amazing piece of work. Yes it has a few bugs, it is new, but there is so much this can do. I cantt wait to see the future and what others will do with this powerful tool.

Trebuchet! Yea those are fun.

Trebuchet! Yea those are fun.

I decided to make a trebuchet just for the fun of it. I wanted something that I could use in the back yard so I said it can be no taller then 2'. It took me about forty five minutes to put together, and it works great. It will launch a 6oz socket about 50 feet. I will have to work on accuracy and distances as I get to play with it. I would like to make a chart with distances with different settings and weights of projectiles. If you want to come over for a party some time I might just break it out for you.

3D printer update

Here is the 3D printer so far. It is all built and ready for testing. I am sure it will need much in the way of adjustments, but for the most part it is all built. All 3 end stops are wired in. All 4 stepper motors are tuned and should be running at the right temperature. The heating tip has both a nichrome wire to heat it and a thermocouple to keep track of the temperature. Next, I have to get the software up and running, and get the printer and the computer talking. So hopefully in the next month or so it should be ready to print my first item. I still do not know what I want to print after the test cube. Any ideas what I should do first?

Bending CPVC

For a recent play we did The Mystery of the Yellow Room it was adapted a book just for our stage. Great play with a lot of thought. We needed a railing to go all the way around the second story and we did not have the money for spindles. I have bent solid PVC rods before but even that would have been over $400. We had to do it for under $40. I knew I could bend CPVC a bit, but I needed a very tight curve. At one point in needs to have a 1.5" radius. With just heating it the CPVC would kink and look horrible. I have filled pipes with sand to stop the kinking but it took forever to heat with the heat gun. Each one would take me 30 minutes, and I needed to make over 50. I had looked at making a furnace to heat them as I was laying them, but I had to heat a 4' long pipe. There are not many ovens that would fit that. I looked at making one out of heating duct and charcoal lighters, but could not get the balance right. The big problem with CPVC is the flexibility point and the melting points are very close. So here is my final solution.
              I desecrated the shop coffee pot with silica sand. The coffee pot would heat it up to around 120 degrees, and it would hold enough for 10 pipes at a time. I then capped the ends of the pipe and puored in the sand. With the sand heated, I only had to heat the pipe a bit to make it mold into the form I made. now I could do one every 5 minutes. Paint them a bit of gold and there you go, a quick, cheap, and unique railing.

LED Blacklight for the Stage and for the Fun

Here is an old trick that we have started to use for productions. Glow tape just does not last all show if it lasts for 10 minutes. So I went down to Radio shack and got a pack of 3V watch batteries and a two pack of UV LEDs for $1.80. Then, you just slide the battery in there with the positive and negative on the right side of the battery. Next, wrap with tape and stick up where ever you need a bit of light. The best thing is they will last the whole show, even if you leave them on for the whole run. Black light is great because few things reflect it. If you are on a stage with with black curtains all you see is the point of light from the LED itself. I also thought these may make a good night light for my daughters room. The more I use black light the more I like it, and the more I find great uses for it. If you use a yellow highlighter on your skin it glows in black light and can be just barely seen in the normal light. They also make UV reflective clear markers that glow in black light. I have thought of using those instead of glow light because the small black light shining on them will keep them glowing with out needing to be recharged. Also, if you do not want to see the mark just turn off the black light and it is gone. Just think of all the fun you can have with your kids and this.

Nothing is Impossible!

I have a problem with "it can not be done." Now yes when someone asks me to do something that has not been done or has only been done with huge amounts of funding I often scoff off the bat, but then my mental juices kick in and often I find a way to do it. Lately it has made me think is anything impossible? The more I try to do the impossible the more I find all things are possible. We have seen tech get smaller and smaller and faster at the same time. I read an article the other day about the focus of space exploration. We are seeing more and more of the universe around us. So the question is do we seek look for a planet that we can go to first. Or to we build a ship to go there? The second seams almost impossible to travel faster then light. But if we were given a desire to seek and find out all we can about what we have been given why would we be restricted to this small sphere. No! It is not impossible. We can and must push past the impossible and make it possible. Weather that is something small like a lighting problem or something like traveling to other solar systems. It can be done. So stop thinking things are impossible and start spending the time to make them reality! 

11' Home Theater for under $100

Ok here is my theater setup. 11' screen 10.1 surround sound 720i projector with blue ray and media computer for all under $100. Everyone says, "Wow, you are lucky to get all of this so cheaply!" For me it is not luck but a strategy and patience. So here is how I did it. First, do not be picky. Be willing to get the older stuff and do some work to get things the way you want them. The first item I got in this set was the surround system amplifier. A friend of mine was an early adopter of home surround well he got this one back in '99 and 3 years ago decided to upgrade. Though the old one worked fine he got a newer more powerful system so he gave me the old one. Next, I needed the speakers. This was the easy part. I put out feelers asking if anyone had old speakers. I got far more than I needed. People were getting rid of their old desktop computer speakers. These were not the best but they worked fine as long as you spend the time to control them better. I used old lamp cord to run the speakers around the room in the crown molding around the room.

About a year and a half ago a school was given about 25 older projectors. They put into service the ones they wanted and the rest were just taking up space. So they decided to sell the rest for $50 each. At this time, I just used a section of the wall for the screen. It was not perfect but it worked. then about a year ago another school was closing and throwing away a lot of old equipment. I got a 7' stand up projector screen. It was ripped but some tape on the back fixed it up fine. This screen was good but I wanted it bigger and I wanted it to come down from the ceiling. I kept an eye out on Craigslist and one day came across a guy that had a brand new 11' coil up screen in his garage he never used and he only wanted $40 for it.

So now I have spent about $90 for it all. For Christmas, I asked for a Blue Ray player, and lo and behold I got one this last Christmas. now the only problem is if i want to play Netflix or something on the computer I have to connect my laptop, but then I cannot use it while we are watching the movie. Eventually, everyone in the house got a laptop of their own so we no longer needed the desktop. I took the tower and connected it up the put on a wireless keyboard and mouse that I could put on my lap. Now I have all this for under $100. The big thing is to be patient and keep looking. Be willing to put some work into it. Remember time is money and just like matter and energy one can be changed from one to the other. Either spend the time or spend the money.

3D Printer

This is where I am so far on the 3D printer. This is not a CNC router that cuts shapes out of material. This will actually print plastic into a shape creating it layer by layer. All the blue pieces you see in this were printed on another 3D printer. It has four stepper motors one each for the X, Y, And Z axises, and then one to force the plastic filament to the heating head. The X axis has a bed that moves in and out. The Y will slide side to side on two rods. Then the Z moves the whole Y set up and down two threaded rod. The extruder is a brass tube with the outside warped in nichrome wire. Then the mother board controls all four stepper motors and the extruder speed.
I still need to install the frameware on the motherboard for the driver, and I need to get the interface for USB connection on the computer working. Other than that it is almost done. I hope to have it up and running by the time my son is born in July.
The applications are endless. I can replace plastic parts that break, make new prototypes, make model pieces to scale. Then just think for a moment that I could print other things like silver and silicone. I could print circuit boards. In the future, you could see something you like on line and just print it rather than waiting for it to come in the mail.