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Turtles/Tortises rarely cross roads unless they smell a mate over there.
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Jun 4, 2011 18:39
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Hadlock posted:Turtles/Tortises rarely cross roads unless they smell a mate over there. Nature's proof that females will make males do stupid and dangerous things.
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Jun 5, 2011 04:51
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I found a turtle in the road once and I told pet island and they saidquote:WHAT THE gently caress ARE YOU DOING PUT IT BACK STUPID ITS A TURTLE HE KNOWS WHAT HE DOING
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Jun 5, 2011 20:55
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 I think you missed the point that: A: I almost ran him over and B: It was a busy part of town. If you'd like I can draw you a loving map. It's an old torn down neighborhood across the street from the NEX right near the main entrance to a Navy base. As a matter of fact, 2 days later there was another dead turtle just not 50 feet from where I picked this little guy up. I've considered all aspects, and if it was in a more rural or country area then I couldn't have taken him off the road. Anyways, I thought this was the "Post your projects MEGATHREAD", not the wildlife rescue foundation, so please stop derailing the thread thank you very much.
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Jun 7, 2011 04:07
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Today I finished my landsailer. Well, not FINISHED finished, it still needs brakes and a paint job. But I sailed it! Yay! I started on it a month ago, after waking up from a dream where I was sailing a landsailer I had made. In the dream, I was tacking up and down the alley in a Santa Ana. (A Santa Ana is a SoCal weather phenomenon, a windstorm that blows in from the desert to the east.) After thinking about it all day, that evening I made a model:  I sailed it outside the next day, and was pleased to see it scoot off down the driveway. For the next week, I repeatedly remade and refined the model of my sailcart.  This was the final version of the model. I was satisfied enough with the strength of the design to start cutting out the real thing.  Almost all of my material came from dumpsters, secondhand stores, and around my house and my neighbors' houses. Exceptions are the tarp for the sail and most of the wood screws, blade and bit replacements and the like. Most of the rest of the hardware was stuff I already had kicking around. The first sail I tried out on it came from my mini sabot. It was really too small, but it did pull the cart a little bit. I needed a bigger sail.  My next sail I had to make. I had the mast and boom from a full sabot, but no sail to bend to it. Online, I found many plans for making sails from poly tarps. I was able to adapt what I learned to make a sabot sail (which has a pocket that slides over the mast, rather than being lashed to the mast in the more conventional manner). I laid out my mini sabot's sail as a shape guide:  The battens were lovingly crafted with my MacGuyver knife  from "California Bamboo" (Australian grass, and they can keep the wretched stuff because it's the most invasive poo poo I ever) that I (unfortunately dammit loving stuff) have growing out back. And there we are.  Sailing down the alley, just like in my dream.  Bad Munki posted:Awesomeharp Update? Stavrogin posted:The more questions I formulate, the more I realize I'm baffled by the entire thing (and also the more I want to make one). Start with a tube harp, if you haven't already. (edited to fix an image that had disappeared for some reason) Sun Dog fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Mar 31, 2012 |
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Jun 7, 2011 08:47
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Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:2 days later there was another dead turtle just not 50 feet from where I picked this little guy up.
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Jun 8, 2011 13:33
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I made a reverse geocache box for a special friend. She's going to Finland for a year and I wanted to give her a little something . This was my first project thing with fancy electronics, so I opted to go the easy way and get an Arduino. I wanted the electronics part to be as small as possible, so I got the Pro Mini, which has a 30x15mm or so footprint, The GPS is around 30x30mm, so it's quite small as well. I also got a small servo in order to open the box. I did get a big screen (20x4 characters), though. The servo had a mosfet attached because there were some problems with the software serial and servo libraries conflicting with timers and thus the servo would move randomly from time to time, and I don't really want the box opening just when it feels like it (I tried with older libraries that supposedly didn't have this problem, but it didn't really work). With the mosfet acting as a switch to activate the servo, the servo is turned on, it moves, and then it's powered off. Also, this had the benefit of not opening the box whenever the main switch is connected, since the servo moved about 15º every time the power went on, and you could open the box just by mashing the switch. I didn't get a lot of pictures from the build, but here's what I have: This is how you start. First you get the LEDs to blink and the servo to move to see if the thing works. I already had some experience with C, so this wasn't a problem. Then, you see if the display works:  Then, you get the GPS to know where it is:  What is a box without a box?  Not being one to wish this kind of philosophical nonsense, a box was made. I didn't take any pictures of it directly, but you can see it in this other picture. Ignore the golden ball of a thousand lollipops. Some of the wiring from the back. A bit messy. You can see the mosfet on the top, insulated with plastic. The black thing at the bottom is the main switch. It's a normaly closed switch, so when a tab is lifted, the Arduino switches on. The tab has a magnet, so when you close it, it stays off:  Here's the front part of it. The GPS is also insulated because there are some 5V wires that touched the metal parts of it sometimes, and it shorted to ground.  I built four housings before commiting to making the final thing. These are some of the prototypes and some diagrams. You might like to see them:     This is where the box part is, along with a servo that didn't survive (a wire got torn out of the servo's PCB. Impossible to repair):  The locking mechanism:  Now, why would I destroy several yellow pages when I could have made the prototype housings with cardboard? Well, I put the box in a book!   "I want to see the sky". So that the GPS can get a fix:  "It's too hot. I know a place... It's 4711km away". We live in the Canaries, Finland is a bit colder. Note the custom characters (á):  I made this window for the GPS' LED so in case it doesn't turn on in case the 5V wire breaks or loses contact (happened, and she had to give it to me to fix , thus the window. I'm not proud of it breaking. At least it could be fixed). This way, if the GPS doesn't get a fix immediately, she can check if it's working.  In case the batteries run out, there's a door to access the battery compartment.   I won't say what's in the box, just in case anyone may spoil the surprise (highly unlikely, but still... It's a small Internet). I will when she opens it. I will say that it's something unique that I haven't seen anyone make before, and I did search on Google!
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Jun 9, 2011 00:19
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The Aeolian harp pics have inspired me and I've now enlisted the help of a friend who knows stringed instruments inside and out, I hope to build a bitchin' harp.
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Jun 9, 2011 07:57
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After building mine, I would just say make it long, longer than you really intend. Mine's relatively short, I think (2' length overall) and as such, I used thinner strings in order to not have to tighten them up a ton to put the strings in the right tension range. Because of that, I'm having more trouble getting it to sound than I had with my pvc harp. Even if I never get it fully working, though, it's still an interesting musical oddity to have on a shelf somewhere. It plucks fairly well and I imagine I could play it with a bow as well.  I'd like to build a bigger one that would stand in a doorway and use much longer, thicker strings, like 6 feet long or more.
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Jun 9, 2011 15:15
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Bad Munki posted:Mine's relatively short, I think (2' length overall) and as such, I used thinner strings in order to not have to tighten them up a ton to put the strings in the right tension range. Because of that, I'm having more trouble getting it to sound than I had with my pvc harp. I think you should try nylon strings on it. BlackTie posted:I made a reverse geocache box for a special friend. I just learned about geocaching recently. What an enchanting idea! I await your update! We used to do this as kids, sans GPS technology, using riddles or plainly written clues instead. Sometimes I take some coins or trinkets and hide them in places only the young and the curious will look, like a pocket under roots or a hole in a wall, because when I was a kid, finding a cache like that was awesome.
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Jun 9, 2011 18:11
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Sun Dog posted:I think you should try nylon strings on it. Maybe so: they're definitely thicker than steel strings. Monofilament fishing line, though, was disappointing. It stretches waaaaay too easily. If I get a chance to pick some up, I'll probably try actual nylon guitar strings. Sun Dog posted:I just learned about geocaching recently. What an enchanting idea! I await your update! There was a geocaching thread, but I think it was so quiet that it got archived recently.
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Jun 9, 2011 19:15
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Bad Munki posted:Maybe so: they're definitely thicker than steel strings. Monofilament fishing line, though, was disappointing. It stretches waaaaay too easily. If I get a chance to pick some up, I'll probably try actual nylon guitar strings. Yes, I meant music-grade nylon. Fishing line takes a little longer to season, but it does eventually stabilize. I haven't tuned my harp's strings in over a year now. They're the same original strings. When I first installed them, I was tuning daily for a few days, then weekly. After a month or so, they seemed to more or less even out. Something just occurred to me, though. I got my line from the recycle bin, used, seasoned and already stretched out. I never experimented with brand new line. The geocaching thread was slow , I suspect, because all the geocachers were out geocaching, away from their computers. :V
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Jun 10, 2011 08:01
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BlackTie posted:I made a reverse geocache box for a special friend. She's going to Finland for a year and I wanted to give her a little something Embedding into the book is really clever! The text is a nice touch, too. My units' text outputs tend to be very clinical.  My first reverse geocache was feature-laden and got pretty messy. This one, which I made for someone else, was a KISS (keep it simple) unit. I eschewed any sort of locking motor, and just used a combination lock instead. When it's solved, it gives you the code to the lock. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Jun 10, 2011 |
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Jun 10, 2011 09:46
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Sun Dog posted:Today I finished my landsailer. Are you planning to put suspension on it? You might (literally) run into some problems when you get hit by a sudden gust of wind and you lose all contact with your tires because they've been lifted off the ground. Where are landsailers typically driven?
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Jun 10, 2011 17:53
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Dry lakebeds and vast beaches, aren't they? In harp news, I'm calling mine complete. I'm going to be going out of town for a while, so I figured that'd be a good time to string it up with nylon and let it settle in for a while. After stringing it up (I'm just using fishing line again, for convenience) I was able to get it to sound just by sticking it over one of the air vents in the house. Can't wait to hear it once the strings have eased and I can actually tune it reliably. And of course, after several days of storming and such, it's now completely calm outside.  The harp as it currently stands:  At some point in the future, I'll replace the bridges with thinner, lighter wood, but for now, these'll do all right. They'd just made of some scrap 1/8" maple I had lying around. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Jun 10, 2011 |
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Jun 10, 2011 20:52
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You could try experimenting with bridge materials, brass stock, bone, corian counter top cut-offs. In normal guitar bridge/nut making the harder/more dense it is the better for tone. It could be interesting to have a couple of sets you can swap out and see how it affects the final tone.
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Jun 11, 2011 01:28
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 I'm making a wooden frame backpack. Used white pine cause it was cheap. Bad idea. Next time I'll use oak even if its harder to work, since pine is really loose grained. I'll also use glue next time. I might also add a shelf to the back. Anyone ever made one of these?
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Jun 11, 2011 01:42
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Oak would also make it pretty heavy. Considered something like maple? Or birch might be a good choice.
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Jun 11, 2011 03:42
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Decoy Badger posted:Are you planning to put suspension on it? You might (literally) run into some problems when you get hit by a sudden gust of wind and you lose all contact with your tires because they've been lifted off the ground. Where are landsailers typically driven? Do you landsail? I don't know a drat thing about landsailers except the idea of hauling on a sheet and mashing a tiller about on dry land is awesome. :V I don't intend to race, or even go very fast. I intend to sail in low traffic urban settings, such as industrial parks on a sunday. Maybe take it to parks or the beach, we'll see. I'm working on a lug sail plan, maybe even with a jib. Jibs look so cool. <3 Bad Munki posted:Dry lakebeds and vast beaches, aren't they? Yeah, usually. But I need a little more timely gratification, I have no time to go gallivanting off to deserts and lakebeds. The harp looks great. It's nice that it's so sensitive that an air vent made it sound.
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Jun 12, 2011 07:32
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Sun Dog posted:Do you landsail? I don't know a drat thing about landsailers except the idea of hauling on a sheet and mashing a tiller about on dry land is awesome. :V Looking at commercial sailers, they don't have a suspension either. Surprising, even putting the rear wheels on trailing arms would add a ton of stability. Maybe that isn't the point of a sailer though. My only time sailing the boat capsized, so I'm a bit wary of wind-powered vehicles 
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Jun 13, 2011 04:42
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I'm new to this whole area of SA, wow. I want to make some wooden rings and bangles for my girlfriend while she's on vacation but I don't have the right tools. I have a lovely carving tool/knife from a hobby store but I mostly use my Benchmade fold-out because of the sharp serrated section. Anyone have tips on mid to high quality wood carving tools for blocks you can more or less fit in your hand?
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Jun 13, 2011 10:35
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Isaac Asimov posted:I'm new to this whole area of SA, wow. #1- Don't use anything serrated. #2- Get a SELECTION of high carbon (but not carbide) knives; they can all be identical; grip and blade thinness are important, size less so, but to prevent a lot of self stabbing/cutting long thin knives like fillet knives or juliennes are idea, since you can have your fingers well away from the other side of the blade when working and won't have it suddenly poke through the workpeice into you.. #3- Get a SELECTION of files (round and flat), rasps and sandpaper- ideally in progressive increasing grit. #4- Get a SELECTION of sharpening stones, going from coarse to very fine; get good at sharpening. #5- Work on good wood, you will be able to put detail into a good block of hardwood that would be simply impossible in soft pine. #6- Have a good polyurethane and stain handy before you start, the longer that finished shaved wood is exposed the air the more of a dark colour it will take on. Don't use any knife for more then ten minutes of shaving, set it aside after ten minutes and grab the next sharp one, repeat until you are out of knives, then sharpen them all, then repeat. Do not try to get to the final form by knife shaving, use your files, rasps and sandpaper for getting final form, only get to the rough by whittling, then get to the final finished form by your progressively increasing sand grits, once your done sanding quickly wipe it off with a wet, or tacky, cloth and immediately apply sealer (polyurethane does great; some will darken, others will simply make it look wet, some are effectively invisible, choose what looks best- I often prefer high gloss non-darkening).
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Jun 13, 2011 20:26
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Hell yes, thank you so much! I have another request, what is the preferred software for designing electronic diagrams easily? I need something that can do the math for me, like if I add 13 different LEDs and a power source it will tell me how much resistance I need and maybe even the color code. Free to $20 would be ideal.
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Jun 14, 2011 18:47
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Isaac Asimov posted:Hell yes, thank you so much! KiCad is free and opensource.
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Jun 14, 2011 18:55
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Isaac Asimov posted:Hell yes, thank you so much! LTSpice is free and will do the circuit analysis portion of what you are asking for. It isn't a general EDA tool, though.
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Jun 14, 2011 18:57
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Cool, thanks goonz. vvv My main problem these days is trying to guess the voltage of my anonymous LEDs that I've had for a while. vv This site is awesome by the way. Isaac Asimov fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Jun 17, 2011 |
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Jun 14, 2011 21:42
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If its purely LEDs and resistance you are after, I use this webpage: http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz
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Jun 15, 2011 01:46
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Decoy Badger posted:Looking at commercial sailers, they don't have a suspension either. Surprising, even putting the rear wheels on trailing arms would add a ton of stability. Maybe that isn't the point of a sailer though. I'm not sure, but I think the reason for no suspension is you need a strong keel effect. There's bound to be lots of side loading on the tires in a reach, and I think a suspension would allow too much play, maybe make the sailer more prone to tipping. Should you ever decide to sail again, drill this into your reflexes: When things (including your mast) start to go tits up, let go. Drop the sheet and tiller. The boat will right itself immediately.
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Jun 15, 2011 10:38
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Isaac Asimov posted:vvv My main problem these days is trying to guess the voltage of my anonymous LEDs that I've had for a while. You can use a conservative resistor and measure current. Then do a little algebra.
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Jun 15, 2011 15:24
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taqueso posted:You can use a conservative resistor and measure current. Then do a little algebra. If he/she can measure current then they can probably just measure the LED voltage with the diode tester on every cheap multimeter.
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Jun 15, 2011 16:19
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I recently bought a Dolby cinema processor (CP55) for my 35mm projector, So I decided to build a remote control for the unit so I can control it... remotely. The master fader controls the volume in the home theatre, or lounge room or shed (girlfriend approval pending). The monitor fader controls the volume of the speaker in the projection booth, and the channel switch controls the channel that plays through the monitor, centre, left, right, surrounds or all at once. I learnt a lot about soldering, and how to burn the living poo poo out of your hand. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but I've worked in actual cinemas with a lot worse!  What the ffffffffuuuuuuuuuuu  I know it's solid core and it will probably snap in like 5 minutes, but I needed 14 cores for the umbilical, so cat5 was the most sensible solution. I will probably gut the insides and use a terminal strip to terminate the umbilical, then use multi strand copper for the internal wiring. It works though. I will be tidying up the wiring, this is just a testing model I suppose. I still have to add a changeover switch to change between the 35mm projector, and probably a 16mm projector I will put on the proj2 input.
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Jun 20, 2011 15:06
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Ron Burgundy posted:I recently bought a Dolby cinema processor (CP55) for my 35mm projector, So I decided to build a remote control for the unit so I can control it... remotely. Use heat shrink/Kynar or electrical tape around those exposed solder joints then put a bead of hot glue down to add extra insulation and hold it into place. That'll probably hold it together for years. It may be ugly inside but it's a one-off DIY deal so who cares. It's pretty sick that you have a 35mm projector setup though, that is completely awesome. How hard/expensive is it to get movies for it?
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Jun 20, 2011 22:30
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Ron Burgundy posted:I recently bought a Dolby cinema processor (CP55) for my 35mm projector, So I decided to build a remote control for the unit so I can control it... remotely. I like it, you did better than some of the "engineers" where I work, so hey, nice job. As you might know already, cat5 (unshielded twisted pair) is great for audio, but technically it needs to be a balanced signal. Assuming your inputs and outputs are all unbalanced and you want to rectify this, you just put a "balun" transformer at each end of the run. There are lots of expensive baluns and equipment specifically made for cat5 audio, but I think you can DIY with something as cheap and simple as these guys http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103254
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Jun 21, 2011 09:21
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The layout is something like this. The processor takes the signal from the solar cell, amplifies it to line level. applies A type noise reduction (possibly SR one day with an upgrade), de-matrixes the audio to 4 channels, then feeds each channel to an amplifier at line level. I was thinking of taking the monitor input from the speaker output of the amps and dropping it to line level using resistors so that I am actually monitoring what is being fed to the speakers rather than what is going from processor to amps. quadpus posted:As you might know already, cat5 (unshielded twisted pair) is great for audio, but technically it needs to be a balanced signal. Assuming your inputs and outputs are all unbalanced and you want to rectify this, you just put a "balun" transformer at each end of the run. I actually assumed that cat5 was the worst possible cable for audio, but it's nice to hear that it isn't! Signal noise isn't a huge factor for the monitor, but if signal balancing is easy enough to implement I will probably give it a shot. And drat those transformers are good value. granpa yum posted:Use heat shrink/Kynar or electrical tape around those exposed solder joints then put a bead of hot glue down to add extra insulation and hold it into place. That'll probably hold it together for years. It may be ugly inside but it's a one-off DIY deal so who cares. I was thinking about zip tying all the ugly crap, but the hot glue is a great idea! As for prints, you usually get into the hobby buying trailers. Common trailers go from $1 -10 or even free to a good home! I've picked up features for free if they are in very bad condition or are just crap movies. Condition effects value insanely. I picked up a movie the other day about a bus that couldn't slow down, It would normally be a $500+ movie, but because it has a scratch through reels 4&5 (about 40 minutes) I got it for $200. With a little cleaning, it may be less noticeable. Being in Australia makes collecting hard too. Most of the action takes place in the states. It costs more than the print usually to ship down here, so I have to really love the movie. Working as a projectionist, you pick up things from time to time too.
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Jun 21, 2011 10:01
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Ron Burgundy posted:
What is it that you are planning on using to remove the scratches from the film? I work part time at a movie theatre and we use one of these babies to both try to remove scratches and protect the film from developing more. Hell, any additional techniques to clean a film would be useful for me to know as well. I was also wondering, are you using a platter to run the prints, or the old school individual reel method?
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Jun 21, 2011 15:44
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Atlas Telamon posted:What is it that you are planning on using to remove the scratches from the film? I work part time at a movie theatre and we use one of these babies to both try to remove scratches and protect the film from developing more. Hell, any additional techniques to clean a film would be useful for me to know as well. You nailed it, FilmGuard is awesome. I haven't bought a dry web cleaner yet, but it's on the list. By using FG alone on my prints just applied on rewinds, it removes some of the poo poo that has built up in base scratches, as for emulsion scratches, the FG can make it seem smaller . Brad has never claimed this is the case, but it's just what i've noticed. FWIW if you aren't already a member of the forums there, they are great. As for cleaning, I do a lot of stuff on my personal prints that I probably would have gotten yelled at for when I was still a projectionist. For example, Shellite to remove adhesive residue! Still the cinema I worked at was pretty much a first run and a grindhouse in one, and the equipment was very old, so you probably already know more than I learnt at my work. Always wear cotton gloves, it's something that has just become habit! I don't have a platter at home yet, I just didn't have the room, so I run from 6000 ft reels and have an intermission, since that's half way through a standardish length movie anyway. I have a second projector thats in perpetual restoration, so changeovers one day!
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Jun 21, 2011 17:03
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Ron Burgundy posted:I picked up a movie the other day about a bus that couldn't slow down, I love Ghostbusters! Lucky you watching it on your own cinema screen.
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Jun 21, 2011 19:19
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Blistex posted:I love Ghostbusters! Lucky you watching it on your own cinema screen. poo poo went down when they got the ecto to 88mph.
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Jun 22, 2011 02:59
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Hmmm, search function must be down. Two Ghostbuster references and Boomerjinks hasn't spammed this thread with his car. Content: When I was three my father made a rocking horse for me out of scrap cedar. I loved that thing and would wear out the carpet from my excessive riding. Fast forward 12 years and mom was having a yard sale. She put the rocking horse out on the lawn and $5.00 later it was gone. Fast forward another 10-12 years. I'm driving along a street three hours from where I live and I see something out of the corner of my eye. It's that rocking horse. Some people said they picked it up at a yard sale a few streets over, and those people had picked it up off the curb an hour before the garbage truck rolled up. It had been sitting on their porch for a few years and looked pretty bad due to a few winters and a lot of sun. I told them that it was actually my old horse and they were a little dubious. I told them to wait a second and had my wife dig up the photos from the album I had scanned and she emailed it to me on my phone. The people couldn't believe it and sold it to me for $5.00 I decided that I would fix it up, repaint it, and put it in the the living room of my new house. What's even more amazing is that the old paint was still in my parents basement, and it was still good! I used the exact same paint from ~22 years earlier that my dad had used to paint it.  Can't wait until my kids are old enough to ride this thing. . . once they're born that is.
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Jun 22, 2011 04:56
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Blistex posted:my old horse That is an awesome real life Toy Story. Look at that horse smile.
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Jun 22, 2011 10:04
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