Author: Peter Jones

My original thought consisted of a V shaped channel, with the bottles standing up right. Pressure would be maintained by a string lasso being wound in by a motor. It would probably work, but even adding that I wasn’t counting the load area, due to its general characteristics, I’m not super happy with the footprint or gestalt.
This brings me to thinking vertical.Have the bottles in a tilted rectangular hopper with the output rotating out and down. It might look dope but I’m pretty sure it’ll be more work. One of my co-workers pointed out the silliness of the project for two score bottles a month at most, but there’s a principle to it. At the end of the loader have two rubber wheels, one on the bottom pulling the bottles in, and the one on the top will push bottles out, kinda like a vacuum feed on a printer.
As long as I have the filling automated, any which way is fine by me.

So I tried modeling in Blender. First try was abysmal, but I just need practice. And to think about the project differently. Rather than try to free hand, think of the shape I’m making and what the shape is made of. Antlers, for example, are just stacks of Ys. Pinch and twist a bit and I’ll get my vertex number down and have some organic looking structures. The head is a pinched rectangle.
Then we have forming. I’ll have to check if solder will join my wire spool. Of course, now I get to thinking of the strength of the wire. If it can’t hold the paper long enough to get a single layer dried, it’s no good to me. I’ll have to give it a try and then consider other wire choices.

Started trying to freehand my forms last night, to while away the time as I was providing moral support for the Wif’s studying. Did not work.
I think I need to look at how I’m doing it. It wasn’t that the wire was too flimsy, though it’s hella flimsy. It’s that I was going long pieces, and then trying to knot then together. I should probably just muck around with my wire a bit. Maybe I should try soldering the joins.
On a different note, I decided to install Guild Wars 2 again. The story and environment are beautiful. It’s the gameplay. With the expansion, I have hopes.
I was also thinking about the classic DOS game Omega. Now that was an original game that I haven’t seen recreated since. You program tanks to autonomously fight each other. If I had a stack of cash, I’d totally buy the rights, and rerelease it. Since I don’t, I think it makes for a good breaking off point for a different game idea. Post apocalyptic, you’re trapped in a bunker, you need to scavenge to survive, so you build drones. Have low quality video of what your drones see, remote control is possible but spotty. I like it.

Regarding the pump, the peristaltic one I looked at is rocking a speedy 100ml/min. This means I’d be getting a brain melting bottle every three to four minutes.
So, idea next! Fill height sensing is a must, but, rather than a pump, use a motor as the valve. Just need to build a filling jig. Take a cork or bottle cap or whatever, mount… a solenoid, yeah, a solenoid to pinch the silicone tubing. Have the distance sensor grab the range to the cider. Feed the range to an Arduino, or whatever, when the height hits, kill the flow.
I also want an autoloader. Thinking like an autocannon.

Next time u need some proper cleanser. It took way to much water for sanitizing stuff due to my going happy with the bleach. I have bottles in the washer getting heated. Water is going for the priming sugar. Gonna siphon to my carboy, add the priming sugar, give it a shake, let it style and go!
…
I need to sanitize the caps. And this is why we talk through steps.

I have a giant spool of wire. Soon^TM I’ll start modeling cryptozoological things in Blender. Take that, and grab the length of edges and use it to create a list of edges for making wire forms for doing paper-mache. First I need to learn to use Blender.

Take multiple rounds of glass.
On each one add a polarized film. Make rough spots on the film on one for the sun, the moon, and stars. Maybe clouds also.
Add tint to the different rounds so as to provide day and night, storms, whether, maybe even lighting.
Build an array of LEDs to change hue, but not so much brightness.
Rotate the differ rounds at different speeds.

Seems likea lot of work, but it might be dope looking. I always liked the polarized window turning in Blade Runner. I don’t believe Deckard is a replicant. I don’t believe Lola is a dude.
#teachthecontroversy

Thinking of a fox with antlers in silhouette. Also corners and doors. It’s all corners and doors.