Author: Peter Jones

I’m finally making some head way in the den. The great USB search of 2015, while entirely unnecessary, proved fruitful as it made me realize how bad that room really was. Piles of disorganized junk is only useful when the what has already been separated from the chaff. Right now I’m in the throw out move out out stage. Hopefully in the next week I’ll be getting to build.
Speaking of build, I’m working on getting one of our old phones rooted and stripped. Diss anyone remember DIP switches or jumpers? That would make this way easier. Hell, do a clever placed solder blob, anything. 

Turns out, its just a normal Micro-B cable. It is not an normal Micro-B receptacle. Because I hate you HTC. There shouldn’t be an option to change a standard to ft your random world. I understand why they did what they did. In an effort to reduce, whatever, they made an atypical Micro-B receptacle that added the ability to plug in a proprietary cable for putting stuff on a tv or whatever. Its still stupid. In general, if you don’t want to follow a standard, don’t.

Cider is brewing, I almost took pictures of the process, but realized it would also look like I was cooking if you know what I mean. Maybe next time, probably when I get to brewing my beer.

Still trying to find the cable. I mean, I know I have two of the cables, seeing as I have two of the same phone. I understand have the full sized spec and the small spec, that makes sense. And if this was a community spec, I would totally understand not fully thinking of the wear characteristics of the plug format. This however, this is a big corporate spec, they didn’t do jack to make the specification more permanent than hair color. To add insult, while I’m digging through pills of every USB cable format every, and a couple FireWire while I’m at it, I see that they have a new spec at CES.
Future proof and use it till you break it before its manufactured in bulk.

Enjoying a delightful beverage at the Triple Door mid commute with the Wif.
Bifrost
Like a hefefeizen. But good. Unlike most hef’s, this actually would pair with something citrus. Most hef’s should only pair with a chaser.

I try not to make to much of a racket. This means little saying and drilling, more organizing and planning. I’m that regards, I’m working on getting my auto photo setup going, the only thing is, the damnable USB spec. I need one kind of cable, I think the Micro B, and I’m just finding every other cable under the sun. One specification with dozens of incompatible variations, from a physical standpoint, but identical on the inside. It’s like they’re trying to show the inherent flaw in racism or something. At least that would show reason.
Any way, once I find the cord I need, I finally root any of my android devices, strip everything. I need camera, WiFi and Cron. And that’s all I need. And some file transfer ability. And that’s all. Camera, WiFi, Cron, and fine transfer. And that’s all I need.
Of course, once I get it taking pictures, it’ll only get worse. I also need a mount, a place to put the mount, a way to do updates without moving the phone, ideally a way for the phone to pan itself. I’d need the hardware to verify this, but I think I know how is do it. Setup a track across the ceiling, camera is setup on the track in a carriage with a couple servos, one with the movement, one or more with the directional functionality. Use the headphone jack to feed data to an Arduino. I see how to do it, just never have.

Somewhere I got motivated for the minute. One of those oddities about me is that I’m cheap. Seriously cheap. I also like to know how things work, to the point that most of the things I use, I want to know how it works.
True story: I was with a group from work getting a demo on a copier. This was for a very specific project, so we brought our own files and paper, to make sure everything would work to our satisfaction. Their technical person for demoing stuff prints one of the files and it prints out jacked and I’m explaining to my boss what settings they had assed up. While the vendor was dicking around in an attempt to not look like idiots, my boss noticed all these little shiny dots in the white areas. This absolutely confused everyone, they were checking the paper for a weird finish, looking at the file, the works. I then pointed out that colour copier in the US prints a yellow dot pattern that the Secret Service can then use to look up the serial number of the copier forged currency was printed on. No one in the room knew that.
Back to the point. So I’m looking at building my handsaw, which I think I’ll dub AndSaw, and thinking of getting back on task, and I realize I have some nice stepper motors. I also have all sorts of other odds and ends. Maybe I should get building a 3D printer I think. If at first I just get down the 2D motion, I’m cool with that. I then get thinking of how I could also something together all ghetto. I think I can do it. First its get it to draw a picture with a pen. Replace the pen with a glue gun. Replace a glue gun with an extruder.
So now I’m getting all looking at stuff online during break. I see an article about a home electron microscope, which is totally out of my price range (and foot print). But I want one. So I think, hey, how hard is it, so doing more research and saw the most basic description of the physics in play. The actual concept basically sounds like a deconstructed CRT. In a vacuum chamber. So tempted…
Saw
Cat tree
Automated picture of work space
…

So I figured out what I’ll use fit the wheel. CDs are plentiful, lightweight and strongish. If I laminate a half dozen together, I figure they’ll provide enough stability. I’m still considering linkage. I don’t think the draw is as important as I was thinking based l on the saw design stuff I was reading on Wikipedia. I was figuring a slice side and a rip and toss side to each sawtooth, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. Changing from direct to indirect won’t be a problem if I turn out to be wrong.
The lame bit is the servo situation. See, I have a couple servos that I figured would be perfect. Unfortunately, they’re not servos, but stepper motors, which means I need to look at how to drive those. I’m not feeling the desire to build a gearbox, so I can’t just use a random motor, and a motor sans gearing will totally be short on the torque.

For some reason my photo of the mess I made didn’t upload. I’ll have to add that to the last post later.
Now I’m thinking of the saw. The bigger the radius of the motion, the more speed it well have, which also means less oomph. I don’t know if it would be appropriate to use the word torque here, but I want to. On the other hand, if I have a small wheel, I can skip most of the linkage. I could just bolt the blade to the wheel with enough room to avoid the end of the motors axle. The only thing is, I think I should look at saw blades more.

Salish Sea – Salish IPA
Kinda musty. The color is a happy orange, but the flavor is meh. I don’t think IPAs work for me. Assuming this shady they mean by IPA.
Elysian – Savant IPA
Rocking some citrus and floral flavors. Would definitely be well paired with roasted chestnuts. I assume. I don’t really like them either.
Green Flash – Le Freak Belg IIPA
What does the second I mean. IPA is India Pale Ale. So… really, its better than the Salish, but then again, so is the coffee at work.
Two Beers – Cascadian Brown Ale
Nutty. Maybe some hazelnut. Yeah. That’s what I’ll pretend my unsophisticated palette recognized.