secondsuitor

I got looking at a robot arm online. The commemorative model is in my price range, but I’m not sure about the real thing. I’m really not sure because they want me to twist a quote. Why do people do this? The analogy is a fancier fish serving restaurant, a fish house if you will, and a Market Price. How would I know how much a given fish is? Her BS. 

So I get looking at other and, and you have cheap plastic, and “request quote” industrial goods. A pro-am model would be great. Something to helprme in the Den. So that’s what I’m thinking about.  

Especially as this might be glass dust, I might need to think about dust collection in the Dremel(ish). Something about staying glass dust everywhere sounds like a bad idea. Maybe if I crank a computer fan fat enough connected to a house that sat at the end of the tool. This might be a terrible idea.

Tonight I’ll get expanding the shop some more. I need more shelves. I think I’ll take the one frame and mount it to one of the shelves. Maybe I’ll glass it in and make a terrarium like thing from it. That’ll kill a few birds with one stone.

I also need to look at the closet, and by closet I mean brewery. Not today, or even this week, I’ll look at putting an outlet in the inside (which well be child’s play). Really I just need to cut a whole in the wall and piggy bank off of the outlet on the other side of the closet wall. Suddenly I think I should think about that a bit more. Choose and stuff.

So:

Bottle cutting jig sucked (pictures to be added). Turns out that a raid blade does fudge all for scoring a bottle. 

Acetone did jack.  barely made the bottle warm. Maybe I need to do a lot more studying and acetone. I should try that tomorrow.

I started putting some shelves together. This still be the end game of something. Hell if I know what. Other than storage. Storage is kinda important.I need storage just to find things. Hell, I don’t even know where the tape measure with a level is. I even just found four W00t Stout.

I might need to look at cutting that shit with the dremel(ish). Patience is not my strong point. 

I looked up some Hayseed Dixie. They covered  The Darkness’ I Believe in a Thing Called Love. Wicked!

I realized I had a problem. Or as many problems as I have planters. The short version is that I need a voltage, going to a probe,  coming back out, through a voltage divider to another pin. For those of us at home, that’s two plus one common pin for all the probes. I think I can get away from that through a lot of sizes and multiplexing, but I need to map that out. For one thing, if I want to alternate current direction, to combat etching, I need a common ground on both ends…

Either my test isn’t working, or my process will need to be redesigned at this rate.

Transfered to the secondary, with two ounces of Centennial dumped in. Well. I did dump a couple of hops nuggets on the ground. So, 1.8 ounces. Hopefully this work out.

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As a plus now, while cleaning in my post transfer​ bliss, I did find the cap to my first airlock. I now have two, which as I get more fermenting vessels is kind of important.

So I need to start at the top. Or the bottom, more like the middle. Whatever. I need to build a jig for scoring bottles. Ideally, it should hold the bottles really well. You know, the better the score, the better the break.

Then I’ll do a couple trials of moisture sensors. While I have a while box of galvanized nails for this, I wonder about using finishing nails instead. I’d like to keep my footprint small. If I can get this working, I should make a jig for making them in bulk. Soldering jumpers will be manual at this point, but it’d be nice if I had a decent structural layer at least. I should also start coming up with a solid calibration scheme.

Well those are the things I can sorry of work on while helping the Wif study. Yay finals!

So no solenoid valves, or at least, not one for every plant. I always base my price on where I shopped last.  In this case, I got a dozen at Archie McPhee’s on the cheap. So no. I’m not going $5 a plant just for a valve.

I’m seeing a gantry system in my future. I also see a mobile sensor package, verifying moisture, looking for shade or got shots. Probably strap a PiNoir on. I should also build for the future in case I want pH testing.

• Wood looks great, but it will break down way to easily. While I could seal it, were looking at some sort of resin to do the job right.
• Wood with a liner is two things to doo the job of one. While it would help on the modularity end, the aesthetics of a non-simple solution gets to me. It’s this aesthetics or ethics? Aethetics? One’s moral view on gestalt, vision and beauty?
• Liner only. No. Just no.
• PVC pipe was running high there,  and it’s still not out of the running. Obviously there’s a couple issues though. I don’t like the mental picture of a wall based PVC pipe idea. Once things get root bound, it’s going to be a problem to replant.
• Cut beer bottles, well bottles to cut, is a commodity I have in spades. (Hahaha…in spades! Gardening! In shovels?) Good modularity, easily replantable, inherently water tight. Crap all for maximum root size, and ease of fully IoG (internet of gardening). This is still on the shorter list. I could definitely grow most herbs, some chili’s, carrots and radishes, once I got drainage sorted out of course, but even cherry tomatoes would be out of reach.
• While building glass terrariums would give me what I want, I’d have a bunch of weight to support, and a large glass bill.
• Acrylic, like the glass above, but lighter, cheaper, and not as good for every other metric.

So I’m thinking cut bottles for the planters. It’ll limit me on size, but they’re water tight and I already have a lot. It looks like while the Wif is in NC next, I’ll be cutting glass. This of course is entirely tenuous. Also, based on the microscopic wood splinter that’s been digging is way through my eyelid for the last month, I need better safety gear.

Because I’m making plans for Nigel…

So I discussed the wall o’plants with the Wif, and didn’t sound like she was super hip. That takes care of one problem then. Since the wall won’t be in a shared space, it doesn’t need to meet the same criterias.oSo here’s way I’m looking for:

• Robust. I hate it when things fall apart.
• Water conserving. I’ll have to bring all water in from another room, so all water loss should be minimal evaporation and harvest.
• Food grade, because I like me some veggies.
• Artificial lights, because veggies in an otherwise dark room.
• Automated. I’ll have a reservoir at the bottom with a bilge pump watering when needed. Runoff will be collected into the reservoir. Lights still be controlled. Alarm states. Everything.

Now then. I need to decide on the design. Since I’m no longer designing for two, I have a few more options. The most interesting one I’m entertaining would be horizontal 3″ pvc with goes cut out of it. Add in a slight tilt and I have water flow. What I’d probably do is add some 3/4″ as utilities and call it good. I’m almost thinking this would be ideal add I could straight up build these across the ceiling…I’m not sure I like the aesthetics though.

I should pregnant go with the box on wall design as a temporary solution. Robust. Repurposable.