Cleaning and repairing an old Simplex Derailleur round 2 getting rid of some rust
Derailed Part 2 Building
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Derailed Part 1 Building
Cleaning and repairing an old Simplex Derailleur round 1: Disassembly and degreasing
Threads Building
Sharing a satisfying effort to fix a hat and a glove with a little sewing
Gears and Batteries Building
How small can we get with a functional gear part on a FDM printer? What about packing in extra batteries?
Fixing a Broken Bag Clip Building
Designing and printing a replacement clip for a backpack
Working with small gears Building
How small can we get with a functional gear part on a FDM printer?
Undoing High Impulse Disassembly Breaking
Fixing a seat support that cracked (shattered?) in a crash
Taking Notes in Jupyter Notebooks Building
Taking notes in Markdown (LaTeX?) and Python
What I'm Reading 2020-05-19 Building
Blogs, Books and Podcasts (technically listening, I know)
Restomod Day 28 Building
Two more iterations on the battery cover / side skirts
Restomod Day 27 Building
Iterating on designs for a more "aero" replacement battery cover and the rear bumper
Restomod Day 26 Building
Today was focused on quickly iterating to getting a functional rear bumper designed for extra airflow.
Restomod Day 25 Building
Today was mostly focused on how the rear bumper fits on the body
Restomod Day 24 Building
The first order of business for the day was printing the new aero front bumper. The end result was somewhat flimsy and didn't print well, but it's a great start. It's probably the least manufacturable of the part designs by traditional methods so far, making it perfect for 3D printing once the print is dialed in.
Restomod Day 23 Building
The first round of chassis dyno printing is done. During initial testing I noticed that the car did not track straight, so I added guides to some of the rollers so that the car would be encouraged to remain centered on the dyno and not roll off into the sunset when I wasn't looking. It also makes higher speed testing more boring (in a good way) where the car has less of a chance (but still a chance) to jump off the rails and drag around higher voltage cables.
Restomod Day 22 Building
The parts for the full chassis dyno arrived. After an initial print on the rollers and the bearing housing, it looks like the design is mostly ready.
Restomod Day 21 Breaking
Today was mostly a breaking day. The printed half-shaft design melted itself apart after some high voltage testing for a couple of minutes, so it's going to need a redesign.
Restomod Day 20 Building
Electronics time! Today I got the bench power supply hooked up to the fully running chassis that lives under the '05 Mustang.
Rendering Math ML Building
I'd like to render mathematical equations nicely in the browser. MathML seems like the right tool, but it's not supported everywhere.
Restomod Day 19 Building
The suspension work continues! The rear design is now printed in a high-shell configuration. This leads to (mostly) nicely aligned filament.
Restomod Day 18 Building
The suspension work continues! The rear design with very short arms plastically deformed after the first flex, so I ended up changing to a more complicated design with longer arms. The new design should also allow for equal length and thickness arms on the front and rear designs.
Restomod Day 17 Building
Today focused on simplifying the suspension with a printed design. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the existing XMods suspension, but I do think there's room for improvement. For example, the existing suspension limits its own range of motion and has relatively poor ground clearance. Also, I've taken it upon myself to replace most of the front clip with printed parts now that I've gone off the deep end and printed the uprights.
Restomod Day 16 Building
Replacing the skid plate for the steering rack
Restomod Day 15 Building
Photos from Day 15: Printing a new front upright and new axles
Restomod Day 14 Breaking
Photos from Day 14: A replacement half-shaft and a broken front upright
Restomod Day 13 Building
Old Body Style, Next Generation Power and Suspension
Restomod Day 12 Building
New wheel design! Inspired by the Alfa Romeo 8C
Restomod Day 11 Building
Pictures from Day 11: Replacing the axles to enable using metal sleeve bearings
Restomod Day 10 Building
The triumph of the day was proving out the concept for creating custom wheels. The center hub uses a D-shaped drive and is sized so the wheels snap-fit into place.
Restomod Day 9 Building
Today's focus was on replacing the wheels for the XMods. This has two purposes: I've wanted to play around with printing my own wheel designs and I wanted to experiment with replacing the wheel axles to see if I could reduce slop in the wheels that comes from a loose fit between the axles and the hub.
Macro Lens Shots Building
Images taken with a new macro lens
Restomod Restoration Aspirations Building
One of the more complicated restorations that I'll need to complete is reviving the older shorter chassis for the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo and the classic Ford Mustang.
Restomod Day 8 Breaking
One aspect of reviving the XMods parts that I have involves figuring out what I need to fix to get the shorter chassis running again.
Restomod Day 7 Breaking
The wheel mounting design leads to some slop in the location of the wheels. In taking apart the mechanism, it appears that the slop comes from the plastic bushings not locating the driveshaft precisely.
Restomod Day 6 Building
The latest design has almost all of the features that I'm looking for, with support for some more interesting customization to go beyond the style of the original bumper.
Restomod Day 5 Building
Before and after pictures, the design is almost a good fit. There are some spacing issues at the wheel well but visually the layout and the headlights are close to the original style.
Restomod Day 4 Building
The first attempt at curvature got close, but the dimensions didn't line up with the hood as expected.
Restomod Day 3 Building
With the first prototype, I focused on getting something that would fit the 3 mounting points on the standard body.
Restomod Day 2 Building
With the first prototype, I focused on getting something that would fit the 3 mounting points on the standard body.
Restomod Day 1 Building
I recently dug up a box of parts for XMods, 1:28 scale RC cars with customizable chassis and bodies. Along the way I've started to document what I'm working on. The first project is going to be replacing the front bumper of the 2005 Ford Mustang.
Adding Card Support Building
What are cards? How can I automate making a nicely rendered preview for the articles I write?
Making a Website More Accessible: Part 2 Building
In this blog post, I'm going to work on bringing a nicer experience to people who use screen readers by adding ARIA landmarks and roles.
Making a Website More Accessible Building
In reading online, I've always preferred simple, fast-loading websites that are easy to read and don't get in my way from reading their content. In this blog post, I'm going to work on bringing that experience to people who use screen readers.
So You Like Data Science? Building
I think that data science is a fascinating topic, and I wanted to share some interesting things that I've found in the area.
AT Hiker Plays Firewatch: Day 2 Building
Back playing Firewatch. The game is more than just scenic views.
Tearing Down a Quadcopter: Part 4 - Reading Upside Down Breaking
I decided to go for the full-break method of investigating the electronics, and while it worked out well to start, it's looking iffy going forward.
Tearing Down a Quadcopter: Part 3 - Reading a Circuit Board Breaking
My background in electrical engineering involves the first 4 chapters of an electronics textbook I read on my phone when I had internet connection and power in town while hiking the Appalachian Trail. What can I figure out about how the circuit board works for the quadcopter?
Tearing Down a Quadcopter: Part 2 - Power Systems Breaking
Mechanically, it's in shambles. What's left in the rubble? I dive into the electronics to figure it out.
AT Hiker Plays Firewatch: Day 1 Building
I've had the game Firewatch for a while, but I just started playing the game today. What makes the game particularly special to me now is that I spent last summer hiking the Appalachian Trail. Many aspects of the game bring back memories from that experience which I think is kind of amazing. This probably will spoil some of the game for you if you haven't already played. Day 1!
Tearing Down a Quadcopter: Part 1 Breaking
This has been a back burner project for a while; I'm now finally taking the time to take apart a quadcopter I've had for a while to see what goes into making it tick (and see if I can't mess with it a little bit too)
What's in a stepper? Breaking
For a lot of my life, the robots I worked with were pretty close to what CS wants from them: a stream of sensor data in, nicely organized in a common format across all sensors. To make things happen, I stream some outputs in another selection of formats. The sensor …