HO Pizza Layout

Long before I took the step into model railways, I was inspired by Carl Arendt’s Small Layout Scrapbook, which is full of many model train layouts of small size. Unfortunately, last year Carl passed away, but his site lives on. Some other model train enthusiasts have taken on the operation of the site. Posts aren’t as regular now, but at least they can keep his site up to inspire others with the large back catalogue.

The Small Layout Scrapbook has many layouts ranging from small to absolutely tiny. I think I took the most interest in the pizza layouts. A pizza layout is basically a small loop of track, which often resembles a the shape and size of a Pizza.

The track loop done, with the only engine I have that will fit on it!

Without a lot of room for a massive layout inside, I was inspired to try my hand at my own pizza layout. I figure it is a good size to get a feel for landscaping and building scenery, without too much lost if it falls in a pile.

So, first step was to take a piece of flexi track and bend it in a complete loop. It seemed like it would be a quick and easy task, but it took me the best part of a night to get it to the point pictured above. The track is OK, if you run the train in one direction, and derails if you drive it the other way. Hopefully a little tweaking will have the track running reliably in both directions.

The next step will be to work out what I’m putting on the landscape, and start working on that. Stay tuned for future updates.

Dumpster Diving

What does $0 get you these days?

It got me a mostly working ryobi compound miter saw.

What does $4 on ebay get you? new brushes for the mostly working compound saw, which will hopefully yeald a completely working saw!

Here is a picture of the saw. A pretty good find if you ask me!

While walking past a dumpster at a construction site, I saw the miter saw sitting in with the other building rubble. I came back later and grabbed the saw, and after seeing it was complete, I gave it a quick test. the saw spun up to life, so I loaded it up and took it home.

Getting it home, I clamped it to a bench in the shed, and dug out some scrap bits of timber to test it with. Pulling the trigger, the saw whirred to life, and cut through the wood nicely. I noticed that the the motor was arcing alot internally, and was acting a bit odd, pulsing and such. I figured it was the brushes on the motor, so I unplugged the saw and pulled out the brushes.
Upon pulling the brushes, it was clear they were worn out. No problem, they shouldn’t be hard to replace. I called the local authorised repairer, who contacted ryobi to see if they were available. They called me back a few minutes later and it turns out new brushes aren’t available. I thought thats kinda silly. Even if its a few years old, I would have thought there would be a stock of the consumables. I guess they want you to buy a new one instead of fixing the old one.

I had a few sets of brushes from cheap chineese angle grinders (which is nice, even though i don’t really expect a $25 grinder to outlast its brushes) but, not supprisingly, they are much smaller. They are for motors more than half the power of this 1800 watt saw.

Next stop, the internet. Ebay is a marvel for things like this.
I was expecting to have to find a larger set of brushes and file them down to size, but upon browsing thru a few results I came across the perfect fit. in this case, 16.5×6.xmm brushes. No fileing needed. SCORE. and all for the price of about $4 au.

Now its time to sit back and wait for the brushes to arrive.

Big Trak Jr

So, I just got my hands on a Big Trak Jr from Thinkgeek.

The Big Trak boxed up. Let me open it already!

The Big Trak was a programmable toy robot which was released in 1979. Over 30 years on, and now we see the second coming. A smaller version, which I believe has many of the original features, and at least one extra one – the accessory port.

I never owned an original Big Trak, I don’t even know if they were sold here in Australia. I bet they were expensive too. A heck of a lot more than the $24.99 +pp I paid for the Jr. I wish I did though, these things are pretty awesome. At that price, they are not just great value, they are a viable hackable robotics platform. If you don’t want to keep the controls, scrap it all, add a PicAxe or a small arduino, and bazinga!, a fully programmable autonomous robot!

I hadn't owned it for 24 hours before I'd unscrewed the top! I've just got to see whats inside!

After less than a day of playing with it, the curiosity got the better of me, so I decided it was time to bring out the screwdrivers to see whats inside. I had 2 goals,

1) Have a look inside
2) Try to work out how the accessory port works

Here is the underside of the accessory port. The whole port comes out easily just by removing those two screws!

6 Philips head screws was all it took to get the case off, and straight away I liked what I saw. There was just 2 wires that went to the accessory port. A black one, and a red one, and they connected to a standard 3.5mm TS (mono headphone) connector. It didn’t look like there was going to be any fancy communication protocols, or proprietary connectors to deal with! They couldn’t have made this easier!

A little probing with a multimeter showed that it was outputting a bit below 4v. I Didn’t measure the battery voltage to see if it’s outputting full battery power thru to the port or not, that will be something I should test later on.

So knowing I have a simple on /off port, I hooked up a LED. First by touching the LED to the terminals on a TS jack that I had plugged into the port, then after I worked out which way to connect the LED, I soldered the LED onto the TS jack, so it stuck neatly out the top of the jack cover when it was screwed on

And here is the little LED on a plug which I made, and how it is wired.

Then it was testing time. Plugging in the LED, and turning the Big Trak on, I programmed in a trigger output, and the LED lit up just as it was supposed to.

SUCCESS!

Now I’ve gotten the LED to work, what’s next for me? some other kind of device. Maybe a motor? a DIY rocket launcher? extra machine guns? The choice is almost unlimited. I’ll have to see what I have kicking about.

Hackerspaces. In canberra?

I’ve always been intrigued by hacker spaces & similar community based workshops. In this day and age its getting harder and harder for someone to have their own workshop.

I had been under the impression that there wasn’t much around here in australia, I guess its a habbit I’ve fallen into, just assuming that there isn’t the population base availiable here in australia, and even closer to home, canberra, to support these kinds of places.I thought, at best there would be some “men’s sheds” about somewhere. If the small town my parents are from can support one of these, then surely so can canberra. The only problem with these are they generally seem to be run and populated by older men, who have retired.

I have nothing against older people, but I’m not quite ready to become one just yet.

However, I just googled hackerspaces in australia, and up popped MakeHackVoid.com. A Hackerspace, right here in Canberra.

They have a shop, tools, people. Sounds good. talking to other people can spawn ideas, and get you motivated to work. Access to tools you don’t have access to otherwise is also very handy, and a nice area to work is also a plus.

It sounded pretty cool, until I realised to become an “associate member”, it costs $50/month, with a 6 month buy in (so $300). Sure it has a fair bit to offer, but I don’t think I can justify that much cost. I’m better off injecting that money into stuff of my own. for 6 months, I’d rather own a new welder, or some other tools, or a whole pile of steel or something….

Sure, there are casual memberships available, for $5/day, but you don’t get to use the bigger tools I’d be somewhat interested in using. maybe one day I’ll drop by one of their workshops or something to check it out, who knows, maybe the people are nice, and knowledgable, and it would be worth it.

I think I’m going to keep doing things on my own for the time being. At the moment I’m more interested in working with metal instead of electronics (does anyone else have too many interests, and have to cycle thru them, or is it just me?). I think I’ve got enough tools, skills and junk to keep myself entertained for a while.

Whats Happening this week

Or Oh No!. its the end of the week  and I have nothing ready to post this week!

Well, first off, the last few weeks have been busy, with a trip to Hamilton Island with my wonderful new wife Diana for our honey moon, and then a trip to Wollongong the next weekend for my cousin’s 21st birthday, I haven’t done a whole lot

Our honeymoon coincided with our 3rd anniversary of seeing each other, so it served a double purpose.

For our anniversary, Diana was kind enough to buy me an awesome Ryobi 125mm angle grinder. Its great to have a good quality grinder, as the cheap ones seem to vibrate a bit more, and the switches of the ones I have are a bit poor, and so they are hard to turn on, and off.

My new angle grinder, Thank you sweetie

I bought a lovely pair of butterfly shaped earings

Also, as there wasn’t much point flying such a large present halfway across the country, we bought each other a small gift. seeming Diana has just started studying again, I found here a cool Hello Kitty pencil case, and filled it with pens. Diana found me a cool solar powered robot kit, which reminds me, I need to build it. unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of the pencil case, or the robot.

So what else have I been up to, apart from all this jet setting? not too much really.

Nitro car

My nitro exhaust is coming together slowly. I haven’t had much of a chance to run the car lately. I really should give it a run. Its looking like I’m going to go down the alloy path with the pipe, I have a nice thick plate for the mount. All I need to do now is everything else…. get a piece of suitably sized alloy pipe, work out how to bend it nicely, and in what shape I need it bent, and then get the two pieces brazed together

Welding

I’ve been trying to practice my welding here and there, whenever I have a chance. I currently need to source some more practice steel, as running stringers on plate gets old pretty quick

Sure, all the practice helps, but what I really want to do is join steel

Vice stand Take 2

You may have seen the vice stand I made a while back, well its getting a makeover. I was never really happy with it, it was too light, and unstable, and had a tendency to rock. I have an old steel car rim kicking around the house, so my plan is to cut off the feet, and make it a bit shorter, then attach the pipe to the wheel rim, and maybe, depending on how it goes with its initial weight, I’ll add some concrete

the old cross legs weren't that stable. I'm hoping by welding it to the car rim, it will be a lot more stable

Welding bench

well, my handy little welding bench is very handy, and I want to make it better. Recently at aldi’s there was a sale on fire extinguishers and fire blankets. I’m planning on adding both to the trolley, as I think it’s a really good idea, with all that molten metal flying around.

I’m also looking to improve the surface. currently the underlying surface is wood with a metal sheet on top. I was thinking of pouring  a concrete top in it instead of the wood, but I’m told that its not the greatest idea to get the concrete too hot, as it can crack or explode, So I’m not too sure. Maybe one solution is a fire brick lining, or maybe a single solid plate across the whole surface? I’m not sure yet.

That’s about it for now. Sorry for the non post today. I’ll try to have something with more substance for next time.

Learning to Arc Weld

So, I’ve been on a bit of a learning to weld mission lately. Over the years, I’ve done a little welding, but never anything of any kind of quality, or quantity. 

Welders:

For the last couple of years, I have had an old, beaten up arc welder which was given to me by my father. It was a handy little unit, but only having minimal adjustment of the amperage was a bit limiting to my learning. Fairly quickly, it became aparent that if I wanted to learn more about welding, I was going to need something with aperage adjustment. The old welder is a Cigweld Compact 2. The minimal controls consist of a switch that selects between 2.5 and 3.2mm Welding Electrodes. It seemed to work ok, and give reasonable results doing practice welds on thick plate, but I find I wanted a bit more control, especially when I’m welding on thinner metal and tube.

More after the jump:

Solar Panel Bag

Do you hate it when you are away from home, and your phone goes flat when you really need to call some one. It can be a pain in the backside. A while ago, while browsing a website Deal Extreme, which sell all kinds of chinese manufactured stuff, I came across several solar charged backup battery charger for phones and Ipods, and basically anything else which can be charged thru a USB port (Wow, that sounds too much like an ad for DS.)

I ended up buying THIS ONE, pictured below:

It seems to do the job. To be honest, I haven’t used it too much. Its more of a just in case tool

(Speaking of Deal Extreme, I warn you, their cheap chinese gadgets are addictive, and once you buy something, you won’t be able to stop buying stuff. )

Today, I came across another solution, which is similar, but to me seems to be a better design. Instead of putting a solar charger in your bag, where most of the time it can’t actually get sunlight, turn your bag INTO the charger. That way, even when you are walking around, or your bag is just sitting on the ground, it will be getting some light, and will be slowly charging its internal battery.

The people over at Talk To My Shirt came up with a DIY solar bag (Their full article here) :

Their version 1 bag doesn’t have a battery, but they mention doing a version 2 bag, with a battery integrated. From what can be seen in the picture. I really like how well they have managed to integrate the solar panel into the lid of the bag.

I feel a potential project coming on! Solar charging bag here I come….. wait for it…… still coming….. like most things, it might take a while…..

Sharpening Knives

I have come to enjoy the pleasure of using a sharp knife in the kitchen. I’m sure most people have heard the old saying “A blunt knife is a dangerous knife“, which is a bit of a half truth. A sharp knife is just as dangerous if not used carefully, but a sharp knife is a pleasure to use.

For a long time, I’ve muddled my way thru with various sharpening techniques, and I could usually come up with a sharp knife, but they never really stayed sharp for long, so I wanted to learn more, get to know if I’m doing it the right way, and make sure I’m not causing damage to my blades.

So, in order to learn more, I headed off to the knowledge collective of the internet, reading thru stuff on the knife forums, and found a few videos on YouTube that helped me.

The first video I’m going to link to briefly demonstrates a range of methods, including the Lansky system, diamond stones, ceramic rods, and stropping. unfortunately the sound isn’t the greatest, but if you are looking where to start, It could be worth enduring the audio, as it’s a good video.

The next video focuses on Whetstones, and the technique is the same for the diamond stones.

Multitool Museum

For those of you, like myself, who have an interest in pocket knives and multitools, I have a website you might find interesting.

The Multitool Museum (http://www.multi-tool.org), not to be confused with Multitool.org/ which is another very good multitool site, has some interesting “exhibits” of old and different multitools, aswell as reviews of current ones.

Hopefully the guy running this site keeps working on it, and it can build into a truly great site about multitools.

Quick Electronics Prototyping / playing

Here on my blog, I had an idea of individual  electronic modules which can connect to a microcontroller (in my case, the picaxe microcontroller) . My little series never went too far, with switches, LEDs, A speaker, potentiometers, Temperature probes, and the picaxe 08m and the picaxe 18

Now SeeedStudio have used a similar idea in their Electronice Brick kits and  you can buy the ready made kit from Little Bird Electronics for AU$60, or straigh from the SeedStudio Store. If you go to the seedstudio store, they have many addon components for the kit

Above is what you get in the starter kit. It makes a neat way go get started, but i’m sure it won’t take long for you to want to expand your collection

And just to make things doubly clear,  I have no involvement in this product at all, they just had the same idea and ran with it, ending up with a great looking product. Check it out, its a great idea for beginners