Flour Tortillas

I am having a hankering for Mexican food so I spent the last couple hours researching flour tortillas. Makes sense, sort of. We made (Mostly Sarah) corn tortillas last night with steak filling, it was very good. But I started thinking about making flour tortillas, and did a bunch of research.

Apparently not all tortillas and tortilla recipes are the same, they appear to break down into two groups. Texas and Mexican. The Texan ones are leaven and the Mexican generally are not. Rough generalizations and just my first observation from looking at only a few recipes.

I did the calorie calculations on the recipes and found the vegetable oil recipe (Texan) was 134 calorie per tortilla, and the vegetable shortening recipe (Mexican) was 185 calories per.

Here are links to the recipes I am thinking of making:

Texan

Texan and Mexican

Doings, Polar Fitness, Ikea, Laptops, Cameras

I have been continuing with my fitness program (weight loss and beginning to exercise)

My weight is below 180lb and that puts me at 40LBS + of weight lost since Jan 5, 2008.

With some hitches I have been doing my fitness program:

Situps
Pushups
Beginning chin ups, but I can't do one yet! I just finished making my revision .1 I It works as planned, as far as I know the ceiling capture of the 2X4 is novel. Of course few have open joist homes, except in the basement. I am pretty proud of myself for thinking of it, and am not going to go looking to see if someone else has done it already for a while so I and at least imagine that it is my original idea.

Decided that I would spring the extra money for a laptop. I have my desktops and they are okay, they are in the p4 2.0 - p4 2.8 ghz. The most "advanced" laptop I have is a fujitsu b142 lifebook that is okay as a web browser, and main advantage is that it is compact (7" screen) and works with open office. I had to upgrade to win 2k and lost the use of the touchscreen, but it ran very crappy with win 98. Screen is very dim, even for it's time.

I am leaning towards getting a lenovo from newegg. I was looking at the lenovo thinkpad workstations and I just don't have the cash to spring up to that. Another thing about the Y3000 is the 4 hour battery life, I am not sure but I think that is decent. Most laptops wont even list battery life in the specs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146366

I envision using it around the house, maybe at work (to make my work life less frustrating) I suppose I could get work to buy a laptop I could use but I just would not feel I had the freedom with it to really make it work right for me. At least I think they would let me bring mine to work so I could use it. Most immediately I have started to have to manage projects and it is a real waste of time to have to write things down for meetings then have to type it all into the computer later, I don't have that kind of time to waste at work, and being there more than 8 hours a day is the path to really wasting time and the fastest way I know of to reduce productivity. (unless it is to meet a immediate and temporary cause)

I got the lowepro backpack for my camera, and the remote shutter trigger.

The backpack is a lowepro fastpack 250. I like it fine, I really want to start hiking again this year and I think it will be comfortable and roomy enough to take a lunch and the camera.

I also just got the Nikon ML-L3 remote shutter trigger. To use it I did have to go into the setup menu and flag using the remote. From there you just trigger the remote to shoot a picture, there are two modes, one is delayed shutter release and the other is fast.

It is IR so you have to be in front of the camera, more or less.

Geotagging, Nikon D40 and Weight Loss

It is a wet and windy March night.

I have been using my Nikon D40 a little. Not as much as I wanted. I even ordered a macro flash and it is still in the box after 5 days. I have been using the really nice Nikon external flash I got. Bounce flash is new to me and really much nicer. Being the first DSLR I have ever used it is amazing compared to the point and shoot type cameras I have had. I really want to get a macro lens, and a wide angle lens too. I thought the Canon A620 was ok, but now it is really painfully obvious that it is really limited except in 2 ways (way I think are important) weight, and previewing a shot in the lcd.

I will still use the Canon A620 a lot, but the DSLR really opens up the possibilities.

I am casually in the market for a waterproof, weatherproof point and shoot compact camera I can take out in bad weather. Like today. I have been using a Magellan sportrak that I got as a hand me down and though it is a very limited device, it has one feature that I really like, it is weatherproof. I went walking today in the rain and it was soaked (I was too), but it didn't care. I highly recommend a weatherproof/waterproof gps if you are going to take it hiking. I want that in a camera.

I have been looking into geotagging photos. I really love the idea of it. If you don't know what this is, it is where you can get the information into a .jpg picture with that records the location where picture was taken. If you have a gps trail logger and a digital camera, there are now geotagging programs that will match the time stamp of the picture taken with the location logged on the gps at that time, the program will write the location info to the picture. That is cool.

With google earth you can thumb tack where the pics were taken on a map! That is really cool. I also learned that I could convert the gps track file to a format that google earth would plot on the map. That was another very cool thing.

I want to put a camera on my rc plane with a gps logger and get aerial photos that I can do that with. I just really dig the idea of it.

One project I want to do with my kids is make our own tree identification guide. Basically find good examples of local tree species and take pictures of them, and make a tree guide where we have pictures of the trees, leaves, bark etc. and the location. Simple but cool. Having it on a map is even better.

Another thing I have been thinking about relates to personal protection. I saw this video on youtube where the guy is a paparazzi cameraman. Though he admits to never having to use it he has pepperguard as part of his camera bag setup. He carries thousands of dollars of camera gear and it certainly makes sense to be prepared. Honestly, I like weapons and that kind of thing. I always kinda considered pepperguard beneath me but I was thinking, if someone tried to hijak your gear, should you shoot them? Hmmm, maybe better to deter them with oc in the face. It also got me to wondering, what is the pepperguard of choice of law enforcement? I don't know but am still looking. Anyway I came across this site that was pretty interesting. What I found most striking was the Pink Taser! On another page you can get a matching Pink holster for it. In addition they have color offerings like "metallic pink", leopard print, Desert Camo AND Forrest Camo! That is sweet! I can't decide which color I want to order. I like simpler stuff like the Black Pearl, or Titanium Silver.

Another eye opener was the variety of pepper spray products! I was hoping to find one endorsed by the NYPD or LAPD, with a testimonial of X number of perps down. Instead they had cool stuff like the pepper spray RING! Now is that something or what! Not my style though. Too bad. I really dig that James Bond stuff.

They have Bear Spray too, I immediate did a search on youtube hoping to find a real demo of the product on a bear but found a advertisement that basically says that the bear repellent fails 6% of time. Maybe 6% of bears like pepper with their meals? More convincing is the MANY videos of people demonstrating bear repellent spray on themselves.

This is a common refrain of sellers of Bear Repellent Spray:

WE CAN SHIP ANIMAL REPELLENTS TO ALL STATES EXCEPT MASSACHUSETTS!

The "Cell Phone" stun gun is curiously advertised, part of it's claim is "Because it looks like a harmless cell phone, it will be easy to surprise an attacker." If you were an attacker and somebody you were robbing pulled out a cell phone, wouldn't you be wondering if they might be calling 911 or something?



LINKS:

Geosetter Freeware Geotagging Program


Geotag Open Source Geotagging Program


Geotagging GPS unit from Gistek

Nikon D40 Here!

I ordered the Nikon D40 and received it today! I finally decided to order it from Newegg.com. Mainly because they have been such a reliable company and I wanted a new hard drive (500gb to store all my pictures) and I needed memory cards. I upgraded the shipping to the 2 day delivery so I could get everything today (Friday) and have it all to play with over the weekend.

For my own future reference I am going to put down what my thinking was behind getting the Nikon D40 over any other DSLR.

I wanted a major brand name in cameras. Partially a process of elimination and partially a positive feature selection process. I came up with Nikon and Canon. I have a Canon A620 and it is a fairly decent camera. Though it has been pretty good overall, there are a couple things I was not happy with. Petty things perhaps but enough to give me pause and want to at least contemplate something different. I started looking at Nikon mostly because of a article on adding gps location data to pictures. In the end I got a Nikon that could not take gps info, but I found a less expensive alternative, in gps data loggers for photography.

I had narrowed it down to Canon Rebels vs Nikon. Ergonomically the Canon Rebel grip felt a bit small. Point Nikon.

From reading on the Rebel vs. the D40, the D40 is supposed to have a quieter shutter and is supposed to have a quicker startup from turning on to taking a photo. Supposedly because the Canon goes through a sensor cleaning routine at startup.

Some, or all of this might not be correct. Either way I probably would have been more or less happy, overall it did sound like they are both good choices.

The other factor was accessories. I took a shine to the Nikon flashes for macro photography. I really like taking pictures of small things like bugs and frogs and miniature things and closeups of all sort of stuff. Nikon had what seems like a really nifty system (pricey) for setting up wireless flashes just for macro (nikon calls it micro) photography.

Another thing was it seemed to me that nikons has a deserved reputation for very good lenses and I would spend money on good lenses that should serve me long after I upgraded to the next camera body.

SLR Digital Cameras Nikon D40

I have for a long while wanted to get a Digital SLR. I have a Canon A620 and it has been great but doesn't do all that I want it to so well. So I have bee researching the Nikon D40.



Great Lens Reference
http://bythom.com/lensacronyms.htm

Nice article on lenses and example pictures:
http://www.outbackphoto.com/the_bag/uwes_nikon_lenses/essay.html


Nikon site is actually very informative.

Macro flash that mounts on the lens
http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/speedlights/kits/

Nikkor 18-200mm lens I want to get:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/408518-USA/Nikon_2159_18_200mm_f_3_5_5_6G_ED_IF_AF_S.html

Really helpful site on camera reviews etc by Ken Rockwell

Macro info:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/macro.htm

Macro Lenses
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/105af.htm
http://www.adorama.com/CA6528AFU.html

Eagle Cad Tutorial

I have been trying to figure out how to cut pc boards on my sherline. I need a way to translate the pc board image into gcode. While doing searches I came across a tutorial on instructables on eagle cad. I installed the freeware version of eagle cad and spent some time doing the tutorial.

Hopefully I can use it to make a schematic, pcboard, then somehow convert that to gcode. Otherwise I will try the chemical etching route, which is my least favorite right now because I don't want to deal with caustic chemicals.

Here is my first schematic which is the one from the tutorial, though not as neat.











There is also a tutorial on making a PCB from your schematic on eagle cad. This is my first pcb, though if I was going to make it I would require more fussing with.

LCD Displays and Uses

Started thinking about the kinds of things I might use LCD displays for and was poking around.

Found some links to use them:

Google Search

How to control a HD44780-based Character-LCD

Winamp OpenSource LCD Plugin for various LCD & VFD modules

HD44780 HOWTO

HD44780 20X4 Character LCD Display with LED backlight On Ebay

MythTV.org: The first time I have heard of it, it appears to be a opensource software video personal recorder.
Myth TV LCD gotchas on Mini ITX boards

DesignJet 600

Was given a Designjet 600. It should work, but have not tried it yet. Found the driver for it, got cables (too short) and will try to set it up this week. I have really wanted one of these for a while but have been hoping to get a free one.

GPS Magellan and Software and Firmware Updating

We were given a Magellan Sportrak gps by my stepfather. He had a hard time making it useful for himself, mainly because of the menu system and the innate lack of functionality of the device for your average guy. It is about 3 or 4 years old and noticably dated. No SD card and only about 4 meg of memory onboard to upload maps to. He bought a new gps that should be easier to use and enjoy, and gave me his old one.

Of course I was very excited about this, I had been wanting one for quite a while but really had been put off by the cost to get something that was basically locked up by the companies making them. It sure seemed like they were preying on their customers by reducing the functionality of the devices in order to offer basically the same unit with the extra features for extra money, features that I thought should be in the basic units and for all practical purposes cost the makers little or nothing more, yet were cunningly held back for the sole purpose of squeezing more coin from their "Marks". When the features or functionality did reasonably cost more they appeared to gouging their customers where they could. The situation seems to have changed a bit. I think it is the competition that is out there now.


You are probably thinking, "if you think is sucks so much, you don't have to use one"

EXACTLY, and so I didn't for quite a while! Until I go a free one! I will point out that where there used to be just a couple big names, there are many now. Big names that are still big, but probably would have locked out much of the competition if they had not been so blatant with their contempt for their customers.

One example is that the software that they charge another $100 for is copy protected by not allowing you to run the program without having the data cd in the drive, and by licensing that does not allow you to backup the cds (as well as actually not allowing you to copy it). (also you have to buy the cable to connect your gps to your computer separately for $15 to $30 more)
(Or make one like this guy)

Tough luck if you want to have the software on you laptop and it has a external cd rom drive that you don't want to lug around.

Anyway enough of that for now.

I decided that I would never buy Magellan software or products until they shaped up with this lousy attitude. Fortunately there is a bunch of competition eating into their butts. Also I can go to competing software products, which brings us to:

Freeware?
There is freeware that will work with the Magellan but the two I have seen look like they are limited teasers for their for purchase only versions.

I have not tried them yet.

EasyGPS is touted as for geocachers etc, it is the freeware version for ExpertGPS
http://www.easygps.com/resources.asp

ExpertGPS, $59
http://www.expertgps.com/download.asp

GPS Utility from the UK, freeware with $55 registration fee to make the shareware version that gives much more functionality and usefulness.
http://www.gpsu.co.uk/


FOLLOWUP
Tried EasyGPS and it locks up on my computer. GPS Utility, will download the waypoints, and tracks. I was able to view the tracks and waypoints but didn't go much further. It is supposed to be able to import scanned images of maps, and scale them. That sounds neat but I didn't have a whole lot of time with it.











Make a GPS serial to PC cable

16F628 PIC Drives HD44780 LCD Display!

I got a AT&T BIS-34D. It was a in a whole pile of stuff I bought from a guy I see at TSs all the time. He was having his own TS to clear out space and gave me a great deal on the afore mentioned pile of stuff, he even gave me 2 AO spencer he-ne lasers (Model 3100) that he was going to bring to the dump because he was worried someone might hurt themselves with them. They can be dangerous because of the high voltage circuit and not just from the laser light.

As a side note the laser tubes probably wont work because of the age and construction according to this site (search for 3100). Interestingly the output is probably in the 2-2.5mw range which is fairly low by todays standards compared to LED lasers. They are more a novelty at this point.

I basically bought everything I was interested in a huge heap for a "get it out of my basement" price.

Anyway I got the phone because it had dozens of leds on it and S and N and I could take it apart and maybe make a blinky project or a led light sweeper out of the leds. I did notice that it had a LCD display but having taken a few devices with LCD displays apart, I didn't expect it to have a display I could use. This one proved me wrong.

I think you can probably find this display for pretty cheap, still I find it very cool to be able to take "junk" and find stuff that I can make things out of. The real fun is in making new things out of "junk".

I went back to figure out how I had made the LCD display work in May and I really had done a poor job, and had to re figure it out so I am going to try to make a better go of it this time.

Why was I happy to find this LCD? First, the Hitatchi HD44780 driver standard for LCD displays is well known, documented and works well with microcontrollers. It takes 4 output pins if you can spare them. I use picbasic pro and it uses a command called LCDOUT that will send text you put in "" to the lcd.

Look under LDCOUT for the description in melab's manual for more detail, or the code at the end of this post:

http://www.melabs.com/resources/pbpmanual/



These are the settings in IC Prog I used. IC Prog is the application that I use to program the PIC, the settings are important for the oscillator and fuses. I am using IntRC I/O which is the setting to use to specify the internal oscillator.


This is a video of the lcd running. Not my best work but gets some of what I was trying to document across.




The picbasic pro code I am using is basically the lcdout demo code.

'*****************************************************************************
'* MICROCODE STUDIO TIPS *
'* *
'* (1) : To get context sensitive help, move your cursor to a PICBasic *
'* : command and then press F1. *
'* (2) : Program assumes the PIC is running at 4MHz. To change the default *
'* : setting (for example, to 20MHz) simply add DEFINE OSC 20 at the *
'* : top of your program. *
'* *
'* This sample program is supplied courtesy of microEngineering Labs Inc *
'*****************************************************************************

' PicBasic program to demonstrate operation of an LCD in 4-bit mode
'
' LCD should be connected as follows:
' LCD PIC
' DB4 PortA.0
' DB5 PortA.1
' DB6 PortA.2
' DB7 PortA.3
' RS PortA.4 (add 4.7K pullup resistor to 5 volts)
' E PortB.3
' RW Ground
' Vdd 5 volts
' Vss Ground
' Vo 20K potentiometer (or ground)
' DB0-3 No connect

Pause 500 ' Wait for LCD to startup

loop:
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "Greeting" ' Display Hello
lcdout $fe,$c0,"s Human" 'Display second half of 1x16 line
Pause 1500 ' Wait 1.5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "We Come in Peace"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"in Peace"
Pause 1500 ' Wait 1.5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "*"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "**"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "***"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "****"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "******"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "*******"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "********"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "********"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"*"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "********"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"**"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WEAPONS POWERING"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"POWERING"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "*"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WEAPONS "
lcdout $fe,$c0,"FAILURE"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "*"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WEAPONS"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"FAILURE"
Pause 500 ' Wait .5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "*"
Pause 1500 ' Wait .5 second
Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "UH OH"
Pause 1500 ' Wait 1.5 second

Lcdout $fe, 1 ' Clear LCD screen
' "1234567890123456" show 16 digits of display
Lcdout "WE COME"
lcdout $fe,$c0,"IN PEACE"
Pause 2500 ' Wait 2.5 second


Goto loop ' Do it forever

Cylon Led Has a New Face

Put a new face on the Cylon Led, got the artwork from google images. I thank whoever did it but I am sure who did it.

Making Things Talk

Got this book, "Making Things Talk" by By Tom Igoe. Split the cost with Pete, he had it first and when I got it I asked him if it was any good. He said "yeah" in a kinda noncommittal way and would not elaborate. I think maybee he didn't read it or the monkey on the cover intimidated him. I really don't know. Anyway it was recommended on the sparkfun.com site and I like the site and the tutorials have been good and I respect the guys that do the site so if they recommended this I thought that meant something. I just started reading it and it is interesting so far. It is about interfacing electronic stuff (hardware objects) to this and that. Like controlling stuff with your computer and wireless networks, but cool. I will know more after I get into it. What I really want to do is make stuff that communicates with my computer and controls things.

Cylon LED

Made a "Cylon Eye" Led Sweep circuit last night. It is basically the one from
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/CylonOLantern.

Did a bunch of point to point soldering, it was fun for the novelty of it. I won't bother describing it in detail because it is very well explained by the the evilmadscientist link and the 555 and 4017 IC data sheets.




 
 

CD Drive Rover

Completed an idea that I had for a while which revolved around using a cd rom tray that saved from a dead cd-rom. The tray has a drive motor installed on the tray that makes the tray move out and in, and a switch that signalled the processor when the tray was full open or full closed. Anyway I replace the switch with a DPDT switch (with the skillful use of a tacking nail and hot melt glue) to cycle the drawer back and forth as long as power was applied. I added wheels (lego technics are pretty handly) and a bent wire to make a ratcheting pawl to make the wheels only turn in one direction.

This is the battery powered model.



After making sure it worked, I replaced the battery power with solar.
The solar cells kinda overpower the rover but it worked.

Robotic Videos

Browsing Youtube I came across some neat robot videos.

Get a Grip.



Is this from Parallax?


Pretty Heavy Paintball Tank

Aerial Movies With RC Slow Stick

This is from last week. I finally got things together to take some aerial movies, the quality is not up to what I want but the setup works. Certainly there are alot of videos out there that are pretty stunning, and many not, but it is all for fun anyway.

Fresnel Lens Stand

I bought this lens almost 2 years ago, and never got around to doing anything with it until now. This weekend I just had to make a stand for it. I had Memorial Day off and the Tuesday after and the weather was going to be sunny all week. Perfect for it something solar powered.

I did the quick and dirty job, I just needed to complete it in day. Still I would try to make it fairly decent and use it as an opportunity to test some ideas. One area I tried to do well was to make the frame for the lens strong as any future improvements would benefit.

A couple of observations I had during construction. The lens is a sheet of acrylic and sags a little in the middle. Maybe 1/2" or so. Pretty annoying but it still works, I don't know if the performance is degraded significantly. Second the sheet itself appears to be frosty, it doesn't look clear, I don't know how these lenses are rated and since this lens was surplus who knows if it is really ideal for what I plan on using it for. In the future I will try to measure it's efficiency and other things like max temperature etc. Maybe I can estimate it's efficiency by heating water and measuring the temp increase vs. mass vs time. You get the point.

One thing that worked out pretty nice the 1x1 cedar rail pieces I used for the frame. They had been kicking around for a while and I finally found a decent use for them. They were very straight and light, and made what appears to be a very nice light but substantial frame for the lens.

Once I got it together I had to go burn something. The first item was a stick that blackened nicely and smoked and after a little while started to burn. It was bone dry and punky. After having fun with that I move on to melting zinc pennies. That was pretty satisfying for a few cents. Next I tried boiling water. It did boil but was not a gratifying boil.

I decided to call it a day and get some other stuff done.

Next I want to add some cranks and mechanisms to adjust the rotation and angle of the lens. From there I think adding stepper motor control would be cool. If it tracked the sun it would be much more useful.

Sorry for the poor video quality, but the stick does burn, a little.



Again, sorry for the poor video quality, and poor cinematography, but keep in mind, the Penny LOOSES. Yeah it gets it good.



Check out some of the other posts:
http://r625.blogspot.com/2007/09/buster-robot.html

Tuning Peg Replacement

Replaced the tuning peg on M's Aunt's guitar. I fixed it as a favor. She had been using a vice grip to tune it and didn't seem to want to spend the money on a new tuning peg set so I offered to fix it for her, I even asked her if she minded if it didn't match, and it would be wood, etc. She said she didn't mind so there it is in all it's "I not like the other pegs glory". I hand made the peg using some scrap finger board wood. It looks pretty decent up close.

Lock Opened, Ipod Works.

Two successes, got the lock picked on the Cool Pool cabinet. Also got brave enough to de-solder the power mini connector off my ipod mother board, and solder it onto the donor board. The donor was a 60gb that landed in the sea, and when a friend of mine took it apart to try to fix it, the power connector came loose, apparently corroded by the seawater and direct connection to the battery. That connector got lost. After some tight spots I managed to solder it onto the donor board.

Arcade Machine - Cool Pool Catalina Games 1992

I went ahead and bough a broken Cool Pool Arcade Machine.
It has a failure during boot and has a PROM failure U4. After looking at the solvalou site link that shows pics of the PROMs I think U4 is the actual PROM that is failing. Knowing almost nothing about arcade machines doesn't bother me in fact that is part of the reason for getting into this. It will be a nice expedition. Other neat things about it are the coin mechanism will be nice to fool with and it also has a track ball. It is a little grindy but I think I can rebuild it. Don't know but will take a look.

There are two panels on the front that are locked open, one panel in the back locked. I have been meaning to try to learn lockpicking and it would be a nice challenge to open these. The ultimate would be to make keys for them. That would just be gratifying.

Did a google search on topic, but not much useful came up. I think google is just not what it used to be. From what I have read the way google comes up with "good" searches is probably part of the problem. It supposedly categorized by the popularity of the clicked links people use and thus doesn't come up with the technical links I need. It comes up with the mass popular links. This is just what I imagine but the fact remains, the searches just miss alot of good stuff.

To continue with the aside, I have started looking for different search engines. Irony, didn't find any good links to other search engines on google.

Search Engines
http://www.accoona.com


Sites of interest.

Mame
http://www.mame.net/

Looks like a classified site for arcade machine stuff
http://www.quarterarcade.com/Game.aspx/4687?m=3

Site with rom info for arcade games, MAME.
http://www.solvalou.com/subpage/arcade_roms/C/coolpool