Is necromancy allowed?

Two years ago this blog was put on hold - "life" happened, which meant I was no longer able to commit more time to it. Two years passed, and it's still something on my mind, which I could resurrect. And hopefully keep alive for longer.

So decision was taken, arrangements made, and I officially I will keep it up. At least as long as another thing forces me to abandon it.

I will keep previous schedule of Monday/Friday with build updates, and Wednesday with highlights of something which is fun, interesting, and at least a little bit connected to the topic at hand. General plan is to start creating backlog of posts for some time, in case I'm in deep but temporary rush - so first post will be probably in the middle of August, if everything goes according to plan.

Best,

K.

Hello Internet

Today nothing industry/model related, but still a lot of fun for me - Hello Internet podcast, done by Brady Haran and CGP Grey. Take a minute to listen (first ones are shorter than one hour), and see if you like them. I enjoy both works of Brady (Numberphile channel) and CGP - a lot of fun videos. And podcast seems to be great - I'm at episode 7 now.

http://www.hellointernet.fm/

Best,

K.

Chromehounds - do you remember?

In 2006, Sega released 3 paper models for Mecha from game Chromehounds. It's not easily to find, since original website is down, and re-uploads are gone, but wayback machine has saved the page, so you can get it, at least for some time.

What I found interesting, is the design of these mecha - not standard 2-legged walkers, but something more fun. I haven't assembled them yet, but they are waiting on my to-do list. I also find it amusing that instead of "Heavy weight", these robots are "Heavy wait" - so you cannot make them fast, I suppose:)

Grab them: Link

Best,

K.

Important step done - flats finally finished

I have finished links 4, 5 and 6. As usual, small geometry mistakes slipped in, but it turned out fine. In general, it's ready for print and test assembly, but currently I do not have workshop for models set up - so test assembly will have to wait a little bit. Anyway, plans for now are to print flats at sensible scale, in few copies - one for assembly, one for making notes what has to be fixed, and couple as spares for making changes on the fly. I think (but not decided yet) that I'll export all flats to .svg and start coloring, in the meantime making test build and all changes, which then will be incorporated into .svg. I do not know how it will turn out, so for next model maybe I'll do full test build and changes before export. We'll see.

Future plans - I do not feel like making another small robot for now, and since my modelmaking capacity is low, I will start some more complicated 3D model - ABB-IRB2400, full sized, low payload handler.


Best,

K.

2 and 3 done for now

Links 2 and 3 are flat now. Couple of geometry issues had to be fixed, but nothing really major, so it went rather nicely. I still haven decided how many lines will be left on parts - for sure guide lines for other part, and most probably all lines where surface is broken - either on bending line, or on line where curve starts, which then I would have to check in print - probably light grey, as thin as possible to avoid visually breaking model. Maybe I'll skip some of them for clarity - we'll see. Anyway - work is progressing quite nice, but in awful hours - almost everything I do is done way too late for me to comfortably sleep, but I do not want to skip any update. In 3 or 4 weeks I should have more civilized time for working, so it should get better.

Below are links 2 and 3, flat and draft instructions.

Best,

K.

Flying probe tester

Check it out - flying probe testers for PCB - I haven't seen them in real lifer, but they are awesome.

Best,

K.

And works goes on

Link 1 is flat. Some mistakes in grouping were found, and fixed. Also, there is something finicky in way that Sketchup makes surfaces, and on flats I want to have specific surfaces to easily manipulate shapes, and also to make nice pictures - to post something. Right now it's not decided yet how exactly I will proceed further, but it seems that I'll keep flattening links until the end.

You might notice a lot of parts are 1mm - this serves two purposes. One, it let.s me get away with small geometry which is flat - some parts just need to be that thick. Other purpose is to have something to glue on, when joining two pieces at 90-ish degree, but where tabs are not feasible - on arc especially. Hopefully test run will explain it better.

General remark - updates are rather smaller than I initially intended for two reasons. One - I have a off-work project going on, which is consuming nearly all of my time, and second one is making content in advance - I have couple of posts (not enough in my opinion) scheduled in advance, so even if I have some days when I cannot do any work, I will still keep with update schedule. When situation get's better, and I'll have more time, and content made in advance in sufficient quality and quantity - updates might get bigger if work is going on fine. Hopefully it's ok for all of you.

Best,

K.