TANK3 Preview!

Here's a preview of a tread-based robot that I've been working on.  More details of the build to come!

Project-Making-Of: Ms. Yang's "Bully" Horn

As part of her job as a 2nd grade teacher, my fiancee has traffic duty every day after school.  In order to save parents and children from themselves, she's forced to strain her voice with commands that really should be common sense.

Something had to be done.

Introducing Ms. Yang's "Bully Horn".

Original Photoshop concept paintover.

Based off of a Pyle PMP30 Professional Megaphone,  the "Bully Horn" needed a little bit of style. We decided on a pink glitter paint scheme, with rhinestone trim around the edges and her name.

After 3 coats of pink glitter paint and 3 coats of clear.

After disassembling the megaphone and masking off non-paint areas, I whipped out the DIY spraybooth and applied 3 coats of glitter paint and 3 coats of clearcoat.

Semi-sealing the gaps before wet-sanding.

It's not a 100% seal, but I used painters tape to help keep the water out of the battery compartment. 

Wet sanding in the bathroom sink.

 The "Bully Horn" was wet-sanded with 1000 then 2000 grit sand paper.  Special care had to be taken for undercuts and hard angles.

Meguiar's Paint Cleaner.

After the wet sanding, I used left-over Meguiar's Paint Cleaner to polish and clean up the micro-scratches left by the 2000 grit paper.

Reassembly of glittery-shiny "Bully Horn".

The "Bully Horn" was then reassembled to check for gaps in the paint, especially around the hinge area.  There was a bit of white still showing, so I touched it up using a nail polish brush.

Vinyl decals applied.

The decal was designed in Adobe Illustrator and cut using a Silhouette Cameo 2 personal plotter (that we named Cutter-Bot).

Rhinestones around the vinyl decal.

The Silhouette Cameo 2 also came with a wonderful software that could create rhinestone templates.  Great for aligning rhinestones to vinyl decals cut from the same machine.  For the stencil, I used a matte black removable vinyl that you can see in the background. 

Individually hand-placed rhinestones.

Each rhinestone was hand-placed and glued on using Gorilla Super Glue.  I found the quickest method of application was to create a small pool of glue to dip the rhinestone in, then immediately place it where it needs to go.

Happy fiancee with 30 watts of vocal power.

After 2 months on and off manual labor (most of which went to hand-placing the rhinestones), this 2nd grade teacher is now armed with 30 watts of voice amplification power.  All for the purpose of keeping children (and their grown up versions) safe from themselves, of course.

The New D.I.Y: Design-It-Yourself

I've had the Makerbot Replicator for a little over a year and a half now and I've come to realize just how much a 3D printer has changed my life.  I love making things, both in the real world and in the computer.  My two worlds collided the day I got my printer up and running smoothly.

DIY projects used to require that I peruse the aisles of hardware stores and dollar stores for the required bits and pieces to kitbash.  I still love looking at dollar stores and supply stores, but now it's more for "raw materials".  

For example, I can get 3 button cells for $1 at Dollar Tree, and it comes with free LED circuit and reed switch.  It was also cheaper for me to buy a $17.99 sheet metal rack from IKEA than to pay nearly $100.00 for the sheet metal needed on the Quad-Quad MK1 blades.

Since the Makerbot: Replicator came into my life, things that used to exist only in the computer can now have corporeal form.  Things that had to be shaped through blood, sweat, and tears, can now be designed in the computer!

Well, actually, it starts on paper.  The first thing I do when I have a random idea for a "DIY" project is to doodle out concepts on a piece of throw away paper.  Usually the first few sketches are brain dumps, and the idea that I'm drawing on scratch paper helps quite a bit with my paralyzing 'blank page' syndrome.

From there, the next generation of sketches make it in to my current sketchbook.  The sketchbooks include anything from sketches to dimensions on parts that I have at hand.  I have a library of sketchbooks for myself to recall information that has, or definitely will, skip my mind.  My girlfriend can attest to the fact that I have the memory of a goldfish, and getting worse by the years.  

Then I bring it into 3D (Solidworks or Maya) and begin the modeling process.  I start with modeling out the physical items I already have at hand.  Battery packs, PCBs, buttons, etc.  I measure the dimensions with a set of metal calipers from Harbor Freight ($8.99 on sale) and try to get these as close as possible to the real world counterparts.

After that, I model out the project parts with close attention to matching the real world part dimensions.  I take into account the print tolerance of my Replicator when building parts that need precise fitting. Note, screw holes can be drilled or bored out post-print.

When in doubt, I print out a sample and test.

Nothing's more satisfying than holding a physical piece of your digital creation in your hands after a successful print.  Even more "awesome-er" is when everything fits and works the way it was meant to.  Even if it does, there's always a way to make it better!

"D.I.Y" projects for me are no longer hand-made "Do-It-Yourself" projects of yore.  They're now "Design-It-Yourself" projects.

Quad-Quad Mark 1

This was a build I worked on several years ago that was sparked by the need to have extra rendering nodes for my 3D work.  The plan was to use easily acquired, off-the-shelf parts from your local electronics store, and build a framework that allowed 4 computers in a single enclosure.

After pricing out 4x Intel Quad-Core Q9300 bare bones machines with 4GB ram and 750gb HDD's each (yes, totally overkill for a render node but was cheap at the time), the build came out to be no more than $2500.  That's $2500 for 4 individual machines, and 16 render threads.

Including my workstation and the render server which were both Q9300 platforms, I had 24 render threads at my disposal if required.

Roughly, a 6 hour render would then become a 1 hour render.

In retrospect, it would've been easier to just BUY a rack and 4x 2U boxes to house these 4 MicroATX motherboards.  But where's the fun in that?  I took the opportunity to learn the tools required to build such a box.

PC Parts:
- 4x ASUS P5QPL-AM (cheapest ASUS mATX mobos at the time)
- 4x Intel Q9300 2.5ghz Core2Quad processors
- 4x 4gb Corsair XMS2 ram (2x2gb packs)
- 4x Rosewill (cheapy) CPU fans
- 4x Corsair 400w PSUs
- 4x Western Digital 750gb (or 640gb, not sure anymore)
- D-Link gigabit ethernet / wireless router
- APC UPS
- bulk pack LEDs (2x200 from eBay)
- bulk buttons (100 from eBay)
- Lian-Li HDD anti-vibration mounting kit
- miscellaneous wires, etc.

Structural parts:
- 2x2" square wood stock
- miscellaneous bolt and nut (I think it was 3/8")
- washers
- IKEA Hyllis (15$ for 4 planks, as well as the cheap sheet metal frame)

I scoured the web as well as local stores for suitable materials to build platters for each individual blade.  What I found was that the IKEA Hyllis galvanized sheet metal shelving system had the perfect dimensions for what I was envisioning for the Quad-Quad.

It was also only $15.00 for all all 4 platters and sheet metal support beams, cheaper than a single sheet of comparable gauge sheet metal from Home Depot.  I wasn't planning to weld anything for the mark 1 build of the QuadQuad, so the cheap galvanized sheet metal was perfect.

After finding suitable materials, I began to dimension out all the parts that would be going into the build and made foam core mockup pieces to visualize the spacing.

After dimensioning out the parts and doodling out designs on paper, I decided on going with what looked to be a 2'x2' wooden cube frame structure.  It would eventually be covered using 1/4" board panels, and feature dual 200mm fan intakes in front, as well as dual 200mm fan exhausts on the top. Inside would have vertically hanging blades that fit into notches on the support rails.  

The frame would be easily disassembled in case the Quad-Quad had to be moved.  Instead of glue and nails, I decided to go with a nut and bolt configuration.  I'm not sure what this method is called, but I picked it up from browsing DIY CNC machine sites.  

For the job of building the frame, I used a Hitachi miter saw I had purchased a few months prior.  I believe it was 99$ as an Amazon goldbox deal.  It hadn't seen a whole lot of action until I started this project, which is why it looks spick and span in the pictures (as of this writing, it is no longer the case).

I decided to go with wood for the frame because 2"x2" pine were easy to cut and manipulate. 

All the wood beams had 1" holes drilled on the side as well as (I believe) 3/8" holes drilled 90 degrees perpendicular to the 1" hole.  It's a little hard to explain but you can see in one of the following assembly photos.

Once the frame was built and tested to be structurally sound, I began building out the cover panels from 1/4" thick wood.  I don't remember exactly what the type of wood was, but it was also easy to cut.  

The Harbor Freight scroll saw came in handy when cutting the 200mm fan holes in the panels.

Utilizing the sheet metal shelves from the IKEA Hyllis purchase, I began cutting to design spec using an angle grinder and a cutoff wheel.  It looks weird with the part that bends up from the plate, but I use that to connect each of the 4 platters together for stability and to hold spacing.

The hard drive mounting holes were drilled large enough for the anti-vibration grommets to be seated.

The motherboard offsets were held in place by 6-32 nuts.

After securing the motherboard and hard drive on to the platter, I held it up vertically and shook it gently to make sure the pieces held as anticipated.  Since the Quad-Quad Mark 1 wasn't planned to be a mobile platform, no more than a little shake was necessary.

Tested the hanging notches as well.

Once one platter was finished and tested, the same exact thing had to be done 3 more times for the remaining platters.

Over the years I've assembled many PCs so this part was easy peasy.  I set up a temporary install station and installed Windows XP SP2 32bit on all the nodes.  At that point, Windows XP SP2 32bit worked with all the software I needed to use.  The Quad-Quad MK2 later on was upgraded with Windows 7 Pro 64bit on all nodes.

I didn't want to blow the budget by buying power buttons and LEDs from online retailers, so I opted to buy the parts myself in bulk and made my own buttons, power, and HDD activity LEDs.

These buttons were horrible.  The contacts inside were unreliable at best.  I later on swapped out the power buttons with much nicer ones from Radioshack for the Quad-Quad MK2.

LEDs and power button connected.

All the blade platters mounted on the hanging rails!

If I remember correctly, there were 5cm's between each platter.

The chassis was moved into my room / office and was reassembled.  The PSU's as well as the APC battery backup were put into place.

The fan controller is installed on Node #1 of the Quad-Quad, assuming Node #1 will always be on before any of the others are required.

The fan controller is useless if the fans are just dangling, so I put my dad to work.  He helped thread the fans so they could be mounted to front and top panels.  

However, the top fan was never installed due to miscalculation.  There wasn't enough clearance between the top panel and the blade platters for the 200mm fan to fit, so I ended up leaving it.  I had plans to finish it and make it look pretty, but just didn't have enough time.

Fast forward toward the end of 2011, and the Quad-Quad MK1 is taken down during room / office renovations.  Months later... development for the Quad-Quad MK2 began...