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3d printing / cnc / computers / electronics / projects — 11 Comments
22
Mar 16

Auto level for the Folger 2020 Prusa i3

I follow a number of FB groups and forums about 3D printing in general and the Folger 2020 i3 in particular and questions about auto level keep coming up.  The 2020 i3 doesn’t ship with autolevel, but when I ordered mine I thought auto level sounded like something I’d like and Folger sold an inductive sensor for just under $4 so I tossed one in with my order.

My first inductive autolevel sensor and mount.

My first inductive autolevel sensor and mount.

Little did I know what I was about to get into.  Let’s see if I can make this a little easier for other people than it was for me!  After the break I’ll explain what autolevel is and how it works as well as share my experiences setting it up and using it.

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3d printing / diy / projects — No Comments
31
Dec 15

Jason finally gets to try 3D printing.

So I’ve been interested in 3D printing for a long time.  I’ve been seriously considering making a 3D printer for at least 10 years, but haven’t felt the price is worth the quality of prints they can deliver.  I still think the price of commercial 3D printers is ridiculous for the speed/quality they deliver…but kits have reached a point where I think the price is low enough and the quality high enough that I started seriously getting interested.

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3d printing / diy / electronics / multirotor / projects / radio / RC — No Comments
26
Dec 15

Is this thing on?

With my youtube channel starting to pickup a bit of a following I’ve been thinking about reviving this blog again.  Not sure if I’ll find time to stick with it or not but figured it was as good an excuse as any to blow out some cobwebs and so some updates.

I’m back to a very simple stripped down theme for the time being, if I do customize things it won’t get much fanicer.  Just perk up some colors and maybe add a header image or something.  I like it clean like this.

Lately I’ve been pretty focused on RC flying, I’ve become a regular poster at the Flite Test forums starting with my first quadcopter build using a homemade MultiWii flight controller.  Since then I’ve dug in and made my own RX’s my own F4 based TauLabs controller and am currently helping test a new fork of Tau Labs called dRonin. I’ve also done quite a bit of fixed wing and FPV flying along with all the electronics and have been having a blast.  Quite a few people have told me I should have a blog to share all my exploits and my answer of “I have one, just haven’t updated it in years” is starting to feel lame.

Today I’m hoping to dig in on a new project.  I’ve been intrigued by 3D printing for years and have wanted to build one for about a decade.  I finally felt kit prices had got low enough and quality high enough that I started saving for one, and with the addition of some holiday funds pulled the trigger on a Folger Tech RepRap 2020 Prusa i3 kit that is scheduled for delivery today.

So seems like a good enough excuse to dust this thing off, see what still works…and maybe start using it again 🙂

coffee / diy / environment / house / new house / projects — 1 Comment
23
Apr 08

Freebies and slack

Yep, I’m slacking again.  And once again it’s not that I don’t have anything to blog about, just that I haven’t had time to sit down and do it.  Believe it or not it’s not even that I don’t enjoy this – I do, typing is quite cathartic for me.  Which is kind of the problem.  I enjoy it too much and tend to zone out while writing.  As a result I end up spending more time than I planed on it and instead of feeling unburdened when I’m done I end up feeling guilty that I spent so much time at it when I have so much more I should be doing.  It also doesn’t help that WordPress 2.5 broke the smugmug and lightbox plugins I was using so posting photos is a bit more arduous than I really care to deal with.   The new built in gallery in WP 2.5 is excellent, but I really have little interest in using it as I prefer to keep my photos on my smugmug site, uploading them twice annoys me.

But Amy’s most recent duet of posts on her blog seem worth of mention.  So read on for my thoughts about the fickleness of freebies and whatever else I manage to bang out before accepting I’ve spent enough time and need to get back to using the keyboard for something more productive!

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diy / projects — No Comments
14
Apr 08

An idea so perfect…

How I never thought of this I’ll never figure out.

Yeah, the amp I made sure came out clean:

Amp on breadboard

But I win zero points for style when compared to this:

http://www.dinosaursandrobots.com/2008/02/in-praise-of-coconut-shell.html

coffee / diy — 7 Comments
08
Apr 08

More Coffee

Well, the green coffee beans I ordered finally arrived. Sweet Maria’s was real quick on shipping them out, but UPS messed up and misrouted the package. So it ended up making a side-trip to Mesquite TX before it found it’s way home. The original shipment was supposed to take 2 days, it ended up taking 4 additional days to correct the mistake. The package finally showed up at 6:59 PM yesterday, and by 7:30 my first batch of home roasted coffee was packed away. Read on for the full story and this mornings impression of the results. Continue reading →

diy / house / new house / projects / wind — 1 Comment
14
Mar 08

New Carport Tarp

Last sunday while we were recovering from the previous nights party, Amy and I remembered about the Yuma Bargain Warehouse and decided to go see if we could find a new tarp for the carport. I had guestimated that it would be a 20′ x 20′ tarp…and after measuring the tattered rempains of the original that was looking about right. At the warehouse we found a good selection of tarps, of course the one we liked best (green mesh) they were out of in 20′ x 20′. But they had black mesh, heavy duty white and silver in that size. The black mesh was tempting…but being a mesh we weren’t sure if it would give as much shade as we wanted – and it was over double the cost of a silver or white tarp. The silver we didn’t like the looks of so at $37 the white tarp won out. We also picked up 2 – $2 bundles of nylon rope and headed home. Last night we finally put the tarp up, took a little over 30 minutes. Continue reading →

diy / new house / projects / weather / wind — No Comments
07
Mar 08

So the winds are gone…

Well, the winds are gone…and so is half of our carport tarp. As I mentioned in my last post the high winds on sunday really did a number on our carport. Here are some better photos of the destruction in action:

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beer / diy / homebrew / projects — No Comments
05
Mar 08

Overbrew! brewverflow?

Overbrew! brewverflow?

Posting form my phone is a little annoying – but it’s better than nothing. The text above was all I sent – but I had to remove 3 paragraphs of drivel that Verizon felt they needed to add. And of course being a phone it’s hard to enter much of a message.

The cause for such spur the moment updating however is our critical capacity on homebrew. The Yuma Brewers have been busy this year even if we haven’t been updating our old blog! Matt’s fridge is at capacity – plus J has some kegs at his house in his new converted freezer. Mark found us a pile of new kegs and Rich just got a used fridge for $10. And don’t forget my own cooler project.

Matts freezer/fridge above is holding 7 kegs and a 20lb CO2 bottle, we could move the CO2 out to make room for one more keg…but he’s basically at capacity. We did finish one of those last Wednesday, and one will be coming over here tomorrow for my birthday party. Thanks to Tommy we’ll also be tapping tomorrows beer with Nitrogen which will be an exciting experiment. But we’ve got more waiting to go into kegs so it’s a good thing more homes for them are becoming available!

diy / new house / projects / wind — 3 Comments
02
Mar 08

Wind sucks today

Better photos to follow later but I wanted to test posting from my phone. As the title says the wind here sucks today. The front half of our carport tarp has been destroyed…it’s actually gotten worse since I snapped this photo and is now torn all the way to the very top – right through the double stitched anti-rip sections 🙁

I kind of knew it was going to happen. I was never very happy with the choice of material the previous owner used for the carport, he claims it was UV rated but it’s only a few years old and already it’s badly faded and I could tell it was getting weak. In fact just yesterday I was looking at some tears that had started around the grommets in it so I knew it wouldn’t be lasting forever.

I’d like to go out and take it down before it gets any worse…but with 45MPH gusts predicted (Though I think they’re bigger based on how much our trees are swaying!) I don’t think it would be a wise idea for me to go outside and play with a large sail in high winds on top of a ladder. Since it’s a total loss at this point anyway I’ll just let the wind have it’s way and start thinking about how to deal with it.

I’d love to make something that could be rolled back for occasions where we want some sun…or when the wind gets like this 😀 But for now I’m just hoping we can find something we can afford as a replacement. I’m hoping my old boss Gwyn at Racecraft can help me get some vinyl impregnated awning fabric like she uses and help me sew it up to be the right size. Going to have to make some phone calls this week it looks like!

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