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Skippy's Random Ramblings

The Random Thoughts of a Geek heading for Banbury
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Skippy's Random Ramblings

The Random Thoughts of a Geek heading for Banbury
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Random 3D Printed bits

I have been a bit lax on my Makevember posts; these were just quick prints I lobbed on the 3D Printer: bathtub boat (visual benchy) Duplo train joint The Duplo Train Joints are for MiniBoyGeek, the other part will appear once I have printed the rest of it.

#Makevember Post 17 – Random 3D printed parts

I missed a Makevember post yesterday, and the one for today is going to be quite virtual again… Last time I did a post on K-9’s Back it was to work out how to read the buttons, and to do a first draft of the CADing up for the 3D […]

#Makevember Post 06 – K9’s Back!

Following on from my Makevember post yesterday, where I tried to make turbine blades, and Failed… I fed 6050 from SG6050 into Fusion 360 and this is what it gave me: SG6050 profile To check it wasnt it that was broken, I ran the script with the defult value of […]

#Makevember Post 04 – Turbine Blades – Attempt number two

Following on from my previous Makevember posts… This is another virtual post, I built the Wind Turbine Hub as designed by Daniel Davis, one of the changes I would like to make, is the methord of making the blades. It looks like Daniel has a background in Mechanical Engineering, and […]

#Makevember Post 03 – Turbine Blades

Today’s Makevember There seems to be very little consensus on the arangement of the colours of the buttons on the back of K-9, K9 has a 4 x 3 array of buttons on his back, I am using this image Binary kitten got me from the k9 at the Doctor […]

#Makevember Post 02 – K9’s Back

Helium-filled floating wind turbines

As in my Q-Blade Post 1. I made reference to both HAWT (Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine) and VAWT (Vertical Axis Wind Turbines), A standard VAWT design has been covered by the Ultimaker Blog: There are several other designs that are more novel. One of these novel approaches is the O-Wind, […]

Alternative Wind Turbine designs…

I have been back in Fusion 360 designing parts for my wind turbine: These are parts of the hub, they are the bearings 3D printed to be the size of F 6902-2RS (15x28x7 mm) bearings that are commercially available, the printer settings have been edited slightly, so I still have […]

#Makevember Post 25 – Random 3D printed parts

Duplo Train hooks

Another boat: I was trying to dial in a 3D printer, the blobs on the hull seem to be caused by buffer under-runs from the Raspberry Pi. In the last Makevember post, there were some strange shaped Duplo links, here they are in use:

#Makevember Post 24 – Random 3D printed parts

QBlade Rotors

After my previous attempts at cadding up air foils, that can be found here and here for #Makevember, I came across QBlade; According to Wikipedia: QBlade is an open source wind turbine calculation software, distributed under the GNU General Public License. The software is seamlessly integrated into XFOIL, an airfoil […]

QBlade for #Makevember

A while back, I went on a Geek Walk to Bletchley Park, This time Tamarisk’s Uni Computing Society went for a Social. We didn’t catch up with them, but we went as a group anyway 🙂 Last time I thought it would be cool to make an Enigma Machine, this […]

Trip to Bletchley Park

After the print yesterday, I wanted to know what the 100% sized eyes would look like. Having also thought a bit more; I can think of a better way of constructing the head, so that is back to CAD for a re-design. The 100% eyes seem to have printed only […]

The eyes have it.

First test prints of my small K-9 head on our new Prusa 3D printer.

Can you guess what it is yet?

Many moons ago, before Seven Fields was built on, so I assume 1990s, My mum, Debbie McGaw took some photos of the area showing what it looked like at the time. These photos were for many years on show at Emmanuel URC Haydon Wick in Swindon. At some point the […]

Seven Fields Photos

On Boxing day, Tamarisk, MiniBoyGeek, and Granny went for a look round Warwick Castle, We also saw the Mill and Hydroelectricity plant on the river Avon

Warwick Castle Mill and Hydroelectricity

A while ago I picked up these buttons for my Dr Who’s K-9 robot from AliExpress, Hobby Components have similar available online, The ones I purchased are SPDT with a 24 V DC incandescent bulb in them, regardless of the button colour they are all illuminated with a white incandescent […]

Re-bulbing K-9’s back buttons

After my last post where I said I had some better ideas for how to make the head in CAD: This is the CAD parts: There are 5 main parts, all smaller than 200 x 200 x 200 mm. Tamarisk has been Printing the parts for me:

K-9 Head in CAD and IRL

555 Timer

In Week 2 we made a single LED blink using an Arduino, now about 99.9% of the time this would be overkill (the 0.1% of the time is when you are learning); actually tell a lie, There is a VERY good reason to flash a LED with a micro, but […]

Week 2.5 – Flashing a LED without a Micro

Array of LEDs on an Arduino

Following on from week 1 and week 2, we will be continuing our way through Oomlout’s Arduino Guide, at this point however we hit a snag with using iCircuit. Annoyingly iCircuit is unable to deal with arrays. An array is a cunning way of holding multiple variables inside a single […]

Week 3: Multiple LEDs and Arrays

Arduino Massive LED

Following on from Week 1 and talking about faking it with an Arduino, we will use UnoArduSim.exe and iCircuit to model the first few circuits from the Oomlout.com’s “Experimenter’s Guide for Arduino” (Full kit was available from here). Oomlout have made the ARDX-circuit-sheets available separately to their guide PDF. Circuit […]

Week 2: Oomlout’s Getting started guide – Single LED

If you want to learn Arduino programming, but don’t always have access to a box of physical hardware, there are a number of Arduino Simulators available, however one of the best ones I have found to use, is also free. UnoArduSim Arduino is a great platform, but If you’re trying […]

Week 1: Arduino programming without an Arduino

Arduino Servo

Following on from last week where we drove a motor in one direction with the help of a simple amplifier, this week we are going to have a go at driving a servo. Those of you who read older posts in my blog will know I have done this before […]

Week 5: Driving a Servo

Arduino Motor

I have started putting these on Github so you can also follow along. In Weeks 2, and 3 we were driving LEDs directly from the Arduino, While the Arduino can drive a LED directly from a pin, if you want to power something that draws more power like a motor, […]

Week 4: Driving something bigger

A fair while ago Swindon Makerspace started a group project called LogoBot, a cheap, expendable and extendable easy to build robot for playing with. Even longer ago I bought a MiroBot from kick-starter, it had lived in a box, and parts of it had got damaged. Tamarisk showed me and […]

SwarmBot introduction

electronics kit

Most of the stuff you will need to do the electronic projects I do on this site can be got by going to Amazon (I have affiliate links), I know I have mentioned the Oomlout Starter Kit for Arduino, However I fear that this is discontinued 🙁 The Oomlout Starter […]

Week 3.5 – Things to buy to Learn Electronics and …

37 in 1 from China

I picked up a 37 in 1 box sensor kit from china, it includes basic components and sensors, and is compatible with Arduino and Raspberry Pi The Package Included (their description): Small passive buzzer module KY-006 2-color LED module KY-011 Hit sensor module KY-031 Vibration switch module KY-002 Photo resistor […]

China in making me Sad

Enigma machine

I have now been to Bletchley Park twice. In the gift shop they have a Build your own Enigma-E Kit: The Enigma machine was the German cipher machine used to encrypt their WW2 communications and systematically cracked by the Bletchley Park Codebreakers. This highly detailed replica design gives you the […]

Building an Enigma

8 Red LEDs

Using a LED and a 560 Ω in most breadboard projects means that you end up with four pins connected for two components, soldering them up like this makes them much easer to handle.

LEDs for use with solderless breadboard

EMF Spectrum

…Are negligible! Following on from my last post; that seems to have got a wide readership, I got sent this link and asked to review it; the title of the article is “Scientists Appeal that 5G Wireless is as Hazardous as Asbestos”, which I think we can all agree contains […]

5G and the continued health risks!

We went to Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker, to be fair it is badly named… its got far too well signposted; the entire place is a maze or exhibit rooms, and displays showing an over view of life during its time as a bunker.

Shhh it is a secret… Nuclear Bunker

74HC595 Shift Register

This week we will be having a play with a 74HC595, the Data sheet lists it as an 8-bit serial-in, serial or parallel-out shift register with output latches; 3-state.” In other words, you can use it to control 8 outputs at a time while only taking up a few pins […]

Week 6: Shift Registers

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