Yesterday I was able to capture and archive 11 DV tapes. There are 29 tapes in total. Some are full, some aren’t, but in either case capturing the video is tedious as I have to capture in realtime (a 45 minute tape takes 45 minutes to capture).
Lucikly, the new computer was powerful enough to also let me archive a slew of old video game CD-ROMs and DVDs, some old software on disc, and an archive of old projects. These, plus some personal tapes were additional archives I decided to create to elimiate the possibility of loosing the data due to tape and disc degradation. Today, I continue to archive. I’m hoping everything will be finished by end of day tomorrow.
I’m also going to start researching how to properly insulate the garage doors today, which is the next house project.
Tonight I begin a 10-day time off stretch. I need the downtime from the craziness of the day job this year. I bunch of rest is in store for me over the next few days but that doesn’t mean I’m doing nothing.
Tonight I installed an inexpensive Vantec Firewire 400/800 card in the new computer and hauled the old Panasonic PV-GS150 out of retirement so I can re-capture a ton of old footage back onto the computer.
The project in question was shot in 2005 and 2006 and, if I recall correctly, was about 12 total hours of footage. I mainly want to recapture so I can make sure that all of the tapes are in a digital format in case they deteriorate, etc.
Now that the Weather Station ISD prototype is breadboarded and working, I’ve decided to start designing v1.0 of the printed circuit board. The Fritzing drawing, and schematic are complete. These will be used as reference for transferring into Eagle.
Weather Station ISD Fritzing drawing.
Weather Station ISD Fritzing schematic.
Weather Station ISD Fritzing part design (Illustrator).
All new work was added to the internal GitLab server with commit SHA fad61e9e.
Was a busy week at work, so I didn’t get much done. The only thing creative that was accomplished was in Minecraft. I created a redstone circuit that allows me to turn on and off the iron farm I built a while back. The massive output of that farm was making so I had to tend to it every few days, whether I wanted to play or not. Now, it’s off until needed.
I’ve been relaxing all day today, and will likely be doing a bunch of reading to catch up on some magazines. I have five flight magazines, three Raspberry Pi magazines, and another miscellaneous one on the docket (won’t read them all today, of course).
The planter is finished. This past weekend, I spent a grand total of about 5 hours in the garage cutting, sanding, and assembling. Here’s what it started like:
The front yard flower planter, in raw-board form.
And it evolved into this:
It’s about 8′ 7″ long, 12″ wide, and 12″ tall.
Oh, and I think I forgot to show what the drill bit holders look like hanging on the peg board in the garage, so here’s a picture of that.
Last year I picked up an electronics kit for building a miniature weather station. I finally built a prototype of it tonight on a breadboard. It’s fully functional and I believe I can consider the codebase release v1.0.
OLED display showing current date and time.
OLED display showing current weather.
OLED display showing 3-day weather forecast.
ESP8266-12E module.
l. to r., DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor, BMP180 pressure sensor, and BH1750FVI light sensor.
The next step will be to design a custom PCB for this, which I’ve never done before. Should be an interesting challenge.
I’ve been chipping away every month at building out the model, but have neglected to post on my progress. I felt it was time, as a big box arrived yesterday. More on that later.
So far, the entire car’s chassis, frame, and engine are complete.
Front end.Rear end.Engine close-up
So, as you can see, a bunch of work and a lot of parts so far. All of this is the result of the first 34 issues. And, it looks like I’m just at the beginning of the electrical parts. There is a wire harness that connects to the battery compartment (which is mounted under the car in the front), but so far there’s nothing to plug the harness into.
So, what about this delivery from yesterday?
A big mystery box from Eaglemoss.
Normal boxes from Eaglemoss are about the size of a sheet of paper and about 4″ to 5″ thick. Not this one, though. That’s a 12″ ruler laying on it. So, what the heck was in it, you ask?
Issues 35 through 38, plus a bonus. First, let’s talk about the issues. Issue 35 includes the wheel arches for the front of the car (some call these wheel wells).
Issue 35Issue 35 front wheel arches.
Issue 36 includes the two rear pontoons.
Issue 36.Issue 36 rear pontoons.
Issue 37 continues the trend of issue 36, by providing me the rear wheel arches (wheel wells).
Issue 37.Issue 37 rear wheel arches.
And the final issue, number 38, adds new wiring to the rear of the car.
Issue 38.Issue 38 wiring and brackets.
So, all of this is normal, but why the big box? Well, the display base arrived! And I love it.
DeLorean display base with the unfinished car (rear).DeLorean display base with the unfinished car (front).
This thing is huge and looks great. But this isn’t the only surprise about the DeLorean kit. Oh, no, not at all. I also received the Eaglemoss Special Edition 1955 White Wall Tire kit.
The Special Edition 1955 White Wall Tires.
I’m not going to put these on just yet, but they’ll be stored away for a day when the car is complete.
Not enough for you? Well, I ALSO received a special shipment in to adjust the cosmetics of the car. Mike Lane creates some very impressive mods for the car. These include a lot of great cosmetic upgrades, as well as some helpful functions fixes. A few months ago I ordered several of his kits, and now they’re here:
Decal Set I includes options for the front of the time circuits, a TFC DRIVE sticker with corrected fonts and colors, corrected OUTATIME license plate decals, High Voltage stickers for the gold box, and a more accurate switch sticker.
Mike Land Mods Decal Set I.
Decal Set III includes various engine bay, trunk, and time circuit decals.
Mike Lane Mods Decal Set III.
The Tyre Transfer Kit allows you to fix the inaccurate Goodyear logos on the tires.
Mike Lane Modes Tyre Transfer Kit.
The Magnetic Wheel Caps replace the stock ones, which then to fall off a lot since they’re just barely fitted in place by pressure.
Mike Lane Mods Magnetic Wheel Caps kit.
And the final mod is the Magnetic License Plates. The Eaglemoss stock plates are screw-in (from behind the plate) which makes them particularly hard to swap out. This mod is magnetic, so the plates are easy to remove but hold fast.
Mike Lane Mods Magnetic License Plate kit.
Whew. Ok. I think that’s it for now. You’ll see all these items in detail once they start getting put on the car.
Yesterday I spent three hours cleaning up and organizing in the garage. A lot of the worked centered around putting away all of the spare aquarium supplies and equipment back into their proper places on the shelves. Then, I took the time to finally break down a ton of cardboard boxes and put them into the recycling bin in preparation for next Monday. Because of COVID challenges, Hillsborough county has moved our recycling pickup to every other week for now. That means all cans and plastic containers need to be smashed down flat and all cardboard needs to be cut up to smaller pieces so we get efficient, compact usage of the bin. Anyway, I also put away and re-organized several tools and finally did a big cleanup of the workbench area.
One of the little organization things I’ve been wanting to do is to get my drill bits into a “first order of retrieval” state. This required getting them out of their store-bought, pocket sized holders and into something that could be mounted on the pegboard over the workbench. Last year I found these holders on Thingiverse and printed out the 1/16 thru 3/16 and 13/64 thru 1/4 blocks. However, I had some other odd sized bits and a plumb-bob I wanted to also fit into the this format. Yesterday I finally created those two blocks, printed them, and got them into the garage, completing that project.
A screenshot of one of the drill bit blocks in Tinkercad.
Sunday I went to Lowe’s and picked up all of the materials for the front yard flower box. I’ll begin working on that soon.
I received HackerBox 0057: Safe Mode. I’m still organizing how I want to tackle all of these outstanding kits. I have boxes 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 54, 55, 56 as well that all need to be completed. I also bought an ESP8266-based weather station kit last year and am including this in the pile of kits to build. This one might be the first, actually.
