from Tony P. via liberal japonicus
hoisted from the comments and placed below the fold to heighten the suspense
I am a pack rat. My basement is full of old "broken" devices that any self-respecting American homeowner would have thrown out long ago. It might seem like a trash dump to any normal person; to me, it is a sort of mine of not-exactly-raw material.
A few months ago, I built a contraption that had a rocking beam whose oscillations I needed to keep count of. Over the course of several days, it might rock back and forth a thousand times. Among the design constraints was that I had literally zero budget for materials.
So I took apart an old wall clock -- the dirt-cheap kind that runs off an AA battery. I severed the connections to the motor on the little circuit board and soldered in a pair of wires that I could run to an external circuit. A bit of experimentation revealed that the "motor" works this way: shove 1.5 volts across the leads momentarily, and the clock ticks forward by one second; apply the reverse voltage momentarily, and it ticks forward another second; repeat. Perfect! I harvested a pair of microswitches from an old mouse and mounted them so the rocking beam would trip them alternately. Wired them appropriately to the clock, and to a "wall-wart" transformer from some long-lost electronic device. Presto: a counter that could tell me how many times the beam rocked back and forth. (To avoid confusion between seconds, minutes, and hours of elapsed time and the reading on my counter clock, I designated the "meter" units to be Ticks, Micks, and Hicks.) A fun little project, it was. And cost-effective too, since I valued my time at zero dollars per hour -- as I seem to be doing right now, come to think of it.
Tony said that he wished he could upload an image, and we at ObWI aim to please, so...
So a Friday thread for all your do-it-yourself projects, both successful and not. Writing about attempts to explain said devices or their aftermaths to significant others is optional but welcome.
shine on you crazy diamond
Posted by: russell | October 21, 2011 at 08:45 AM
Come on you painter, you piper, you prison, and shine!
Posted by: Slartibartfast | October 21, 2011 at 09:40 AM
Because you could. Wow.
Posted by: sapient | October 21, 2011 at 11:46 AM
I look at this with envy and longing. Here in Japan, space is limited and carving out a space for a workshop like my dad's (lovingly decorated with the plywood that you see in Tony's pic) is, along with the ready availability of Dr Pepper, are the two things I miss here.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 21, 2011 at 06:48 PM
lj,
There are a couple of ball bearings in my crude-looking contraption. I happened to have them among the junk in my basement because I had bought them on a somewhat exuberant shopping spree in Tokyu Hands, in 1997, and never found a use for them til now. I've never seen a DIYer's paradise to equal Tokyu Hands anywhere in the US, so Japan does have some advantages.
--TP
Posted by: Tony P. | October 21, 2011 at 07:33 PM
One of my least successful attempts at a DIY project involved putting a new battery into one of those battery operated Barbie cars that kids can drive.
Typically, this is not hard: you buy one and put it in with the snap on connection.
However, I had an unused motorcycle battery that was 12 volts, and the car needed 12 volts, so I figured this would be fine.
Unfortunately, the way a Barbie car battery goes in is with a snap on battery connector, so I had to modify the connector by clipping it off, and connecting it to the motorcycle battery with some aditional wiring. This would have worked fine, except that my Barbie car battery was actually two 6 volts, and the connector connected them in parellel.
My 12 volt car battery was therefore actually double connected to make 24 volts (at least, I think that is what happened).
My son sat in the car (after painting over the Barbie stuff-he is not enlightened), put his foot on the gas, and the battery promptly caught fire.
The upside is that he was able to observe how efficient fire extinguishers are.
Once I fixed the wiring, it worked great, but he was afraid to get in it.
Posted by: jrudkis | October 21, 2011 at 08:01 PM
Pardon me while I wander in a totally different direction.
With Qaddafi dead, I expect to hear a renewal of plaints that this will reinforce the determination of people like Assad to hold on to power at all costs. And to try to get nuclear weapons to keep outsiders from helping their people if/when they revolt.
But why doesn't anyone suggest the alternate lesson? If you look at Tunisia and at Libya, the lesson appears to be:
- if you take the money and run, you may get a nice long, comfortable, exile.
But
- if you insist on hanging on as long as possible, all you will get is dead.
Assad may not be able to see that. But why can't supposed experts outside?
Posted by: wj | October 21, 2011 at 08:03 PM
wj,
I'll toss up a post for Libya, thanks for prodding me
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 21, 2011 at 08:41 PM
For the benefit of those who didn't know:
TonyP is an engineering genius.
Posted by: byomtov | October 21, 2011 at 09:33 PM
I am in awe of people like Tony P. who can think design this way. Had a friend who was something like this - also a pack rat who could make what he needed out of the stuff he had laying around or found. We built a recording studio together, and he designed, and mostly built, a floating floor for it using old tires from the alley. Worked great. He made the air flow system for that studio too, for just a few dollars. He built sophisticated fan systems out of junk. Could fix anything electronic, too. Problem solving! I'm in awe.
Posted by: jonnybutter | October 21, 2011 at 11:42 PM
Two words: Maker Faire.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 22, 2011 at 04:45 PM
Wow.
Posted by: bc | October 24, 2011 at 08:21 AM