WARNING: Geek quotient high, proceed with caution

I welcome our new cube overlord

matthew — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 02:17:56 GMT

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it begins again...

matthew — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:59:00 GMT

Tonight I changed the oil and started in on replacing the seat bushing. looks pretty odd without a tank.

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Makerbot madness

matthew — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:16:28 GMT

I finally took some time to poke at my makerbot again. gordonmessmer and I tried to get it working again in a fairly standard config only to be reminded of how much the mk4 extruder sucks. Many moons ago when I was spending more time with this machine I had printed and intended to make a Wade's Extruder work on my makerbot but ran into some unspecified issue with the extruder firmware or hardware. Folks in #reprap pointed me to this article on how to get a makerbot to use a stepper driven extruder. Since I happen to have an extra stepper board I set about combining all these things. Lo and behold, it actually worked... mostly. So, if you have a makerbot and want better extrusion without spending the cash on a Mk5 extruder (which I still have my doubts about) follow these exciting instructions:

Build your own Wade's extruder and assemble it. I used this tool to make hobbing the easier. After breaking my one good M3 tap I picked up a 6-32 tap and used that to hob the bolt. This works better as a #6 calls for a clearance hole of about 3.5mm which should provide better grip on the 3mm filament.

Cut one of these out of 6mm plywood or similar. I also highly recommend the use of adjustable endstops. I even went so far as to design some adjustable endstop flag mounts for my Makerbot. They work ok, but are probably due a redesign. Assemble everything and mount it all up in your makerbot.

Follow these directions to hook up your stepper controller. I used an external stepper driver rather than using the extruder's H-Bridges as I had an extra gen3 stepper driver and I have some doubts as to how well my H-bridges are working right now. I followed the directions to grab the source code and reflashed my extruder to use an external stepper. I mounted my extruder and extra stepper controller above the mainboard on the side of my makerbot. Very tidy!

Download the latest ReplicatorG (0023 as of this writing.) I've been manually modifying the generated gcode by doing a global search and replace of "M108 S255" with "M108 R6". 6 RPM seems to work well. I tried a decimal number but that caused a java exception while estimating build time. 8 RPM was too fast, and 5 too slow. 6 appears to work well as all of the objects I have printed since come out quite strong.

The only change that I have so far made to skeinforge is in Multiple. The default is set to 'on' with the center at 0,0 which puts the printed object in the lower left of the build platform. The problem is that any overhangs into the -X and -Y direction cause the bot to trigger the endstops, which makes the prints all wonky. Instead, set the center in Multiple to 50,50 and the bot will move there when it starts to print and avoid all that.

Do all of the above and printing is as simple as:

Start up ReplicatorG, connect to the bot, open the control panel and set the build platform temp to 120.

Open your design, center, scale, etc and generate the gCode. Pick the appropriate profile and edit it for Multiple as above.

Once the gcode is generated, use Find to do a search and replace of "M108 S255" with "M108 R6"
Once the build platform is at temp, use the Home menu to home all 3 axes.

Hit the Build button

The Makerbot will do it's little startup ritual. Once you clear the test extrusion and hit Yes it will move to somewhere in the middle of the build platform and start a raft. After that it's just a matter of waiting for the print to finish.

matthew — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 06:29:29 GMT

Just before we bought the house I'd noticed that the Rockster was making a lot more noise on the right side than it should. gordonmessmer and I popped the right valve cover to do a quick adjustment and found that the right intake valve was out of spec. Way out of spec. In the 2000 miles since the last service the valve gap had widened by something like 0.5mm. I tightened it up for the time being and only rode it once more to get it to the new house.

Last weekend I finally got the time to open up the engine and take a look. After two trips to Sears for more tools as well as a good deal of swearing I finally got my answer. The intake pushrod was short, by 0.57mm compared to the exhaust. Now you'd think that this would have been the result of a deteriorating pushrod end, or some other calamity. No actually. All I need to do is replace the pushrod. But "How" I hear you saying "does a pushrod get shorter without the ends wearing?" Here's how:

The one on the left is the original exhaust pushrod. The one on the right is the replacement I bought. They are both the same part number. Do you think that perhaps BMW figured out that the old one wasn't cutting it? Anyway, they are damn near the same weight. The old one weighs in at 11.18g while the new one is 11.90g. Seems worth the extra .72g to not dissolve into the engine oil. Anyway, I've ordered 3 more as I might as well do all 4 at once and save myself the trouble in the future. Not worth opening it all up again.

Weekend report

matthew — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 06:56:41 GMT

Still unpacking and setting up the new house. The dining room table showed up on Thursday but there was a complete comedy of errors including the taller legs not fitting, a leaf getting dropped and splitting and one of the accessories being wrong. It's all getting sorted out, but for the moment we only kind of have a table.

Friday was the company holiday party, gordonmessmer graciously accompanied me and we had a pretty good time. I was only mildly hung over on Saturday so Gordon and I went to the International Motorcycle Show and wandered around. There was a totally sweet sidecar rig owned by Rich of Rich's custom upholstery:

I picked up a kind of dolly that you can park your bike on the center stand and move it around more easily. Gordon broke down and signed up for the sidecar class, and I put my name down too. I'll need the refresher because Sunday I scored this lovely little accessory for my bike:

It's in amazingly good shape for it's age. It's missing the seat lock (I have one) and a reflector. Everything else appears to be there and in good shape. I just need to pick up the attachment bits to bolt it up to the R50.

Maggie Investigates

matthew — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:24:46 GMT

Moved

matthew — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 08:51:02 GMT

We moved. I'm dead tired. I'm reclining on the awesome couch drinking fortified cider. I will sleep soon and I get to do more tomorrow.

Thanks to all the wonderful people who came out to help. Gordon, Ian, Brandon, Matt, Kent, Pat, Andrew, Erin (Jack Henry helped too!) and my mom and dad. We could not have done it without you.

All mine

matthew — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:09:10 GMT

The Rockster is officially mine now. This is the first large (i.e. titled, licensed) piece of real property that I think I've ever fully owned. Does this make me a grown up now?

I made a Thing

matthew — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:21:09 GMT

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2040

Time from perceived need to assembled object: less than 24 hours.

Tools

matthew — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:57:03 GMT

For a while now I've been wanting a small metal-working lathe for doing some work associated with the MakerBot and RepRap. There are a few parts on those machines that you need a lathe to make. A new-found friend I met through a few connections has a really nice old lathe and was generous enough to turn the parts we needed so I'm no longer in need.

That didn't stop me from keeping an eye on craigslist though. I managed to score a gently used rebranded Sieg 7 x 12 with a bit of tooling. I have since learned that this is the same lathe sold by harbor freight and grizzly as well as a few other companies. They're all made in the same factory and are of surprisingly good quality for the price. One definite upside to all of this is that both replacement parts and upgrades are readily available. Of course this means that I had to go and buy some of them. :)

Here it is in the back of the car:

Zomg Babbage

matthew — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:25:22 GMT

I'm in Mountain View, CA this week for work and for a variety of reasons ended up taking a ridiculously early flight down today. In the end it was probably worth it since I got to finally visit Weird Stuff and the Computer History Museum. Weird Stuff was something of a let-down as it's mostly just full of old PC hardware and while the prices are good, I wanted more... well... weird.

On the way back from that I remembered that the Computer history museum was nearby and since I'd never managed to get in while it was open I thought I'd try again. It was my lucky day. Just as I walked in and caught sight of The Difference Engine a docent was starting a talk about it. It's an awesome machine. That made getting up early worth it.

There was a bunch of other old hardware, but after The Difference Engine it all seemed somehow a let down. Though the Cray 1 was pretty cool, and you could stand inside of that!

Pics here.

Pow! Pow! Power-wheels!

matthew — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:23:42 GMT

The battery in the R50 is giving up. On my ride home last week the headlight would go out if I let the revs drop. So today while I was out I picked up another. This is the box that it came in:

How to piss off your customers in 3 easy steps...

matthew — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 02:52:00 GMT

Imagine you are a cellular company that wants to shed some customers because your network is being driven into the ground by iPhone users. Here's a plan that should get you some breathing room:

Announce that you are going to require data plans on 'Smart Phones.'

Without warning 'upgrade' all your customers to a $30/month data plan.

Refuse to revert the change claiming that 'The System' will only change it back.

matthew — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 07:37:03 GMT

This weekend I spent some time assembling a little project that I've been working on:

It's fun living in the future.

Weekend

matthew — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:34:23 GMT

Had a great weekend up until tonight when the computers started fighting me. Mostly it's the BIOS on this new server, but aggravated by stupid installers. Enough about that, here's the fun I had:

Saturday I got up early (for a Saturday) and got to Ride West in time to be there when the parts and apparel swap opened. I just missed a rear seat for the R50, but I'm next in line if the buyer decides that he doesn't want it after all. It was in really rough shape, but priced at only $5 I could put some effort into it. I did manage to score some really nice Lee Parks gloves at about half price. I also met a few vintage bike people and chatted a whole bunch. I met up with Morgan and we chatted for a while. Just as I was about to take off cooncat and G showed up so we chatted a bit.

I took off from that and after doing a few things at home I headed to the brew store to pick up an apple crusher and ratchet press and hauled them over to ibexris and mimsy's house. It was a lot of work, but oddly enjoyable. After several hours of work we managed to turn 630 pounds of organic apples into about 34 gallons of cider. I took home 5 of that, 1 for drinking and 4 to turn into hard cider.

Sunday I returned the crusher and press and picked up a few oddments for brewing. I then visited my brother to help out with my nephew's halloween costume. He's going to be a lightning bug this year, and I'm in charge of illumination. I've got 100 yellow LEDs, I just need to figure out how to wire things up. I'll be making some little lens-like devices with the laser cutter that will hopefully diffuse the light better. It's all going to be powered by a mintyboost.

After looking over the costume and testing a few things Andrew, Jack and I went to Costco. Jack was pretty good and even let me hold him long enough that my arms got tired. He's a cute kid.

Now I'm home, waiting for this install to finally finish so I can copy a bunch of data off a failing array. It's not the way that I wanted it set up in the first place, but it's close enough that I can fix things later.

update-o-rama

matthew — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:53:23 GMT

I've been extremely busy of late. Mostly helping my friend Matt open up his new retail space (http://metrixcreate.tumblr.com/ for a bit of info.) I'm pretty happy with the shelves I built. I designed them in Sketchup, cut all the bits and screwed it all together with only minor tweaks.

Tonight I installed a new exhaust system on the R50. I was going to keep using the one I had but I got fed up with how poorly it fit (it's for an R60) so I sprung for a new complete stainless system. It's an exact replica of the OEM system only in stainless so it will last nearly forever. I'm pretty happy with it. I no longer have dual exhaust leaks and that's a good thing. I finally got the rear brake shoe today and will install it as soon as I can. I've also got a seat mounting bushing to install which should firm up the ride a bit. After all that I need to get started on the sidecar.

The Rockster is still out of commission as I've not yet had time to replace the fuel filter. Thank you BMW for putting it inside the fuel tank. That's a great place for it I don't think.

On the fluffy flying friend front we have a new bird staying with us for a while. She (He? It?) is a baby black cap conure, about 7 or 8 weeks old at this point. She is smaller than Niko and incredibly cute. I've been taking her to work a lot, my coworkers seem to like her.

The Groovik's cube appears to have gone well. All of the photos look great. I hope we set it up locally one day, though that would take a lot of effort and a good chunk of cash.

How to freak out your friends and coworkers in 3 easy steps

matthew — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:54:11 GMT

1. Shave beard off
2. Put in contacts
3. Take a picture:

So busy...

matthew — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:17:00 GMT

I'm helping out with a bunch of projects. One friend is building a 15' rubik's cube, the other is starting a new business, I'm trying to build a makerbot and I've got a motorcycle that needs some love. I think that I need to take a week off just to sit at home and do what I feel like. Too bad I can't for at least a week.

It's Alive!

matthew — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:24:32 GMT

Tonight gordonmessmer came over and we installed the exhaust system, put a bit of gas in the tank and did a few last minute checks. The engine started and ran on the second kick. This is even more amazing considering that we soon discovered that the left cylinder wasn't firing (pulling the plug wire did nothing to engine RPM.) Turns out that the left carb was completely dry. The float needle was jammed and there was no gas getting in at all. I cleared that and we kicked it again and it ran way better. Did another spark plug cap pull check and now it was the right side that didn't want to run on it's own. Pulled the plugs and the right side was running rich so after resetting the carbs and a bit of tinkering things were balanced up a bit better. Then the engine really wanted to run. It actually starts halfway through a kick now.

So I took it for a ride around the block. It's been so long since I've ridden it that I'd forgotten what it's like. It was a blast. Gordon had a goofy grin on his face when I accelerated past him on the street. I did a lap around the block with the transmission bolts finger tight to align things. Then Gordon tightened them down and I pulled it around into the driveway again.

I'm having a celebratory drink tonight. There's still some fine tuning to do, the timing isn't right and the carbs are still only coarsely tuned, but it runs and that's cause for celebration!

Final steps, and a closer look at the next project

matthew — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:39:16 GMT

I pulled the R50 out of the garage today to do some work on it and was startled by how good it looked in the daylight. The clean engine makes a huge difference:

Tonight I filled the bike with fluids, gapped and installed plugs, checked the valve clearance and checked things over. I think that the last thing is the exhaust (that doesn't fit, but that's another story), fill the tank and kick it over. We'll see how well that goes, maybe tomorrow.

On the sidecar front, I pulled it into the garage and had a closer look. I tried to pull some of the nuts and bolts apart but they are pretty well gone. I think that I'll try using electrolysis to remove/undo the rust and see if that helps. In the mean time, have a look at the awesome plate that is mounted on the nose of the sidecar:

Frickin laser beams

matthew — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 09:29:50 GMT

I spent most of Friday night playing around with a laser cutter. This is the best toy since the stick. Seriously.

Also, I am now the proud but slightly worried owner of this sidecar:

The price was very good, but it needs work. Fortunately all the parts that I'll need seem to be reasonably easy to come by. I think that I'll leave the boat looking ratty for now, it'll match the R50. The frame will need a lot of work though, and a new wheel.

Oh boy, I have another project. :P

One year later...

matthew — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:18:56 GMT

One year after I bought the R50 it was once again in the driveway getting worked on:

I spent the day doing things like installing the carbs and electrics. Surprisingly the battery survived the long sleep with a full charge. I unwired it from the bike (previous owner had hard-wired it in) and cleaned up the connections a bit. While doing so the battery's fuse laid down it's life for the cause.

Click below for more pictures from yesterday. I'm so very pleased with how clean and shiny the engine is now.

There's still plenty to do, but I hope to try starting it in the next week or so. The only piece I don't have is a good rear brake shoe, so while I'll be able to start it I may not be able to ride it for a little while.

A very long day...

matthew — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 07:43:16 GMT

...but at the end of it I once more own two motorcycles rather than one plus a pile of parts. It's even close not running yet but all the big pieces are together and I sat on it (and made vroom vroom noises) and rolled it out of the garage.

Pictures to follow.

Brash consumerism

matthew — Mon, 25 May 2009 03:31:49 GMT

Saturday I met up with gordonmessmer, Morgan, cooncat and Grant at Ride West's parts and apparel swap. I didn't actually need any parts or apparel and had intended to just show up to hang out and eat BBQ brisket. Of course I ended up buying a bunch of stuff. The Haul:

70's BMW manual by Clymer.

Busted up side case with a working locking mechanism to repair my case with a broken latch.

A pair of Craven Golden Arrow Panniers in remarkably good shape.

A Teknic 1 piece leather suit.

I wasn't sure about the Cravens until I talked to Kevin about them and he offered me a good deal on a rack that would attach them to the R50. They weren't my first choice mostly because I never thought that I'd be able to get a set so cheaply.

The suit was on the end of the rack where lots of people had been looking at it. It's labeled a '46 Euro' which I think confused people a bit. I'm a size 40, but it fits me great. It was a completely ridiculous deal. As far as I can tell it was something like 75% off retail price. I'm not sure what they cost originally since it's an old model and I can't find much info about it online. I have to say that I look pretty good in it.

Epic Score!

matthew — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:19:28 GMT

I'm completely wiped out today due to getting paged late last night for a problem that took a while to clear up. I had intended on sleeping in but had promised a coworker that I'd give him a ride to work so that didn't work out.

In the long run however, it worked out very well. Being completely out of it I couldn't really focus on work so I ended up looking on craigslist for BMW stuff. Right at the top was a listing for 'BMW Carbs' for $75 so I had a look. They were listed as being for a '55 R50 so I dropped the seller an email and figured I might hear back. A few minutes later my phone rings and I get his address and head for Burien. Upon pulling into the driveway the guy looks a little familiar. Turns out I met him once at a VME meeting. Why do I remember him? Because he used to own my bike. Yes indeed, the carbs he had for sale were the carbs that were installed on my bike at the factory. Epic Score.

They are in remarkably good shape considering they were pulled and tossed onto a shelf 30 years ago. The only part missing is a slide return spring and the only non-rebuild part that needs help is one of the threaded rings that hold the top on. One odd thing is the red/white dust that came out when I opened things up. I'm not sure where that came from. The inside of the float bowls appears to have corroded a bit but is probably workable. Of course the floats are shot, one has even been patched with JB Weld.

Included with the carbs were an extra set of lever-tops for the carbs. This is extra great because I was on the look out of a set to replace the banged up set on the current carbs.

He also had a pair of bar end turn signals for $50 so I picked those up even though I'm not sure I want to use them. One is new and unused, the other used and in need of a lens. Since they are $90 each new I figured I couldn't really lose.

These are one of my favorite parts of the /2. I just love how they blend into the design so cleanly.