personally i like the lightweight on the blue and the heavy on the red just my 2 cents, maybe post a pic of the 2 together to see how they would contrast one another?
Printable View
personally i like the lightweight on the blue and the heavy on the red just my 2 cents, maybe post a pic of the 2 together to see how they would contrast one another?
Definitely the heavyweight, and I vote for the green.
I'm with BoB on this. The heavyweight looks better, but the red and blue don't show through as well.
yes BoB got the right awnser for me aswell Heavy + green
Heavyweight +1 here!!
I think the verdict here is Heavy.
lol. It just plain ol looks better. Shows more of that copper this project craves for.
My vote's for heavy as well!
heavyweight.
heavyweight red has a polished?? look, heavyweight blue is more of a aged weathered look, sooo depends what you want form it in mho.
I am so looking forward for some news. I have been visiting daily always with good hoop you are back on this project. Its absolutly great.
Mach your my good example, You do things as I want to do things. and I'm learning a lot from you you cant imagine.
Do what you need to do. but please come back on this when you are ready to continue.
yours Cheron.
Mach is the inspiration for many of us. Carry on.
Thanks for the kind words guys! It works both ways. Yours and other mods keeping me coming back, albeit in lurk mode. And don't worry I haven't gone MIA. Just juggling a few too many things. Between work, my much over due Novint mod, and fishing season, I'm still edging this one forward. I've been trying to backlog a decent update for you (in part because I'm running out of back story :)). I know, I know pics or it didn't happen. So here, just until I get the update done.
See? Instant inspiration. Humbling at times, but inspiration nonetheless. :D
Thanks!
(Translated: Wow, that is awesome!)
Thanks for the comments folks and for your patience. Work/life have slowed my progress but I've got an update for you.
Conspiracy theorists believe that Dr Suchong's focus on marine life was influenced by Fontaine Pharmaceuticals, a CIA sub-contractor with an early connection to Operation Paperclip. CEO Frank Fontaine, a self made millionaire and entrepreneur, made his fortune with a fleet of Atlantic fishing vessels and fish processing plants dotted along the US east coast. A convenient cover for his wartime smuggling of weapons, contraband, and after the war, German scientists. His payment appears to have been millions of dollars in CIA research funding. The link between Suchong and Fontaine is suspected, in part, because both disappeared days apart in 1948. At the time, foul play was assumed by investigators but never proven. Suchong was reported to have surfaced again in 1957 at the University of Reykjavik in Iceland.
Given the direction of Dr Suchong's experiments, what secrets did he unlock?
-----
Remember the analog meter? The idea is that it will be used to show hard drive activity, temperature, fan speed, pump speed, etc. A couple of mods are in order…
If you recall this is what the gauge looked like disassembled. I tried using a more up-to-date meter in place of the old mechanism but it didn't look as good. Luckily, I watched ebay auctions for a few months and found one that was similar. Jewel made these meters to have interchangeable mechanisms, so I was able to swap in the "new" mechanism and back in business.
While I was modding it, I added a new mounting arm. While the old was cool looking, running the wires through it was a little tight.
A little solder led to something a little wider :)
This is hard silver solder. It is much tougher and almost invisible.
The back of the meter was designed so that you could wire directly on the positive and negative posts. External wires won't do though. A little modding is necessary.
I had this picture kicking around in my idea file because I liked the deco design. It’s a good thing…
Because it gave me the idea for this
A little muriatic acid and peroxide etching later
Holes drilled and filed to size
Back to the brass shell bag for bezel material
A lot of brass for a little bezel, no?
With a piece of acid green plexi in place
Bezel soldered in place. Got carried away with the flux.
Screws in place and a wiring test. Wiring for what you might ask? The obvious is the wires for the meter and the light for the back of the meter. It also needs a switch that you see in the center and lights for the inside.
Those lights are BlinkM MiniM's. They are "smart" RGB leds that can run light scripts stand alone or be controlled by an Arduino. They are very cool bits of kit made by some very geeky and nice folks. The larger versions will feature in another update. These will be used to signal what's being displayed blue=water temp, green=hd activity, etc
The space to work them in is a little tight though. Concerns about them shorting out was mitgated by an excess of hot glue. Anyone figured a good way to apply hot glue without it looking a mess?
For the switch, I was surfing around allelectronics.com ( a great place to get cheap electronic components) and found these microswitches. The little glint of yellow looked like brass which gave me an idea. A few tries at soldering a 0-80 screw
and I had a threaded switch.
The switch, mounted on the back, changes what is shown on the meter. The resistor is for the smd led scavenged from the led microswitches used for the front bezel.
To keep with the hex socket screw theme, I drilled and tapped a screw head to fit the stud.
This is the original meter face which has a nice deco design and reflective paint.
A little 3M relective tape and some adhesive vellum paper.
Here's the new meter face. If your familiar with Bioshock, you might recognize some of text and logo.
While looking for reflective tape, I found this tape which is glow in the dark made for fishing lures. Someone might be able to use if for their project. Always looking for new material ;)
When I soldered the casing, I lost the awesome chipped and peeling paint. So I'll put the paint back with some self etching primer, black spray paint, and air brush.
A drinking straw with half round notch cut out.
Placed on the end of the spray nozzle and taped in place.
From spray paint to air brush paint. It does fizz a lot though so you have to leave it out-gas for awhile.
Masked off for painting
First primer coat
Close up. I love an airbrush, so precise.
Black coat
Once it cures, I'll sand the high points on the back so that the brass shows through but that's another update.
Thanks for looking and many thanks to my sponsors!
Bitspower
Galaxy
HardwareLabs
nice work! it's coming along very nicely!
beautiful work sir. your attention to detail is inspiring.
Thanks guys! It's getting there. :)
Wow...simply...wow. I'm floored by your work, as always. +rep
So........ What's next? Making you own mobo? Absolutely outstanding work. :up:
Details... details... and more Details, I love this build!!!
Thanks gentlemen! No, no plans for a motherboard scratch build. I bit off quite enough with this one.
Getting there...
Wow I just found this.
That is incredible work. I loved Bio Shock. It looks like it came right out of the game.
Thanks BS Mods! Currently, sorting out the meter programming for the Arduino. The blinkm's library is not playing nice with the serial coms. Not so much a teaser as a work in progress. I'll post up details once its working with the other components.
The meter is showing CPU load % as I open and close applications.
A brief aside for details on the meter/Arduino interface. Some folks were asking how to hook up a meter to their computer. It's pretty easy. I got the idea from here:
http://www.diylife.com/2008/02/02/sh...analog-gauges/ and
http://www.uchobby.com/index.php/200...-analog-gauge/
The second link was especially helpful because of the arduino code. Hopefully, between those links and the following, you'll be well on your way if you want to try this:
Meter
The meter in the video is a 1mA meter from allelectronics.com. Hooked directly to the Arduino, it'll peg at full signal unless we add a resistor. I dropped in a 5.6K resistor which is a little too high (a 5K is closer) so the meter doesn't go full scale if you watch the video. So the meter is simply wired to an Arduino PWM pin (pin 11) with the resistor in line and to ground on the Arduino.
Arduino
The meter is attached to an Arduino Duemilanove which provides PWM output on pins 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11.
For an explanation of PWM, take a look at this Arduino link.
LCD Smartie
So we now have a meter hooked up to the Arduino, we're almost there. To talk to your PC, you need LCD Smartie. Install it and set it up as follows:
I'm showing "CPU usage (%)" on the meter by selecting the variable on the left. Add a letter after the variable. I'm using "A". This will act a separator between the numbers as the the program loops.
Double check that the com port is the same in LCD Smartie as your Arduino IDE.
Code
I've added the documentation to each line of code if you have questions. This is the basics of what you need to interface. You can get more creative with multiple meters or multiple readings but more on this later.
Cut and paste the code to your Arduino IDE and upload to your Arduino. Make sure you don't have LCD Smartie running when you upload. After you successfully upload, start LCD Smartie again.Code:int PWM_Out = 11; //We're using pin 11 but you can use any of the PWM pins (3,5,6,9,10,or 11)
int rxChar; //variable for storing characters coming from LCD Smartie
int controlValue; //variable for accumulating value to be shown on meter
int SetPWM(int value); //function that talks to the meter
void setup()
{
Serial.begin(19200); //open up a line to USB/LCD Smartie
pinMode(PWM_Out, OUTPUT); //Setup pin 11 for output
controlValue=0; //set accumulation to zero to begin
}
void loop() //start looping
{
if (Serial.available()) { //check if serial line is open
rxChar = Serial.read(); //read each character from LCD Smartie
if((rxChar>='A') && (rxChar<='Z')){ //check if the character is a letter
SetPWM(controlValue); //if it is, talk to the meter by passing the accumulated value
controlValue=0; //reset the accumulated value to zero
}
if((rxChar>='0') && (rxChar<='9')){ //check if the character is a number
if(controlValue>100) { //check if its over 100
controlValue=0; //if it is reset it to zero
}
controlValue*=10; //if its not, multiply it by 10 - assume if the value is 25, the
//first character(rxChar) is 2 but control value is still zero
controlValue+=rxChar-'0'; //now controlvalue is 2, the next time through it becomes 20 with
//the above step and the second character(rxChar) is 5 and it gets
//added to 20 to become 25.
}
}
}
int SetPWM(int percent) { //this function talks to the meter on pin 11
int valid=false; //variable to indicate whether call worked; set to false to begin
int pwmPin=0; //Set the pin variable to zero
pwmPin = PWM_Out; //Re-assign to PWM_Out
float pwmValue; //Declare a variable to hold the meter value converted to a percent
if (percent>100) { //If its over 100%...
percent=100; //...reset to 100%
}
if(percent<0) { //If its negative...
percent=0; //...reset to 0%
}
pwmValue=percent*(255.0/100.0); //PWM output is from 0 - 255 so this scales up the value
//Read this for more info http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/SecretsOfArduinoPWM
analogWrite(pwmPin,(int)pwmValue); //Writes the value to pin 11
valid = true; //Everything ok
return(valid); //Go back to the main loop
}
Your meter should be showing CPU activity so open a few programs and watch the needle jump. You can also try other variable from LCD Smartie like memory usage.
That's the basics of how the PC to Arduino to Meter works. Any questions? :)
More on how I'm doing this next time.
that meter is effin sick! in a good way, not in the you have herpes kind of way.
Man, I'm glad you clarified that. (The youth these days...)Quote:
Originally Posted by billygoat333
Definitely just tuned out an entire lecture on Database Applications getting caught up on this phenomenal worklog. The techniques and custom work you've been displaying blows me away! Keep up the great work!
Thanks billygoat. Let me know if my worklogs ever trend in the other direction...please. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by billygoat333
Whippersnappers ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by blueonblack
Thanks TheMainMan! Hope you don't need that part of DB applications :)Quote:
Originally Posted by TheMainMan
Bit of lesson learned last night. The acid etching primer didn't etch. More likely than not I didn't get all the polish off it. I was putting it together and the paint peeled off like tape. The folks over at the model train forums suggested that baking is the key to get good adhesion and recommended scalecoat paints. Waiting on paint to button up the meter.
A few pictures to tide you over until the painting is complete.
I figured the meter would be seen from slightly above most times so its canted up. You can see how cleanly the paint peeled off.
The etched plate on the back.
The back polished, waiting for more paint.
Rounded the mounting nut to make it lower profile and gave it a quick polish.
The heat from the soldering cracked the original glass so I cut a new piece, ground it to size, and drilled a new hole for the meter adjustment screw. The edges are a little rough but they should be hidden behind the edge of the meter case.
Thanks for looking and many thanks to my sponsors!
Bitspower
Galaxy
HardwareLabs
personally i like it all polished up with the etching semi rough like it is. just my 2 cents
It would look killer aged a bit.
Do you have to start LCD Smartie each and every time you want the meter to be active?
Yes, but you can set it to start with Windows. That does mean that it doesn't work unless Windows is running i.e. its not standalone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Starlite KNight
Hopefully it will be. I'm planning to patina the entire case. I've got a formula for doing it but still working out how. I'm reading up on how to do cracked paint effects. Fingers crossed. :think:Quote:
Originally Posted by msmrx57
I do too, stand alone, but with the amount of brass, copper, and bronze that will be visible, a little contrast will be a welcome addition. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by raistnox
----
While I'm waiting on paint, a little backtracking on sleeving. If you recall, heavy copper was the favorite with the green tubing.
To make the sleeving work and keep it from fraying, I cut brass tubing to make retaining collars.
The longer ones are easier to work with but it's too much (yes, I said it) brass. So smaller collars it is...
I also tested out the suggestion about removing strands of copper to show more green tubing. I tried one with 2 strands but it collapsed on itself. 3 strands works but I don't like it as much. It loses something when the pattern is disrupted.
Thanks for looking and many thanks to my sponsors!
Bitspower
Galaxy
HardwareLabs
First off... let me say this is quite a spectacular case mod. Very well done so far.
I do have a question, perhaps I missed it when I read through this initialy but you put the tubes with the "glyphs" on them inside your brass res, are there plans to put a window on there so those can been seen??
His updates never fail to impress! I hope you don't mind me answering this one. :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrGoat
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mach
Quote:
Originally Posted by x88x
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mach
Thanks MrGoat! Starlite KNight is right, they won't be seen. Consider it an extra detail for anyone watching the worklog. :)
Thanks for the response and watching KNight!
That tubing plus brass fittings is absolutely gorgeous! I can't wait to see all the amazing pieces to this project come together.
Mmmm, that tubing looks beauteous in place. :D
Thanks Technochicken and x88x!
Spent Thanksgiving holidays getting over the flu and re-doing the frame for the Blu-Ray DVD.
The old frame wasn't laid out as well as it could have been. A little solder and some screws…
No your eyes aren't deceiving you the frame isn't square.
The holes in the base are shifted off center so a little adjustment was necessary. The joys of found case modding :)
The knurled nuts used to adjust the height of the drive.
The case slot with the drive in place. Next up the frame for the SSD and the Arduino circuit board.
Thanks for looking and many thanks to my sponsors!
Bitspower
Galaxy
HardwareLabs
Great work as always. Keep it up. :up:
Thanks x88x!
Not an update to the mod this time but a couple of new materials that you might find interesting. The first is Sugru. It's like silicone clay that you can mold and it cures in the shape you molded it into.
What makes it interesting is that it doesn't require baking to cure, it stays flexible or rubbery to the touch, and being that its silicone, it sticks to whatever you put it on (glass, metal, wood, leather), its heat resistant to 180C and cold resistant to -60c.
As it's silicone, it should also act as a decent insulator for wiring. As far as possible uses, wire wrap, case feet, vibration dampener, soft touch buttons, or flexible mold material for duplicating parts all come to mind.
The other material is bronze flex tubing that I found at http://under-the-ice.com/. It has 12mm od and 7mm id so it's a little thin for hard lining a water cooling loop but if you're looking for piping for wiring. Its unique stuff that I haven't seen used before.
