Fenestration and Debauchery

If You’re Like Me, you don’t own a blender, but you sure as hell own an electric drill.  It’s strawberry season, and Safeway had two large cartons of strawberries for $4.  Fresh strawberries and cream are really one of the better things in this universe, but whipping the cream without a blender is a real chore.

So, a slight modification to my egg whisk:

Alrighty, good to go!

Apparently, taking appealing photographs of food is harder than it looks.  It doesn’t help when you’re rushing so you can stop clicking and start eating, fwiw:

Breadboard is Great and All, But it’s not going to survive a six week run with actors tripping over it and that kid’s show that runs on Sunday mornings.  So here’s a shield that can fit onto your Arduino and securely hold all your connections in place.  It is tested and working with the dmx reception software I wrote for the Arduino.

Features:

• Same hardware be used to receive or send DMX, so you only have to build one shield.
• Onboard termination switch.
• Reset switch brought to top of shield for easy access.
• Pin 13 LED brought to shield for status/error messages.
• Two tact switches allow in-the-field addressing, without permanently disabling any pins.
• Header sockets for easy prototyping.
• Solder through-holes for permanent installations.

Note: I changed the pin assignments slightly from early versions of the software to allow easier routing.  Pins 3 and 4 in the software are now pins 2 and 3, respectively.  As of Rev11 this change has been made, get the latest version here.

Continue reading for the parts and instructions…

A Little While Ago, I produced a film with some friends of mine called The Long Apology.  We’re nearing the end of post-production, and it’s time to start thinking about the DVD slipcase of the finished product.  I’ve been tasked with designing it, because I’m currently an unemployed layabout, whereas my friend and business partner Ryan, who actually designs these things for a living, has distractions like a job, dog, social life, &c.

We have some artwork I did as part of the marketing package for the film, and if we used that the front cover would look something like the above.  I put it together in about a day, so it’ll need some work, but it’s nice to have something to start from.

I wanted to see what the current state of the Art was, so I went down to Blockbuster with my digital camera, and took pictures of all the DVD slipcase backs I liked.  Which seemed to make the sales clerks nervous for some reason, but they left me alone.  One of the advantages of living in a city like Portland, with its abundance of weirdos that are only to willing to share their theories about Transcendental Meditation or whatever.

Strangely, it seems like the people that design these things are just phoning it in by the time they get to the back.  There’s a very consistent format, and very few of them show even a modicum of design intent.  The big budget movies actually had the least interesting backs, strangely.  I probably looked at over a hundred of them, and there were only a few that were worthwhile.  Here’s a pretty typical example:

We have the following elements:

• A tagline
• A synopsis
• A barcode in the upper right
• DVD special features
• A larger still from the film, integrated into the layout and background
• smaller stills in some kind of framing device
• Credits
• A bunch of icons corresponding to the format and such

Here are some examples that were interesting in one way or another:

I like that they picked a color palette and lived in it. Also, using a portrait for your primary design element is always a good choice, since we're hardwired to want to look at faces.

The diagonal slash dividing the top and bottom is a strong design element. Not so much the gigantic fucking barcode in the middle of prime design real estate.

Again, nice color palette work. Here, however, they've chose certain highlights that aren't in palette, which makes for a stronger design than a completely monochromatic palette.

Using a series of portraits like this is sort of hackish, but it was successful in getting me to pick the DVD up off the shelf, which is half the battle. Doesn't tell you much about the film, though.

I don’t know who does the promo artwork for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but it’s riveting.  Maybe not so useful for a DVD back, though, because it relies so much on simplicity.

From a design standpoint, they made some good choices: good layout, strong color choices. The overall effect is a little underwhelming, not sure why.

I’m going to watch the film again, and then fire up Photoshop and see what I come up with.

Chemicals and Electricity, What Fun! One Christmas, I made custom bookplates for myself and a few friends by etching zinc plates.  They came out great, and the process, while taking much longer than I would have liked, is a great technique for customizing copper, brass, or zinc metalwork.  Here’s the artwork I did for the whole set:

You Will Need:

• 12ga. zinc plates, available from any well-stocked art supply store.  You can also use copper or brass.  I’ve read that steel will also etch with this setup, but also that it won’t, so if you have a definitive answer on that let me know.
• Semi-gloss inkjet photo paper, the cheaper the better so that the paper will be thin.  I used HP Everyday Semi-Gloss Photo Paper.
• A clothes iron.
• A plastic water pitcher
• A steel oven rack or barbecue grill
• A few 100W bulbs and sockets
• Pure copper sulfate, which is sold under the trade name RootKill or as Bordeaux mixture.  You can find it in the gardening section at Home Despot.

The process of getting all of these from Illustrator into Zinc is somewhat involved, and here I should probably say we will be working with toxic chemicals and electricity, together, and this process releases hydrogen gas, which is highly flammable. It’s not for the faint of heart. But it doesn’t require any special equipment, and if you work safely you should be okay.

Continue Reading for the Instructions!

New in this Release:

• Cleaned up and improved code commenting.
• Adjusted HardwareSerial.cpp (included) so the code will compile on Arduino software release 0015. If you’re still using 0014 or 0013, you’ll replace wiring_serial.c instead (also included).
• Replaced manual register configuration of the USART with the Arduino function Serial.Begin(250000), which apparently works just as well and reduces the number of Atmega168-specific register calls considerably.
• Moved the action() loop (what you want the Arduino to do with the received values) to its own tab, to make the code easier to use.

I’ve updated the instructions, or you can download the updated code directly here.

As always, let me know how works for you, or doesn’t.

Or, dispensing with the floor part:

The source would be 2′ long T5 fluorescents.  Same perf metal material as before, although I upped the perforation size as I’m not going for a fluid organic effect here.

The lamps could possibly be supported by some kind of tensegrity scheme, which would hopefully reduce the number of wires I need to run to the top.  The screen in this case would be simpler, I could probably get away with just riveting it to close it.

Mainly, it becomes a ballast problem.  It would have to dim, and dimmable T5 fluorescent ballasts are outrageously expensive.  Also, off the top of my head no one makes a 3-lamp ballast for 2′ T5s, so I’d be looking at 2 ballasts, or about $2-300 just on ballasts.

there are some parts that would be difficult to source, such as the 3-way support rod and the lamp sockets, but for the most part this is the simplest to construct.

Hmmm.  I’m going to watch House now and drink some beer, and let this one sit for a few days.

Or, I Could Do Something Like This:

In this concept, there would be a helical-spiral perf metal screen which would act as a diffuser.  The source would be an MR-16 or similar mounted in the base, pointing up.  The perf screen is generated as a parametric surface governed by the following equations:

X(u,v) = cos(u)+1.5*u*sin(u)

Y(u,v) = sin(u)+1.5*u*cos(u)

Z(u,v) = .5*u*v

u ∈ [4, 15], v ∈ [1.5, 27]

Looks complicated, but the shape is just a trapezoid rolled up into a cylinder.  I like the moire-interference pattern cast by the overlapping layers of perf metal, but in order to get a nice clean finish on the edges I’d have to wrap them in some kind of metal beading, as well as support the whole thing with vertical rods, and I’m not sure I can do that without welding.  So the screen might end up being handmade paper or something like that.

There’s a Corner of my Apartment that is a Problem. See, my windows face north, so even on sunny days, which are rarer than unicorns here in Portland, I don’t get direct light into my rooms.  During the summer, this means that my apartments stay cool during the day, which is nice.  But in winter particularly, this corner is sort of dim and less than appealing.  Here’s a picture of it:

The offending area of my domicile.

Leaving aside the rats nest of cables over by the stereo, which is something else on my list, you can see how this corner just sort of dies, especially at night when there’s no light coming in from the window.  So, I could go to Ikea and pick something out a torchere, which is where everything else I own comes from, or I could design and build something myself.  Here are the preliminary designs I’m working with:

Curved Wood Concept:

This would be a steam-bent curved plank of wood, with the source being either T2 miniature fluorescents, cold cathode, LED strips, etc.  In the far right thumbnail you can see where that would live.

I think I could steam the curved plank inside a large piece of PVC pipe, as shown:

And then bending it in a jig, like so:

I’m going to work with a few other designs and see what I come up with.

Shiny and new out of the box!

Prologue: For Christmas, I received an Arduino.  If you’re not familiar with them, they’re like a little computer with a lot of pins to which you can connect outputs like LEDs, servos, relays, triacs, or anything you’d want to control, as well as photosensors, switches, anything you’d want to take an input from.  You write your program in the easy-to-learn Arduino environment, upload it to the Arduino board, and it’ll run your program automagically.  I’m not a programmer, but less than an hour after taking it out of the box I had it blinking an LED for me.  Buy one, they’re perfect for all of us who are trying to create some Theater Magic with no money or hope of getting any.

Well, Almost Perfect.  There’s been a way to send DMX with an Arduino for awhile, but when I started poking around for DMX reception code, I came up with zilch.  If you’re already savvy with microcontrollers and assembly code and avrdude and whatever-the-fuck-else, you probably know about this solution.  Me, I look at assembly code and I just hear a dull screaming in my head, nevermind all that other stuff that I don’t know how to do either.

So I figured that a great first project would be to remedy this situation, and write a program to receive DMX on the Arduino platform.  In the way of all Works in this Vale of Tears, this ended up being much more difficult and taking much longer than I initially anticipated.  But eventually I figured it all out, and so here it is!

Features:

• In-the-field addressing from 1 to 512 via two tact switches (works with the previously released I/O Shield, here).
• Address is stored in non-volatile EEPROM, so it is retained when power is lost to the Arduino.
• Addressing hardware allows full use of the pins.
• Number of addresses to receive is configurable.
• Works with controllers that send less than the full 512 address set.
• Break detection is done correctly by detecting a Low value of >88μS per ANSI E1.11-2008, rather than the frame error hack used by many devices.
• Uses interrupt-based subroutines to eliminate processor-load related timing problems.
• If the DMX data signal is lost, the Arduino will maintain the current state until new values are received.
• The reception and user code run sequentially rather than at the same time, so they won’t interfere with each others’ timing.

Continue to Page 2 for Download and Instructions…

Prologue: I inherited a McIntosh 1700 amplifier from the 70’s from my grandfather. It’s an amazing piece of equipment, assembled by hand and weighing in at around 40 pounds. A few years ago, it started making a horrible buzzing noise, which from research on the internets I identified as ripple voltage from failed power capacitors. In the process of fixing the problem, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about capacitors, vintage electronics repair, and why drinking and soldering don’t mix.

Sadder yet wiser from the experience, I wanted to write up a really thorough walkthrough of how to fix it if you’re having the same problem, because it might be helpful to someone and overall it was actually kind of an amazing experience for me. Drop me a line if it was helpful or you have any questions, comments, corrections, additions, rude gestures, barnyard animal noises, etc. Lezgo!

But First: You will be dealing with mains voltage and large capacitors, both of which can injure or kill, the latter even after the power has been disconnected. Obviously, I am not responsible for your safety. I am not even an expert, but I will try to remember to highlight really crucial things like this. If after reading through you think this is not for you, may I suggest this guy? I decided to do the job myself but he was very helpful and knowledgeable when I talked to him on the phone. Okay, continuing!

You Will Need:

• Soldering iron and solder. I got a Weller WES51 for Christmas and it’s the cat’s fucking pajamas, y’all. But I did this project with my $15 Radio Shack model, so it can be done with that. If you’re a masochist.
• Desoldering Iron. Spend the $20 for a cheap one, it’s worth it. Also desoldering braid is sometimes useful.
• Surgical forceps (2). For use as heatsinks so that you don’t damage parts while soldering, and generally to hold things in place while you’re working on them. There are other soldering clips designs but nothing else works as well.
• Service manual. This shows the electrical schematics and lists specifications for the parts. There are websites that sell them, but I got mine from this dude, by e-mailing him and asking nicely. He is awesome and if I’m ever in Switzerland I will buy him a beer.
• Replacement parts.  Mouser and Digikey are both great, my parts list for the MAC1700 is here.
• Multimeter with, at a minimum, AC Volts, DC Volts, and resistance measurement.
• A dremel or hacksaw, for the multisection cans.
• Beer and Johnny Cash’s Live at Folsom Prison album.

Symptoms: Ripple voltage sounds like someone saying “zzzzzzzzzz…”. It’s a constant sound that will be present as soon as you turn your amplifier on, remain constant whether you are playing music or not, but increase or decrease with the amount of volume. It will definitely sound unpleasant, and if not fixed immediately may damage your equipment. Unplug your amp and do not power it up until they have been replaced.

Before we get hot and heavy with the soldering iron, you may want some explanation of what all that crap underneath the “No User Serviceable Parts Inside” does.  Here’s a quick overview of how power rectification works and how to choose the right replacement capacitors.

Continue to Page 2…Let’s Solder!