Monday 22 June 2015

Easy Car Repairs

So I have recently done what is probably the easiest repair/modification to any car I have ever done. My 2006 Holden Rodeo had a cracked door mirror that wasn't going to pass rego so I needed to replace it. I was a bit worried about how hard it was going to be because although I could find the parts, I couldn't find any instructions on how to do it. I needn't have worried. After the break is how I did it. Hopefully it will inspire some confidence.

The problem mirror.

Thursday 18 June 2015

Bypass ".docx" Password Protection

If you're just here for the how to, skip down to the pictures after the break.

Now I know that bypassing passwords is something that not everyone likes to do. However sometimes you can forget the password for a critical file or someone has sent you a file and forgotten to tell you the password to edit it.

Microsoft office's new (can I still call it that) xml based document formats have capacity for accidental write protection. Some of these include password protection. While this is great, particularly if sending spreadsheets to a customer; it isn't so great when HR send a file that needs to be edited and even they can't remember the password. That was the problem and thanks to Horatio and this Superuser answer. I was able to save the day and remove the password protection.

Sunday 14 June 2015

Hot Stuff and a finished project

So I have finished installing the radials on the vertical antenna. In the end I decided I'd read the instructions and see how they say to earth it and this is what the instructions gave me:


This is my completed attachment to the bolts that hold on the insulator at the base of the bracket. Check it out after the break to see how I got to this point.

Thursday 11 June 2015

Epson Printer Drivers

Hi, Just a quick post, mostly to remind me when I go to do this again.

I was having trouble printing to our Epson NX430 TX435 from my laptop (Running Debian Linux) over the wireless connection. The solution? Download the latest drivers from Epson of course. This is the link I used. If you open that link and do a search for the model of printer it will give a list of downloads for Linux operating systems.

The "latest" tag wasn't correct, but going from versions and dates it was fairly easy to establish which download was for the latest version. I installed this with no problems and the jobs that had queued up started to print immediately.

I hope this helps you, but it will probably help me when I forget.

Cheers,
Rex

Wednesday 10 June 2015

Nearly time to start Milling

So one of the other projects I did some work on over the weekend was the Mill. I now can move all 3 axes and using the mkwrapper tool I can control it from my tablet, laptop or phone without having to put a screen onto the Beaglebone that is running the mill. Something I think I will have to add though is a button as part of the GUI that allows the Beaglebone to shut down cleanly without having to ssh into it. That shouldn't be too hard and will probably be one of the things I will work on along with the rest of the GUI now that it will move.

Below are some pictures of what I did. Not very exciting though mostly just soldering and tracing wires. I even managed to get 2 out of 3 motors spinning in the right direction.

 This is with the Z Axis and the X Axis wired up, Z on the right, X on the Left.


Now all 3 have been done. The 3 unconnected wires will be used for e-stop and some limit switches
I think, possibly for spindle speed manual override. I have another Cable that I will use for the other needed signals.

In the back right you can see the connections I have made so far. I will put a proper enclosure
over the connection before I call this project finished.

This is a closeup of the final connection. The knot is for strain relief in the main cable.
 Thinking back now even before I have finished there are some things I would do differently. If I were to start again I would probably not cheap out and use more plugs, one between each motor and an enclosure proably on the back wall, then the big grey cable would have a plug on both ends rather than being soldered to the mill at one end.

Anyway, full speed ahead and onward ho. If I get to the end and decide it isn't working then I'll change it.

I have another 1 or 2 projects that I got up to over the weekend coming up so keep a wearther eye out.

Cheers,
Rex

Tuesday 9 June 2015

Stuck! Then not so

So On the way home from work on Friday I got a call from a friend, who said that he had got his car a little stuck. Upon getting out to the property where he lives this is what I found:


Now I hadn't expected him to be only a little stuck for him to have to call me. But I hadn't expected him to be stuck because he tried to get through a dam. Moral to the story, you'll get stuck if you try to drive through a dam. Also interestingly enough he probably could have gotten out if he could lock his differentials so that both tires would spin at the same speed.

Thankfully the Jeep was up to the task, however not without low range. It wouldn't do anything in high range 4wd. When I put it in low range I managed to sucessfully dig up 4 little homes where the wheels were:

Not the best photo, but the light was just about gone by then. So after moving a few feet to the right and using a snatching technique, rather than a standing start. We managed to break the chain that was holding the strap onto the Toyota; then finally it was free. And this was the hole it left behind:

Anyhow, all ended well and we had a lemonade at the house then headed home. So it seems I can pull a car out of the mud with the Jeep.

I got a bit of work done on a few projects over the long weekend so over the next few days I'll be putting stuff up on those so keep an eye out.

Cheers,
Rex

Tuesday 2 June 2015

Cold weather

So just a short update here. This was the roof of the Jeep the other day at 9:00AM. Admittedly it was parked in the shade, but still.

And yes, this does have something to do with my desire to build a boat and liveaboard it. It's a lot easier to chase the weather when your entire house can move.