VCRs, VWs and Windymills on the Nation Mall

Over spring break my grandparent’s VCR/DVD player decided to give up the goat. They asked to take a look at it, so I tried every trick in the book and eventually ended up tearing into the thing to try to see if there was anything mechanically wrong. To my despair, nothing was wrong mechanically and after close inspection of all the boards nothing was visibly wrong there either. The DVD player side (which was actually what died) consisted of one main board with almost entirely surface mount components, I suspect this is where the problem was but chances of finding the correct replacement board for a Sylvania El-Cheapo DVD/VCR player that would be cheaper than a new player…. were pretty slim. In the end, we both one though. My grandparents got a new DVD/VCR player and I got a couple pretty nice brushless motors. Perhaps an arduino based motor controller project is on the way…

Absolute bare bones of the DVD/VCR player after being picked clean of anything awesome

Also, over spring break Ian and I had the pleasure/displeasure of driving a PT Cruiser from Maine to Washington D.C. A trip of epic proportions indeed! We had many laughs along the way and attempted (relatively successfully) to take pictures of every wind turbine along the way. Although the highlight of the trip was the guided Segway Tour, a little on the expensive side but definitely worth the money. The attraction was the Segway more than anything for me but I guess the tour was cool too. After being stared at by pedestrians, laughed at and even clapped for while we rode through D.C. looking like the most obnoxious tourists you could possibly hope to see…. we had to kick it up a notch. As we rolled up the National mall nearing the capital building I saw this. I had to get my picture taken with it.

"Ian! Ian! Take a picture!!!"

Needless to say, I think everyone else on the tour was a little embarrassed by our excitement to see a wind turbine on the mall.

On our way to D.C. we made a stop in Boston for the night to visit with friends. We tried to go to MIT’s new Media Lab, unfortunately we got there a bit late and couldn’t get in. In disappointment we stared through the window and to my surprise Ian spotted (quite astutely) the airfoil used in the Gossamer Condor (Ian please correct me if I am wrong) hanging from the ceiling near the entrance to the building. We could see all kinds of neat stuff hanging around in there, it’s too bad they were closed.

Excited Ian

More recently, over Easter weekend I spent some time underneath my VW Bug adding iron to my diet (eating rust). I put in a new starter motor as the old one was being unreliable and causing me to park on hills wherever I went in case I needed a jump start (Little Miss Sunshine Style). More work is underway for the Bug, next up is probably a new muffler as the old one has finally rusted through. If I had infinite money/time I would love to upgrade the fuel injection system to the MegaSquirt fuel injection system (phallic name, I know). The system is pretty neat though, it is quite universal and all open source, you can even build the board and solder yourself if you like. I would love to have a computer onboard the bug that would allow me to tune the system and maybe switch from economy to performance mode with the click of a button. An EEE pc would fit nicely in the glovebox….. Of course if I had infinite money, I would consider turning the thing into an electric dragster. Recently I’ve been reading about White Zombie, a home built high performance electric car that smokes Tesla Roadsters at the drag strip. Yikes!

1975 VW Bug

A Maine Update

I never seem to remember what to put up here until I look at the pictures on my phone. It’s kind of hilarious the stuff I find on there. So, here are some of those things that I thought were worthy of a picture these were all taken at UMaine, Orono.

During a late night of studying in Barrows Hall, an upperclassman yelled from across the room to a person standing by the printer “Hey, what’s the weather like?” By this time it was dark outside and being Electrical Engineering upperclassmen… they probably hadn’t been outside in quite some time. They were met with the response “I dunno, but the printer says it’s 52 and cloudy”. At the time it didn’t strike me as odd, after a minute though it occurred to me what had just been said and I had to see it for myself.

Printer in Windows Lab of Barrows Hall

The Black Bear Robotics club helped in putting on the 2nd annual (I think) Maine VEX championship. We had around 20 teams including last years world champions, Green Egg Robotics. Overall the event was pretty classy with appearences from Governor Baldacci and President Kennedy (of Umaine that is).

Maine VEX championship in DPC 100

In my ECE 177 class our teacher, always has an item of the day that he shows us in the middle of class. It’s a nice way to break up the class and being an avid puzzle collector he usually has some neat stuff. The other day he brought in a chunk of Aerogel, which has the lowest density of any porous solid. I’ve always wanted to hold a chunk of it but it was usually in a locked glass cabinet whenever I saw it. You’re really not supposed to hold it for too long, apparently the stuff absorbs moisture and if you get too much water in it… it stops being so cool…. or something. Either way, I couldn’t resist and I snapped this picture mid-class. It’s got a cool texture a lot like really strong jello.

Aerogel was the cool object of the day in ECE177

Found in the parking lot of the AEWC was this classy piece of Maine auto detailing. Probably a more appropriate picture for the There I Fixed It Blog.

Nice pai.... tape job?

A Holiday Break Update

Before break, I made a little list of things I wanted to accomplish. A few of these things included:

• Read Saving Sammy
• Learn CAD
• Assemble parts list for LED matrix
• Search for Elon Musk on Omegle

Not all of these goals have been met yet (there’s still a few days left and I think I’m making progress in Omegle search). I actually did read Saving Sammy, I completed a Solid Edge tutorial and kind of got some semblance of a list together for making my LED matrix work. Despite not really completely most of my plans, I have been distracted (as usual) by other unexpected tasks.

My sister’s powerbook G4 has hit a fairly major problem, the power connector board has given out on it. So, I decided to see if it was a simple fix that could save her some money.

Putting this all back together should be an adventure.

I found a great guide on iFixit, I didn’t use it until I got stuck toward the end but it definitely came in handy to tell me what size Torx bit i would need to get the board out. Nothing was obviously poorly connected and I did some continuity checks with my multimeter, I also reset the power management unit following these instructions, but didn’t seem to fix the problem. We ordered another board and it is on it’s way home. I’ll have to finish it another time. Putting everything temporarily back together was quite hilarious. Where does that screw go again?….

In other less technical news, I sold my first item on Ebay. My old 5th generation Ipod that would not play out of the headphone jack. I was surprised to get $49 for it, I suspect someone will take out the screen, battery and/or hard drive and put it in their Ipod. Not bad though for something I was considering giving away.

It’s always great to be home for the holidays, one of my favorite things to do is make a family trip(s) to Marden’s. This time I made out quite well, scoring two 9.6V batteries and chargers for $1.99 each and a police scanner antenna for $.99. I even succeeded in finding a comically big ratchet, unfortunately I didn’t buy it… one only has room for so many comically big things.

Yes all four of my fingers do fit through there.

Well, this post is a little late as I am back at school and just getting back into classes this week. Break was nice but I am glad to get back into the swing of things.