Electric Foot warmer

Arthritis in my big toes has become extremely painfull on a daily basis this year. I'm very close to getting them fused, and have been thinking about it for a few years. I tend to have a (very) hot water bottle on my feet 100% of the time at my desk. I need to reheat the bottle so many times per day that I re-use the water otherwise I'd surely use an equivalent bathtub of water. The reused water is less than drinkable...and rubber particles destroy the kettle hygiene so I have a dedicated water-bottle kettle also.

...but I got sick of the endless reheat/refill routine, and the bottle rubber decays quite rapidly with this level of use. So I bought a heat mat for my old man toes. This thing draws ~75watts, as compared to a regular floor heater which typically has 2 settings of 1100 and 2200+ watts. I've seen some that draw significantly less, but they're still in the range of hundreds of watts.

The matt takes a solid 15 mins to get really warm. I was worried that it couldn't possibly compete with the hot-bottle, but once it's warmed up I'd say it's comparable if your feet are planted flat down to it,.

~$35 on ebay. Get one.

Leaky Toilet

Could hear the faintest sound of both toilets perpetually refilling. So faint that it was only audible during the quietest times of night, or if specifically listening for it. Finally realised what it was, and replaced the plunger seals on both toilets. Took maybe ~10mins each at a cost of ~$2.50. Problem solved. A staggering amount of water wasted...and future money saved.

~5v USB Battery Pack

My mobile phone can't go geocaching with the display-on and locating for more than about an hour before running the battery low. The phone battery is an impressive 3.6V with 1600mAh capacity, though clearly not enough for extended use. I needed a geo-battery-pack.

So I made this. It's a 4.8V, 2600mAH cell made from old cordless drill batteries.

Construction images below:

An old cordless drill battery pack disassembled with the dud "sub-C" cells removed.
Each cell is 1.2V, 1300mAh. I wired up x2 banks of 4 cells, creating a 4.8 volt, 2600 mAH battery bank.
Sizing up a block to mount them in. I carelessly oriented the grain 90 degrees in the wrong direction. Notice the end-caps have grain across their width, not their length. These are ULTRA flimsy, hence the bazillion screws holding them on in the final-block.

Trial fit. Space not yet hogged out for the plugs.


Trial fit with the USB plugs in place.

Filing out the USB plug gaps in the caps.

Moar meat, less fat...

I got rather fat in 2010 and again in 2011 in order to undo some excessive weight loss during 2009. The extreme swings were pretty sloppy, I've managed to yoyo back and forth between 67kg and 94kg. Most literature is designed for "college" age kids, not skinny 40yr olds. I don't have any of my ultra-skinny pics, but I do have some FATTY-FAT-FAT pics. Here look.

Yuck.

But I think I've got it mostly under control now. Lots of hard work. Here's a couple shots from today.


Still got a long way to go...but getting there. :)

- Jas.

ps: fatty shots are from 2011, at about 86kg's. I got fatter in 2012, reaching ~94kg by October. No I don't have photos of that. The effort to reach the current photos from ~94kg is about 6months of moderate effort and eating like a horse on lean food...

Cook once, eat all week.

Can't talk, eating. Aaaahhmmm nom nom nom nom nom.

Moon Buggy

It's James Moore's birthday!! (boss's 1st child) I decided to make him a little toy using parts and components from work. There's always a bit of a running gag that James is already running the show, and will be an engineer when he grows up etc...(possibly of the mad/evil variety)

So here's the finished product.
-------------------------------------------------

Moon Buggy!! The two astronauts are removable, and have "action movements" in the neck.

The tray tips on some plastic hinges.

I whipped up a gift box from an empty stock box, and used one of the business promotional images with some custom labeling. "Lil Engineer, Moon Buggy, Kit 001.01 Preassembled "
-------------------------------------------------
Construction pictures below:
-------------------------------------------------

I cut some wheel hubs and little men to length.

The hubs needed some rims to make them look more lunar-buggy-ish

Hubs being drilled out to accomodate some axles.

Press fit the rims/tyres.

Lunar Buggy Wheels!! Oops I pressed this one in backwards...it's not commin' out...

Super wide buggy wheels

Approximating the buggy size based on the wheels.

Chasis.

Driver seats!!

Attaching the floor and installing the seats.

Cargo hold under construction.

Mostly done, I just want to improve the look of the pilots before I gift this.

Some hinges were attached. Space dump-truck-buggy almost complete.

The little men had some heads attached, and their faces skillfully grafted.
So hopefully little James enjoys this toy!! His birthday is tomorrow so I'll upload some pic of his mum n dad playing with the moon buggy afterwards. ;P

Raspberry Pi enclosure

I picked up a Raspberry Pi model B and needed an enclosure for it. Some image searches online yielded a nice design that I wasn't willing to pay for, so I made my own.

I have absolutely no clue what the timber is. If I had to take a wild stab I'd say it was cherry. (edit: Dad reckons it's Cypress, which I think is right. It's commonly used as a construction timber, and the color varies from pink through to nearly indistinguishable from regular pine.)

Here's the finished product with 2 coats of Tung oil.

After some testing I decided to put in some airflow holes on top and bottom. Several hours of use showed that it was capable of making the box warm, though certainly in no danger of combustion or anything crazy. Problem solved.

And here's a bunch of construction pictures in reverse order...

Blah the gap between the pieces is from the timber contracting after having hogged out the core. The two blocks mated perfectly before now. I sanded it all back, however when I applied the tung oil, I got expansion in the OTHER direction (curled back out). /sigh /reSand

Some damage from the routing. Easy glue fix.

BLARGH!! Broke my router bit. :( Ended up switching to a larger bit which hogged the timber out more cleanly anyhow.

The piece is too small to clamp directly, so I've locked it in place with an enclosure of scraps, with guides on 2 sides to keep the router inside the desired boundaries.

I want to hog-out "this" much.

My bench-top sander looks an awful like a regular belt sander turned upside down.

I cut the desired block out of a 4x4inch upright post which previously held up our deck roof.