Dakota Today

** Atlantic Monthly on physical computer board.. Arduino

I subscribe to several computer magazines, but have either missed the product named Arduino because of the name or because it has not been covered by those magazines which seems a bit strange.  Anyway, on page 26 of he January/February 2010 Atlantic is a story on how this little add on board makes many interesting art projects possible.

Apparently the board can be programmed from a desktop or laptop.  The board is another kind of input control working with sensors instead of a keyboard and mouse.  And, instead of moving pixels around on a screen, it allows controlling switches, motors, etc.  Based on the article, this device seemed to offer many possibilities.   I did a Google search, but really haven't had much time to check these links, but if the idea of having a way to accept inputs from sensors and use a computer program converting those inputs into actions intrigues you too, you may want to dig into this a bit more.  I think I will and am wondering if any of my ideas that seemed to lack a way to connect to any kind of a computing system may now be possible without spending thousands on development costs and products.

Arduino Software

Wikipidea article on Arduino System

Hack an Mod  article Top 40 Arduino Projects

Arduino Tutorial

Maker Shed listing Arduino products

Well, those links may provide a start on the way to making something interesting without having to mortgage your house and hire somebody on the coasts to produce anything.

I have been lately mostly undoing the damage and problems caused by nasty cold weather and piles of snow.  A front tractor axle snapped.  Not sure if that had anything to do with the brittle point of steel or just that a tractor older than 30 years may develop cracks and breaks much as those of us no longer so spry may be developing joint and muscle pains which are also aggravated by cold and shoveling and searching for parts in all the wrong places.

*** Stay tuned, a few days of 40 degree weather and some sunshine make the world look and feel a whole lot better... but you already know that --- Doug Wiken

**Clunkers for Clunkers...more on two-tier Clunker/Cash stimulus boondoggle

In a previous post I mentioned the idea of a two-tier clunker program.  A mechanic in Rapid City was appalled to see better vehicles getting better mileage than his own being put into the Clunker program for $4500 or whatever.

He has a better idea for a name for the two-tier program...Clunker for Clunkers.

My take on this is that when a clunker qualifying for the plus or minus $4500 clunker stimulus comes in to a dealer, they check the mileage rating, quality, apparent mechanical condition, etc. and if vehicle is relatively good, instead of immediately disabling the vehicle, it should be put up for exchange for other vehicles getting even worse mileage or in even worse condition for something like a $100 transfer fee.

This would make the program benefit not only those wealthy enough to buy a new vehicle, but also those needing a better vehicle, but being unable to afford a new vehicle even with a $4500 direct bonus.  This would get more of the real problem and excess fuel consumption vehicles off the road and end some of the incredible waste of resources inherent in the current Cash for Clunkers program.

As this program continues, more and more of the population is going to get disgusted with a subsidy that benefits only those able to buy new vehicles while it also drives up the price of good used vehicles making it even harder for those on the bottom end of the economic scale to drive safe and more fuel efficient vehicles.

The current Clunker program is wasteful even if it benefits dealers and manufacturers who pedaled fuel guzzlers long after it was obvious that something better was required.  When that selfish behavior shot themselves in the foot, they went whining to the government to save them from their own greed.

A clunker for clunker two-tier system would actually be  social service instead of just another sop for the too-big to let fail.  It would get much more bang for the buck.  It would prevent waste of energy input required to build new vehicles and destroy old better vehicles.

*** Stay tuned even if you are in a land yacht cruising down the highway listening to Rush Limbaugh and storming about everything except the government road you are cruising on--- Doug Wiken

** Lint and Cellphones..no sealing wax or cabbages however

Cellphones are really handy, but after using them for awhile, it is not really very hard to wonder if the designers ever use the products. Light gray type on slightly darker gray may make some gay designer wet his or her pants, but that is sure not the most readable combination especially when the type is too small except for the very best light.

 But, that is not the real point of this. If you have used a computer mouse with the rolling ball, you are probably aware that lint can get sucked into them as if they were made to suck the stuff up and gradually gets spun around the rollers and then starts working like a bearing between the ball and rollers causing the mouse pointer to perhaps bounce all over more or less randomly or not move at all in relation to mouse movement on a mouse pad. A little delinting with a pin or a tweezer will usually get the mouse working again.  One more good excuse to get a laser mouse.

 Well, the lint can also cause problems with some cellphones. I carry my phone in a shirt pocket. It is a two or three year old Audiovox with a socket in the bottom for a battery charger connection. Gradually it got harder and harder to get the phone to actually recharge without dinking around with the plug in connector. A couple weeks ago, I could not get it to charge at all.

 I found a small pin thinking that perhaps the center pin of the connector was bent or the outer connector had expanded too much. I inserted the very small sewing pin and moved it around the connector pin and was surprised to pull out a "sleeve" of lint that was preventing the charger connector from going completely into the phone connector. A second twist and more lint dropped out.  Now the charger light indicates a connection immediately when connected.

. The same thing was happening to my son's phone and his now works correctly. Perhaps your cellphone has a neat plug or cover for the charger connection and you don't have to worry about the problem. But, if you have been having problems getting the charger and phone working happily together without a lot of wiggling, you too may have a lint problem. Shirt pockets seem to collect the stuff.

 

*** Stay tuned even if you collect lint and strings too short to use-- Doug Wiken

**Wrecks-- Nissan 300ZX and SD Vehicle Titles and Registrations "system"

57FIND  Below are a couple photos indicating what happens to a neat 1986 Nissan 300ZX when a pickup truck or stock trailer with 8 cattle in it rolls over the top of it. Following the photos are a couple observations on the "improved" SD Title and registration system. First from the front driver side: And from the rear driver's side: Both drivers were very unlucky to find an unsanded highway over-pass several hours after it started to become slick but also very lucky to both walk away from the crash. We are also now finding out that if you own a car that is becoming a collector or classic vehicle, you want to check current values and consider collision insurance updates. We have been more than a little surprised by what has happened to prices of the 300ZX vehicles since we started working on this one.

 More significant perhaps is an update on the apparently still troubled new vehicle registration and title system. My son was driving back to leave the Z car here for the winter and return with a Jeep which works a lot better in snow and ice. I went in to local court house to get vehicle stickers on several vehicles. No matter what the progress reports on the system are, this system is still very slow compared to the old system and apparently if comments from other court houses are to be believed is no where close to being capable of using online registration which was one of the reasons claimed for the change.

 Licensing that used to take a few minutes can now drag into something closer to an hour. One very agravatiing change is that if you have not licensed a vehicle in the previous year and the full year has not elapsed, the new system will not prorate and add on the days before a full year registration. It will charge for the whole previous year even if only 10 days remain until the new licensing year. I was not really going to pay $94 to license a jeep on Friday when a couple weeks from now, the registration would be $47.

So, we did not have a licensed Jeep for my son to drive back to Rapid City so he took back a cold-blooded diesel best suited for winters in southern Arizona.

 Legislators need to consider making vehicle registration prorated by the day. Surely a computer system can divide the total yearly cost by 365 and generate a system that can bill for 375 or 450 days without tacking on a whole year of charges for vehicle parked for work until repaired.

The desire to grub out extra dollars without regard to fairness or logic is more of the upside-down inside-out tax and squander logic of South Dakota Republican administrations who then turn around an claim they have "no new taxes".

**Stay tuned for a post on the wheel tax backwardness-- Doug Wiken

*** Digital to Analog TV converters and TV broadcasting going digital

OK, you may already have gotten your nice red government $40 gift rebate coupon for a DTV digital to Analog converter just in case you don't intend to shell out a wad for a new large screen digital TV and made the conversion already. If so, you may be wasting your time reading this post. Anyway, about a month and a half ago, I decided it might be time to see if we could get any digital signal at all using our off-air antennas and do it before there was no analog signal to even use as a test.  I sent in an order for the coupons...and waited.

Local Pamida had a $99 sale price on a 13 inch Sansui Digital tuner TV set...think it was DTV-1300.  So in a weak moment a week or so ago, I bought one just to check what happened with getting digital off air instead of via cable or satellite.  At a house on a hill in Winner, we have only an amplified rabbit ear antenna.  The 13-inch digital Sansui had a good analog picture on Public TV channel 10, KELOLAND channel 6, and KSFY on channel 4, and it found some of the digital signals when the digital channel scan was run, but it would only signal a "weak signal" error message and would not display any of the digital channels.

I took the set out to our farm house where I have a good antenna in the attic pointed toward Reliance about 40 miles away.  I also have an amplifier on a good antenna pointed toward Bassett, Nebraska which will bring in an analog signal from there..not as good a signal however.  I don't use that very often because SDPB started broadcasting Charlie Rose show again and I did not have to watch it on Nebraska.  In any case, the 13 inch Sansui would not bring in any digital signals from either antenna or if I used the amplifier with the antenna in the direction of Reliance.

I did not know anybody around here pulling in a digital signal via an antenna, so I started trying to find information again.  Most sites are more or less fronts for some marketing system and I found little useful information, but one site did indicate that if you could get a good analog signal, the digital signal should work and have a better picture.  After a day or two of wasting time trying to find more information, I called SDPB and got a chance to talk to Dale Baity? who is engineer with SDPB in Rapid City.  He suggested I cut all signal splitters and switches out of the antenna lines since the can cause significant signal losses with a splitter effectively cutting signal in half.  He remembered that a fellow I knew about 15 or 20 miles further away from the transmitters near Reliance, SD was able to get a digital signal.  He provided me with more information as well....  all interesting and some useful.

I knew the guy he mentioned and called and talked to him.  He had sets getting the digital signal and said images were much better than any analog he was getting before.

The next morning, our $40 coupons for the converters finally arrived.  I bought a Digital Stream converter at the local Nelson Radio Shack store.  Hooked it up in town between the rabbit ears  and the set and then did the channel scan and in a few minutes, was watching SDPB digital images on an analog set.  Pamida agreed to allow me to return the Sansui set.  I don't know if the particular set had a defective digital tuner or amplifier, or if it is just a mediocre design that is in all those sets.  Stores selling digital TV sets might want to do a little testing with an outdoor antenna to see if any or all models work with off the air signals in their locality.

I bought a Philco converter at Karl's TV and brought it out to the farm.  With very little fuss, I had KSFY, SDPB, and KPLO coming in via the antenna with digital signals converted to analog for our old set.

In short, the process of moving from off-the-air analog signals to digital using antennas rather than cable or satellite is not terribly complex, but not quite as simple as the information ads you see on TV either.  It does appear however that if you can get a good analog signal, you should also be able to get a good enough digital signal to use a digital to analog converter with your analog set and have a good picture. In fact, the picture using the converted digital signal is likely to be much better with no snow and also not showing some of the interference that comes in with analog signals.

Apparently there is a "digital precipice" for signals.  You either get a good digital image or none at all.  Analog signals on analog sets can give varying qualities of images depending on distance and terrain with the image quality likely to just gradually fall off into a world of snow even if audio is still present as well. Even though the Sansu set got no useful digital signal, the signal strength indicators for all channels using the converters were in the green "best" area.

In a followup post, I will add some information on the converters with a few photos comparing analog and digital signals as they are seen on an analog set.  One bit of information however.  Despite sales clerks telling you all of the converters are all the same, that is not quite true.  The menu systems and the handheld remote tuners can be very different as well as whether functions are only determined by a menu or a combination of menus and switches.  Also the lowest price versions may not have "analog pass through" which may be helpful until February 2009 and the analog pass through may work better on some converters than others.

Also, if you think you may continue to use your analog sets past February, 2009 with digital to analog converters, you may want to start on the conversion sooner rather than later.  Availability of the converters seems to be rather variable depending on stores and chains and which suppliers they use.  Yesterday, none were available in Rapid City at Sam's Club, Walmart, and perhaps other stores.  Pamida was out of them here.  Karl's had a few left and Radio Shack may have one or two left and are waiting for more.  Estimates are that something like 15% of the population still relies on analog signals and does not have cable or satellite.  That is a lot of converters or new digital sets which must work with off-air signals.

** Stay tuned even if you are tuned in digitally already and wonder what the fuss is about--- Doug Wiken

**Some ideas just go to pot

A few weeks ago I happened to see a cooking show where a pasta pot was used. It was actually two nested pots-- an outer pot with an inner perforated pot. Cook the pasta in the nested pots, and then just lift out the pasta with the water draining out the perforations into the larger outer pot. Really looked slick compared to trying to carefully pour a gallon or two of boiling water off pasta without dumping pasta or steaming fingers, etc.

I did some searching on web and at a local discount store. Such pots were not cheap compared to ordinary stew pots. At Pamida, an eight quart version that also included a steam tray was around $24. A stew pot that would fit right into our 16 or 20 quart pot was on sale for about $8. The tightwad Norwegian tendencies kicked in and I thought, "How hard would it be to drill some holes?

Well, drilling holes in a stainless steel pot provided a small bit of education. The first two black oxide drill bits from a cheap set snapped before they made any more impression on stainless steel than my fingernail would have. So, off to a hardware store to get a better center punch and a 5/32" titanium drill bit. That worked much better. Of course, the price gap between $8 and $24 was narrowing. With tax, the bit was about $2. I will probably use the $4.79 punch for several years...but.... Anyway after some swearing and disgust at less than an ergonomic design for an electric drill spread over an evening and a morning, I had over 100 holes drilled without breaking the titanium bit. That wasn't so bad after all.

Time to clean up the fillings. Then I noticed that few of the holes drilled with a clean edge. Stainless steel like that in these pots made in China or India flake off like small bits of shiny oatmeal. And when they don't flake off leave a razor sharp tab next to the hole. Some tedious "grinding" with a sharpening stone which was the closest I had to a useful tool at the time and place and the pot holes were more or less cleaned up.

Next day, I got a rotary steel brush which would fit a drill and finished the hole touch up. By then I had enough holes that something in the neighborhood of 9 quarts of water would drain out in 10 to 15 seconds.

One advantage of working on something like that is that one looks at the pot very carefully and in good light to see if the holes are cleaned up or if filings remain. I noticed a black substance around rivets and rolled seams and in every groove or indentation. Hmm. Wiping with a paper towel and soap and water gradually removed that. I don't know if it is a polishing grit or a mixture of polishing grit and fine stainless steel or what, but I did see rather quickly how contamination could get into processed food and even machine filings, etc. So, next was putting the pots together and boiling some water in it to remove oils, etc.

Then, I wondered about the pot which we had used for a couple years. The lid on it had rolled seams. Running a paper towel around the rim into them yielded the result shown on the paper towel in the photo.
So, I suppose we have had some pasta over the past year that had water somewhat less than pure as a result of the whatever black stuff slowly washing into the water with the condensed steam.

Based on my experience, I would suggest not trying to save a few dollars and instead finding a good pasta pot if you can. The combination did really work slick after it was finished and clean. I assume the ready-made ones would be as useful or more so. I also became very aware of how filings, etc. could end up in cooking equipment and food processing machinery. Cleaning up was really a pain in the rear.

BUT, I also think it would be wise to carefully examine all metal pots in a good light and then carefully wipe around rivets and seams with significant pressure and persistence if you notice a black stain or grit in seams or around rivets, etc.

So much for how-to-do-it or more likely how not to save a few dollars.

***Stay tuned, I'm sure there are more political events going to pot than there are even pots going to pot--Doug Wiken

**Let's put together some car parts

If you were in high school back in the late 50's or early 60's, you might have instant nostalgia for this car from n2amotors. The "n2a" is for "no two alike".

It is a design that puts together a few years worth of Chevy cars and puts the combination on a Corvette frame.
But, take a look at the company site for more photos and some other of their vehicles. The interface at the site is not the world's best, but click on the "thumbnails" and see larger versions, etc. Some other cars there too. Interesting information and site. Something a bit different for Dakota Today. Thanks to Kevin Cleaver for the link.
New window LINK to N2AMotors Chevy 789

**Stay tuned until you have something better to do--- Doug Wiken

**Don't do this yourself..cautionary DIY in the Auto Dept.

The Rapid City Journal today has a story on a 66 year old guy who was not intoxicated, but apparently very frustrated. He had worked for two weeks on an old car. Perhaps a Lincoln Continental. He was getting the lugnuts off the wheels. He had on lugnut left to get loose.

Now, perhaps years ago, you may have seen Bill Mauldin's WWII cartoons with "Joe" and "Willy". One I remember has them with a 45 caliber pistol, hands over their eyes ready to put a shot through the radiator of their near dead Jeep. It was a bit of takeoff on putting your old cavalry horse out of its misery on a battlefield.

Well, the dude with the stuck lugnut had the money for a shotgun shooting buckshot and decided that the most logical way to knock that lugnut or bolt loose was to blast it with a shot from a couple feet away. He ended up with buckshot and debris stuck in him from feet to chest with most serious damage to his legs.

Now, we might wonder if he had the money for a shotgun, perhaps he could have spent a buck or two on WD-40 or something similar or even heated it up with a $10 propane torch. Perhaps the guy had the shotgun just for shooting up traffic signs.

Anyway, some times working with vehicles can get to such a frustration point when something that should be simple and easy turns out to be both incredibly time-consuming and just plain difficult. Or as our case may be, getting the needed parts turns out to be more difficult and time-consuming than the actual repair work.

We got the engine of our 1979 Ford F-350 working better with new head gaskets and valve seals, etc. We had other things that needed to be done, but thought it did not make sense to do them until we knew the engine was running right again. Little did we know. The front axles on the truck are Ford's variation of Dana Spicer apparently. Those 1-ton axles, differentials, etc are in demand when guys start converting other vehicles into their special toys for slogging in the mud or crawling over rocks, etc. because they are reputed to be so tough and bullet proof. So, of course, Ford has decided they don't want to stock the internal gears for those hubs anymore. One might think with the demand for the axles, that Ford might notice the demand for those gears. Nope.

So finally, we happened to see an E-bay auction for two sets of the internal gears which should fit. They started at $9, but about 20 people were interested and we probably paid too much. Anyway, it seemed better than gambling on an old whole hub from a junkyard just to get a couple gears that fit in your hand.

If new heavy-duty 4x4 pickups weren't so damn expensive, we might just have parked this old girl. But, there is hardly any plastic on it and no smog-eating gas guzzling stuff hanging on it. It now starts and runs, so I guess we can put a lot more work into it before we even think about buying something else.

In short, we haven't yet gotten to the stage of putting a shot through the radiator to put it out of its misery.
In the meantime, I don't think we will be asking the guy in Southworth, WA for car repair advice or anger management lessons.

**Stay tuned even if the only nuts you know about come in a can and are supposed to reduce bad cholesterol..which reminds me...Pamida has a sale on them...hmm.--- Doug Wiken

**Interesting digital device for woodworkers..What else?

I was looking through my copy of FINE WOODWORKING magazine for October 2007 and noticed an interesting digital device being mentioned on page 28. It is a device to measure the angle of saw blades to saw table top.
Sticks on the blade and gives a digital readout.

Neat as this idea is, this device must have other uses. Most digital stuff seems to be little better than analog, and that may be the case with this. But, this seems so neat compared to using a protractor device of some kind. Of course, you may disagree; but take a look at a tool catalog for digital devices for wood workers anyway.

LINK-- Wexey Digital Angle Guage

I'm still trying to figure out better woodworking through better welding;ie, combining welded frames with the nice feel of wood where it makes sense. That is another whole can of worms however.

**Stay tuned for something not related to digital or computer toys--- Doug Wiken

**Another DIY today..Headlght lens restoration

This is not the usual menu of posts for Dakota Today, but recently I have been trying to make our 1993 Dodge Intrepid a bit safer to drive at night. According to some consumer magazines, these cars came from the factory with dreadfully poor lighting. Our old clunker 30 year old Volvos had much better lighting for night driving. Add on to the original poor engineering about 14 years of driving and the plastic lens was pitted and aged yellow. Also, we had hit a pheasant or two and the plastic mounting brackets for the lights had been cracked and broken.

I checked some websites for replacement lens and brackets. New would have cost about $200. That was more than I wanted to spend. I added some running lights. More on that in a post for another day or three. I checked local Automate car parts store. They had Permatex Headlight Lens Restoration Kit for about $15. I figured I could gamble on that and some epoxy glue and paste to fix things up a bit.

The lens restoration kit included 4 small sheets of sandpaper grades 1000, 1500, 2000, and 2500 for wet sanding. Some rubber gloves, flannel polishing cloth and some "plastic restoration polish" and some relatively good instructions. Soak the paper in water. Alternate horizontal and vertical sanding directions as you move through the grades starting with the coarsest. Keep the paper and plastic wet by dipping in water.

The first plastic that was sanded off turned a paper towel yellow. Gradually the sanding water turned white.
I was watching TV and doing this otherwise it would have been mighty boring. The two headlights required something between and hour or two of more or less continuous sanding. After the sanding, the lenses were rinsed and dried and the lenses then polished with the polish and flannel which required heavy pressure.

Below is a photo of one of the lenses after sanding and polishing using the kit from Permatex.

I may have needed to sand a bit more. There were a few pits left, but at least it was again possible to see the bulb clearly. I had no idea this could be done, but it seemed to work. I suspect you could buy larger sheets of the sandpaper and some plastic polishing paste and do a dozen lenses for the same price, but not sure. The package is convenient if you have only one set of lights to work on. I suppose it could be used for polishing and restoring other clear plastic besides that on headlights.

Below is a photo of the lens showing the repaired plastic mounting on rear of lens housing repaired with two- part epoxy glue and epoxy paste. I happened to have PC Super Expoxy glue and PC-7 epoxy paste..both are two part epoxies. I assume there are other brands which might work as well or better.

Screwing with this kind of stuff may take a few days because the epoxy needs to set and parts must line up with brackets. So if one part must be repaired first and set before another installed to adjust it for repairs, you might as well plan on having the lights off for several days. Of course, if you fix this kind of crap instead of wiring it together with wire in an emergency and then leaving it until it must absolutely, positively be fixed, it might not take so long. Getting stuff together may take longer than actually doing the work if you happen to live next to an auto supply store.

Any way, here
is photo of the slopped on epoxy repair. Depending on the location of the crack and the fit, this may require some care, or the parts won't fit together with the bracket on the vehicle. Clicking on either of the photos should show a larger version.

***Stay tuned but probably not for more penny-pinching time-wasting DIY repair hints---- Doug Wiken