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• Procrastination as an artform

  Daren Schwenke • 11/05/2019 at 00:47 • 1 comment

  I seem to bounce around from project to project and never complete any of them until something in the real world triggers me.

  Rick and Morty starts up again in 6 days.  

  I had everything I needed to complete this project in a box, but said box got a bit too warm and my boatload of PLA parts took on new and interesting, but entirely not useful, shapes.

  I just finished generating some perfect parameters for printing with ABS again for the #REMB - Raz0r Electric Mountain Board project.  I'll reprint this project again, when I'm done with those parts.  

  Here is to another deadline making that wonderful 'whooshing sound'.  :)

  <EDIT> Yep, not gonna happen. Maybe I'll have a big, white Santa Claus beard when I get back to this.  </EDIT>

• Rotating glitter!

  Daren Schwenke • 04/23/2019 at 05:48 • 0 comments

  Moved the servo drive to the edge, and re-introduced the opposing rotation for the image discs.  

  Also changed the fan/portal fluid rotator to use a much beefier 60mm fan.  Airflow will come from the bottom of the gun, pass over the 3 10W COB LED's, and exit at the edges of the bottom now.  Moved and resized the holes in the bottom cover to match. 

  Now with the faster fan the question becomes.. will the portal fluid filaments spin fast enough to make glitter become airborne inside the fluid container?  That would be a fantastic effect combined with the strobing of the portal fluid LED's.  I'm going to have to try that.

  <EDIT> The longer 3mm shaft I needed to extend the fan motor shaft up into the portal fluid reservoir showed up today.  No more excuses now..</EDIT>

  <EDIT2> Ok... one excuse.  The 3mm shaft I ordered is precisely 3mm, and won't fit in my precisely 3mm bearing without going over it with some 1500 grit sandpaper, and I'm all out.

  </EDIT2>

• Oops.

  Daren Schwenke • 04/22/2019 at 17:48 • 0 comments

  A while back I changed the ring gears from directly interfacing to interfacing with an idler gear.

  This fit the form factor better, but I just realized this also makes it so I now no longer have counter-rotating discs.  They all rotate the same direction now.  Oops.

  At least one of the images needs to rotate in the other direction to allow the optical illusion of radial motion to work, I think...

  I still have different rotation rates between the images, so in a sense they are rotating in opposite directions.  Will it be enough to generate the radial motion illusion?  I don't know.  I may need to go back to the previous gearing.  We'll see.

• Everything is on a COB.

  Daren Schwenke • 03/31/2019 at 16:43 • 0 comments

  Broke down last week and got 3 10W COB LED chips.  

  They were about $3 each and each one should provide 1100 lumens.  

  I didn't get the driver, but they run on 9-11V @1A so it's conceivable I could PWM them with a ballast resistor.

  They should arrive in a couple days, and then we will see.

  <EDIT>

  They have arrived.  Tested them briefly with a simple ballast resistor for current control. 

  They are plenty bright, but they do heat up a bit.  I'm going to need to mount them to a heatsink to keep them from eating themselves in short order even with my fan cooling them.

  Some small redesigning happening.

  </EDIT>

• I'm not dead yet.

  Daren Schwenke • 02/24/2019 at 05:43 • 0 comments

  Too many projects, not enough time.

  So... now I get an excuse to post this:

  I will certainly be dead before everything I have planned is finished, but I am trying..

  This currently needs an LED PCB designed/fabricated, and some simple code to tie it all together.

  I suppose a couple COB LED chips could serve the same purpose, but I was trying to avoid needing a boost converter.  At this point, done is better than perfect.

  If you feel like stepping up to make this happen, drop me a line and you are in.

• Dimension hopping.

  Daren Schwenke • 08/23/2018 at 02:03 • 0 comments

  Since one of my other submissions made the Semi Finals, I've been decidedly busy working over there.

  So, this has been relegated to sitting on a shelf, waiting for time, about 80% completed.

  I suppose I can give you a picture of that at least.

  If you get bored, feel free to follow along with the other stuff.

• Possible To Simulate Portal In Blender 2.79...

  David H Haffner Sr • 04/26/2018 at 14:07 • 0 comments

  The "orange" image is actually the camera, I presented this 2nd panel to show U how I set this up.

  Yes, it is possible to simulate the merging of the 3 image plates that Daren wants to use in projecting the "Rick & Morty" interdimentional portal in Blender 2.79...How? Glad U asked, I've become more proficient at my modeling and overall graphic techniques and getting a better handle on animation so, I think I can simulate how the projection will actually look in the real world.

  So I used Blender to design the 1st two animation plates the main static graphic and the 2nd plate which gives the illusion of motion, this render below is static for now because it illustrates the concept, the image behind actually is made of glass with the graphic textured on it and has it's own emission to simulate the LED lamp, the main static image in front is also made of glass.

  There is no other lighting except the simulated LED light image, so U can see that the stenciling on the 1st image allows the 2nd image's texture to rotate and illuminate through the white stenciling and through the various densities of the color, the image is what we call "Baked" so there is an actual "normal map" for both images which gives illusions of density and "bumps."

  This particular image is also an HDR image at 32-bit depth which if etched or "fractured" on a glass plate will preserve the original image's information.

• Latest prints

  Daren Schwenke • 04/16/2018 at 23:38 • 0 comments

• Energy.

  Daren Schwenke • 04/14/2018 at 02:36 • 0 comments

  I made some minor changes which refined the look of the front to match the source, without increasing the required wall thickness.  So the main body print is now down to under 15 hours.  :) 

  I also increased the strength of the gear carriers and added a raised section to the gear itself which should reduce friction.  While I was at it I moved the support for the tabs for the carriers to opposite the gears which made cleanup a whole lot easier.

  The last 2 days has been spent printing all the new parts.  The Dollar Tree lenses vary a bit in size so a press fit may not work, but other than that, everything is fitting very nicely.  

  I think this version might be the one. (assuming it works)

  I lack the energy to continue atm.  I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

• Printing hexagons techno

  Daren Schwenke • 04/13/2018 at 03:11 • 0 comments

  I was having trouble getting the hexagon speaker and cooling holes to print fast and look good, so I slowed it down to a crawl for the first layer.  

  Sounds like techno.

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