28 September, 2014

Picking up supplies for projects... Not much shop time.

Although this was technically a long weekend for me as I had 3 days off of my regular job, I wasn't able to get much actual shop time. I have been spending quality time on the road here and there, visiting with in laws, doing other various bits of business that took me up into Houston... so a trip to 4 Wheel Parts Wholesalers was in order. Anyone that has been in the off road scene for more than 10 minutes knows that the word Wholesalers in 4 wheel parts name is a LIE... but I digress...

You see the Chrome lug nuts for my truck are old enough, well... the chrome is peeling off. So I had a fresh set on order and needed to pick them up...

While I was there, I needed to replace the roller fairlead license plate mount bracket. The one that I Have now simply clips to the rollers and is super easy to steal...I picked up a license plate mount that is supposed to swing up and away from the fairlead when released, yet remain firmly mounted on the truck to at least somewhat deter easy theft. There are NO instructions what so ever, and at first glance, the way the mount is built does not appear to be able to function at all, but a second look and some mechanical reasoning shows how it goes together and works.

I am not going to bother doing a video on replacing lug nuts. If my audiencce can't figure lug nuts I need to seriously reasses who I think my audience is...
rein
So the projects I see in the plan for the video shoots in the near future are...

#1. Complete the 7 pin trailer harness // reverse lighting installation.
#2. Roller Fairlead License Plate holder installation. This is going to be important to those that live in states that require both a front and a rear plate, and you have a winch installed. Apparently winch mount designers do NOT take license plate relocation into accout, at all...
#3. Shop cleanup / organization. More the organizing part. I have need for storage space for household consumable items such as light bulbs, etc... and I know just the spot to put them... This is likely going to be a small cabinet build project in here as well.
#4. Structured wiring install. This is NOT going to be enclosed as my structured wiring project is far too large for any enclosures. Instead it will be rack mounted and include a KVM, 16 port gigabit switch, 16 port patch panel, VoIP adapter, router, modem the whole shebang...
#5. Office Depot particle board filing cabinet reinforcement project. Pretty simple one, but important. My office move is going to require it...
#6. overhead book storage. Simply put, the bookshelves are going away, and I need places to store my tech books, as well as recreational reading books, cookbooks etc...

Be patient with me on this whole thing. I am squeezing it in when I can, I know sevveral of y'all are chomping at the bit about the LED reverse light project, and I have heard from others about when am I going to get back to making sawdust... It's all coming God willing, please be patient... My recording / editing environment is almost complete. I will have the capacity soon, and hopefully I can sneak away from my wife's schedule plans long enough to get this done for you!

21 September, 2014

Business practices of folks we know...

So I have been under the weather this weekend, trying to get up to speed so that my work week isn't so painful, and i was talking airplanes with a fellow colleague of mine before i went out on training, which brought a former fellow church member from my old church over a decade ago, I remember he bought up a struggling little kit airplane company and moved operations to a little shop in Webster Texas.

Now mind you, I am trying what I can to stay within what I know of copyright law / fair use and respecting the privacy of the person I am talking about, however I kind of have to divulge at least the company name due to copyright. It is NOT my intention to point this individual out and say "See what a schmuck this guy is?" I am NOT passing judgement on him as a person, but rather trying to give warning to others about business mistakes while following dreams...

The product he was selling was somewhat viable enough for aviation enthusiasts, a small kit built experimental aircraft, he was manufacturing the kits and from what I understand even turn key airplanes to order.
And as I understand it, he had orders. No idea if it was enough, or if he actually had the finances to pull it off, but there were orders...

Scan of a promotional postcard front for
the Airborne Innovations Wizard.
Scan of promotional postcard rear for
the Airborne Innovations Wizard.

I had the chance to tour the shop when he initially set up, and it looked good, everything was clean, well organized, there was an engineers precision to the entire thing. It looked good.

He worked in a different department for the company I worked for for several years after I left the church I was in previously, and I never heard much about his manufacturing company, I figured he didn't talk about it much so that he was't in any way having a conflict of interest, and I can respect that...

I always wondered what happened to him and his company. I moved on, years ticked by, and I did some Googling about his name, and his business name in relation to the city it was in, and found, well... conflicting information on his doings particularly in the time frame about the time I left that church...

On one hand, he worked for a large well known organization having to do with Aerospace and was receiving numerous awards for his work, and innovations that helped his company along.

On the other hand, there were several posts, and even entire web sites set up and to this day maintained talking about the poor and unethical business practices of his own privately held company.

Major issues such as taking payment in full, and never delivering product, failure to respond to communication attempts, up to and including registered mail, and finally just closing up shop and disappearing...

I know he had other life issues at the same time, not sure if one led to the other, not all that concerned either as it isn't my business or my point....

What I knew of this guy is this, he had a huge passion for aviation, and crazy good skills in Aerospace engineering, he came across an opportunity to pursue the dream to be one of the names remembered forever as a major contributor to his field, and I honestly think that is something in some way or another we want to leave a mark, a legacy that says we did something important.  Now building kit airplanes isn't the end all be all for most of us I bet, but I bet would love to be known for leaving our influence much in the same was as Norm Abram, or Zora Arkus Duntov (car guys will know...) or, well whoever...

But if we go about it recklessly, without sufficient backing, and a solid business plan, we stand to leave behind a much more shameful legacy, more like a cautionary tale than an inspirational story.

And worse yet, if you count yourself among the faithful, you stand to tarnish what could have been a great ministry, and end up being at best a poor ambassador for your faith.

I know like I said above, many of us have our own dream we are following, whether it is the big corporate job, a little shop of our own, or some network marketing opportunity, or just some silly blog / podcast (who does THAT still?!), give it your all, and don't ever short change your customers / audience. If you don't have the funds to follow through with the job at hand, don't take the job in the first place. Or get financial backing. We live in the age or Kickstarter, and GoFundMe, not to mention direct donations / payments for capitol. Maybe, just maybe start your thing up as a hobby and grow it from there,.

If you do it right, and honest, and fail, you can look your customer square in the eye with a good conscience and say, "I did all I could, since I couldn't come through, here is your refund, and thank you for the trust you put in me!"

Don't let your dreams die just because of a setback or two, if your dream is to be, it will, find the right way to do it, and go for it!

Speaking of going for it, and being under the weather, I am on day 3 of my Z Pack, hopefully thing respiratory thing will be clear by mid week, and I can con my lovely wife into helping out with material for my next installation. Faux Talavera pottery. Yeah I am trying to get her flower pots out of my shop...

I am realizing much to my chagrin that my cell phone takes true HD video and my 2006 digital camcorder does not. To that end, I have rigged a phone adapter to my tripod, and am getting consistently better at shooting with the phone.

The sound recording gear is all funded (and as soon as the check clears to Discover, paid off), I just have one last piece that has not come in yet, which is a pop filter for my mic, Apparently they shipped in via sail powered cargo ship from China, and then mule train overland to get here... That is the bad, the good is, the mic is sensitive enough I don't need to be close enough to the mic to need a pop filter... So that is pretty awesome...


20 September, 2014

Taking a break from one technology and getting a little, very little bit of shop time in today...

This past week I spent in a training boot camp as it were for study for my Red Hat Certified Engineers exam, only to realize that the class wasn't nearly long enough to cover all the new material to be tested on. But at least they gave us the books to study, and I can whip up a virtual machine pretty quick....

With my head in virtual meltdown mode, and fighting off some sort of respiratory and now ear infection, I opted to spend a little bit of time relaxing, and, well trying to get a few of the items on my to do list into the DONE pile...

I have moved the music equipment from the master bedroom into where the music room / recording studio / and home office will be. The String Swing mounts went up, and I made a HUGE mistake measuring for the holes. I assumed String Swing had them evenly spaced from the sides... They did not, so my mount blocks are somewhat off kilter. (grumble grumble...). I did luck out though, the spot where the Ibanez SR480 is now hanging, was directly over a stud. So I have rock solid mounting for my good bass. The old bang around bass however, not so much...

I dug up some wiring raceway that I had left over from an ethernet project from years past, and will use that for running the audio cables over the doorway from amp line out to mixer in.

I spent some time again covering my wife's flower pots that are sucking up my workbench wWith ith white paint. I REALLY need to get that shop straightened up! The Faux Talavera pot project is taking up far too much time, and I wasn't really expecting this to be a me only project... I need to con my wife into coming out to the shop and grabbing a brush for her flower pots...

I have been working on editing audio, and videos now for FAR too long, for me to FINALLY realize that my Galaxy S4 takes FAR better video than my 2006 digital camcorder. And better photos than my 2009 Digital Camera...

With that being said, I went ahead and ordered up  a tripod mount for the phone. I am thinking about grabbing one of those grabby little flexible tripods that grips stuff for doing things like under car video shoots. I REALLY need to use one for moving forward with the trailer wiring / LED mod project. It kind of has me stuck since I am trying to do it as a video project for you guys...

Well folks, it's time to hit the meds, and the books again. I already know I will be asleep before I get 3 pages into the reading again. Almost not worth it...

17 September, 2014

T Splice Demo Cleaned Audio

T splice soldering demo video. Same one I had uploaded before, only changes made was that I used the full version of Power Director instead of demo, and I cleaned up the audio in Audactiy. It's not perfect, but it is MUCH easier to listen to this way...


Need For Thread Locker

Here's a little video with me talking about the need for thread locker...



14 September, 2014

Fixing what's not broken, and a bit of a review on what I use to bring this to you...

Okay folks, I have been just swamped, beyond words swamped... I am presently over my head with things to do. I am working my day job, have several other irons in the fire, and am working on the podcasting / video podcasting setup and shooting videos etc...

I was planning on shooting a quick video and write up of fixing a compressed air piping system leak as I found a leak at the thread joint in the manifold, well I had disconnected the manifold and let it sit while I worked on other issues, and honestly got time away from my studies, my work, and my wife, and went out to do the video and fix the leak...

Guess what disappeared?

If you guessed that the leak went away nowhere to be found you'd be 100% correct!

Go figure...

Oh well, so that's a bust. I bet it will leak again, I should be more ready to tackle it next time anyway...

So, instead of a video on the fixing of compressed air plumbing leaks, I present to you now the maiden voyage of my current, and likely final audio recording setup for the podcasts, and video podcasts. I am set up with a Behringer XENYX 1202FX mixer, Behriner UCA200 USB Audio Interface, a Neewer XLR cable / microphone boom arm and shock mount, and a Behringer C1 large diaphragm condenser microphone. I have a pop filter on the way, but looking at the delivery date scheuled, it must be coming by sailing ship from China... The nice thing about this particular mic though is it is sensitive enough I can have the mic far away from my mouth and still pick up my voice quite nicely!


Well, there it is, thanks for watching, and hopefully you got something out of this!

09 September, 2014

Haven't forgotten about y'all... Sidelined with work, and setting up the recording studio.

I have a few videos being processed and voiced over right now for the blog, but for the most part, I am swamped with paid work, and studying for my upcoming RHCE exam. Yes I am a Linux geek. It pays the bills, so I need to keep up with it...

No small part of my voice over work is going to require moving my home office, which has been in the planning stages for several years now, and is finally coming into reality. The reason for this is actually multiple reasons.

#1. My current home office has the outside AC unit just below the window, I get LOTS of AC noise in the office / studio, meaning I have to run my gain way down, and do a LOT of noise filtering, which makes my voice sound muddy.
#2. The wall / door / window layout of the current office does not work with the larger pieces of wall centric furnishings needed for the office. The new one does.
#3. The new office is central to the house, and as such, will make it somewhat easier to finish up the structured wiring project for the house. I am NOT enclosing in a cabinet though. My structured wiring will be run into a wall mounted rack. Considering the size of my IP network, it's MUCH better this way. Anything that CAN have a wired IP connection WILL. I know 802.11ac can go up to 1750mbps, but in actual function, isn't likely to. I prefer hard wired. I know I'm werid.
#4. The remodel project is making me purge junk from the spare bedroom and home office. By the time I have the office moved into the new room, I should just have to slap paint on ceiling, walls and trim, rip out carpet and tack strip, lay down laminate, replace junk sockets and switches for fresh Decora units, Clean / repaint ceiling fan (white blades are turning gray). Swap out old window covering for new "Texas Flag Theme" window coverings, move furnishings and knick knacks in, make the bed with the "Texas Flag Theme" bedding, and call it DONE.

FWIW, the bed is a Full size memory foam mattress on a roller frame that I will be building a Texas Star 2x4 and panel headboard for. (Already have the design, just need to build it).

I will be setting up the home office / recording studio for multiple purposes. I mentioned it was to be a music room..


My music room equipment configuration plan is also complete. I haven't yet decided on a digital piano, but my wife wants one, so I am planning to put one in. The guitar and guitar amp actually belong to a friend, however he is looking to sell to me for a fair price.


During the remodel I will be doing some video of removing carpet, tack strip, filing and smoothing the concrete and laying down the laminate. I hope you folks are going to stick around with me long enough to catch the videos and enjoy them! I need to figure out a way to speed up my work flow!

04 September, 2014

Cleaning up non shop related messes, and fixing a HUGE design flaw.

One of the serious drawbacks to having a home workshop that is physically attached to the home A.K.A. in the garage is spouses. 

Simply put my wife's flower pots are pretty much everywhere in the shop now (again). She wanted to paint the pots to mimic Mexican Talavera pottery, put them all out in my shop, along with the supplies, and has since forgotten about them... 

I need to gather them up, stash them in the corner with the lawn and garden stuff and get them away from my workspace.

I also have plenty of self induced chaos that I need to clear up. Tools need to go back into the tool box and cabinets, supplies need to be stashed where they belong, and overall the shop needs a good sweeping...

Once the shop is clean, and vaguely presentable, I plan on starting back up on my video series, and do a video on soldering etc...

I have recently assembled one of those particle board filing cabinets (the demo model in store was DEFINATELY a combination of ply and solid wood, this particle board ticks me off to no end but I digress), and there was a HUGE problem with assembly. The back panel of the filing cabinet, the one that keeps it from racking, well the so called hardboard was nothing more than overglorified cardboard, and the nails pulled through almost instantly. I have LOTS of tempered hardboard in the shop. Which is one reason to get the shop clean, so I can cut a proper sized hardboard back panel and attach it. I will likely use pnuematic nails and glue to make sure it doesn't go anywhere. I am also planning on adding some bracing / glue blocks for leveling feet. 

If nothing else, I have a set of decent dimensions to work out a filing cabinet / drawer plan for myself to come up with a plan and build from.