Spray Away

November 10, 2009January 19, 2016 Plasma2002 45 Comments

Everyone knows that driver. They are the one who will get 2 feet away from your bumper and just not care. What can you do about it? Tap on your brakes? Well, aside from being dangerous, its also illegal. So I came up with a better solution to the problem and an easier way to get your message across. Soak them.

Details

Lets get one thing out of the way: yes, I am very well aware that my car is disgustingly filthy. There. Now… about the setup. This really is one of the simpler setups. All it consists of is a windshield wiper water pump, some tubing, a 2-liter soda bottle, and a garden sprinkler sprayer.

The wiper pump is wired into an extension cord that goes up to the front of the car where I can plug it into the 12-volt cigarette lighter port in my dash, giving instant use whenever I need to use it. The pump has one inlet and one outlet. A hose comes from the 2-liter bottle in the rear of the car, to the pump, then out to the sprayer on the outside of it car.

The nozel on the outside is pointed straight up, since I knew that it would be getting its use while driving. When going fast enough, the wind will blow any and all water directly behind me and onto whoever is deciding to follow me. I thought it would be great to put some kind of paint thinner in the system, so the other driver would get a more permanent message, but my better judgement told me not to. Oh well, water works too.

Blender Defender

October 16, 2008July 28, 2016 Plasma2002 875 Comments

Have a cat that won’t stay off your counters? I do. I finally got fed up with it enough to do something about it: scare the crap out of him with a motion-detecting blender (while recording the results for my own amusement, of course).

Confused at what you’re looking at? This is a repeating shot of security camera footage of my cat jumping on the counter – in search of a plant to munch on – and initiating my Blender Defender. Take a look at the following comic to get a better understanding 🙂

blender_defender_comic

Videos

Sorry, but you’re going to have to pretend you can hear an extremely loud blender while you watch these clips

(more…)

Emergency Party Button

May 6, 2008July 28, 2016 Plasma2002 265 Comments

The Emergency Party Button began as a novelty idea that has become the focus of every event that goes on in our home. A big red button is, by human nature, an object of compulsion. If you see it, you are overcome with the desire to push it. But what happens when you do?

Details

The Emergency Party Button consists of 3major components: The actual button itself, the controlling computer, and all the controlled devices. The button itself is the only real piece of equipment that any user is interacting with, which is why it has to be the best piece of the entire set up. Aesthetics is key. I did not want to buy a premade button box. I had a perfect idea of what I wanted, so there was only one thing to do; build it myself.

The main visual aspect is of course the giant red mushroom button. I had to buy this online since I couldn’t find the right looking button in any electronics store around. It cost a lot more than I had first planned, but it was well worth it. I bought the button from AutomationDirect.com. Check out the parts list page for a cost breakdown.

At the heart of the button is a Basic Stamp II (well, technically, a Basic Stamp Homework Board, since it wasn’t going to any good use anyways). The basic stamp is used for a few small things. Once power is applied by turning on the key on the top of the button box, the basic stamp waits until the button is pressed. Once it is, it first plays a short tune on a piezo speaker to signify that the button has been pressed, it turns on a red LED showing that party mode is currently on, and then it uses the Firecracker X10 module on its serial line to send an X10 signal to the transceiver plugged in across the room. Click the images to enlarge. Also, please forgive the crappy pink duct tape holding the wires together, as I didn’t have access to a soldering iron when I wired it up.

(more…)

Schwippy Tree

November 29, 2007January 19, 2016 Plasma2002 20 Comments

Every year the Schwippy Christmass Tree is turned on and streamed to the world, allowing anyone who wants to the ability to turn the Christmas lights on or off. During the Christmas season, check it out at Tree.Schwippy.com

Attention!

As of the 2011 season, the Schwippy Christmas Tree has been completely rebuilt, and no longer uses any of the technology explained in the following write-up. A new explanation will be written as soon as possible. In the mean time, you can subscribe to updates from the previous page to be notified when the new page is online.

Details

Tree

The technology used to control the tree is actually quite lo-tech. I have been using nothing but X10technology. While a good relay/triac controller hooked up to the computer would be nice, you just cant beat the simplicity of X10.

largedsc_4529

lampmodule Each different strand of Christmas lights has its own X10 lamp module and address, in this case G5, G6, and G7. There are 3 strands of lights per color. The lights are wired in series – one plugged into the end of the other – so all you see here is the head strand being plugged into each X10 module. X10 lamp modules were chosen over appliance modules so the lights would fade in and out instead of instantly turn on or off. It makes for a much more plesant scene. All the X10 modules are simply plugged into a power strip behind the tree out of sight.

Server

The main controlling aspect of the entire system is the X10 computer interface module (Model CM11A). It is hooked up to a server running Ubuntu that is turned on all the time.

largedsc_4535

cm11a

Since X10 is a power-line radio protocol, I dont have to have the equipment running in the same place, as long as they are on the same power grid (within a certain length, of course). The computer is in one room, while the tree is in a completely seperate room.

The computer sends a simple serial string to the CM11A module, which then translates the command into an X10 command and injects it onto the power grid for any receivers to capture. Unlike other X10 transmitters, the CM11A doesnt have to be locked down to one house code (The letter part of the code). Any house code and any unit code command can be sent from the computer.

(more…)

ConvertiBoat

April 1, 2004January 19, 2016 Plasma2002 Leave a comment

Around 2002, I purchased a 1987 Chevy Caprice Classic, which I lovingly dubbed the Boat. Being a teenager, I decided that my boat would be a thousand times better if it had only been a convertible.

The following story is being recollected with help from an old forum thread about the same subject. It is simply being re-edited to match the formatting of this site.

Process

Sunroof

boatsunroof2 It all started one hot summer afternoon when I decided it was time to put in a sunroof. I wasn’t planning on doing this the right way or making it look good. I just wanted functionality. The car itself was on its last leg and was starting to get costly. I decided not to really worry about anything but having fun with it.

I grabbed a pencil, ruler, and some string. I drew a sunroof-shape on the sheet metal of the roof. Then I grabbed a Dremel and went at it. Unfortunately, the Dremel wasn’t really doing much other than wasting cutting discs. That’s when I decided to drive over to my uncle’s garage and borrowed an air grinder. Once I started using the air grinder, the hole was cut in a matter of minutes. The cut was pretty ragged and sharp, so I used a different disc on the grinder and deburred the cut.

By the way, pay no attention to the ugly rusted roof nor that not-so-awesome steering wheel cover. I honestly have no idea why I had that on there. Probably out of necessity.

Missing Door

There was only one problem. When I drove to my uncle’s house, I had a little problem backing up on his driveway. I had the driver’s side door opened while backing up. Yep. You guessed it. The door hit a gate post and pretty much snapped off.

boatmissingdoor3 boatmissingdoor2 boatmissingdoor1

Back when I had the car, I was delivering pizza for a living. The next day when I went to work, my boss basically sent me home for the day and said I couldn’t deliver without a door – I have still yet to find that rule written anywhere, but whatever. So I drove over to my local Pick-A-Part and looked for another Chevy door that would fit. I got lucky and they had the exact same model car on the lot. Unfortunately, it was dark blue.

One hour and $40 later, I had a slightly used door in my trunk and I was driving home. I will say I did get a lot of strange glances while going down the freeway without a door. When I got back home, I spent the next hour getting the new door bolted and aligned onto the body perfectly. It was useable, but it sure was ugly.

Missing Roof

boatcutwindows1 A week or so later, I got bored again one day and decided that the sunroof just wasn’t enough. The next logical step was to simply cut the entire roof off. I went to my uncle’s garage again (steering clear of the gate) and got out the air grinder. First, I cut off all the window holders/glass holders/whatever-you-want-to-call-thems from all the doors.

I now needed to get through the rear corner supports. I knew it wasn’t going to be fast or easy, but I tried to go at it anyways. After about an hour, the air grinder finally proved itself and got through the rest of the support. Unfortunately, it was starting to get dark, and I didn’t think I would have enough time to get the other side done that night. That’s when my uncle came out and suggested I use the Sawz-All. Why didn’t I think of that?

boatcutroof1 boatcutwindows2

boatcutwindows3 I only cut the back off because I just wanted to finish for the night. The next day, I went to work on the front sections. I quickly cut through the thin sheet metal from the rest of the roof, but I left the side supports on. My seat belts were attached to these and that left me kind of stumped as to what to do about it.

After browsing around online and basically coming to my own conclusion that it would be legal (who knows if it really was), I just cut off sides and decided that a lap belt would suffice. The Sawz-All made quick work of the rest of the metal, and some deburring with the air grinder made it smooth enough to touch without slicing your hand open.
boatcutwindows4 boatsidesupports1 boatafter1 boatafter2 boatafter3 boatafter4 boatafter5 boatafter6

FAQ

What do you do when it rains?

Well, for one thing, I live in southern California and we don’t get THAT much rain, so it wasn’t a huge problem. When it did rain, I found out that as long as I drive over 25mph, the rain would never hit me. When it came time to park the car, I had a tarp in the back and I had hookup places on the front windshield and back by the trunk. The tarp would clip on perfectly and create a nice incline for the water to just run off the back.

Doesn’t that create a structural problem?

Yes! And I wouldn’t recommend ANYBODY do it unless you’re willing to put your life at risk. From the day I cut the roof off I could easily tell a difference in the sway of the car. It dipped and sagged a lot more than it used to. When I would go over bumps and things, the frame constantly bowed. To this day I’m still surprised the thing never snapped in half

Why didn’t you make a real convertible out of it?

Time, money, and general laziness. I didn’t want to put money into the car either. I had already dismissed it as a lost cause and just wanted to have fun with it. Making a true convertible out of it with a retractable roof doesn’t sound like fun to me. That sounds like work.

What happened to the car?

The car’s starter died one day. While trying to replace it, I found out that it was in an incredibly hard to reach spot and even the local shop guys said it would be a hard job since they would have to take a lot of other things out of the way to get to the starter. This happened right around the time I decided to move to Las Vegas. I knew that even if I put the investment into the car to get it back to running condition, it would most likely never survive the trip to Vegas. So I let it sit at my mother’s furniture store until one day some guy came in and offered to buy it for $200. As a starving kid moving to Las Vegas, $200 sounded better than a car that wouldn’t start, so I made the deal. The last I heard, the guy was parting it out. If I were given the choice today, there is no way in hell I would sell that car for $200. That car will always hold a special place in my heart.