Portable Sound System

Last year at the Tour De Fat I saw quite a few awesome sound systems on trailers.  Shortly thereafter I was on a mission to figure out how they were done.  I found myself at a great Instructable on how to do it. I got pretty pumped about it and poured over the detailed information for quite a while.  After a few weeks I cam to the conclusion that I would probably use something like this once a year and just have to store it most of the time...So I decided to scrap the project.

Almost a year later...Tour de Fat rolls around again (see what I did there?) and there they were...All of the awesome sound systems making the parade awesome for everyone around.  I was bummed I didn't have one.  Later that day I was digging up old links and making plans for a system of my own.

Here we are three and a half weeks after the Tour de Fat...and here's what I've got!

I also have a couple of build pics.  What you can't see in the first picture is that I took the amp apart, drilled two holes in the bottom half of the case and screwed that to the inside of the speaker box.

The crossover mounted nicely to the existing panel of the speaker.  I was even able to reuse one of the jack holes in the back. The panel was a bit brittle so I had to be careful when drilling through.

 Here's the crossover and power jack screwed into the back panel.

 And here's what it looks like from the inside.  Because I attached the case for the amp to the inside of the speaker box first, I had to slide the amp circuit board down in to the assembled case.  Then I screwed the front place of the amp to the case.  I wasn't able to screw the bottom plate on the case so I just left it open. I also connected the speakers to the back of the amp before putting the woofer back in the box.

Scoreboard Update

I may not be using my EE degree on a daily basis, but it does come in handy when it's time to put together a serious project.  My polo scoreboard is coming together quite nicely.  Here's a couple of pictures.  

Here's the backside of the scoreboard.  No, it's not Coke powered.  It's there for scale.

Here's the business end of the scoreboard.  4 digits for time and a game can be set from 3:00 to 30:00 minutes.  1 digit for each of the scores. 

A little shot in the dark.

Another behind the scenes view.

Day Seven - Recovery

There's a lot to do after any camping trip that includes a big ride.  Clothes, sleeping bags, tents to deal with, dishes to wash, car to unpack, bike to put away, more clothes.  A nice perk to being unemployed is that one can tackle these tasks at leisure.

I thought about playing some paintball today, but I really don't feel quite right after the ride yesterday.  I think the elevation combined with the distance really wears me out.  So, I did some stuff around the house, watched a little TV and sometime after washing some dishes and before unpacking the car I did manage to make one of these.

My buddy Fenton sent me a link the other day and suggested I try making one of these with the remainder of my free days...so a couple of days ago I picked up an old fork and this afternoon, I went to town.

There's not much else to report for today.  Even an unemployed bum needs quiet weekends every once in a while.  I did wrap up the evening with a stop by a Blockbuster kiosk and for the low price of $2.99 I was able to pick up this piece of garbage.

I really thought it would be better than is was.  The ending was anti-climactic and he didn't even get the girl.  Kind of a waste.

Day Five - Driving Driving Driving

First things first...

Last night I went over to a friends house to service my Chris King hub.  As I mentioned yesterday, I have a not-so-great experience with servicing this particular hub.  (Here's the recap).

Unfortunately, the last time I tried to do that, I destroyed several of the bearings, marred the axle and gouged the inside of the freehub body.  

This time the King hub did not quite make it out as good as new.  The hub service instructions are very complete and very specific and as a result you really have to pay attention to every word in every instruction.  It's not like assembling some piece of cheap furniture where you can just look at the pictures and get the idea and run with it. no no.  So, in one of the many multi-step processes I didn't quite assemble the tool correctly and I blew out the inner race on one of the bearings.  There were little steel balls everywhere.  I had pretty much figured that was it and I was already trying to figure out which rear wheel I could use since my FSA wheel was at the shop getting one proprietary spoke replaced.  Well my buddy was not so fatalistic. Using his magnet on a stick, we (mostly he) actually managed to get 17 of the 18 tiny balls off of the garage floor and into the bearing.  We got it all back together and it rolled as smooth as butter.  That being said, I still brought a spare rear wheel to Salida for the big ride.  We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, today I had until about noon before I had to hit the road to Boulder, then Leadville then Poncha Springs.

I completely cleaned out the inside of the Honda.  Here's a protip for you shop-vac owners, Keep those filters clear and your vac will suck like it's new.  Before the cleaning and packing of the car I called Chris King and told them what I did and tried to buy a new bearing from them.  Get this, they will sell you the $160 tool to completely disassemble and destroy your $400+ hub but when you do destroy it, they will not sell you the parts to reassemble it.  They are very gracious about working on the hub if you ship it to them, but they will not ship you hub parts.  So I ended up buying the $37 bearing online...and while I was at it I bought the bottom bracket tool as well.  So, I suspect I'll have the opportunity to destroy a $100+ bottom bracket sometime next week.  Good times.

Day Two

So, day two.  I thought I would get a chance to head out on the FSR today, but the afternoon thunderstorms squashed that plan.  In anticipation of riding, I did do a little overdue maintenance on the bike.  Actually, the first step was to swap a tube for J's commuter bike.  It was a good warm up for the task ahead.

I had a pretty smooth cable replace job on the FSR.  I snapped a cable back in April and just slipped a new cable into the housing, I also noticed that the housing on the front shifter was pretty beat up so I figured it was time for a wholesale swap.  I got through the rear when I ran out of housing...so off to the bike shop.  I also figured this was a good opportunity to replace a busted spoke on my FSA tubeless wheels...damn, proprietary spokes!

During my trip to the shop, well actually shop number 2 of the trip, I strongly considered buying the Chris King bottom brackett injector tool, but decided I didn't want to spend $60 on a part that I would use for 10 minutes a year...I still need to clean out my BB though...not sure how I am going to pull that off.

Anyway, back from the shop I replaced all of the shifter cables and gave the drivetrain a thorough cleaning.  (It may be time for a new cassette soon).  I am just about ready for Monarch Crest.  A little riding should help confirm that the shifting and cockpit are adjusted to my liking.  Maybe tomorrow I'll ride.

Day One

So, I've officially accepted the job offer (well verbally anyway) and the countdown begins.  Two weeks from today I'll be sitting in a new office probably filling out paperwork, signing confidentiality agreements, giving up any rights to any awesome inventions I may come up with and one more thing...oh yeah...earning a paycheck.

I figure this is a great time to document what I do in a typical unemployed week.  I guess this isn't really typical since there's a slight sense of urgency, but I think it's still a valid exercise.  I don't know how many times I've been asked "So what do you do all day?" and I've had to honestly reply..."You know, I couldn't tell you."

So, what did I do this fine Monday.

I got an early start to the day and mowed the lawn before it got too hot. I did go out of my way to mow the alley behind the house, but I couldn't quite dig up the motivation to bust out the weedwacker and trim up the edges of the lawn...even with all of the time in the world, there's not enough time for that.

I also managed to acquire a new handlebar for my mountain bike...oh, and I picked up some grips too.  My old carbon bar was due to be replaced and I found a guy on Craigslist selling brand new Easton bars.  The rise and width match my old bar pretty closely so I am quite stoked!  I also picked up some of those fancy Ergon grips for my new cockpit.  Can't wait to try them out...probably tomorrow.  There's nothing like new bike stuff to motivate me to ride...I've got to test the setup before Monarch Crest Trail this weekend. I think we are looking at 5 hours of riding...It's advertised as a lot of descending but it does start at 11,000 ft and climbs up to almost 12,000.  We'll see how that goes.

Also, in preparation for the new job...I picked up a few shirts.  I only had the stamina to hit one department store...going into those places is like walking around at 12,000 ft...exhausting!

No More Sweatpants and Mimosas

Well, it's happened.  I have found a new job.  I will be working for a cool company doing some software development for smart grid products.  With my start date about two weeks away I thought it would be grand to chronicle what happens between now and then.  There's a few odds and ends to wrap up before my start date and there's always a few projects that I've got going on.
(BTW, just kidding about the mimosas)

Project update

Things are going well with the two recently announced projects.  I made a slight shift to a different pushup paradigm because I just got a new droid phone and I found a free app (vs 2.99 for the legit hundredpushups.com app).  Anyway, that's been going for about two weeks so far...not really much else to report there.

The polo scoreboard is also going well.  I've got a lot of the basic logic worked out but I need to do a little work on the sound.  This kind of stuff is always a struggle...two steps forward, one step back kind of thing.
Here's a short video of what it does so far.  Once I've get the prototype all sorted out I can really start to think about how I want to build the final setup.

Current Project: I'm a Lawn Guy

Yeah, it's been a while. I have been trying to think of what is worthwhile content for this blog. I am not interested in telling everyone what I am doing all of the time and I am sure most people don't care how many people I shot at the last paintball practice. Besides...you can keep up with my paintball activities at blogspot.rcarmy.com. So, I was thinking what's worth posting. What do I do consistently that's going to give me content for this thing? Projects & Hobbies. I am a collector of hobbies and I am always getting into a new project. The current project is the lawn.

For the record, I am really only looking to be a "casual" lawn junkie. I want to do the least amount of work for the most amount of benefit. It's surprisingly difficult to find clear and concise lawn care information online. I think it's because it's quite geographically dependent. I managed to find some good information at www.southernstates.com. They have a 10-step lawn care program that's quite informative without trying to sell a particular suite of products.

The first step for me was to rent an aerator and pull thousands of little plugs out of my lawn. Just getting the aerator to and from the rental place was a process all its own. I won't go into the details there.

The latest step was the soil test. I took about a dozen plugs of soil and had them sent off to the Virginia Tech Soil Lab. It was $15 through Southern States. Here are the results of the soil test.

It's a pretty thorough report. It gives a breakdown of all of the relevant nutrients in the soil and recommendations for quantity and composition of fertilizers. It even recommends a fertilizer schedule.

The next post will have some pics of the current lawn...stay tuned.

Poker Table Almost Complete

The first game is soon and the table is ready. The only thing I haven't done is cut holes for the cupholders. I have 10 stainless steel cupholders but I think the table will work best with 8 players. I am going to host a few games before I make a final decision.

I am quite pleased with the final result. The racetrack has a nice gloss to it (even though there are some imperfections) and the padded rail looks very uniform with no visible wrinkles. I have to thank Jo for the help with that one. The rail alone took over 600 staples...all done with a hand stapler.

I have some more progress pics that I'll put up later but here's a sample of the (almost) finished product.

Poker Table: Day 4

The final cut to be made today is the most important one of the whole table. This is the only exposed wood edge so it has to be clean. Last night I cut the round sections of the racetrack and I finished the straight sections this morning. This was a little more stresful than the previous cuts because I hadn't used the router against a straight edge before. The previous cuts were made with an edge guide but a minor jug saw debacle left me with an edge that I didn't trust, so I couldn't use the edge guide as I intended. Here are some pics on this morning's progress.

Here's what it looked like this morning before making the straight cuts. I had to lay down some poker chips to check it out. It's really starting to take shape.


I didn't get any shots of the actual cutting but when it was done I set everything up to get a feel for how it would look.

Very exciting

and here's what the stain is going to look like on a test piece.
Not too bad for a morning's work. Hopefully I can prep the racetrack and lay down the stain tonight. I am expecting a lot of the materials to be at my door when I get home.

Poker Table: Day 3 (Rail Complete, Racetrack Started)

I made some pretty good progress today. There will be a padded rail around the playing surface that is made up of two oval pieces. I got the main piece cut this morning and cut the second piece (the rail lip) after work. There was a slight problem with the jig saw but after a little bit of time with the router I had a decent workaround. Once I got that figured out I glued and screwed the two rail piece together and let them dry.

While those piece were drying I started the cuts for the racetrack. I really took my time with this since it will be the one exposed piece of wood and I really don't want to have to buy another sheet of plywood.

I didn't get any pictures of the rail pieces right after they were cut but you can see how they fit over the main playing surface. After three days, it's starting to take shape.

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Legs Legs Legs!!!

The legs showed up today. These were just a little more expensive than those really cheap looking folding legs from Home Depot and they look so much better. The rest of the supplies should show up tomorrow and Tuesday. I hope to have the table done and ready to play on by the middle of next week. Finishing the race track (stain and poly) will take a couple of days though.

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As promised here are a few pictures of the router jig with the router attached.

Poker Table: Day 2

I woke up this morning and decided to try a little bit of sanding with my palm sander. The jigsaw cuts were decent but not perfect. After some deliberation I decided to try and build a jig for my router to make the circle cuts nice and smooth. I haven't really used my router much and I was a little hesitant about trying to make a jig for it. Also didn't want to buy one because I am trying to keep the costs low for this project. With a little help from some router jig references I decided to give it a shot. I had some spare 3/4" ply that I ripped from the full size sheets that was the perfect width. I removed the base plate from my router and used that as a template for the mounting holes. I cut a 2" hole for the router bit to pass through and measured out the radii that I would need for the table . It looks like everything lines up very well with the curves that I already cut with the jig saw so I think I'll be able to use the router for everything else. I don't think it will makes things any faster but it should be a lot more precise...I like precise!

After work I actually had a chance to use the router jig. It was pretty successful. I did have one bit of oversight and measured on the wrong side of the router bit which made my rail cut 1/4" off. I am not going to worry about it...I think it will be fine.

So total progress for today includes building a router jig, cutting all of the pieces to ovals and starting on the 4" (actually 3 3/4") rail piece.

Here are a few shots of the oval pieces...with some closeups before sanding.

Here are a few shots of the router circle jig. Pretty simple. I'll get some pics of it installed later.

New Project: Poker Table: Day One

I am always working on one thing or another and just recently I got really excited about building a poker table. Before I let the excitement die down I started doing some serious research, buying some materials and started cutting. There are a few things that I am glad that I haven't jumped into in the past (see my "overzealous" thread) but I am pretty stoked about this one.

Day 0 (actually a few days) consisted of researching wood, tools, buying materials, etc.

Today is really Day 1. I got three sheets of Birch plywood this morning, borrowed a jig saw and started cutting this evening.

The sheets started out as 4' by 8'. I think this is a little too big for my tastes so I cut the plywood down to 3.5' by 7'. It should still be plenty to sit 8-10 people.

Once I got the ply down to the smaller size it was a little lighter and I could maneuver it a little better. I busted out the jig saw and after a few test cuts I started shaping the first piece. After some careful measuring and cutting I have a rough shape of the outer diameter of the table.


The next step is to sand the oval so the edges are smooth, then cut the other two pieces the same shape and select the best piece for my exposed wood section.

I would love to have this table done by next week but it will be tough since I am headed up to DC for HFAY racing and I am headed out to do some trailwork on Sunday in preparation for The Paranormal.

Hopefully I can get the sanding done tomorrow and start cutting the other two ovals. Here's what the workbench looked like after two hours of working. It was clean when I started.

Building Time: 2:00 hours
Total H20 consumed: Exactly 1.5 liters

iPod Install

I never really gave a step by step on the iPod/Honda install. I was just looking through some pictures and I found a couple but it's a far cry from a full on step-by-step. It's really just a shot of the dash removed and a picture of the converter sitting on top of the stock radio.

It's been a while but I'm back!

I don't really know where I've been but right now I am hopped up on two types of Japanese tea and I am really excited about some Honda/iPod integration. Here's the deal...I have a tape adaptor that sounds like absolute crap. I could deal with the rattling until it started to activate the automatic reverse on the tape deck. As an iPod addict, I just couldn't have my songs cut out for a few seconds then come back. Hell, even a non-addict probably couldn't deal with that.

Anyway, I decided to stop by the local Crutchfield and pick up a new tape deck adaptor. It was $20 but I figured it might be worth it to not be cheap with this one. So, I picked it up and then I started to have a thought. A while ago I found this system that would allow you to connect an iPod to a factory system through the auxillary interface. I remembered those setups as being over-priced and difficult to install. I just did a little research (starting with Ebay) and found the units for about $60. In the long run it's really not that much more than a few tape adaptors so I thought I would get one. Then I started to look at the Crutchfield site and they have them in stock right here in Charlottesville. The price is the same and they provide instructions on how to take your car apart for installs just like this. AWESOME! I think I'll be headed back to "Crutchie" to pick one up later today.

Here are some pics of the units...


Well, it feels good to be blogging again. I'll be back in a couple of days with a review on the installation!

Trail Work

Whew! It's been a long time since my last post...on this blog anyway. Most of my projects and thoughts have been Mini-Z related so I have been putting my energy elsewhere. I do have a couple of things worth reporting in about though.

I have been getting excited about doing trail work lately and I am actually going to be heading up some trail work days at one of our local riding spots. "O-hill" needs a lot of work and I am hoping we can make a small impact on a great little riding spot.

A couple of days ago, three of us went out to clear a log that was over the trail. Usually logs aren't a problem but this one was pretty big, it was at a bad angle and one end was almost a foot off of the ground. It really interrupted the flow on that section of trail so it was a pretty obvious candidate for removal. That's not the interesting part though. I had just gotten back from a trip in NC where there was an awesome log feature so we decided to do something similar.

Here's the feature from NC near Brevard.




And here are a couple of shots of what we built this weekend.





My hands are still a little sore today from running the chainsaw (and probably from riding my single speed) but I would like to report that the obstacle is totally ridable. It's not as clean as the NC inspiration but it's nice to have something you can't ride 100% of the time.