LC inspired me lately with some of his threads- got the idea to create one place to catch a lot of my tinkerings, brainstorming, testing etc, and not be just flinging this stuff all about the forum lol. So now a lot of my general technomancing fun can just collect here- pretty handy/ convenient
. Sort of like a log for the outer rim laboratories. Just keep your safety glasses close lol, cause I can't gaurantee I won't be blowing some stuff up.
Haha, so, on that note, welcome to the outer rim lab
. My humble little hang out- basically just a little hobbit's work bench jammed in a corner lol, tho it's ever expanding...and I'm already at the point where I need a bigger space- so I'll keep you posted on that.
But yeah, what sketchy technomancing lair would be complete without flickering/ shifting rgb lightning in the parts cabinets and some bobbles to nod as you work lol.
Piles of guts, projects at various stages, commissions, upcoming surprise gift sabers, etc, everywhere you look (hence the pending changes to space lol).
The circuit board note book isn't leveiting lol, it's obscuring a project for someone.
They're like 'on deck' circles in ball- they're staying warm etc lol. But I hate how cluttered it gets, I'm a neat freak kinda lol.
You'd be surprised how much stuff I have jammed in this little room lol, at the stuff I can crank outta this little corner. Bins on top of bins on top of bins, inspirational posters, working traffic lights and crosswalk signs, you get the idea- saber lab/ man cave.
So yeah- feel free to drop in here any time you wanna see what kinda bizarre shenanigans I'm up to ATM in general- just watch out for the giant guard dog.
... (ahem!) I SAID, just watch out for the giant guard dog.
"Wha?! I'm good- I got'em! Huh?"
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Clearly, nothing gets past this guy.
So... let's see- how should I kick this off? Been meaning to do something like this for a while but so pressed for time.
Recently I've been preparing to get into acid etching. Ordered a few kg's of sodium chloride and cupric sulphate- but while I'm waiting for that to arrive I figured I'd try out another type of etching, cause there's a million and one ways to skin that cat (what a terrible expression lol, sorry cat people).
Electro etching is simple, the principles involved are the same as in regards to plating, so we'll monkey with that a little in time too, and I could do it for free with stuff I already have here in my apartment. Even within this type of etching there's diff ways to approach this- if you were doing a large/ full hilt type etch you'd do it a different way, same principle as what you'll see here, only you'd submerge the part much like you would for an acid etch. This will all start to make sense to you the more tests I run in here- you'll see what I mean.
But this time I'm just gonna test a method of 'spot etching' I guess you could call it. Later today I'm gonna get some pics of the parts and steps involved and also post a video of it in action, but for now I'll give you the run down of my first experiment (yesterday while I waited for a chosen one to arrive). Very easy, no mess, almost no prep. All you need is a metal part to etch, some vinegar, salt, a power source/ battery about 9V or higher, q-tips or swabs or something like that, and a couple pieces of wire or some aligator clips etc.
Throw a healthy pinch of salt into a shot glass full of vinegar. Slam it when the little voice inside goes "I bet you're not man enough to do that". Then do up another one, for use this time, and give it a stir. Ready your power source with the pieces of wire or clips on each terminal +/-, so you've got a positive and negative lead coming off it. Hook the POSITIVE lead to your metal part- aligator clips work great, but you can literally tape a wire onto the piece. Then dip a q-tip/ swab into the vinegar solution. Now attach your NEGATIVE lead to that sopping wet q-tip, close'ish to the tip, BUT NOT TOO CLOSE, make sure that the bare wire/ metal of the negative lead DOESN'T SHORT TO THE PART you're etching. So just leave a half centimetre gap between the negative lead and the tip of your wet q-tip, or whatever you're comfortable with where you know you won't accidentally bring it into contact with the work piece. Again alligator clips are great for clipping to the q-tip. Now you're ready to etch
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Millions of ways to get a patten marked out- to watch the process for the first time, i'm just taping off a scrap piece and cutting out wierd shapes with an exacto. All that matters is you have the area you don't want etched protected. So you rub the wet swab over the area to be etched, trying to get the area evenly. Don't touch the actual negative lead to the work piece, and for gods sake if you're using Li ions make sure they're protected against short circuiting/ thermal runaway. You'll smell it, hear it, see it bubbling etc as you rub- that's normal. As the tip starts to get all grimey, replace with a new swab, dipped in solution. Repeat until desired depth/ contrast reached.
Like I said- later today I'll get some pics and video up- but here's what I got after about I'm guessing 20-25 mins using apple cider vinegar I borrowed from neighbor, and about a 15V power source (4 14500 Li ion cells). I planned to keep going but curiosity got the better of me lol and I wanted to see how it was working so I removed tape. Just a scrap piece after all. Then a chosen one showed up at my door and I took a break
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Try to show you from diff angles/ lighting so you can see- in such a short time it etched quite deep/ dramatic. It can make nice edges, especially considering how not careful I was when I taped/ cut pattern for this test lol.
What excites me about this is how much nicer a finish it can give for engraved names/ symbols etc IMO, plus the options you have for tweaking this... like I just ripped off tape to see it- but what if I had taken a little more time to get deeper, left tape on after, and hit the recess with aluminum blackener, paint, nail polish, gold leaf, etc... for that matter, what if I had left the pattern all taped up- switched my leads around so negative is now on work piece, tossed that into a jar of the vinegar solution, hooked the positive up to a piece of brass rod, and set that (brass only, no touching the actual lead) into the solution with the work piece... I could have plated the recess and created my own brass inlays. At least I think it works mostly like that- may have to
blow up test a couple things first in regards to that- but we shall see, we shall see.
Ok moving on for now- so am I the first one to convert the grip section of the emperors hand to mhs, mill a chamber window in it, and pair it with the new quick release coupler for the coolest potential future reveal saber ever?! I think I might be lol
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Bwahaha! Nah, nah, that's not what this is lol!! It's just a couple other guys extensions with some custom mill work for an upcoming project- the cool part is the coupler functioning as the reveal mechanism. Gonna build the core of the chassis down from the 'stem' of the quick coupler- will require some serious confined space work, and a detachable-on-the-fly speaker, but I think I've got it figured out.
Ok time for one more- then I gotta feed the dog and get move'n. Tons of obligatory crap to do today before I can get back to the etching experiment. Plus I have a special project for a young boy going through chemo to start now that this chosen one is here
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So I recently began a giny pig hilt to test out a bunch of ideas. chose my silver LE Libby, aluminum blackened to be the yin to the dark Libby's yang, love this hilt. Roughed in a pli, which in itself was something I wanted to try, which will get a brass cover plate with etched details for it.
Basically just started hacking/ cutting/ filing away until I had it fit. Didn't bother to tape off the area cause it's all going under the cover plate. But then I realized I wanted a deeper, flusher fit- and I needed a bit of play for insulation etc, so I tweaked the fit some more.
Tapped with 2-56 screws to secure.
Plenty of other things to ginny pig (guineau pig? ginea pig? Pfff, who knows?!). Like I wanna give the bottom section a subtle round off/ taper via a slightly slightly smaller od 3/4" extension and prophecy vented pommel, and I want to test a method of securing this in a way that it creates another groove at the bottom, which I'll blacken.
Putting in a brass act box with gold av lit red ring, and a port.
But one of the main reasons for this experiment hilt was for this- to go along with the 'pli', I wanted to make my own power/ drive meter- one that shows how much juice the saber is putting OUT. Cause to me, the other guys should call that thing an 'eli', not just because it has a way better ring to it lol, but it just sounds more appropriate doesn't it? To me an energy level indicator or a charge level indicator seems more accurate, and a power meter/ power level indicator sounds like it measures what's exerted- put out etc. So that's what I'm making
. The two gauges will look/ work aweome in tandem- my power/ drive meter spikes as the saber works harder, where as the 'pli' registers a drop in voltage at those times. Will really show what's going on in there together.
The whole thing is analog, and as simple as a bunch of accents and resistors spliced in at key positions. In fact, this entire drive gauge is built using some wire, 5 resistors, 7 5mm's (2 diffused lens rgb's and 5 deep reds), and a modified block of lego lol. Plus maybe some housing/ mounting after the fact and dressing up a bit etc.
There's a lot of extra slack for install purposes, but otherwise you can see it's pretty well organized.
I have the pli and drive meter wired direct- will likely give the pli a switch.
So here the idea:
Power meter registers one green bar when saber putting out low power/ in stand by.
When you ignite it, it jumps to another 'bar', which is yellow, to indicate you're running max drive, and depending on how loud/ mean your sound font is that first bar will turn yellow as well- in this set up the speaker works like a potentiometer for the red die on the first rgb led (wired green), resulting in yellow flicker matching saber sound.
Then when you hit foc or lockup it spikes red, signifying overdrive. I'll have a plate or etched legend of some kind to show this in the saber. Something like 1 green lightning bolt, 2 yellow lightning bolts, and 3 red bolts with a warning symbol etc- the pli's (Eli's) cover plate will be marked with an inverse legend.
Here's a couple really quick n dirty vids to show you the idea:
https://youtu.be/0YLBRTgXTRkhttps://youtu.be/DAEnhu5byjsPlenty more to come on all of this- keep you posted, MTFBWY
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