Arkansas

A week ago today I was in Bentonville Arkansas with the robotics team for the OMB off-season regional, it was a mixed bag, plenty of fun, very tiring, a little stress and a little suck. All and all an excellent road trip.

It was also the first gig that our fancy new camera snake saw any action on (here's Harry in the bleachers rocking our camera) and the guy performed like a champ! It wasn't the best production I've worked on, Blocked ports meant using uStream instead of WOWZA and volunteer camera men were somewhat shaky, but once we got rolling there was no stopping us, and we served 158 unique viewers.

 Paul Takes his turn with the camera

 And Angel holds down the "booth" full of laptops hosting the stream, commentary, and twitterfeed


We also had our fair share of trouble off the court, namely with a ATV we nicknamed "the squirter" because of its apparent distaste for engine coolant...

And of course! what road trip would be complete if someone didn't lock their keys in the car the morning we were set to leave?

But hey! Like I said, just the right balance for the perfect road trip. It was a blast and I can't wait to take the trip again (hopefully) next year!

Pneumatic Crimper

Here is the rough CAD of my pneumatic super tool, extremely rough, but it easily gets the concept across.  I've got many of the parts ordered and already on hand.

Next revision will need.
- Less metal, this one would be a little pricey in raw materials
- Adjustable height between bottom jaw and top jaw in open position
- A working CAD that is to scale and uses the proper parts
- A more compact frame (if possible)

 Here we see many of the power and control components, and I've received even more components in the mail since this was taken. I've also started on assembly of  the control box and decided that there is no room for the big red E-stop switch (Bummer, it wasn't really necessary, but it added a touch of professionalism.)

Blogging is hard. My thoughts never flow on the page quite the way they do in my head. The last couple weeks feel kinda like what I imagine being hit by six trains converging  in a star at the same time would. I'm hoping the summer will call down, its going to be difficult to keep this up.

Broadcast Camera Snake

And there we have it! the completed camera snake, ready for broadcast use. (well its not pretty yet, but once I have a shorter firewire cable it will be 100% done)

But I do have a finished 200ft cable that passes power and DV to and from between the camera and producers location. Overall I'm quite satisfied, and as long as the cable stands up to portable use I believe this will serve me quite well for run and gun broadcasts. The end goal of this project was for the cameraman to only have to drag one cable behind them and this has been accomplished to satisfaction.

Close up of the finished cable fan ends.

Machined aluminum mounting plate.

Mounted transceiver.

Powerizing a hand tool

I've started a new internship this week where I have had the pleasure of crimping hundreds and hundreds of 1/4" QCs. It really is a pleasure, no sarcasm there, but the hand crimpers are killing me, and giving me blisters.


So enter the magical world of pneumatics! below is the bimba pneumatic cylinder I will be using to modify my lame hand crimpers into awesome power crimpers!

So far my design consists of a tower to support the crimpers (or any hand tool with a lever type action) by one handle and pivoting "palm" that attaches to the other and is powered by the cylinder to drive the tool shut.
The cylinder will be actuated by a three way valve, triggered by a foot pedal.

The end product will be a powerful accessory which will power most hand tools for icreased speed and lower strain.

Custom Cables

I've been making my own Audio and Video cables for as long as I can remember needing them, and tend to hold myself to fairly high standards (in other words, I can make a mean cable if I do say so myself.) So this summer I plan to supplement my income by manufacturing some custom cables for sale on eBay and my website. Of course I'll offer the good 'ole friends and family discount, so if anyone out there is in need of any length XLR, 1/4", IEC, Power or other cables hit me up. I'll update you guys with ore details once I get in the swing of it.

The camera snake is coming together quite nicely as-well. The voltage drop over 200ft of cable, while still significant, doesn't phase the camera in the slightest (it claims 50% battery.) One thing that is becoming apparent is that even with cable as flexible and durable as mine, 200ft 1/2" thick cable is a monster to deal with, and difficult to roll/unroll without kinking. I'll have to figure some sort of management solution out.

Once I get my hands on a male 5pin XLR and nice RJ-45s with boots this project will be complete!

New Gear -- Behringer X2222USB

Disco Bots end of the season party was tonight at my place, and while I was setting up I found myself in need of a new board (the one I use for video, an old Radioshack, seems to have kicked the bucket) so I flew on over to Evans planning to pick up a smaller Behringer personal mixer.

As you can probably tell, that didn't happen. Evans was having a sale, and this model was priced fairly reasonably, I figured you can always mute channels but you cant (easily) add more, so I pulled the trigger. This particular model has 8 mono channels with preamps and four stereo channels, the real kicker however is the built in USB sound card routed to the tape in and out.

The USB feature will be so useful for me in both the environments I work in. Obviously having built in USB in a broadcast application is great because it means I can plug the mixer straight into the computer I'm broadcasting from without another interface, The mixer also has built in effects (including delay) which will make syncing audio to video a cinch. For live sound I get a direct channel to Adobe Audition to record, and I can play standby/background from my laptop with the touch of a button on the mixer (and without losing a channel on the board.) Behringer has always been one of the first to integrate features like this into their product lines. They make cheap, lower end gear, but to stay relevant in the market they pack it full of features like built in effects and compressors. A USB interface like this is a no brainer, all it is is a cheap USB sound card attached to tape in and tape out, but it still adds an awesome feature to an already great board.

So far it looks like behringer knocked this one out of the park.  I've had issues getting the software to install, but it is recognized fine by Adobe and Garage Band. Once I put this guy to use on a more serious gig I'll be able to comment further on performance but so far I'm super excited!