Bike Tool Roll

I've suffered from back pain for a few months, and there's a suggestion that it may stem from my use of a messenger bag continuously for the last 8 years or so. Hence I've decided to replace it.

Of the options available, I found only a couple that I liked. Simple stying for day to day use, and durable materials for the same reasons. A decent harness, and somewhat waterproof were the other requirements.

It also needed to be large enough to to swallow shoes, and a change of clothing in a main compartment, not bulked out with dividers and mesh that will get caught on everything.

In the end I went with a Mammut Courier 25L  - It's only drawback is that it has only a small front pouch, 2 small zip pockets - both inside other pockets, the main compartment, and a laptop sleeve.

None of these will easily hold my bike tool kit as they are too deep, or too hard to get into easily. I saw a Silca tool wrap a few months ago, so I figured that would be a solid solution, keeping things together, and making it easier to find what I wanted if needed.


The design work started with a bunch of googling existing products. At some point I saw a design which had sealed pockets on both sides, while keeping the tool roll closure. This seemed likely to be more secure - I've had some issues in the past when I've made tool rolls for other things.

I made one roughly, shown here, and then made a few tweaks to even it up and make a nicer looking one.













I decreased the overall width a little, so one side rolls over again - this should allow me to tuck a $20 note inside, as well as other very small things.

The final product. It rolls up to be just larger than the tube, and holds a small multitool, a few levers and a tube. 

Disc Dying - Confetti

I've recently taken up disc golf, and most of my discs now get some form of custom dye to make them easier to identify, plus it's fun to make them. 

Confetti Dye

There have been a few of these showing up on Reddit /r/discdying and for sale in various places. They look a bit like the stock Vibram discs, flecks of colour on a plainish disc.

The basic process is a shaving cream dye, but the dye powder is sprinkled on top and left for a few hours. I recently made an order from Dynamic Discs, mostly for some extra putters, towels, minis, shirts and a Birdie Bag for wet rounds, but the shipping was going to be much the same so I added a mixed 10 pack of misprint discs. There are a few nice light coloured discs in there, that while I may not add them to my bag, they'll make for some interesting dyes.

Shaving cream bed

Among these was a pink Lucid Defender - an even more overstable Enforcer, and one I will probably need on windy days if I throw much faster than I currently do, so it's going in my bag. Which means it needs to be dyed. I had seen a few confetti dyes, and wanted to try it out, but most of my dye has been mixed so I had to go with purple iDye Poly.

Sprinkle dye on top. Use a spoon, there is too much on this one

The hope was for a dark nebula kind of pattern on the translucent pink disc.

I started with 90 minutes, but it only left a light dye on the disc.

Just after placing the disc on the dye bed. 

I started again, and left it for 4 hours, and while better it's still not as dark as I'd like.
A few ways to make a more obvious dye would be to:

• use black dye
• spraying acetone on the dye before placing the disc
• increase the time to 12 hours/overnight
• add hot water to the base of the disc. 

There is a light nebula pattern 

Bouldering brush roll

Spontaneous Projects is a chronicle of all of my projects, a reference for me, and a way to prevent others from making the same mistakes.

A development trip out to Pierces Creek these days sees me carrying a ludicrous amount of kit:

• Shoes and bouldering mat
• Chalk
• Camera
• Secateurs
• Wire brushes (at least 3)
• a jemmy
• Notebook and pen
• Maps
• and potentially a chainsaw and fuel

My preferred brushes for the moss covered granite out there are big wire brushes, at only a few dollars a piece, they are cheap and durable, and that rock won't be damaged by any brush. Unfortunately you also need a few thin brushes for cracks and more delicate work, so you get stuck with at least 3 different brushes. They also don't fit into my chalk bag - they must think we all use little tiny toothbrushes.

I've had brushes fall out of my mats a number of times, and the secateurs are also a likely candidate for getting lost on the walk in. Keeping them all together in a roll makes the bundle larger, and makes it harder to forget one. 

I picked up some polyester canvas from Spotlight, and made a basic tool roll which looks cool, but most importantly is functional.

Disc Dyes III

Disc Dyes III
After the success of the last few times, I wanted to push the limits a little more with a few different ideas.

Spin Dyeing

Spin Dye DD Lucid Felon, offsetting the centre along a line

I picked up a record player from the green shed, cut the power cable and supplied it with 12 volts. I mixed my dye jars with 50% acetone, and tried out a few ideas. I think there is some decent potential for a combination of stencils and spin dying, and I still want to find a way to do confetti style dyes, I'm thinking a toothbrush to spray the dye on to a spinning disc, possibly with a fan to help get the streaks to occur. I read on reddit that one guy does them using a shaving cream layer, and then adding the powder from a dye packet, which sounds interesting too.

Spin Dye DD Lucid Verdict, concentric rings

Tri-colour disc dye

Tri-colour stencil, Gold line Lat 64 Fury. 

Latitude 64 - Gold-line Fury. This was a nice white disc, a rather under-stable fairway driver, and one that I tend to use as a roller as well on a few of the Eddison park holes that have low fairways through trees near the middle of the hole. 

It was about the release of the new Star Wars movie, and the hype surrounding BB-8, and I'd seen a few dyes using the droid as a stencil, and decided to follow suit. It turned out quite nicely

DM screen

I'm starting to play DnD again, and among the other challenges including the rule
changes from 3.5E to 5E),and a new group, I'm also DMing, at least for a
little while. I'm starting out with the written adventure 'Mines of
Phandelver', which means I have to have a few things handy as reference
materials, as I'm nowhere near as immersed in the setting as I would be
had I written the setting, which means I'm planning on using a DM screen
for the first time.

In the past I've had a laptop available, for looking up rules and as a
bit of a screen, but the transition to tablets means it's more practical
to use one of those as a rule supplement, and minimises clutter on my
desk. The DM screen is merely to prevent accidental glances at my notes,
and to keep all of my stuff together between sessions, and potentially
conceal dice rolls if need be to keep characters alive, or increase
tension.

Requirements

- folds and stores all the session info
- usable at a 2 page spread
- holds 3-4 A4 pages of notes
- not too high/able to be seen over/knocked flat, I hate DMs that seem apart from the table.

Execution

• I've got a pile of old 1980s Encyclopedias, which I've used for a variety of purposes, and the cover is perfect for this task.
• I removed the pages of the book, leaving the covers and title pages.

• To give the magnets something to stick to, I glued magnetic plates between the title page and the cover,

• The magnets hold papers, my ruler and other things in place as necessary

Bike Rack

Bike rack

Build notes is a post in which I provide ideas, plans and the execution
of some kind of construction.

In the new place we don't have a lot of room in the shed, and it's not
all that secure, or easy to remove things from. This combination means
that keeping all four bikes in the shed would make it pretty hard to get
out of the house on time to get to work.

It's about 6km to and from work for both of us, so the road bikes are
going to be the commuters. The mountain bikes will live in the shed, as
they can be a little harder to get at.

The house has a small foyer/hall area just inside the front door, that
isn't of much use, but is nearly big enough to store some bike gear. The
priorities are to have both bikes, and the assorted clothing and gear
easy to get to, in any order, but taking up as little space in the house
as possible. I saw a few examples of double bike racks on the web, and
decided to go with something a little simpler and plainer, and quicker
to build.

<h3> The design </h3>
A simple A-frame with a series of shelves, 2 of which are extended to
hold bikes by the top tube of the frame. There are a few additional
shelves to separate gear and keep things easy to find


<h3> The build </h3>
Build the two A-frames.

Cut the shelves to size.

Attach the supports for the shelves, making sure that they are level.

Screw the two main shelves onto the supports to hold the whole thing
together.

Add bracing where necessary.

Add padding to the shelves where the bikes will sit.


<h3> Thoughts </h3>
It's pretty well perfect, a little large for the space, but mostly
because the door opens the wrong way, and only to 90 degrees. It's
certainly made the process of getting to the second bike easier, and
keeps our gear separate.

Bouldering Wall

Spontaneous Projects is a chronicle of all of my projects, a reference for me, and a way to prevent others from making the same mistakes. 

Now that I've been stable in one place for a year or two, don't look to be moving soon, and have the space and cash, I've built a small bouldering wall.

Size and Style

I wanted a small, but effective training wall to help build strength and endurance primarily. To accomplish this, I decided on 3 standard plywood panels at 45 degrees. This gives a climbable surface 2.4 by 3.6 meters. 

It's freestanding, and remarkably stable with a little bit of bracing, be aware that it is HEAVY, the framing and surface alone is over 100 kg. 

Plans

The backing for the wall itself, all 2x4

The sides, These designs were modified to allow a 'door' that could be walked through as seen in the pictures

Materials list

Quantity	Use	Comments
3	Wall face	Sheets ply 21mm, 1200x 2400 mm
7	Vertical framing	90x35mm x 3.51m
2	Top and bottom framing	90x35mm x 2.4m
300		T-nuts
2	Legs	90x45mm x 3.6m
2	Legs	90x35mm x 2.4m
2	Legs	90x35mm x 1.2m
2m		tensioning strip
14		3 way grips
14		strip nails
3	Roofing	Corrugated iron
4	Roofing	70x35 non struct 2.4m

Total cost ~$1000 AUD, plus holds.

I've got a variety of holds from Big Red Holds and Uncarved block, both of which have a  great texture and feel, and are available in Australia

Disc Dyes II

Disc Dyes II
After the success of last time , I wanted to push the limits a little more with a few different ideas.

A negative dragon -

A dragon dyed on green translucent plastic (Westside discs - Opto Fuse), I made it a negative dye, keeping the dragon green and translucent, and making the rest of the disc a very dark green/black. If you hold it to the light it is still slightly translucent. The intention was to achieve a much lighter dye, but the Opto plastic takes dye very quickly. I'm still happy with the dye despite this, and a little excess dye that I got on the back side, thankfully not over the dragon itself.

Multi dip dyes

There were two multi-dip dyes I wanted to do, a death-star in gray and black, and a companion cube, with 2 levels of black. Sadly I couldn't source iDye poly locally in gray, and I wanted the discs completed for the Sizzler ACT champs this weekend, so I had to achieve the gray colour using less time, rather than a different dye.

The death star

Dynamic Discs - Purple/gray Fuzion Renegade Finding a suitable image was a challange, I wanted the in construction look, but with a simple 2-3 tone colour scheme and simplified. I couldn't find anything with all of these features, so I ended up modifying one quite extensively to make it look partial. There were a lot of parts to this stencil, lots of cuts, and minimal structural integrity, it wasn't too hard, just time consuming. I'm looking forward to getting a plotter at some point to speed up this process. I dyed the black first, then weeded the gray portions and dipped again for 30secs to a minute, I really liked the light gray at this point, but sadly I had missed one of the squares, and it was already outlined in black from the cuts, so I chose to do another very short (10-30 secs) dip. I'm pretty happy with it, but I would have liked to keep the lighter gray.

My Companion Cube

Dynamic Discs - Pink Classic blend Warden The Classic plastics don't dye well, and the stamp is pretty deep. I decided to give it a try as I thought that I might get more wiggle room when making the gray areas. I still like the design, but the end result wasn't great, some gray areas were too light and lots of runs. Interestingly the Classic Blend seemed to dye worse than the Classic soft, I likely won't try it again.












 I used hockey stick tape to do the transfer this time rather than masking tape, which worked quite well, probably not much different really. A thicker adhesive plastic, and a non-clear one might help to make things easier, sometimes it's hard to tell whether you've pulled up the film or not. I'll be getting a few new colours of dye, and then I want to get a cutter or a record player to try a few new things, but the next dye will be another 3 colour multi dye on a nice white Lat64 gold line disc, should turn out well, but I'm still working out what order to do the colours in, and to get some gray dye in.

Turnigy 9XR mods

The 9XR is a nice transmitter, but the Australian stock only included a mode 1 models, and I wanted mode 2, but also wanted it ASAP. This can be changed easily in the settings, and the springs can be swapped between the gimbals - if you find yourself getting the soldering iron out you are doing it wrong. Seriously, it's way easier to pull each gimbal apart, swap the pillars and springs and put all of the sensors back in the exact spot they came from.

Internal Antenna

The orange box 'features' an external antenna, but the threads are weak, and just putting it down on it's back, or knocking it over will result in it breaking. I broke mine quickly, so I needed another option or to live with extremely limited range. I saw a few posts of people using the internal antenna on the previous revision of the orange box, but saying it was no longer possible.
I pulled it apart, and while it wasn't as easy as they had found it was certainly doable. The SMA connector footprint is close enough to hold a u.fl connector, and the box is set up for dual antennas, so I didn't even need to remove the old one. Bridge the signal trace with a solder bead, and attach a u.fl surface mount to the footprint.

Then use a IPX or u.fl to MCX cable - shorter is better. Check the fit with the internal connector, and work out what needs to be removed from the orange ccase. Cut it out, cover with electrical tape, connect the u.fl (try not to do this multiple times, they aren't meant to be undone without the right tools) and pack it all back up.

Update: after a few months this seemed to start failing abit more often, and eventually I had to replace the transmitter, It may be fixable, we had some issues with some other ones with the board to board connectors failing due to a lack of physical strength.

Faceplate

I also changed the face plate to distinguish mine from everyone else's transmitter. It fits adequately, but is a little bit larger than the stock one. It works best if you tighten down the screws rather than try to get the faceplate on before adding the screws. You'll also need a torx driver, maybe a T6 T7 T8? - I had one in a multitool kit.

V2.0 cavequad

Spontaneous Projects is a chronicle of all of my projects, a reference for me, and a way to prevent others from making the same mistakes. 

The cave quad 1.0 had a limited payload, and is designed as a race quad. The particular flight that these are designed for requires a stable and controllable platform which is resistant to light impacts with the walls, and can run into the ceiling safely. 

It also needs to carry a lot of lighting and a large number of cameras and recording devices. 


V2 was designed ground up for this purpose, 600mm prop to prop with 11" props for stability and payload. 

• Lighting is provided by 3 sets of 4 parallel LED's driven at about 1A
• A single Flight camera facing forwards and looking down from near the rear of the quad to offer better perspective
• a recording camera located just under the main camera
• A gimballed camera on the front wit
  
  h its own lighting rig with a tighter beam, 
• Protective cage to reduce the chance of clipping a prop
• DVR recording on the ground, in case the whole quad is not retrievable

• Parachute to make a freefall from 100m with a broken prop non-terminal

• In theory it also has an on screen display that will be recorded on the DVR

The evolution of cave quads

V1 - Jaycar helicopter

• Very little lift - no payload for camera or lights beyond those built-in. 
• Unbalanced with an extra battery, and untested
• Flown line of sight
• No recording
• Very inexperienced pilot

V2 - 250 class quad

• 4 superbright LEDs
• no recording functionality, (camera got wet on the way in)
• Unstable on the descent
• FPV flight
• Quite experienced pilot
• Fits in a pelican case

Gaming tables

Spontaneous Projects is a chronicle of all of my projects, a reference for me, and a way to prevent others from making the same mistakes. 

The commercial options for gaming tables are pretty expensive, but I was able to find a second hand coffee table that looked convertible. The main requirements were a padded lower cavity, and the ability to be used as a normal coffee table. Hopefully I can do a similar thing with a full size table at some point. 

• First remove the glass and measure the base for the gaming surface. Cut a piece to fit out of fairly think MDF, 16+mm prevents bowing. 
• Cut support rails for the base, MDF offcuts work fine. If you can remove the glass supports so that you can drop the base in from the above, do so. 
• Attach the supports to the inside of the frame, ensuring that they are level. 
• Drop in the base and cut a piece of neoprene or felt to fit. Neoprene is a much nicer finish, and is water proof as well, so I recommend it if you can. 
• To cover the holes in the frame I also added side bumpers, just gluing on a small strip of neoprene black side out so it disappears

. 

Disc Dyeing

I've recently taken up disc golf, and decided to customise a few discs now that I have some decent plastic that will take dye properly.

Materials

Discs - In this case I had a few premiums, DD biofuzion and Discraft Ti and I did a few practice runs on DD classic blend
Dye - iDye Poly, in red and black. each mixed in 500ml of water and kept in mason or equivalent jars between uses
Contact self adhesive covering
Acetone - for wiping stamps
Stencils
Exacto knife & cutting board
Light table
a pot large enough to fit the discs.

The process

Print the stencils, prepare a piece of contact that is at least 5cm more than the diameter of the disc. Either trace the stencil onto the contact, or cut it out directly using the light table.
Remove the areas that you want to dye, and leave the others in place. I'm still working on the best way to keep the geometry for small pieces intact. In this case I cut the contact from the front side, added masking tape over the top, flipped the new mask and removed the pieces to be dyed entirely, then the backing paper from the remaining sections.

The disc can then be lowered onto the contact, placing it in the desired location if possible, a clear bench might assist in this process. Flatten the edges of the contact around the stencil, and make sure to do the edges of the previous stamp as well.

Put the 500ml of dye in the pot, and ensure that there is enough to float the disc in. Heat the dye until it steams slightly then turn it off or down to prevent burning.

Wash the disk and mask to remove any residual glue, and to ensure that there are no air bubbles when you dip the disc. Slowly lower the disc into the pot, and allow it to float there. Readjust it occasionally to check the progress of the dye and to ensure that all areas get dyed properly.

When the dye is as dark as you want, remove the disc and run it under cold water to remove excess dye. Peel the contact off and wash again. I haven't yet found a good way of removing the gunk left behind by the contact.

Ti Buzz, plain green originally, now with a black gecko. It dyed nicely, and looks original, although there were a few areas where the masking leaked and the dye ran. 

BioFuzion Tresspass, grey colour, with a black dyed star destroyer. A lot of runs and issues on this one, but it turned out well anyway. 

The two Classic blend Wardens were dyed mostly for practice, I'd heard that they were unlikely to dye properly, in the case of the red dye on the white warden, it took a lot longer, and the red was still very faded. The black dye went over the blue nicely. Unfortunately I got the stencil backwards and didn't notice...

I'll post again with a progress report when I see how much and how they fade.