Model TV's

3d printed assembly in TV's is 2 printed parts, a skewer which is bent as a bow to secure the parts together.

Individual parts, skewer, plastic screen protector, 3d printed front and back, printed picture from "The Jetsons"

All the screen parts together

TV #1, "Smart TV"

Making the Future TV, plywood was marked out, sawn and drilled. Some balsa wood used in the last blog post was used as a ruler and to get the right distance of holes from edges, and I had plenty of brake cable inners and outers in the shed.

Finished. Bicycle brake cable outers hold the sides together in the same way as the house was made last time.  They also form the legs of the TV.

Decorations include bicycle brake cable inners, and 3 different colours of 1.75mm 3d printing PLA filament.

Mounting of TV on front gate.

Front gate as it is now.

An old bike about to be restored. Damaged gear and brake cables are ready for harvesting and upcycling as some sort of sculpture.

Hi

For the past few weeks I've been experimenting with some building techniques and posted about what I've done here and here .  After making and displaying the last house, I decided to make something else using some of the same techniques, and settled on a "Television" based idea. Firstly I made the screen surround, and this turned out exceedingly well.

I waited around a few days and then made a small TV with screws representing controls and legs, and a black and white picture from the 1960-s tv show "Get Smart". This show was repeated endlessly on Australian TV in the 70's and 80's, and my brother Richard and I can recite large chunks of dialogue - well at least the catchphrases. And so the TV is a daggy big black and white model with no remote control. That's right, prehistoric really. Because its related to Get Smart, and because I can call it whatever I like I am calling it "Smart TV". Yes, I am jumping 50 years ahead of myself with that name, I don't care!

Having got the Smart TV representing the past out of the way, I set about making another "Future" model with a construction resembling that of Easter Egg House #2.  Its nice to see it next to the older and slightly more relatable Smart TV. Below is the pic I used from the Jetsons animated series circa 1962. They got the large curved screen TV just about right, although the guy in the bottom photo could chill out a bit, and get a more interesting haircut.

Regards  Steve Nurse

Stop Press: A friend came round and was admiring the sculptures on the front gate and said she especially liked the aquarium which was the new sculpture. I was bemused, "Um, Aquarium? I said", and she replied, "Oh well, yes, I saw the Shark on the front, so then I figured out what it was". And yes, I get it, Jane Jetson's couch looks like a shark.

regards  Steve Nurse

Update, July 27, 2021

The files to 3d print the basics of this TV are available on Thingiverse, here is the link, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4917954 .

 

Easter Decos Part 2

Current front gate decorations. Latest is on right, made from

Easter-Egg wrappers, glue, a stick of balsa wood and some clear vinyl tubing, both from Bunnings.

Finished and ready to go on the front fence.

Another view.

Christine's contributions: Elmo and a teddy on front door.

Hi

Since my last post I have worked out a new way to make a "house" model as shown in my last design post. This is a vast simplification of my previous effort - instead of custom made 3d printed joiner parts - with a different part type for each of the 60, 90 and 150 degree angles - I've just used clear tubing with a different length for the different angles.  The tubes get cut different lengths for the different angles though.

So the bits of balsa are 8mm thick and the tube goes right through 2 of them. Then you have to work out the length of  tube that goes in the middle. If the diameter of the tube circle is D, this length is the circle circumference multiplied by the circle fraction. So for 90 degrees we get the length

(90/360) * D * PI + (2 * 8) etcetera for the other angles.

Anyway, its fun but a bit mathsy.

Best wishes

Steve Nurse

Easter Decos

Some artwork near us in Clifton Hill

Sawing, drilling and filing timber....

to make this.

Covering the house with aluminium foil salvaged from easter egg wrappers.

House in place on our front gate. Christine made the Teddy on the front door.

Hi

There has been a few outbreaks of art in our small suburb recently, with teddies and rainbows on display in peoples houses and bright murals appearing to brighten the general gloom created by covid 19.  Apparently unrelated, I had been storing easter egg wrappers, and one of my 3d printers had just been repaired and needed a project for recommissioning, so I got working on a small design, and within a day or so of starting it was done.

The house itself consists of one type of plywood square, drilled with the help of a 3d printed jig, and a few joining knuckles which hold the squares together at 90, 60 or 150 degree angles. The knuckles have taper pins on the ends, and they are a press fit into the holes in the squares.

Haven't really gathered any reactions from neighbours passing by yet, but I am looking forward to it!

The story continues here, I made another one using a slightly different method.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Ilean trike figurine

2d layout of timber tailbox and derived sketch (top right with X) were used for layout of .......

the model's tailbox.

model parts on printer, the tailbox has been split into 2 to be hollow and print easily in different colours.

Printing on Cetus 3d printer.

Diagnosing and putting the first sample together at the kitchen table.

A bit better, after 2 designs and prints of the frame, handlebars, and tailbox base and 4 designs and prints of the tailbox cover.

In the back yard, the model bike is foreground and a wooden version (closest bike to hand) is background. Actual trike is more like the one shown in the last photo here .

All fancy-dooh-daah now, tyres, tailbox frame and chain are black (texta colour) and tailbox cover is white (liquid paper).

Hi, Not much to say here, I have made a model of my ilean trike and uploaded it to thingiverse here, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3359741/files .  The Ilean concept was invented by Vi Vuong and has been used to make simple homemade front wheel drive cycles using a range of drive configurations. See Vi's description and videos of his trikes here .

On the thingiverse page, all the files relating only to the Ilean model begin with the word Ilean. The handlebar_long file is also used.

This Ilean trike joins other bike models and a boardgame I have already made and given away through the same Thingiverse link . I've done the Ilean tailbox in 2 parts to emphasize that in the real thing, once the tailbox frame is made, the tailbox cover can look like any damn think you like. 

The plan is now to integrate the Ilean model into a boardgame involving 3d printing for the dice and the boardgame tokens. It will be a bit like this but using modular dice. But I am still thinking about it!

Regards  Steve Nurse

A big printer part 1

Does not say it in instructions, but........

....."rearrange 3d printer room until you have a place where the new printer will fit" was part of my setup routine.

So was getting rid of the packaging.  This white stuff is non-recyclable. :-( .

Assembled.

Smoko during Assembly.

More Assembly.....

And yet more.

After threading the filament through and doing some levelling it is all go, this was the successful test print.

Hi

For a while now, I have been reading and writing about Delta 3d printers and had seen some low prices for the Anycubic Kossel.  By the time I got round to actually buying one, the Kossel seemed to be out of stock or obsolete, replaced by the 4wd-truck-sounding "Predator".  At about $530.00 the Predator was just a bit more expensive than the Cetus printer I already own.  But the Anycubic is much bigger.  Anyway, videos like this one spoke highly of the printer, and now I have one!Will report further later.

Cycle Challenge Boardgame

An idea for the board game figurines came from this book of traffic models I got from a conference in Canberra,

the stands used in the figurines were pinched for

the figurine design I've made.

Dice and gameplay cards. 

"Blue" 3d printed dice which can be substituted for the 2d printed dice supplied with "Cycle Challenge 2010"

Possible dice configuration for using 3d printed dice with Cycle Challenge 2010 . The 6 dice use numbers one to six six times each. This feature is not present on the 2d printed dice in Cycle Challenge 2010.

Hi,

Back in 2010, I devised a cycling boardgame, "Cycle Tour" but it had a predecessor, which I talked about in this blog post from back then.   Anyway, after talking about cycling boardgames with Aly McDonald, I have revived "Cycle Challenge". This link brings you to a download site for a 2010 (2d) version of the game and a 3d printable variable dice.

The game itself is a handicap dice game which uses "weighted" dice to produce different likely outcomes over a set of six races. Have fun!

Regards  Steve Nurse

Modular Dice

Discussing Cycling Board games with Alyson.

Deconstrucable dice parts, the "1" side is made into the cube and the 2's, 3's, 4's and 5's are scattered around.

A few of the cubes 

The "1" dice close up.

Cad detail of "6".

Hi

Last Friday, I visited a friend Alyson, and she interviewed me for a chapter of a new edition of my bike book.  We were talking about my cycling board game and the very first version of the game I had envisaged and had a go at making.  This used alternatively numbered dice to give different bike types advantages in different races in a series of 6, where ultimately advantages average out over 6 races. Anyway, the game wasn't silly and given that I've made other game pieces, the whole concept seems worth pursuing again.

So anyway, here is the deconstructable dice I made when I got home. I'm very pleased with the way it turned out and when I get time (I have some study and a few other projects on) will incorporate the dice into a game,

If a regular dice is an atom, then this is muons and quarks. Or maybe just not-so-sexy protons and electrons. Interested to hear your comments, regards

26/12/2019: Update, I have put the files on thingiverse.  Eventually I will write them into a cycling boardgame. Here is the link. 

Steve Nurse

The Kids are Allright

Palm Beach Accommodatation

Bus to Gold Coast City

Bus to Gold Coast City

Walking to buy tickets to Bus to Gold Coast City

Cic, Jarrod, Richard, Lost Palms Brewery

Lost Palms Brewery, Cic drives the Lost Palms Brewery Van

Faser & Abby

Making Stock

Abby, Cic, Fraser

Cic, Fraser

Rich, Abby

Abby

Me!

Rich, Abby, a bicycle I fixed up (a bit)

Hi

A few weeks ago I spent a few days at Palm Beach on the Gold Coast. My brother Richard was visiting from England, and two of his adult children live near the Queensland. New South Wales border, Cicely in Palm Beach and Fraser in Yamba. Anyway, Richard was flying up to the Goldie (Gold Coast) to visit them, and I decided to go along.

I rode to Mum and Dad's place on a Sunday morning, and we got a taxi from there to the Airport and a bit of a wait around for the flight. Cicely met us at the Goldie airport in her van, and we chugged down to Palm Beach and checked in to our accommodation then went on to Cicely's boyfriends work: a pub and brewery a bit closer to Gold Coast city. A bit later back at Palm Beach, Fraser and Abby turned up. They had driven an hour and a half or so from Yamba after their work and we got Pizza for dinner.

The next morning I went for a swim in the ocean which wasn't bad but I was a bit unused to the shallow sandbank and managed to bong my head on the sandbank and get a graze. Could have been much worse! We all went up to the Gold Coast city by bus and tram after that.  Both buses and trams were very efficient and we never had to wait too long. 

Schoolies, or "Year 12 breakup week" was on, and the city was slightly overrun by school leavers with "Schoolies" dog tags around their neck, and a large section of beach was being set up for a schoolies party. We had a coffee and an op-shop visit, and then we got back on the tram and bus to Burleigh Heads. Mercifully, this was beyond schoolies territory, and we did another caf and op-shop.

Cicely knew all the op shops in Palm beach and I visited all 3 of them when we got back to Palmy. Quite liked Palm Beach, it's not a very developed part of the Goldie and has all the shops and restaurants you might need within walking or cycling distance.  The whole Goldie is quite flat and there's a pretty relaxed attitude to bikes (lots of cruisers) and helmets (only worn about half the time despite them being compulsory).

We went round to Cice's the next night, had a few beers, and Fraser cooked a boned chicken (all the kids work in Hospo (Hospitality). It was a good night.  Next day after a swim, one of our mates from Melbourne (Jic) came around and we went out for a coffee but that was cut short, I had a call from a friend in Melbourne to say I was needed there because my wife Christine had had a fall.

Back at the accommodation I bought forward my flight back by 24 hours and caught a bus to catch an afternoon flight back to Melbourne, catching a bus to the city then a train home.  It was a nice short trip and the photos came out well so I thought I'd share them.

Best Wishes Steve Nurse