Adrian's Workshop

Repainting my Daelim S1

2011-10-08T19:24:00.000+11:00

After nearly three years riding to work the same way, imagine my surprise when, turning into a corner a bit too quick, I finally got my knee down!

My knee was, sadly, followed by my hip, my shoulder and my head, as I lay down on the side of the road for a rest. A work colleague stopped to give me a lift and, noticing that my right arm was refusing to move more than a few degrees from my side, suggested that I drop in to the local hospital to get it checked out. A mere 8 hours later it was determined that I had a small but well-placed fracture at the top of my humerus.

Ow, my arm!

The scooter, meanwhile, was mechanically sound but badly scratched down the whole right side. I would have been able to ride it, were I still able to ride.

Ow, my scooter!

So there I was with about three months before I would be fit to ride, and a bunch of repairs to be done. I decided to take advantage of this crisitunity by not only fixing the existing paint, but going for a full respray.

I started by removing all the panels.

All panels removed

Naked scooter

When doing a big disassembly like this, it's important to take pictures of each part you pull off, and bring a supply of little bags or containers to keep all the screws and fasteners you remove. I went with zip-lock sandwich bags, writing the name of each piece on the bag in texta.

The first job is to remove any badges or stickers, then sand down each panel until it is smooth. Some of the bigger scratches and cracks needed a bit of body filler, which also needs to be sanded once dry. That done, I laid down a couple of coats of primer, sanding smooth again after each coat.

Primer coat complete

Once the primer was done, I started on the colour coat. I wanted a really bright yellow, to stand out better on the road, so I got a couple of cans of Nissan Signal Yellow, which looked nice and bright on the sample, but turned out to be more of a lemon colour when applied.

Next I found a colour called Vivid Yellow, which looked great, but when I used up the cans I had, I was informed that the colour had been discontinued about two years ago! Finally I settled on Ford Yellow Glow, which was close to what I wanted and easy to find in large quantities.

Colour coat complete

The colour coat took much longer than the primer, every time I sanded there would be another high spot that rubbed through to show grey underneath. I also have to thank Ylana for her patience with all the yellow drips that ended up on the laundry floor while doing the wet sanding!

When everything was evenly coated, I moved to the clear coat, which got a final sand and then a cut and polish. With the panels looking nice and shiny they were ready for reassembly.

Clear coat and polish complete

As well as repainting the bodywork, I sprayed the "S1" badges and the rear luggage rack with matte black, to make them stand out against the yellow.

Finished scooter

Looking good in the sun

While I got into this project through a pretty unfortunate accident, I'm really happy with the finished result. It looks very bright and eye-catching now and, as far as I know, I now have the only yellow S1 in the world!

Shoo Fly! Don't Bother Me...

2010-10-25T23:38:00.000+11:00

Recently, the Sydney Morning Herald has added an annoying little "fly in" box that appears when you scroll to the bottom of the article.

Usually, I'd use Adblock to magic it away, but the box is part of the page and can't be targeted by its address. So, let's use Firebug to take a look at the offending element...

The bit we want to hide is the "cN-flyIn" div, I'm going to use Stylish to hide it. Stylish is an add-on for Firefox and Chrome that lets you edit the CSS files that tell your web browser how to display web pages. As well as turning your Facebook pink, you can use it to move, resize and hide elements of your favourite websites.
After installing Stylish, click its little "S" icon and select "Write new style -> For smh.com.au"

Now, in the window that appears, paste this code:


 @namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain("smh.com.au") {
 .cN-flyIn {
  display:none !important;
 }
}

And that's it, the box is gone!

Wired for Sound!

2010-10-10T23:10:00.001+11:00

Once again, it's my trusty Daelim S1. But it's grown some new bits!

Speakers?

And a volume knob on the glovebox?

That's right, I got tired of listening to the little 4-stroke all the way to work, so I set out to add some tunes to my commuter scooter.

I started by finding a suitable amplifier. I wanted something that was small and wouldn't draw too much power, finding a solution in Jaycar's ready-to-wire Kemo 3.5watt amplifier modules. These amps are waterproof and don't need any special cooling, which makes them ideal for outdoor use, as well as being tiny, at only 30mm across.

I wired two of these amps to a pair of 40mm mylar speakers, which are also waterproof and efficient at low power levels. To give the speakers a secure home, I bought two halogen light swivel mounts that were on sale at the local lighting store.

Removing the bulb sockets, I connected the wiring to the speaker terminals before sealing the gaps with epoxy. The sealed enclosure helps the speakers to work at their best by giving them a resonating chamber.

The speaker mounts are secured to the mirror stalks and the wires are tied to the standard instrument wiring and run into the small glovebox below the handlebars. This box contains a 12volt power socket that is wired to the amplifiers.
When I want to use the speakers, I connect the headphone plug to my MP3 player and lock the box. The only external controls are the power switch and the volume control.

Despite the fairly low power, the sound from these little speakers is still audible up to 80km/h, and I can hear my tunes playing through my helmet without having earphones blocking out other sounds.

Bass is somewhat lacking, maybe I should put a subwoofer under the seat...

Audi-Style LED lighting on Daelim S1

2009-10-26T20:17:00.005+11:00

While hanging out in Jaycar a few months ago (why yes I do lead a very interesting life!) I took a look at their range of super-bright LEDs, and decided to try them out. My previous experience with Jaycar's automotive LEDs hadn't gone too well, with the pre-fabbed tail light I tried being far dimmer than the factory bulb. The new "star" type LEDs are in a completely different league, with a disc-shaped assembly about the size of a ten-cent coin and a tiny spot in the middle that lights up like a stick of magnesium. These high-powered LEDs are used by Audi in its expensive-looking headlight assemblies to replace the little parker lamps and let other drivers know your car is very high tech. I figured that something like that would work a treat on my high tech S1.

I started by pulling off the headlight cluster, which involves undoing six screws, and bringing it inside.

You can see the teeny bulb used for the standard position lamp, which doesn't do much of anything in terms of throwing light.

I cut the wiring to the bulb and soldered in the regulator, which I then mounted on a flat bit of the plastic behind the headlamp (A). I put in some resistors (B) to protect against any power surges that could kill the LED, as I have found that even with the regulator these expensive little lights can get fried very easily. The wires to the LED were routed through the rubber cap that sits behind the standard lamp (C).

All the soldered connections are covered with heatshrink tubing and the wiring was then taped to the factory loom to keep it from moving around and getting caught in anything.

The regulator is about $25, and can run up to 6 LEDs at 3 Watts each, but I've only given it a single Cree XR-E, the brightest of Jaycar's LED range, and at $40 each, the priciest.

I attached the LED to an aluminium mounting that functions as a heatsink (star LEDs can overheat unless they are stuck to a decent-sized lump of metal) and keeps the LED itself from getting damaged when attaching it to the headlight housing.

The standard parking lamp draws 5 Watts, my new setup would be about 2-3 Watts, but compared to the 55 Watts the main beam and high beam bulbs draw, it's not much power either way.

I put the front piece back on and fired it up...

Woo, look at me, I have something shiny! I'm gonna go trade some stocks and bonds!

My New Website!

2008-02-27T23:00:00.007+11:00

Charcoal Grey and Lemon Yellow are in this year, ok?

After about a year of neglecting my blog, I've created a new website for me to neglect! The new site, located at www.amagni.com is intended to showcase my abilities as a graphic designer and web programmer.
I created the site in Notepad, using CSS to format the text and graphics, and a custom PHP/SQL content management system to let me upload pages as "articles" much like a blog, which are then listed on various category pages.

Articles listed for each category

I decided not to go for the usual 2- or 3-column layouts, instead opting to put the page content and navigation in various round-edged rectangles. I chose the striking colour scheme after seeing two separate home renovation shows where they painted a room dark grey and bright yellow. If at some later date I decide to change it, I should be able to use PHP to let the user select from a set of themes, while keeping the same dynamically generated content.

When writing the CSS, I found that some things would only work in Internet Explorer, or only in Firefox, but not both. In the end I chose to make separate CSS files for each and use a PHP script to serve up the right one.

Different look for IE

ReMaking My Bedside Lamp

2007-04-07T14:47:00.000+10:00

Back in my university days, I once purchased a rather spiffing bedisde lamp from the local lighting shop. It used low-voltage halogen bulbs, like many desklamps these days, but these were mounted in removable pods that could be attached to four rails coming up from the base of the lamp. This allowed the bulbs to be put on any side of the lamp, as well as sliding up and down.

Removable Pod

The whole thing looked marvellously space-age and for six years it sat by my bedside. Unfortunately the years haven't been kind to it, with the stainless-steel parts getting stained, the brushed metal becoming rusted metal, and one of the glass pods having an unfortunate meeting with a wall last Christmas.

Old and Busted

The worst part of it was the power switch, an unorthodox design that uses a rotating wheel to form a connection, had somehow cracked and started to turn itself on and off at will, as well as heating up alarmingly when the lamp was in use.

Cracked Switch

The time had come, my friends, for a new lamp.
I looked far and wide, seeing some attractive but hideously expensive models, and a lot of cheap rubbish, and never quite finding what I wanted. I started to think about whether I needed to throw away a still-working lamp when I could instead try to fix it, or even improve it.
I remembered the Maker's Motto: If you can't open it, you don't own it.
Well, don't I own my lamp? Sure, it was ugly and unreliable, but I knew that I had the skills to fix it, and even improve on it.
I knew I would need some kind of base, something to put the bulbs in, and a rigid structure to hold it up. The first two requirements were filled with a trip to the bargain store for some of my trademark stainless steel cookware, and the frame could be knocked up from something I already had lying around, my Meccano Big Ben kit. With plenty of long beams and some solid plates for mounting heavy things to, it would be just the ticket for my new lamp.

My first step was to put the two bulb assemblies into a single mounting, in this case made from a clear-topped metal jar.

Halogen Bulbs

The bulbs are kept in the same sockets from the old lamp, and screwed into the bottom of the jar. The two smaller holes are to provide ventilation in the sealed container.
That done, I attached the jar to the Meccano frame.

Bulb Holder

The frame is a rigid design, with the bulb holder pivoting up and down. I decided against making the rest of the frame movable, as I couldn't get the Meccano joints to reliably hold the weight of the bulb holder in place.

Back View of Lamp

The base of the lamp was made from a metal cooking bowl, which was the right size and shape for the job, and already had some nice-looking circular holes cut around the rim. Bolting a small Meccano assembly over one of these holes let me attach the power cable so it can't be pulled out. The lamp runs on 12 volts, with an external power brick, so I only had to deal with low-voltage wiring in this case.

Front View of Lamp

I used a simple toggle switch from my parts bin for the power switch, so now I can turn the lamp on and off without burning my hands on the cracked rotary switch it had before.

Finished Lamp

With all that done, I put the freshly rebodied lamp back on my bedside table, and sat down to finish my book...

All Your Base are in Japanese

2007-04-06T23:28:00.000+10:00

Back in my local Gametraders, I made another exciting find on the Retro Games shelf.

Zero Wing

Yep, it's Zero Wing, of All Your Base fame! According to the old price tag still on the box, it was purchased in Kuala Lumpur for the bargain price of 239 dollars (Malaysian dollars I guess) but I was being offered this slice of videogaming history for a mere ten of our gold coins. How could I resist?

The cartridge, designed for the Japanese version of the Megadrive, won't fit in an Aussie console, but I have ways around these obstacles...

My Megadrive Test Rig

Using the guts of my second Megadrive Backpack, I fired up the game and prepared to see a little slice of gaming history first-hand...

Why yes, I will press start button!

I waited for the now-infamous intro to appear...

Hmm...

This is not as I expected...

What you say?

It seems that I had not in fact found the poorly-translated English version of the game, but the untranslated Japanese version. Oh well, nothing for it but to take off every "zig", or as they say in Japan...

Having got that out of the way, I decided to actually play the game, and was further puzzled by all the in-game text being in English again.

Wow a side-scrolling shooter on the Megadrive!

So is it the Japanese cartridge? Is it a Chinese pirate version with English text hacked in (Hence the packaging with no SEGA logos)? Am I expecting too much for ten dollars?
The answers to these questions and more probably won't be found in my next update!

Learning Illustrator

2007-03-19T23:31:00.000+11:00

Just a quick post to document my first attempts at using Adobe Illustrator for creating graphics instead of my usual Photoshop. I've played with the tools before, but I needed some kind of inspiration to get really into it.

The only thing that could save me was the power of SEGA!

With the graceful lines and curves of the Megadrive to guide my hand, I was quickly able to adapt to the Illustrator workflow and start playing with line thicknesses and vertex handles.
Even after all these years, Sega's little console that could is still proving its worth.

The Megapack - Sega Megadrive Backpack

2007-01-24T00:03:00.000+11:00

Recently I was browsing the Burwood branch of Gametraders and I was fortunate enough to find my favourite console project base, a Sega Megadrive II, in working order with controllers and cables.
A redesign of the original Megadrive, the smaller Megadrive II board can be fit into a variety of casings, and its power requirements are low enough that it can be used for a portable system, like my earlier project, the SEGA MDP. After purchasing the console, I took it home and ripped out the circuit board for my next Sega-related project.

In the meantime, I was left with the empty plastic casing, which I knew from previous experience makes a great basis for a retro-geek fashion accessory. I'd already made my last MDII into a backpack with built-in MP3 for my lady love, but I liked it so much I had a hard time giving it away. Now was my chance to have one for myself.

Grinding out the inner framework leaves a bigger interior space and a sturdy outer shell, perfect for carrying your personal possessions.

Megapack

I chopped some straps off a cheap schoolbag, which as well as having a red and black colour scheme to match the console, are adjustable for added comfort

Megapack showing straps

Keeping things together at the fat end are these silver hinges, originally intended for jewel boxes and other woodwork projects.

Hinges

The pointy end of the console is held closed with these silver latches, also intended for use on wooden boxes. A little bending was needed to get them mounted cleanly onto the curved surface of the Sega, but they fit well now and have that great "clicky" briefcase feel when you open them.

Metal Latches

For the inside, I chose the same black fur as my last Sega backpack, but with a different choice of fabric for the side panels.
The sides are still covered with a red Chinese print fabric, glued at the bottom over an accordion-folded cardboard frame. The expanding side panels let the bag open wide enough and fold away when closed.

Megapack Open

The side panels and lining are sewn together by hand and form a single unit that is then attached to the plastic case with velcro.

Megapack Open

The finished backpack is fairly small, big enough for my wallet, keys, mobile phone and, ironically for an old-school Sega fan, my Nintendo DS Lite (which I then use to play Sonic Rush, so it's OK)
To give you an idea of the scale of the finished backpack and how it looks stuck on someone's back, you can check out these glossy model shots below.

I call this look "Blue Steel"

For extra credit, try getting one of these past the bouncers on a Saturday night. "Why yes, it does look like a suicide bombing rig..."

My back isn't that big, the bag is just small

As well as being incredibly stylish, the Megapack is a lightweight and tough receptacle for your personal effects when out at the arcades playing Virtua Fighter and guaranteed to trump your mate's ironically hip "Vote Pedro" t-shirt at the next techie social event.
My only complaint is that the Megadrive is a bit thin to keep much stuff in. Now the N64, on the other hand...

Tape Tracking System

2006-07-17T22:50:00.000+10:00

Working, as I do, for a leading provider of in-room entertainment and internet services for hotels in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, I am called upon to handle a very large number of videotapes going to a large number of destinations each month. Once the tapes have been used, they must be returned to our offices and their serial numbers marked off, to assure the movie studios that all copies are accounted for. When I first started working for this company, our records were entirely paper-based, and the various systems we had inherited from previous mergers used incompatible forms and folders to record tape locations. Attributing an orphaned tape from a broken vcr could be extremely time-consuming, with thousands of tapes a month going in or out.
I spoke with my manager about the possibility of using a barcoding system to track our stock, much like a video rental store. He obliged with an inexpensive "pen" reader called the CueCat

CueCat Barcode Reader

This connects to a ps/2 keyboard port and when scanned across a bar code, the numbers are effectivley "typed" into the pc. This makes it quite easy to write a database application to record the barcodes scanned.
I sat down with a pen and paper and applied some of my old university training to devise a data organisation scheme. Once I had figured out which information needed to be stored and where, I got to work writing code for my tape tracking system.
I used Macromedia Director to make the program, as it is easy to use for graphical applications, and has built-in commands for saving and loading data files.

Tape Tracking System

I'm unsure of the legal aspects of mentioning the company name on a private blog, so I've blurred it out of these pictures. If you want to know which in-room entertainment company I work for, it's a major one.
The buttons dynamically resize and move as the mouse pointer rolls over them.

Buttons Grow and Shrink

Each hotel is given a codename of up to 9 characters, and to assign tapes to a hotel, the user selects the name from a drop-down list.

Selecting Destination

The allocated set of tapes is then scanned and their serial numbers are added to the list of tapes already at that location.

Scanning Tapes Out

After a month or two, these movies will be replaced by new ones, and the tapes will be sent back to us. It is at this time that the barcoding system is particularly useful, as sometimes our interstate contractors can be somewhat careless packing the tapes, and put unsorted sets from different hotels together. This would be very hard to sort out using the old paper system, but the computer can tell us straight away where a tape has been.

Scanning Tapes In

The returned tapes are removed from the on-screen list. There are a variety of ways to use the information in the database, from simply scanning a single tape to see where it has come from, to generating a variety of reports for importing into Microsoft Excel.

Report of Tapes Out in May

The "Hotel Report" can be set for one hotel or across all hotels. A complete grid of movie titles and their quantities at each hotel can also be exported with the "Tape Report" option.
Each month, I print out a set of barcoded labels with the cheap and cheerful Labels Unlimited software, and stick the labels to the new tapes.

Shelf full of tapes

My special program runs on a K6-II PC operating at 350MHz, with Windows 98. This rather unimpressive spec is still quite enough to allow for speedy scanning, and I regularly backup the data files to a network drive.

Barcode PC and AV Setup

The VCRs and TVs pictured are used for testing new tapes as they come in. This image also shows my special custom-built MP3 player Dock, which serves as both a music system and the speaker for the barcode "ding" sound effects as I scan.

A Particularly Ghetto Piece of Equipment

This cardboard speaker box is paired with a second one hidden below the vcr shelf, and the whole setup cost about $5. Sound quality is surprisingly good, at least at the sort of volumes one can use in a workplace. I have been offered some proper speakers, but I've grown quite attached to these.

Hotel Barcodes

I use this printout of hotel names with associated barcodes so that I may work away from the keyboard when scanning lots of stock. I simply scan each hotel name to switch the destination for the next stack of tapes.
Using this barcoding system has saved me enormous amounts of time, allowing me to concentrate more on the interesting parts of my job like graphic design and video editing.

The SEGA-MDP (MegaDrive Portable)

2006-05-29T22:40:00.000+10:00

Having gutted my surplus Megadrive II to make a lovely bag for my girlfriend, I was left with a still-functioning circuit board, with its cartridge slot and plugs still intact.

Megadrive PCB

Like the resourceful fellows who use every part of the cow, I thought I should find some practical application for this device. When I discovered that it would run quite happily on a 9 volt battery, I began to think about ways to build a smaller, battery-powered console. Finding a tiny lcd television for only $99 made the next step obvious; build in a screen and controller, making something like an oversized Gameboy. I set out the various parts I would need...

Initial Testing

Opening up the pocket TV revealed two separate circuit boards, which could be moved next to each other. I decided at this stage to keep things simple by integrating a genuine Sega controller into the device. A 9.6v NiMH battery pack, intended for remote-controlled cars, provided power. The Sega PCB would be mounted on the back side, with the cartridge slot facing the rear.

Prototype Mounted on Cardboard

It was at this stage that I hit a snag, when soldering the video-in wires to the tv board, I damaged the encoder chip and the picture went extremely dark. Fixing this proved to be impossible, and I began to look for a new screen.
Unfortunately, the small pocket TVs that had just been on sale were no longer sold anywhere. It seems that they have been phased out in favour of portable DVDs and video phones, so I had to look further afield.
A stall at a Melbourne market eventually provided an inexpensive and much bigger screen, intended for automotive applications.

Unbranded LCD TV

The box proudly advertises such features as "No Radiation. Not Gleaming" which should be a massive relief for all those motorists irradiated to death by gleaming CRT screens mounted in their dashboards...
This screen, being designed for use in a car, needed a greater amount of power than my last one, necessitating a 12 volt battery pack. I decided, for reasons of cost and simplicity, to go with a sealed lead-acid battery, which would provide a useful 2200 mAh capacity for only $25. The other deciding factor was that a single large battery would greatly simplify recharging, instead of having to design a custom charging solution for a 10-battery pack with rechargeable AAs.
I decided on a new configuration for my portable, with the battery sitting below the screen, and the controller now split, with the D-pad (directional controller) on one side and the three Hit buttons on the other side. I built a basic wooden mockup of this design.

LCD in Wooden Frame

The incredibly helpful GameSX.com provided me with wiring diagrams for the controller ports and AV plug on the Megadrive board, and I constructed a small PCB with 3 buttons and the special multiplexer chip needed to use them on the Sega.

Controller Board

I cut a square out of wood and painted it black for the D-pad. Four small pushbuttons sit under the pad, which is supported by a central bolt that is free to rock slightly in each direction.

D-Pad

I built a two-compartment case, with the Sega PCB mounted in the rear compartment. An opening in the cover lines up with the cartridge slot, and a smaller, square opening allows clearance for the power regulator heatsink.

Sega PCB in Rear Compartment

The front compartment of the case holds the LCD, battery and controller boards, as well as various wiring for the power and reset switches.

LCD, Battery, Controller in Front Compartment

To make the device look and feel more interesting than the plain MDF board I used to construct it, I covered the MDP in black vinyl, with a thin layer of foam underneath. The seams were all hand-sewn one night, and the edges stuck down with heavy-duty staples.

Covering MDP With Vinyl

Rear View After Covering With Vinyl

The Power switch and Reset button were placed on the top corners. The exposed screws sticking out above them serve as recharge contacts. The battery charger is connected by alligator clips to these contacts, and the power switch moved to the recharge position.

Recharge Contact and Reset Button

After connecting all of the electronics and finishing off the exterior, I had a working portable game device that I regularly use to play my collection of classic Megadrive cartridges. The LCD still has its tuner, and can be used to watch broadcast television when I don't feel like playing games.

Finished MDP

Rear With Game Cartridge

Playing "Rocket Knight Adventures"

Looking Ahead...

Having completed this rather time-consuming project, I'm happy to leave it in one piece for a while. I would like to make a second version later this year, hopefully with a lighter, longer-life battery, and a more compact shape.

SEGA-MP3

2006-05-25T21:48:00.001+10:00

This was last year's birthday gift for my girlfriend Ylana. The idea actually came to me in a dream, where I had a vision of kids using hollowed-out game consoles as toy cars and suitcases. I had recently been given a Sega Megadrive II by my friend Jamo, and already having a Megadrive 1 that worked fine, I was thinking of using the II's circuitry in another project (coming soon...)
Seeing these laughing infants run around with Playstations strapped to their backs, I thought "hmm, I could do that with my Sega..." and suddenly, wide awake, I sat bolt upright and said "Yes! It must be done!"

Sega Megadrive II

Having removed the precious innards from my console, I pulled out my Arlec Supertool, fitted a grinding bit, and set about grinding out the interior space until it was a hollow shell.
Looking at the big red buttons on the top of the Sega gave me another idea: build in an MP3 player, controlled by the buttons. Having only two buttons, I would have to find some way of controlling all the other functions. My other problem was where to put the battery compartment, and I considered putting a hinge on the Mega-CD port on the side of the console, and attaching the batteries there.
I was thus overjoyed to find my local Dick Smith store was selling a rebadged "DSE" player, which after much detective work I identified as a Minbo MB-800. A decent MP3 player in its own right, with 256MB of memory, SD card port, built-in radio and a nice little screen, it had several features that made it particularly appropriate for this job. Being very flat, it could be mounted under the Sega cartridge port without intruding into the interior space, the inline remote control would let me get away with only having two buttons on the main unit, and the built-in rechargeable battery (a tiny NiMH designed for MiniDisc players) would free me from having to add a battery compartment.

Minbo MB-800

I removed the tiny screws from around the casing, and pulled off the metal back plate. I was actually impressed to find an off-brand flash-based player like this using a metal case.

Outer Casing

The main circuit board had the usual teeny-tiny smd components used in consumer electronics, but the only points I really had to get to were the solder tabs on the "Play/ON" and "Stop/OFF" buttons, since everything else could be controlled by the remote.

PCB shown with special NiMH battery

The underside of the PCB carries the SD card socket, the battery holder, and the headphone/remote plug. I extended this plug to a 6.5mm jack, because I like big shiny headphone plugs and I think they look hi-fi and old skool. The exposed traces visible at the bottom of this image are for the "Menu" button, which I later extended to a discreet black button on the side of the Sega.

Underside of PCB with Headphone Jack

I drilled out holes for the headphone and USB sockets and connected the external buttons, then cut a square hole in the cartridge slot cover for the screen.
The other part of my mod involved adding hinges between the top and bottom halves of the Sega, putting brass latches on the other end to hold it closed, lining the inside to contain any items placed in the backpack, and adding adjustable backpack straps.

Finished SEGA-MP3

As an extra touch, I arranged through one of Ylana's close friends to pilfer her CD collection, and preload the player's memory with some of her favourite albums.
I couldn't get to my camera when I took these next pictures, so they are a bit blurry, having been taken with my mobile phone. The second one shows the red chinese-print fabric I used on the sides of the lining. The interior of the compartment is covered with black fur. The red and black fits in well with the Megadrive colour scheme, while the fabrics add a feminine touch to a gift intended for a lady.

Camera Phone Pics

Bonsai Electronic Installation

2006-05-22T22:15:00.000+10:00

Another Uni project while I try to get some pictures and screencaps from my working life.

As a major project for my Digital Media degree, I wanted to make something that would let me use my whole skillset of electronics, graphics, sound and programming. At the time I was doing a lot of reading about computer programs that used algorithms based on living creatures, known as alife programs. It was my intention to use this kind of programming to make lifelike growing plants that could be guided or manipulated with the mouse pointer. The simulation I developed used an L-System to create a plant shape from small stick elements that could be linked to one or two "child" elements, depending on a set of rules that decided which sticks got to breed a child stick. Every so often, the child would be a flower, of which there were several kinds to add variety.

Digital Plants

When I decided to develop this into a major project, I considered ways of making the simulation more immersive. I thought about having the plants projected onto a wall, or spanned across several screens, with sensors tracking visitors across the room, but finally settled on the idea of having the plants projected onto the floor from above, with a large floor sensor to tell the computer where the people were standing.

Bottom Layer of Floor Sensor

The sensor consisted of two layers: a hard base with metal strips running across it, and a soft upper layer with wires running perpendicular to the metal strips.

Upper Layer of Floor Sensor

The upper foam layer had small metal buttons attached to its underside and connected to the wires. When stepped on, these buttons would form a circuit between one row of the upper wire and one column of the lower metal. By checking which rows and columns were touching, the control circuit could pinpoint where people were standing.

AVR Control Board

I used a prebuilt AVR microcontroller board to read the floor sensor, as it was extremely easy to program and wire up. Eight of the AVR's I/O pins were connected to the bottom layer of the sensor, and eight to the top layer. By sending signals to each of these rows in turn, the chip could create a grid in its memory of the positions being stepped on. It would then send this grid to the computer's serial port.

Installation Under Construction

The system was put in place for the COFA end of year show in 2003. The PC visible in the background ran the program, and the projector next to the PC had a small shaving mirror attached to the front, reflecting the image up to the ceiling, where a larger mirror was hanging. This mirror then reflected the image from directly above the people standing on the special floor, minimising shadows.

Final Installation

As people walked across the designated floor area, the plants would spring into life and begin to grow and coil around their feet. The speakers seen in the image above were used to play a series of Japanese flute samples played by my good friend Naomi Hamilton. The music would change depending on the number of people detected on the floor. From the quiet, slow tunes played in an empty room, more hectic passages would play as the sensor was weighed down by more feet. This added to the atmosphere of being in a dark space with wriggling, neon-coloured plants growing around one's feet.

PC-Riter Mechanised Keyboard

2006-05-22T21:30:00.000+10:00

A few years ago I saw this picture on the now-possibly-defunct ZZZ News site.

Although the machine shown here is a non-functional prop, it intrigued me greatly, and I decided to look into making a working typewriter-based pc keyboard.
I was able to borrow a Remington Travel-Riter Deluxe, which could be switched into a special "no advance" mode, where the keys would still clack and the hammers would still swing around as normal, but without the paper feed advancing, so I wouldn't have to worry about hitting the end of the line while typing.

Remington Travel-Riter Deluxe

Having selected my typewriter, I had to work out a way of connecting it to a PC. I took apart a succession of keyboards, testing out the circuit boards inside them to see how the various contacts corresponded to the keys. The first version of the circuit I built used a PS/2 connector, but I switched to a USB keyboard later on, as it was easier to connect and disconnect from my PC, and I could even use it at the same time as my normal keyboard.

Keyboard Controller Circuit

Not wanting to cut up a working and well-maintained typewriter, I decided to work on a special add-on that would sit under the typewriter, with small switches protruding up under the key levers. This would let the keys move normally, and when not being used with the PC, the typewriter can be lifted off and used to type on paper as usual.

Pushbutton Switches for Keys

By very careful placement of these switches, I could ensure that pressing the typewriter keys would activate the corresponding key on the PC. This placement was mostly down to trial-and-error, and proved to be the hardest part of the project. The finished base was connected to the typewriter and demonstrated for my Electronics Workshop class at university, where I was able to use it on the university Macs to type a few words for my classmates.

PC-Riter with Control Board

The Dalec-79 Electronic Tennis System

2006-05-22T20:38:00.000+10:00

The Dalec-79, a working videogame console, was part of my final presentation for Digital Media in 2003. I built three working units with packaging, and packed in a copy of my paper portfolio with each.

The basis of the console was the Velleman Classic TV Game kit, which comes with a pre-printed PCB and a specially programmed PIC processor, and when assembled can be connected to your TV set to play a simple "Pong" game.

The basic kit has small control buttons attached to the PCB, which are not easy to use, especially for two players, so I set about creating some nicer controllers, ones with that 70's flair that a classic videogame deserves.
The ends of a "rabbit ears" tv antenna made nice control sticks, which were simply glued onto the stalks of metal toggle switches, as they only need to go up and down. The serve/smash button is a tough pushbutton, and a 4-pin mini-DIN plug connects the controller to the main board. The body of the controller is a metal cooking bowl I bought from a discount shop and drilled holes into.

Having built such nice controllers, I couldn't just leave the actual device bare, so I went out and bought a bigger cooking bowl, and set to work...

The toggle switches at the front serve as Power and Reset buttons, with the audio and video connectors at the back. A small DC plug sits at the back of the unit and receives power for the console. The black sockets at the top are the controller ports, and the power LED lights up green when switched on. Using primarily stainless steel parts gives the whole unit a retro style, appropriate to the retro game you can play with it.

Blog Begins

2006-03-26T22:04:00.000+11:00

I have started this blog to publish my works online.
By posting this photo I can use it in my profile on the sidebar over there -->
The banner image can go on the top of my blog.