Obsessive hobbies....

[RCHeliGuy]

Hey Mark, wow, you sure like to do projects, I admire that. But one quick question, looking at your signal chain in your sig: Where do you handle volume control?

I figure JRiver (which I also use) can do volume adjustments for sources it plays, but what do you do when you drop a disc in the Oppo?

I use the pre-amp in the OPPO to drive my amplifier. I don't adjust the volume in the PC.

I NEVER actually play disks. Everything is ripped to files. So JRiver, ansyc USB to the OPPO where the music is buffered run through the DAC and the pre-amp out.

I haven't moved on a new project yet, but I've advanced a lot in Eve Valkyrie! LOL! I have been squandering away my creative time blowing up virtual space ships.

 

[tsmooth]

I was absolutely in love with the stand up arcade games (mainly SNK stuff) and always told myself I would have one in my basement on day. With raspberry pi making it so easy, why not have all the games in one arcade box? Funny thing is I think the kids like it more then I do. An artist friend did the detailing when it was done.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

BTW pretty soon ML is going to mean Magic Leap to most people.

They are about ready to drop a bombshell of a product that is going to blow people away.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

LOL! Oculus let a security certificate expire that is part of a key library that the Rift runs on.

My Rift is now bricked like every other Rift owner today. Until they release a patch/update every Rift owner in the world is stuck.

What's even more funny is that Oculus was actually at a conference doing a demo when the expiration happened.

Lots of egg on face today.

https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/7/17091938/oculus-runtime-error-outage-rift-vr-facebook

 

[RCHeliGuy]

This 1954 Corvette show car is actually my neighbor's obsession for the last 6 years. He recently placed in the top 12 Battle of the Builder's competition and his car is on the March 2018 cover of Vette magazine.



He used to work out of his home and I used to drop in on him quite a bit, but he eventually moved out to a very nice shop and I haven't seen much of his work since then. I also moved away 9 years ago. He only has 115 miles on this car but says he will drive it once he has finished showing it.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

Built a 4 x 100W Class D amplifier. It seems to work pretty well. Granted this is not for high fidelity, distortion was a don't care for this application.

I tried it out driving an old center channel speaker and Ride of the Valkyries

BTW that is about $100 total for 4 channels of 100W power that can handle 4ohm speakers or in my case vibration transducers.

The 400W switching amplifier was $26 from Hong Kong and could be adjusted to 39V which is what the amplifier prefers.
The 400W Class D amp was $49.99.
I have RCA plug volume knobs that attenuate the 2V signal coming out of the computer to adjust the volume. They were about $8 for each stereo pair.

That is some serious high spec gear! :rocker:

It will pretty much only deal with 10Hz - 200Hz Any frequency above that is a don't care.



Then I dialed it in driving the 3 transducers on my driving rig.
I ran it hard it didn't overheat and the effects were good!

 

[twich54]

This 1954 Corvette show car is actually my neighbor's obsession for the last 6 years. He recently placed in the top 12 Battle of the Builder's competition and his car is on the March 2018 cover of Vette magazine.

Resto-mods are all the rage these days, I saw it in the magazine, nice car.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

Resto-mods are all the rage these days, I saw it in the magazine, nice car.

I hope to have Larry and his wife over sometime soon. I'm not sure if he would drive it the 5 miles to my house, but I know where he lives too

 

[RCHeliGuy]

Since there are a few cat lovers here, I thought my attempt to create a much better than commercially available liter box enclosure might be interesting to some.

Features:
A sliding litter tray in front with slightly angled slates to catch litter kicked out of the litter box or tracked out on their feet.
A removable kickback wall for litter kicked into the air.
A pee shield going around the litter box to redirect any "misfires" into the litter box.
A small enclosure for a scoop with an outlet for an LED night light.
A hinging top for access.

With the litter tray and kick back wall removed the litter box will slide forward for removal when needed.

For some reason I think kitty sauna when I look at that first image

 

[Brad225]

I was looking at it on my phone Mark. And the first thing I thought looking at the pictures before I started to read was, oh Mark is building a sauna.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

Doesn't much look like a cat sauna yet

This is just a prototype framed up out of 3/4" plywood for me to work out the final details before I go back with hardwood and mortise and tenon joints.

Pocket screws are great for this kind of prototyping. I can move things around very easily right now.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

Getting ready to try my hand at Astro photography and photographing the Milkyway.

Just got a 10mm f2.8 lens and new CF tripod.

Now I need to drive about 2 hours to reach an area that has half decent light pollution to test it out on a new moon!

The end game is taking milkyway pictures at Capitol Reef in October during a new moon.

 

[twich54]

cool, keep us posted !!

 

[RCHeliGuy]

I took lots of pictures, hundreds of raw images, but I still haven't processed most of them.

I did really enjoy seeing the stars out at night was without light pollution for the first time in my life.

 

[Brad225]

Nice photo Mark.

 

[twich54]

cool shot !!

 

[RCHeliGuy]

During the winter the galactic plane is vertical and during the summer the galactic plane is horizontal to the ground. It did extend overhead from horizon to horizon, but I've been told it is more spectacular during the summer.

I made a number of mistakes while taking pictures. I forgot my reading glasses and focusing with the lens all the way to infinity doesn't work with stars which end up a bit out of focus and bigger than they should be. You have to back it off until the stars are at their smallest. I wasn't able to do that. I had two outings, but the second outing had clouds coming in shortly after I got there. The first outing I was still figuring out things I should have already had taken care of.

We did see the Arches, Goblin Valley, Capitol Reef, and Canyon Lands while we were there and it was a great trip and we saw a lot and hiked all over the place. Moab has some good local beers. Nitro which is a larger company has a Polygamy Porter that is actually very good. I assumed it was only sold in Utah, but it appears it is available in other states. ( my bad, it isn't )

 

[RCHeliGuy]

Merry Christmas, or happy holidays!

Just finished building a custom lazy Susan for my new kitchen after the remodel. I used maple and curly maple to match the other wood inserts.

The remodel had been promised before Christmas and they succeeded, but were here until 9:30PM on Friday the 21st. A bit stressful to be sure. There was a lazy susan ordered, but it was for a cabinet that hadn't already been built.



I made them as large as I could and that meant the rotating shelves had to be two halves that fit together once inside.
I used a reverse lockup joint to mate the two halves. Then I screwed them to the backer board which already had a center hole and cut the circle.
Then I cut the outer edge of the rails and then the inner edge.

I finished just in time to prepare for 8 guests spending the week with us.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

My Sim Racing setup is going to the next level.

I'm adding a seat motion system that supports all the driving games and a number of flying games.



That means stepping up to a stouter Cockpit, but this is a starting point.

 

[timm]

Awesome mark!!! Let me know what it's like to fly a Tie Fighter!!