What did you do "IN" your garage today?

[DGersic]

Wasted a bunch of time on a unicorn hunt. Got this SS end, and needed a second nut for it. In the old days, I’d have just gone to the hardware store and tried likely looking nuts until one fit. But no. Instead, I checked the diameter (6mm) and thread pitch with my handy thread checker. Hmm. 0.9 thread?



M6 should be 1.0 thread. Even wandering the hardware store metric bins didn’t turn up a 0.9 thread pitch.

Got home, pondered a bit, and figured I would have to order one from the supplier. Figured that they sent me one, they can probably send another, though shipping a single nut seems wrong. Couldn’t remember their web site, so got the packing list and read 1/4” UNF.

Ah.



Back to the hardware store, and I’m $0.53 poorer, but got what I needed.

Also got a 1/2” OD 1/4” ID plastic bushing. Used my drill press and a small round file as a makeshift lathe to put a groove around the middle. Some Brute Force opened the eye of this bolt, and bench vice clamped it closed again.



Cleaned up and “fixed” this curb find lamp.



It’s a cheap plastic lamp from Walmart. But all that was wrong with it is that the threaded nuts needed tightening. They were loose, so it was floppy.

It’s not great, but it works. SWMBO’s church collects lamps and redistributes them to local people in need. We have people literally sitting in the dark because they don’t own a lamp. So the church helps.

 

[Indexmill]

^ Why do you have a boxful of ancient EEPROMs on the bench?

 

[vwpieces]

Still "fixing" the 56in US General Series 3 box to suit my needs. Already have the cordless tools and charger storage sorted out of the toolbox. And I Un-Powered the power drawer. My last Huge gripe is the DEEP drawer and I finally figured out what to do with it...

 

[kaymccampbell]

^ Why do you have a boxful of ancient EEPROMs on the bench?

Doesn't everybody?

 

[PowerWagonBuilder]

Fixed this busted up pinion gear for an old piece of machinery.











Not shown is the retainer cap that holds it all on there. The gear and key were all a nice light press fit too.

 

[niget2002]

^ Why do you have a boxful of ancient EEPROMs on the bench?

Doesn't everybody?


Had issues with the core x-y printer making skewed parts yesterday. Discovered a loose belt. Too cold to deal with it, so I powered up the significantly older bed slinger and am now printing the parts the wife asked for.

This older printer doesn't produce the prettiest parts and it's not that fast, but it's freakishly reliable.

 

[RonnieC]

Rigged up some 2 1/2” dust collection for the tools on this wall. I still have to install an aftermarket dust chute onto the miter saw and then patch it in.

 

[kaymccampbell]

Set up the new shop radio. Soldered the antenna wire. Cleaned a palette. Cleaned the bathroom sink. Started burning decorations for stock.

 

[DGersic]

^ Why do you have a boxful of ancient EEPROMs on the bench?

Those are my test ROMs and known good Game ROMs.



The ones with “Leon” came from a French gentleman who is no longer with us. He had a series of these, which are just enough to get an unknown board to boot and be able to test sections of it.

I took his starting point and significantly expanded on it for my own test ROMs. I added quite a few more tests, more extensive testing, and as much UI as I could for a system that only has a single LED as an output. Most of the work was reverse engineering how the code is supposed to work based on the schematics. Then teaching myself Signetics 2650 assembler.

There are two major board revisions represented here, Gen1 and Gen2. Within Gen1, the Locomotion game has a reworked address space, so there’s a special test ROM revision just for it.

For Gen1 game testing, I always use Star God. For Gen2, I use Devil Riders. By keeping known good ROMs handy, I don’t get tripped up finding a bad ROM.

They go with my board test bench:



CPU is upper left. Board modified with ZIF sockets to make ROM changes easier. This helped with the test ROM development, also with other ROM hacking projects.

Driver board lower left. Has 80 SCRs for controlled lamps and 24 TIP102 transistors for solenoids.

Power supply lower right. Produces 5V, -5V, 12V, 39V, and 170V.

Sound board upper right. Three channels of synthesizer, a DAC, and a speech sythesizer, plus the amplifier.

Off to the right, a single display with toggle switches to put it in to any of the six supported display positions. Below that is 80 red LEDs to show the controlled lamps activity. Next to that is 24 green LEDs showing solenoid activity.

Across the top are panel meters showing what the power supply is doing.

Hiding under the sound board is a custom board to add UI features and a connection to the switch matrix. This works directly with features in my test ROMs.

Underneath is some more custom hardware running a Basic Stamp to automate testing the switch matrix.

 

[JEFFREYWisconsin]

Those are my test ROMs and known good Game ROMs.



The ones with “Leon” came from a French gentleman who is no longer with us. He had a series of these, which are just enough to get an unknown board to boot and be able to test sections of it.

I took his starting point and significantly expanded on it for my own test ROMs. I added quite a few more tests, more extensive testing, and as much UI as I could for a system that only has a single LED as an output. Most of the work was reverse engineering how the code is supposed to work based on the schematics. Then teaching myself Signetics 2650 assembler.

There are two major board revisions represented here, Gen1 and Gen2. Within Gen1, the Locomotion game has a reworked address space, so there’s a special test ROM revision just for it.

For Gen1 game testing, I always use Star God. For Gen2, I use Devil Riders. By keeping known good ROMs handy, I don’t get tripped up finding a bad ROM.

They go with my board test bench:



CPU is upper left. Board modified with ZIF sockets to make ROM changes easier. This helped with the test ROM development, also with other ROM hacking projects.

Driver board lower left. Has 80 SCRs for controlled lamps and 24 TIP102 transistors for solenoids.

Power supply lower right. Produces 5V, -5V, 12V, 39V, and 170V.

Sound board upper right. Three channels of synthesizer, a DAC, and a speech sythesizer, plus the amplifier.

Off to the right, a single display with toggle switches to put it in to any of the six supported display positions. Below that is 80 red LEDs to show the controlled lamps activity. Next to that is 24 green LEDs showing solenoid activity.

Across the top are panel meters showing what the power supply is doing.

Hiding under the sound board is a custom board to add UI features and a connection to the switch matrix. This works directly with features in my test ROMs.

Underneath is some more custom hardware running a Basic Stamp to automate testing the switch matrix.

this entire post is above my pay grade!

 

[XJSuperman]

Put me down as someone below that pay grade. Ok, you can test boards err, ROMs. Where do these go and what do they do? What kind of controllers or PCs do they run?

(I'm sure some of that is out of place and doesn't quite fit the verbiage correctly)

 

[LeonardY]

I moved things around. I put away a fishing rod my brother gave that was dad's.
Fiddled with ornaments. I really should be done but I can't just shove them in a box for the end of the year. When I don't feel like doing anything else I work on them. I revised my Walker leg lamp. There really is no reason because I won't make anymore. (Says the man that can't leave well enough alone.)

 

[kaymccampbell]

Put me down as someone below that pay grade. Ok, you can test boards err, ROMs. Where do these go and what do they do? What kind of controllers or PCs do they run?

(I'm sure some of that is out of place and doesn't quite fit the verbiage correctly)

They're pinball machine boards.

 

[XJSuperman]

They're pinball machine boards.

Thanks Kay!

 

[vwpieces]

Moved a couple drawers around and installed the DEEP Air Tool drawer on the HFT US General Ser3 56in.
Drawer slides are equal distance so swapping them is easy. But if you want them to ever lock again, you need to move the catch on back of the drawer. Catch was in the bottom holes, moved them up.


Finger grip latch no longer works on the lower thin drawer, but it's not going to hold much weight and I didn't feel like drilling a square hole.

 

[Indexmill]

They're pinball machine boards.

Ah, that explains why they are worth all the effort of such a complete board tester. Do you repair boards?

 

[PhantomEB]

Fixed this busted up pinion gear for an old piece of machinery.

Nice work! Now I see an interesting tattoo….. let’s see that!

 

[JSGAuto]

Started disassembly. Coverting from flappy paddles to a gated shifter.

 

[kaymccampbell]

Ah, that explains why they are worth all the effort of such a complete board tester. Do you repair boards?

These aren't mine, and that's not my repair rig. @DGersic owns it. I make and repair other kinds of electronics, so just happened to recognize the equipment.

 

[Blue Chips]

I did some restoration work on an antique pump that I showed in an earlier post. As I had mentioned, I think it could be a bilge pump for a small craft, activated by wave action rocking the boat to make the weighted pendulum operate the diaphragm pump.

In addition to the “Columbian” logo plate, it’s stamped with “PAT. APP. FOR” on one of the bronze castings. I did a bit of searching but haven’t yet found a patent for it, and I’m wondering if it was ever patented.

I took it apart, cleaned it, chemically restored the patina, and mounted it on a piece of oak. After cleaning the ball-check valves, I found that it still pumps water, although the rubber pump diaphragm has stiffened up over the years and needs to be replaced. As far as I can tell, the pump is all original. I still haven't been able to find another one like it. If anyone has more information about it, let me know.

Before:


After:

 

[DGersic]

Put me down as someone below that pay grade. Ok, you can test boards err, ROMs. Where do these go and what do they do? What kind of controllers or PCs do they run?

(I'm sure some of that is out of place and doesn't quite fit the verbiage correctly)

Italian pinball machines (Zaccaria). I got started by having to fix my own, because nobody would work on them, and no information was available. Then I started doing them for other people. That grew in to a side gig, spent a lot of evenings working on boards for other people. Learned a lot along the way, spent a bunch of time and money hunting eBay for manuals and schematics. Also built up a web site, still the place to go for Zaccaria information.

I majored in computer science in college, had plenty of time doing assembler (IBM mainframe and 8086) so learning the 2650 wasn‘t completely new territory. The more boards I worked on, the more I needed to be able to do, so the test ROM development got underway. That also grew features as I used it.

The game software in ROM assumes that it will run on a working board. It doesn’t have any sort of power on self test. It just boots and goes. Or it doesn’t. If there is a problem, it just crashes. The test ROM software assumes it will be running on a board with one or more problems, so it is all test routines looking for things that would crash the regular software. One common problem is bad RAM. I assume that the RAM could be bad, so I don’t use it until after I test it for store and retrieve all possible values at all locations.

One winter of lunch breaks at work was spent on disassembly and analysis of the game ROMs. I decided to add a “free play“ feature. That meant needing to understand how the game software counts coins and maintains a credit counter. Then figuring out how to change it for free play. Then finding somewhere to add my changes, and patch the code to use my change. Being able to code, assemble, patch, and burn to ROM for testing, then dropping the changes in to the boards on my test bench was easier than changing ROMs in one of my games.

 

[Skyman]

I did some restoration work on an antique pump that I showed in an earlier post. As I had mentioned, I think it could be a bilge pump for a small craft, activated by wave action rocking the boat to make the weighted pendulum operate the diaphragm pump.

In addition to the “Columbian” logo plate, it’s stamped with “PAT. APP. FOR” on one of the bronze castings. I did a bit of searching but haven’t yet found a patent for it, and I’m wondering if it was ever patented.

I took it apart, cleaned it, chemically restored the patina, and mounted it on a piece of oak. After cleaning the ball-check valves, I found that it still pumps water, although the rubber pump diaphragm has stiffened up over the years and needs to be replaced. As far as I can tell, the pump is all original. I still haven't been able to find another one like it. If anyone has more information about it, let me know.

Before:


After:

That is seriously cool, and a brilliant design. I’ve never seen anything like it.

 

[Blue Chips]

That is seriously cool, and a brilliant design. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I think it's quite clever. I did find an early patent for a pendulum-operated bilge pump, but the design was a bit more complex than this one.

 

[LeonardY]

PAT. APP. FOR

This was often done just to stop other companies from copying a product. Or "Patent Pending".

 

[Outlawmws]

Loving that bilge pump! And I don't currently own that class of boat!

 

[Jeff Ivers]

That is a fascinating hobby/side business you developed. Back when I was in software development, the last thing I wanted to do in my off time was think about computers and software, though I did go through a phase of building my own PCs and writing a program for a TI994A to solve hidden word puzzles.

 

[GrayFlattop]

Italian pinball machines (Zaccaria). I got started by having to fix my own, because nobody would work on them, and no information was available. Then I started doing them for other people. That grew in to a side gig, spent a lot of evenings working on boards for other people. Learned a lot along the way, spent a bunch of time and money hunting eBay for manuals and schematics. Also built up a web site, still the place to go for Zaccaria information.

I majored in computer science in college, had plenty of time doing assembler (IBM mainframe and 8086) so learning the 2650 wasn‘t completely new territory. The more boards I worked on, the more I needed to be able to do, so the test ROM development got underway. That also grew features as I used it.

The game software in ROM assumes that it will run on a working board. It doesn’t have any sort of power on self test. It just boots and goes. Or it doesn’t. If there is a problem, it just crashes. The test ROM software assumes it will be running on a board with one or more problems, so it is all test routines looking for things that would crash the regular software. One common problem is bad RAM. I assume that the RAM could be bad, so I don’t use it until after I test it for store and retrieve all possible values at all locations.

One winter of lunch breaks at work was spent on disassembly and analysis of the game ROMs. I decided to add a “free play“ feature. That meant needing to understand how the game software counts coins and maintains a credit counter. Then figuring out how to change it for free play. Then finding somewhere to add my changes, and patch the code to use my change. Being able to code, assemble, patch, and burn to ROM for testing, then dropping the changes in to the boards on my test bench was easier than changing ROMs in one of my games.

Have you made the pilgrimage to Galloping Ghost arcade?

 

[mopar66]

Sold off a few things from the garage/shed today. Got asking price for 2 of them and accepted a little less on the 3rd. Continuing my repurposing of funds. I don't like to say downsizing. Thats how I recently paid for a new toolbox. Selling off old stuff or stuff I wasn't using.

 

[GrayFlattop]

Sold off a few things from the garage/shed today. Got asking price for 2 of them and accepted a little less on the 3rd. Continuing my repurposing of funds. I don't like to say downsizing. Thats how I recently paid for a new toolbox. Selling off old stuff or stuff I wasn't using.

I have to do that. A lot of that. I have far too many tools that I’ll likely never use. Sorry for the GJ blasphemy here, but finding room for all of it is exhausting. The thought of listing individual items on eBay makes my head hurt.

 

[RonnieC]

Finished up the dust collection by attaching aftermarket dust chute to miter saw and routing to drop. Took a few test cuts and the difference over the stock chute is very noticeable.

 

[GX460DIYguy]

I got an old Mac VR15F off eBay that was missing a screw so I took it out of the box today and figured I’d just put a screw out of one of the kits I have and throw it in. It felt like the teeth were on the verge of failure so I took it apart and they were indeed in pretty bad shape. Looked like they had been slipping previously and there were tiny bits of metal all inside the head. Cleaned it all out and just threw a whole new kit in it. It was the cheapest one on eBay so I can’t complain. It’ll get plenty of use and I still have another kit in case it happens again.

 

[Metallitubby]

Modified the hood on the Civic to accept the Gurney flap mod, painted the new/used mirror cap, and put a new chain on my chainsaw since mine decided to throw and dinged the bottom/tooth side of the chain.

 

[Crazyjake8493]

Stepped in the garage for a few seconds to grab a drill to mill some grains for brewing beer. That was it.

The crazy wind has finally died down but it's still too cold out to have any motivation for outdoor/garage projects lately.

 

[Wrench97]

Modified the hood on the Civic to accept the Gurney flap mod, painted the new/used mirror cap, and put a new chain on my chainsaw since mine decided to throw and dinged the bottom/tooth side of the chain.

Doesn't the flap mod usually go on the deck lid?

 

[Metallitubby]

Doesn't the flap mod usually go on the deck lid?

It does. I am modifying the airflow out of the radiator thru the hood vent.

edit - Similar to this:

 

[GX460DIYguy]

Stepped in the garage for a few seconds to grab a drill to mill some grains for brewing beer. That was it.

The crazy wind has finally died down but it's still too cold out to have any motivation for outdoor/garage projects lately.

I was outside long enough to put out some hog bait and we took a trailer load of stuff from the shop to the dump, but it’s still too cold and rainy here to do much outside.

 

[kaymccampbell]

Assembled and painted some decorations. Burned a bunch of stuff for a customer order. Started developing a material library. Rebuilt some of my designs. Cleaned a bit.

 

[mopar66]

I have to do that. A lot of that. I have far too many tools that I’ll likely never use. Sorry for the GJ blasphemy here, but finding room for all of it is exhausting. The thought of listing individual items on eBay makes my head hurt.

Yeah I have been doing it on and off for years. I go through phases where I get frustrated with just too much stuff I don't use.

 

[Jgaz]

Finished up the dust collection by attaching aftermarket dust chute to miter saw and routing to drop. Took a few test cuts and the difference over the stock chute is very noticeable.

How do you like the Bosch mitersaw?

 

[niget2002]

Finished assembling a 3d printed bobbin spooler for the wife to test out.