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Falcon Heavy Test Launch

02.15.2018 by rich // Leave a Comment

I was lucky to attend the first launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral on February 6th, 2018. I have a yearly membership at the Kennedy Space Center, so I get early notification of ticket sales for viewing launches. I got a notification email at 8am, and bought tickets for the “Feel the heat” viewing area immediately. I flew down to Florida the day before the launch, then got up at 6am to drive to Kennedy Space Center. 

The line-ups started as soon as I left highway I-95. I was immediately stuck in a large traffic jam, all the way to Kennedy. There was a pretty big line to get into Kennedy, then once within there was a huge, really poorly managed lineup to get on the buses that take you to the “Feel the heat” viewing stands. This long lineup took about 2-3 hours to get through. Really not well planned at all.

The bus to the “Feel the heat” viewing stands took a long route – this was planned to limit crowds – stopping at the Space Shuttle landing runway, a display of an airplane and a helicopter, and finally arriving at the Saturn V display building at about 11:30am. They were serving lunch – but there were only dregs available when I arrived. Hot-plate after hot-plate of empty food.

The launch was due to occur at 1:30pm, but was delayed due to high altitude winds. The launch was repeatedly delayed throughout the afternoon, leading up to a final launch time set for 3:45pm. This meant hours of waiting at the viewing stands. I found an area with some shade (right by a rest room!, and waited there in a folding chair I had bought the day before)

Finally, the countdown went under the 2 hour mark, then 1 hour, and crept closer to zero. I found a seat in an empty section of the viewing stands, in the first row, right in the center of the whole viewing area. The stands were not crowded – plenty of space to find seats, right up to launch.

And then, we were in the final minutes, then seconds until launch. And the clock counted down from 10, 9, 8… Around 6 seconds, we could see a huge cascade of water flowing down to the launch pad. The water is used to cushion the blow, and absorb vibrations. At T-3 the main engines ignited, and huge clouds of billowing white steam could be seen. It seemed like forever, but then, at T-0, the clamps released, and the rocket started to rise. It was a tense moment, because I have seen many launches aborted, even up to this point, but then the rocket started to rise. And it cleared the tower, and kept going. It was incredibly bright. It almost hurt my eyes. But, you can’t look away. The rocket rose, quickly, accelerating, and before long was in the clouds, then behind the clouds. It even disappeared for a while, behind a dense cloud, but then broke free, and continued upwards.

It takes a long time for the sound to cross the 4 miles to the viewing area, but then it does, when the rocket is surprisingly high in its climb. The sound is subtle at first, and then builds into an unearthly sound of shear power. A strong low frequency rumble, and a crackling roar combine into a sound of power. What can only be described as incredible power. And, you feel it. A rumbling in your chest, shaking your very core.

After a few minutes, the side-cores separated from the central core, then boosted back towards the cape. The two flames were easily visible in the bright sky, though hundreds of miles away. And then the side cores disappeared, invisible to the naked eye when there is no flame.

Some time later, the side cores were visible again, as they did their re-entry burn, and then they disappeared again, into the blue sky. And then an exclamation from the crowd of 3000 viewers, and then following hundreds of pointing hands, the side boosters were visible again, plummeting from the sky at 1700 miles per hour. We were lucky to see them falling like that. As they approach the earth, at a surprisingly low altitude, they begin their final landing burn, visible as one, then two points of light. In an extremely lucky coincidence, I happened to be sitting at one of the few seats that had a clear view between the Vehicle Assembly Building, and a building to it’s left, of the two landing zones. The side cores, with engines firing, landed exactly between the two buildings, and touched down. 

It’s after they land that you hear the sonic booms – 3 per core, and then you hear the roar of the landing burns. Spectacular. The landing is as amazing as the launch. SpaceX has created a very impressive launch system.

After this excitement, people begin to gather their belongings and head off. They’re serving Champagne behind the stands, and are very picky about one ticket per drink. I just headed back to the Saturn V building, and got into the lineup within the building, under the enormous Saturn V rocket. Another 45 minute lineup to get on a bus, and head back to Kennedy Space Center. And then line ups to get to the car, and out of the lot, and lineups all the way out to I-95 and back home.

Here are some photos I took – not great, but they set the scene. I wanted to experience the launch more than photograph it, so the photos are secondary to me. I also recorded a video of the launch with my iPhone – I’ll upload that soon. [Read more…]

Categories // SpaceX

Engraving hockey pucks at the Ottawa Mini Maker Faire

02.15.2018 by rich // Leave a Comment

Wow, what a busy weekend we had, cranking out puck after puck for two days. I had purchased about 150 pucks before the faire, but had to puchase another 100 pucks Sunday morning on the way to the Faire.

101-800

The puck mill had created about 15-20 pucks before the faire – test pucks as I was calibrating the X and Y axis, and setting the Z height. But, from the second the Faire started, until it ended, we were continually carving names into pucks. The machine literally ran non-stop – as quickly as we could swap new pucks into the machine, it would start carving again.

So, over two days, we created 300 pucks in total – that’s 300 puck designs, and 300 toolpath G-Code files, and then sending them all to the Planet-cnc controller to create the pucks. Our copy of Vectric V-Carve Pro was really put to the test! [Read more…]

Categories // Maker Faire, Making Pucks Tags // Maker Faire 2013

Not A Glue (.com) UV Cured Plastic

02.15.2018 by rich // Leave a Comment

This is an interesting product – a plastic that cures via UV light, similar to what dentists now use for fillings.

From their site:

“Bondic™ is The World’s First Liquid Plastic Welder and is the only product that Works where Glue FAILS! It’s liquid plastic that only hardens when you need it to. YES it stays liquid and won’t dry out like those crazy glues on the market today. With Bondic™ you can bond, build, fix and fill almost anything, it’s a 3D tool that fits in your pocket. Use it on plastic, wood, metal and even fabric! It is a very simple 4-step process (clean, fill, cure and shape) saving countless precious items from ending up in the trash before their time.”

Also mentioned at Gizmodo…

Not A Glue!
Not A Glue!

Categories // Cool Stuff

Teknic Clearpath Servo motors installed on a G0704 CNC mill

02.15.2018 by rich // Leave a Comment

I recently upgraded my mill to use Clearpath Servo motors. The motors I used are the CPM-SDSK-2341S-RLN which are 828 oz-in of torque.

The motors run really well. They are powerful enough for the mill, and are absolutely silent when they run – this was really surprising. I’d never realized how much noise the steppers made.

I swapped out 400 oz-in steppers for these servos. Interestingly, when I first installed the servos, they had trouble moving the table. This was before calibration, and also before I adjusted the power supply to output the full voltage (there’s a selector switch in the power supply for various input voltage levels). Once I adjusted the ways, lubricated the ways, and tuned the motors, the mill ran really well. I’ve been able to do heavy cuts and have never noticed an issue. I’ve been able to speed up the “rapid” speed of the mill to 100 inches/minute, from the previous setting of 40.

Teknic states that the servos can be one-half the rated torque of a stepper motor, but I’m skeptical, based on my experience.

The servos each have a USB port, and come with a windows application for tuning the motors. When the application runs, you can see the torque, maximum torque, speed, direction, etc. In the tuning mode, you first define a range of motion for the motors – say a 20 to 50 turn range where the motor can run safely. Then it enters a tuning mode where it applies different levels of torque, moves the mill slowly and quickly in each direction, and does loud jarring movements where the motor slams the shaft. It does this to analyse the resonance of the machine. It is scary to watch. It’s like your mill is being hammered with a sledge hammer! In fact, it loosened the set screws on the Lovejoy connectors (which were too small anyway).  The tuning takes about 20 minutes per axis.

Categories // CNC Mill

Custom Keyboard for G0704 CNC Mill, controlled by PlanetCNC software

02.15.2018 by rich // Leave a Comment

I recently updated my G0704 CNC mill to add an external keyboard for commonly used functions. My reason for doing this was that some of the functions I use most are really buried in the menu structure of the Planet-CNC.com control software I use on the mill.

For example, I use the Zero X Offset and Zero Y Offset all the time, yet these are in a menu 3 levels deep in the software. Also, I find that having dedicated buttons is a bit safer for functions like Start, Stop, and Measure Z Offset. In particular, the Measure Z Offset button on screen is right beside the Measure Tool Offset – which does really long tool measurement sequence, involving a fixed tool location measurement – really easy to select this by mistake.

My solution was to create an external box, with the 7 buttons I use most, and connect this box to the Control PC using USB.

CNC Custom Keyboard

Here’s a video about this project:

More Details:

The Planet-CNC.com control software has keyboard codes for each menu item. You can simply type the keyboard code when the program is running, and that menu item will be executed. For example, the keyboard code for Zero X Offset is “/45211” These keyboard codes are visible when you drop down a menu in the software.

I used a Teensy 2.0 Arduino controller, which is perfect for this application as it can be configured to emulate a USB keyboard. I connected the 7 buttons to pins 0-6 on the Teensy, and connected the other side of all the buttons to the Ground pin.

  • Pin 0 – Zero X Offset (Sends keycode /45211)
  • Pin 1 – Home (Sends keycode /470)
  • Pin 2 – Zero Y Offset (Sends keycode /45212)
  • Pin 3 – Zero Z Offset (Sends keycode /45213)
  • Pin 4 – Measure Z Offset (Sends keycode /459)
  • Pin 5 – RUN (Sends keycode /401)
  • Pin 6 – STOP (Sends keycode /406)

Here’s the Arduino Sketch (the program) that I used for this project.

The software scans the pins, looking for a pin to be “Zero”, which means a key is pressed. When it finds a pressed key, it uses the println function to send the Planet-CNC keycode to the software.

Note: The keypad sends the keycode to whatever program is running in the foreground on the PC. You shouldn’t rely on this for critical keypresses like ESTOP. The ESTOP key should be hard-wired to the appropriate pin on the Planet CNC control board.

Categories // CNC Mill Tags // Arduino, G0704, Planet-CNC.com

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