Life just isn't a bowl of cherries sometimes.

The company I ordered the tubing from contacted me early this morning to apologise for having run out of stock of the 90mm outside size tube and to offer me alternatives. As the design I am working on will not allow any other size, I have told them that a wait of a month will be acceptable and any other options would have to be very carefully worked out. We shall see.

I have also now ordered a tiny quadcoptor at a cheap price in order to play with it and come to terms with controlling one. As always, they look simple in the demo video so I shall see just how easy it is in real life. The model was ordered from Wonderland Models and, including a crash kit that also includes a second battery, was less than £45.00. It really is tiny, it easily sits on one hand as you can see, and seems fairly sophisticated so it will be fun if nothing else.

And I've just discovered that Tom Wadsworth, who made this video, not only lives in my home town but also has much the same interests as me. The trouble is, he's a lot younger than I am and seems to be much better at the building and controlling than I am. Dammit!

Check out the rest of his videos, the're worth it!

Trundle reborn?

I have put another supplier on the left, Bableduck Cybernetics. They are a UK based company who have a very nice line in robotic components. My Trundle project requires somewhat larger wheels than is usual for a small robot and I have had a lot of difficulty sourcing them. Then, suddenly, two sources come along at once. The Bableduck ones are much cheaper and will probably work better indoors and the ones I found at Sparkfun Electronics are American based, more than twice the price and far more suited to the outdoor life. Horses for courses, I have a pair of the Bableduck ones to check out. I am also in the throes of ordering the acrylic tubing for the body of the 'bot as I now have a way of cutting them myself. I have cut the smaller tubes with a small disc cutter but it has to go so fast in order to cut that it melts the swarf and that then sticks to the tube and is very difficult to remove. The best method of cutting plastic is with a slow, sharp band saw and I now have access to one. The basic plastic will cost about £60.00 but, cut correctly, will make at least five Trundle chassis so will be worth the outlay.

Clearing the decks.

Over the Christmas, my amazing daughter came to visit and has done a major tidy up of the things stored on the floor of the attic. So, I start 2013 with a much easier space to sort and organise. I still have some major problems with my back and my hip but I hope, from now on, to be able to sort without too much pain and finally clear the space needed to get back to my electronics. The weeks preceding Christmas were spent working on the rest of the house and getting it ready for the family and the days since have involved a lot of sleeping and relaxing to help me get over Christmas and returning to work. Followers of my personal blog will have by now seen that I have set up a countdown to my retirement there. Currently I have just over 400 days before I can relax and spend a lot more time soldering and programming.

Out of chaos............

cometh order.

Well, it's on the way at least. The stacking boxes arrived and I have begun the process of filling them. On the same day, the new printer/scanner also arrived and I needed to make room for it so I got half of the boxes up on the bench and filled immediately in order to make that room. In addition, my second Raspberry-Pi also  arrived very soon afterward and I marveled, once again, at the size of it. This coming weekend should allow me a small amount of time to do some more clearing up and sorting even though I am still working in the bedroom at present. I really want to get started on another project but I may take some time to play with stepper motors again now that I have the space to build on.

Still not moving.................

So I decided to do some buying instead. I have built a bed instead of a project but at least I'm sleeping well now. The network problem has been solved so I'm back online again and I have just ordered some small component bins to hold all the parts I have. I live in vain hope that they will solve my space problems. In the mean time, I am trying to keep up to date with the suppliers and projects lists on either side of this. The latest are Cottonpickersplace.com and Manchester uni who are both selling specialist kits to people like us.