Clean at last

[PonoBill]

A lot of projects have been hanging fire while I organized my shop. The theory is that I'll keep it this way. We'll see. I still need to finish the rest of the garage, but I can do complicated things without intermingling the bits now. Of course the first surgery I undertook--trying to get my 2011 Macbook Pro working again--met a little setback when I spilled the tray holding the zillions of little screws. I was going to try reworking the logic board surface mount soldering on the graphics chips but discovered they cover the joints in some kind of potting goop. Oh well.

Next up is RC rudder two and reassembling my waterproof drone with autonomous navigation bits. Then I'm going to try to build my laser guided roomba CNC foam cutter. Yeah, I bumped that up a few thousand steps, but here in Maui my project possibilities are much more narrow. No machining equipment, no aluminum welding, and no 3D printing. Just hand tools and electronics bits.



I made that tall stool yesterday out of a junk office chair and side rails from a old bedframe. A little cutting and welding and Presto!, a stool I have to jump to get onto. Probably need to shorten it an few inches. If it tips over backwards when I'm jumping on it I'll get a concussion. Maybe I should wear a helmet.








The rest of the garage is still messy, but that's less than a day of work. ADD-boy is pretty slow at organizing, but I can throw crap away pretty fast.



Finished the closets too.

[madmax]

Stop it.  I feel inferior.

[headmount]

Sounds like a MLK speech.  And having order does make you free from spending endless hours of your life trying to find your stuff.

I'm waiting for a tsunami.

[eastbound]

i noticed the drone--my partner (business, that is) has assembled the IRIS+, but not flown yet---i will update once he has done so.

i saw a few waterproof devices when i was searching around, but they seemed weak technologically--which is the one you have? and do you like it? how would it compare to the IRIS+

[spookini]

Stop it.  I feel inferior.

Go look up the thread where the PVC frame he built to hold his boards collapsed.
You'll feel better.   

[PonoBill]

I was going to title it:  "Clean at last, clean at last, Thank God almighty the garage is clean at last". But it was not only long but perhaps not Pono.

I go more than a little insane when I can't get in the water. The fricking wind is blowing the wrong way, and not only is it not downwindable, it's screwing up the surf. I'm thinking of detailing my truck and then doing a dump run. Okay, that's really nuts.

On the bright side, I did diagnose what was wrong with our TV--the TCON board is hosed--I think. So I ordered a new one--49 bucks for the board and another $40 to ship it. 89 bucks for a two year old 32" TV I can replace for $250 with one with more features--or at least more connectors. When did TV's become consumable with two years being end-of-lfe?  Apple says it's unrealistic to expect a $2500 laptop to last more than three years. What???

Anyway, I ordered the damned TCON board. Stupid, but hey, if you can't open up something and fix it, then you don't own it, it owns you.

I need to go yell at Apple some more. They offered a flat rate repair job for a little more than $300--which means they'll replace the logic board with one that will fail again in a few years if I keep looking at high rez graphics. Of course when they open my Macpro they're gonna have a little heart attack. Not stock. Replaced the DVD player with an SSD and the weenie little 500GB drive with a 3TB. Should have done something about cooling--I knew it was going to toast. 

[surfcowboy]

Bill, let me know if you ever need Mac techs who can overlook a little "custom work." I've worked with dealers here in LA who are fully certified, but independent and friends. Good folks to know.

I got my garage ready for some shaping and glassing and it was a revelation. Maybe I can put some of this cold windy holiday time to use to tackle that last workspace I can't seem to organize. Inspiration.

[PonoBill]

Hi East--the new guts I'm putting into the waterproof drone are basically the same as the Iris+, the 3DR Pixhawk with a bunch of extras, including more telemetry and better GPS. The chassis is a Quad H2O, which is reasonably well designed. Their latest, greatest is the Hex H2O, which is kind of cool, but I can do better. I'm going to build my own. I should wait for Hood River where I have better facilities, but it might be a Maui project. Maybe I can borrow one of Mark Raaphorst's vacuum pumps for the body I designed.



My ultimate aim is a follow-me drone that lasts long enough to film a serious downwinder, or at least that can handle a water landing and retrieval on the nose of the a SIC Bullet. That's a big project, but I have some ideas that I think might make it easier.

Cowboy--thanks for the offer, I might take you up on that. I bought a new Imac 5K to replace the macbook Pro, but I still would like to get the little bugger going again. It's a pretty good machine. What I'd really like to do is put some more modern guts into that case. The newer cases are really hard to do anything with. And they don't make a 17 inch laptop anymore. Might have to crawl deeper into this and hack up my own.

[madmax]

After close scrutiny of past posts,  I think PonoBill is nuts.

...in a good way.

[Zooport]

After close scrutiny of past posts,  I think PonoBill is nuts.

...in a good way.

You're just now noticing this?  I want to be PB when I grow up.

[pdxmike]

  I want to be PB when I grow up.

You can't do both.

[supthecreek]

When I read the title... I was afraid it was going to be a shower picture 

I found the perfect way to have less clutter. Don't own anything. 

[PonoBill]

Ahead two, back three:

There's a loft over the garage that full of crap I haven't touched in years. While I was cleaning the second half of the garage I decided to go up and toss every thing down so I can sort it our without falling 12 feet to the concrete floor. Hell of a thing to do on new years eve, but it's my own version of the ball dropping. Gonna be a heck of a dump run. there's actually three windsurf boards in that pile.



Maybe a few of those planes can live again


Certainly I can get the surfer going, I lost my good one, the hopped up version with Da Bull boardies. Last seen headed out to sea in Paia Bay.

[stoneaxe]

Damn!....Sue just came in as I was reading this and said just that...."Damn!....is that the Pono house garage?....look, you can see the floor and everything!"

You could probably make a cappuccino machine or something out of all the shit you took out of up top.

[stoneaxe]

  I want to be PB when I grow up.

You can't do both.