How To Turn A Firetruck Into A Lamp
For anyone out there with a tight budget and a little boy turning 5, here is a great way to make a unique and fun birthday present for next to nothing: Convert an old toy truck into a nightlight.
The first thing I did was visit several secondhand stores, looking for a suitably large truck with enough cab space to hold the light bulb and allow for heat dissipation. I finally found a fantastic firetruck for $6. I also picked up a small desk lamp which used smaller bulbs for $2. Then I ran to my local department store to grab a new bulb for the lamp – only 15 watts would be required for this project, and 2 bulbs set me back a whopping $1.67.
All together that’s less than $10. That’s all I had to buy.
Here are some pictures of the process I used to make room in the cab, install the light fixture, run the wire for the lamp, and finally, finish making the truck into a night light lamp:
A few more YouTube videos
Over the last few weeks work has kept me very busy as we prepare for the upcoming release of AcuGraph 4 (read all about it here: http://www.miridiatech.com/AG4/), so I’ve not had as much time to keep up with the footage I’ve collected on board my planes lately.
Tonight I finally had some time to put a few more videos together. Here they are… Enjoy!
Flying My Tiger Moth In A Big Wind
So I took my moth to the park a few mornings ago -- the wind was pretty steady between 20-25 mph, with gusts up above 35 mph. Throwing all caution to the wind (get it? ha!) I buzzed around the skies for a while to see how the moth handled things… Check out the video to see the results:
Long Glide With Tiger Moth
So, during his bid for the presidency, Obama promised lots of transparency with his administration -- stuff broadcast on CSPAN and whatnot. Since taking office, this is only one of many, many promises that have simply turned out to be lies.
Now, I wondered quietly to myself why they would not want to broadcast the inner workings of the decision making progress to the American public -- and I came up with a short list of reasons why -- mostly centered around the concept that the American people are not all that gung-ho about their agenda.
Today, it appears, I was wrong. The real reason they don’t want to broadcast anything is because they are complete and total morons, hardly able to string a few words together to express an idea:
You and I are paying this idiot $174,000 per year. This clip is from a hearing about the decision to move 8000 Marines to Guam.
Remember in Ghostbusters when Egon says not to cross the streams? Well….
I use the Exceed 2.4 Ghz TX for my RC habit, and so far have been very happy with it… with one small exception: it eats batteries. It seems like (though I have not timed it) that I can get about 5 or so hours of flight time out of a set of 8 AA batteries before the voltage drops too low to reliably control the plane. There is no audible low voltage warning – you just have to pay attention to the single LED on the front of the transmitter. When it starts to go red, its time to land asap.
So, today I decided to solder in a lead with a Dean’s connector so that I can plug in one of my LiPo 3 cell 11.1 V batteries that I use for my planes. Things were going great right up until I plugged in the connector the first time… what do you notice about things in this picture?
Pay attention to the colors of the wires.....
Yup.. I was in a hurry, and I did not pay attention to the polarity on the male connector that I soldered into the TX … and I mixed up negative and positive.
Continuing not to pay attention I plugged the connectors together, thus flooding my poor transmitter with lots of power, but in the wrong direction.
less than a second later I heard to loud bangs from inside the transmitter case. I yanked the connectors apart immediately, but then saw all the smoke pouring out of the transmitter case.
Here are some pictures of the carnage:
Those used to be capacitors.
Now they just smell bad.
I don’t know what else likely fried with the incorrect polarity, but hoping against hope I ran to Radio Shack to grab some new capacitors. I’ll solder them in and see what happens. Watch for an update either lauding my resounding success or drowning in my miserable failure.
Tiger Moth Crash!
Here’s a little gem of a video I shot back in January -- just after I cut ailerons in the upper wings of my Tiger Moth. This flight started out great -- smooth air, clear day, etc. Then I started playing fast and loose with the sticks, tried to go inverted too close to the ground and the rest is… well… you’ll just have to watch it.
Tiger Moth With Streamers
Yesterday was great: My in-laws were in town for a visit, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Jacob brought his mini cub, so we took it and a couple of my planes to the park to play around for a while.
There was a lot of crashing -- and one extremely close call.
We had a great time, and shot some video:
How I Mount My Camera For Flight
I’ve been asked how I mount my camera on my planes when I fly – the secret is in Velcro and Styrafoam…
I cut a wedge-shaped piece of foam from the packaging inside a box I received, then stuck a small dot of Velcro on the top and bottom of the wedge, then another piece on the bottom of the plane and one on the camera.
Just stick the wedge to the plane, then stick the camera to the wedge.
Here is a link to the camera I use.
Here are some pictures of it mounted on my cub:
Lost In The Clouds
I nearly lost my Tiger Moth in the clouds one day last week…
