An engineer's scrapbook

VogeLectric

Architectural Projects

Quadcopter Build

Electronics Projects

Construction Projects

Software Projects

An engineer dies and reports to the pearly gates. St. Peter checks his records and says, "Ah, you're an engineer -- you're in the wrong place."
So, the engineer reports to the gates of hell and is let in.

Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and starts designing and building improvements. After awhile, they've
got air conditioning, flush toilets. and escalators, and the engineer is a pretty popular guy.

One day, God calls Satan up on the telephone and says with a sneer, "So, how's it going down there in hell?"

Satan replies, "Hey, things are going great. We've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this engineer
is going to come up with next."

God replies, "What??? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake -- he should never have gotten down there; send him up here."

Satan says, "No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him."

God says, "Send him back up here or I'll sue."

Satan laughs uproariously and answers, "Yeah, right. And just where are YOU going to get a lawyer?"

Version 10 (09-18-20)

3D Printer

Version 11 (2/16/2021)

Raspberry Pi Camera Mount
Extruder Feed Knob

My 3D Printer Setup

Make: Creality Model Ender-3 Pro

3D Prinded Spool Threader
I first saw a 3D printer in the early 80's. It was a Stereolithography machine the size of a stove and cost over $100k. Back then the tern was rapid prototyping not 3D printing but the technologog was amazing. Owning such a tool, or even having access to one where you worked was out of the question.
Today, anyone can afford to fabricate their own designs with even the lower end models being capable of high quality parts using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) amoung other low cost techniques. When you are new to 3D printing the first thing to do with the machine is make improvements and modifications using some of the thousands of free designs available at such sites as
Hover over the description to see3D models of the modification parts
Thingverse. Raspberry Pi Case Go to custom designed
3D Printed Light Bar
3D Prinded Tool Tray

Parking Sensor

Design Iteration 1
The first design was a one piece design with a buckle zone. It was thought that the spring lever on the microswitch would bend and take up any overshoot past the "parked" zone. However the user (my wife) soon destroyed that theory.

Lightbar Design

The lightbar was designed using OnShape CAD. The case had to be printed in 2 pieces and glued together in order to fit on the build plate of the printer. The LED light string was salvaged from an aquarium cover and the defraction lens was cut from a scrapped florecent light fixture.

PAN CONTROL Â°
TILT CONTROL Â°

90 90

Digital Input Board

Features;
- 16 channel input
- AC or DC selectable input
- Opto-isolated
- LED indicators
- TTL level output

Data Acquisition Board

Sonic Range Finder

Features:
- Basic Stamp microcontroller
- 555 timer circuit
- LCD bit shift driver board
- 40 kHz operating frequency

Temperature Set-Point Controller

Features:
- Controls 110VAC heater
Thermocouple sensor with input conditioning
- Op Amp feedback control
4 1/2 digit display

Multi I/O Controller - I/O Board

Sheet 1

Sheet 2

Multi I/O Controller Box

Top View

DTMF KeypadDC JackSerial Comm PortGround Rotary EncoderCurrent Sensor Input Digital to Analog Converter OutputRelay Output (24 VDC / 10A) IR Comm LEDS40 Char x 4 Line Back light LCD Controller BoardTop CaseBottom Case 9V Battery & HolderI/O BoardDigital Input Switches (4)

Bottom View

Multi I/O Controller - Control Board

Sheet 1

Sheet 2

8088 Mini-Computer

Sheet 1

Sheet 2

Office Partitioning

Occupancy

Front Elevation

Construction Detail

Plumbing

Accessibility

Means of Egress

Fire Safety

Lighting

HVAC

Electrical

During a stretch of unemployment I took on some side work doing architectural drawings for a construction contractor. This project was an office space design for a law firm. It was a lot of work and very challenging, especially meeting the submittal requirements of the city building authority. The process required several iterations to meet all of the requirements but in the end the plans were approved and the remodel completed by the contractor. The drawings were done in Microsoft Visio.

Design FeaturesCAD Model RenderingFinished Gate

Yard Gate

- Galvanized steel support poles and hardware replaced rotted out 4 x 4 wood posts.

- Pave stone floor for level access and low clearance for gate swing.

- Steel gate support kit to resist sag.

- Stained cedar exterior planks for resistance to weathering.

- Dark screws and finishing washers for "riveted" look.

- Cap boards and solar power lights for side pilisters.

Door stop to hold gate open in windy conditions.

Atmospheric Conditions Monitor

Data Acquisition Input Board

Electronics

Sonic Range Finder

Digital Input Isolation

Set-point Controller

8088 Mini-Computer

Multi I/O Controller Box

Current Projects:

Prior Projects:

Tejas Office Suite

Reception Desk

Architectural Projects

Yard Gate

Planter

Construction Projects

Backyard Shed

Backyard Utility Shed

Ground Layout

Back Yard Concept View

Final Installation

Detail Layout

Side Yard Concept View

Birdseye Concept View

Driveway Planter

Construction Sequence

Home Sensor Monotoring

Arduino Projects

Raspberry Pi Projects

Qwt Widget Demo

Software Projects

Charts

Arduino Altimeter application

Arduino Joystick Interface

Pi-Labview Remote Communication

Remote Control Web Cam

Thermal Imaging Camera

These projects were done with a Raspberry Pi Â®. The Raspberry Pi is an inexpensive yet powerful single board computer. It the size of a credit card but in many ways can do what a PC does but with more access to machine level software and hardware functions. It is Linux based and has its own desktop environment, like Windows Â®. The neat thing about the Linux operating system is it is free and open source having been developed over the years by a worldwide community of contributors. Since the architecture is open source it much more accessible from a programming perspective, unlike Windows which is proprietary to Microsoft. The Raspberry Pi is also a natural environment for software development with the Python programming language. Python is a high level object orientated language that is fun to learn and easy to use. I bought my first Raspberry Pi in 2015 and now have many of them. All of these projects were done using the Pi and Python. These projects were done with an Arduino Â®. The Arduino is a microcontroller as opposed to a single board computer. It differs from the Raspberry Pi in that it does not have a desktop environment and is programmed in C using procedural structured code. It is has excellent hardware I/O interfaces including analog to digital converters and is flexible and easy to integrate with sensors and control systems.

ACM Schematic and Parts List

Schematic

Parts List

ACM Board Design Layout

Component Side

Solder Side

ACM Mechanical Design

Reception Desk

Device Overview

Internet of Things (IOT) Home Interface

Weather Station
Davis Vantage Vue

Nest Thermostat

Wi-Fi Home Network

TED5000
Energy Meter

Internet of Things (IOT) Home Interface

System Diagram

Internet of Things (IOT) Home Interface

Network Diagram

Internet of Things (IOT) Home Interface

Software Diagram

IoT Charts

Davis Vantage Vue Weather Station Nest Thermostat - Currently inoperative TED5000 Energy Meter

Above is a realtime weather posting from the Davis Weatherlink website which is receiving data from the weather station. The charts on the right are real time data from devices in the home being acquired from the Python IoT application running on a Raspberry Pi. The data is collected and posted to the ThingSpeak website.