Glyomorph Glyos + xenomorph

 

I kit bashed an Onell Design figure called Pheyden into an alien xenomorph. The Glyomorph! 

It uses the Glyos peg system to have interchangeable hands, feet, limbs, heads, etc. with many designers.

Here is the Pheyden figure:

I put an extra small head on him and him backwards:

Two part Aves epoxy clay parts A and B kneaded together gives about a 4 hour working time before it air dries:

Ended up doing the tail in two parts and gluing together afterwards:

Inspired by: Crafsman Steadycraftin and AC Toy Design and Onell Design.

I also made a Cataloging Librarian action figure and made a silicone mold of it and blasted out resin copies in various colors using Smooth Cast 45d and 65d resin, ignite pigments and a vacuum degassing for the silicone and pressure pot casting for the resin in the mold:

DeVilbis painting pressure pot:

With l that safety stuff removed to allow 60psi to squeeze any bubbles in the resin to microscopic size:

Vacuum chamber I made for a fusor device repurposed for degassing the silicone mold making liquid:

Logic analyzers and Alarm System Jamming and RFID Security Decoding + Logic Analyzer and Wiegand

LOGIC ANALYZER AND PROBE + PULSEVIEW

I started logic analyzing a 16F916 chip in a wireless thermostat using PulseView (free software from Saleae) and a generic logic analyzer hooked up to the old Linux laptop.

It turns out PulseView has decoders for Wiegand...the protocols I was using while decoding and cloning RFID security dongles and door access cards! Remove the data analyzer and put on an antenna: sucking up all that Wiegand security info. Record and play it back.

Here is just the little logic probe pen (in case you've never seen one before). I just buzzes and squeals and lights up with up/down arrows and that shows up where the logic is going or coming from.

Here is the logic analyzer with it hooked up to legs of the microchip; this shows the physical setup and screen results (see software settings below):

This is the 16F916 chip I was first playing with:

Below are the nice and easy settings I used in PulseView for the logic analyzer (the thing with the red wire clippy things--not the pen-shaped probe thingy which just buzzes and lights up). Saleae has a free download on their website, but since I was using the tiny old Linux laptop I added it via Linux Package Manager. 

Oh look, some Wiegand security info. Hmm...stream state and bit values. Sniff out the security signals and then see the binary values.

So what can you do with this setup? Alarm system sniffing, breaching and JAMMING!

For right now let's forget about the Wiegand stuff and focus on a simple wireless alarm 433Mhz 866Mhz jammer and sniffer:

A Baofeng GT-5R radio can be used to jam home alarm systems. Many home alarms operate wirelessly (window, door, hallway sensors) on either 433Mhz or 866Mhz. This cheap, $25 radio can transmit on 43Mhz--while doing so it also sends out a frequency at double the Mhz...which just happens to be 866Mhz. 

You can see the little burbling waves of the background 433Mhz devices...and then see them all drowned out by the 5 Watt radio. Now, you have to remember that 5W is way, way more powerful than what all the little infrared wall mounted sensors and cameras are putting out, so the radio easily drowns out pretty much the entire alarm network (and all the neighbors too). 

This radio receives 144Mhz-148Mhz, FM radio and it can also TRANSMIT on 420MHz-450Mhz. 

This was tested on an installed alarm system and WORKED. Holding down the transmit button allows you to open doors/windows and walk past room/hallway sensors without setting off the alarm or even getting an interference warning from the alarm main box! The sniffer is an RTL-SDR dongle, hooked to a MooElec Ham it up box running into a laptop (running linux mint, but it works on Windows). The antenna is a simple telescoping AM/FM type antenna and the antenna on the transmitter is the cheapie one that came with it. The software to see all this awesomeness was CubicSDR with basically the default settings.

This post is like 8 different things smooshed into one: alarm jamming, Wiegand RFID keycard and dongle cloning (much more on that later), logic analyzers and probes, logic protocol decoding, PulseView and cheap radio alarm jammers (more on that later too). I'll edit out some and try to separate this all...basically the little Linux laptop is now the center of a terrifying, portable electronics warfare setup. LOL!

My QA answer for someone using a cheap logic analyzer:

For Linux go to software packager and install "PulseView" and then install "sigrick-firmware-fx2lafw" which is the driver for this.

Start PulseView and this should show up.

If it doesnt click the downward arrow on top center edge of screen and select "connect to device" and select "fx2lafw" which will show the device as Saleae Logic. Click run.

You need to have this hooked up to something. I used a wireless thermostat and hooked the ground wire to the spring holding in the AA battery powering it.

I hooked the CLK wire to a clock leg of a microchip inside of the thermostat and randomly hooked some other wires to other legs and clicked run: awesome!

I am a complete novice with Linux and logic, lol!

M1K3 FR0M D3TR01T

Push-Push Cardioid Curve Latch

 

Just made a Cardioid curve push push latch with my new milling machine and drill press. The straightaway is lower than the diagonal path so the pointer can't go up the diagonal, only down it on the return.

Scrap aluminum, wd-40 as cutting fluid. Little Machine Shop manual mill.

Angles milled by just turning the rotating base machine vise and locking it down again for each angle. 

I saw This Old Tony make a similar one (though he used a CNC machine) and figured if I changed the return curve to a properly angled diagonal I could make it with my manual mill. So I did!

There is less friction that way so I could use a weaker spring.

Cardioid = heart-shaped

I did this while avoiding a cardio-workout of snow shoveling.

Happy Valentine's Day 2022!

 Watchmaking Machinery 4: Rotary Table and Indexing Head with Plates

This is a 6" Rotary Table with  a 3-slot plate. Normally 4 slots are better, but I'm using the bore hole. The bore at the center of this takes MT2 (Morse Taper #2) inserts. I have (not arrived yet) an MT2-to-ER32 collet holder. 

Table MT2 > ER32 Collet Holder > ER32 Collet (various sizes) > Mandrel > Blank I'll cut into a gear.

This is one of the division plates. The holes are used to index the rotation of the table to a certain number (or multiple/division of non-Prime numbers). You hand crank this and go one-by-one.

This is a photo of the hand crank. It's in my milling machine because the slot was about 0.8mm too narrow to fit over the shaft it has to mount on. So I milled it larger (0.3mm off one side and about 0.5mm off the other to try and center the slot). I went slow and got it fitted nicely.

The only other issue was the pin that retracts and then pokes into the holes. It was very scratchy and binding. I took it apart, wiped off the thin grease, cleaned out some grit(?) and then it seemed to work 90% better. I think the spring binds a little since the tolerances inside are so tight. I could get (make on my lathe) a different spring but I'll see if this wears in better.

WHAT A PAIN!!! But the table was cheap and shipped (and arrived) in less than 20 hours...during a blizzard! The table rotates buttery-smooth. Totally worth it.

Gear Generator dot com! You can put gears attached to each other on the same axle. Very useful for lunar gear trains.

It was so cold and windy and slushy and snowy that this squirrel came to dry off in the blue jay nest by my side door.

 

Moon Phase Lunation Gear Train for Watch

How do you design a simple gear train to allow a watch or clock to show the phases of the moon accurately? Well, a lunar month is an average of 29.5 days long. It's kind of hard to make a gear with 29.5 teeth--specifically the ".5" tooth. You can't really have half a tooth on a gear.

So, double the 29.5 x 2 = 59 tooth gear. You paint two little moons on the gear and have a little pointy lever poke at the gear once per day. One of the moons will slowly go beneath a cutout mask in the face of the watch clock. The next month will have the other moon slowly emerging.

Unfortunately lunar months are actually 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 2.8 seconds long and they basically plus or minus up to 7 hours over the course of 9 year cycles. A 59 tooth gear will by off by one day every two years!

What gets us closer to the 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 2.8 seconds = (29.53059xxxxx). Or if you want to make it easier twice that which would be 59.061 days for two lunar months?

You want to have a set of gear and pinion (smaller gears) teeth that are whole numbers.

35 x 40 x 71 divided by 9 x 11 x 17 = 59.061. These six gears give an accuracy of losing a day every 6661.3 years. You and your ancestors will never have to adjust this watch.

You attach this set of gears to an hour-hand gear. The gears are paired on 3 shafts like so: 9/35 and 11/40 and 17/71. 

On the 71 tooth gear you paint a nice little moon.

Above all these gears you put an stationary egg-shaped mask that covers more and more of the little painted moon as the gear turns day after day, eventually turning the full moon into a crescent and then it disappears--only to reappear on the other side as a growing crescent then into a full moon!

Sound complicated? Nope! I made a working model out of paper. The clock face is white with a cut out and a non-moving black mask. 

The 71 tooth gear is orange with a white moon on it.

As the orange gear spins you see less and less of the little moon because of the stationary black mask. Eventually the moon turns into a sliver of a crescent. As you can guess, when it keeps revolving it will pass the top of the black mask it will start growing again.

I haven't gotten my hands on a rotary table dividing index head for my milling machine (yet) to make the physical gears out of brass; but all this seems to work on my crummy little paper and cardboard mock ups. 

Who would need a watch that displays the phases of the moon accurately to within 7 hours over the course of over 6000 years? Hmm...I dunno, a werewolf?

Can you make a lunar watch even more accurate? Yes: but you need gears with over 800+ teeth--and that would be immensely difficult to make in my basement. Also the gears would be the size of hulahoops.

Some Serbian college professors and grad students came up with sets of real number rationalization permutations for these gears...and I found an error in their math! They had a 2 to the 3rd power instead of 2nd power. But, it turns out when you factor it all out that's what gets rid of having to draw a second little moon on the 71 tooth gear. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265859964_SYNTHESIS_SOLID_MODELING_AND_WORKING_SIMULATION_OF_MOON_PHASE_CLOCK_MECHANISM 

#0 - N9 - ratio: 1:1 - RPM: 30

#1 - N9 - ratio: 1:1 - RPM: 30

#2 - N35 - ratio: 3.89:1 - RPM: 7.71

#3 - N11 - ratio: 3.89:1 - RPM: 7.71

#4 - N40 - ratio: 14.14:1 - RPM: 2.12

#5 - N17 - ratio: 14.14:1 - RPM: 2.12

#6 - N71 - ratio: 59.06:1 - RPM: 0.51

I might find some kid to build this out of Legos for  me as a test.

First Handmade Watch Part

 

Here is the first part I've ever made for a watch. It is a setting jumper lever.

This disengages the gears to let you either set the hour and minute hands, or wind up the spring.

Using a washer as a "finger" to hold the part while filing it. Next project is making a finger vise out of metal for stuff like this. The wavy part that looks like a snake has two cam lobes that correspond to winding or time setting by interacting with a tiny pin.

I cut a triangle out of the washer to gain access for drilling holes. Just like my jeweler's pin bench vise.

Placed into a test watch movement. It works. It's not totally polished, but it works. By machining intricate modern parts I'll gain familiarity and knowledge, which will make it easier to design and build my larger, older style custom watch...which won't be a regular watch at all but a single meteorological complication. But that is way in the future. I've got more machines to build and buy and tools to make, and a rotary gear cutting dividing head to build. 

Eventually this entire test movement will be orangey brass handmade parts. 360 brass and 260 (stronger brass) where I can. I also have some Startett O-1 (oil hardening) steel plates for things that might wear or break immediately...but I want to use as much brass as possible, for no other reason than it'll be an brassy orange visual guide to my progress.

It'll look great orange!

Watchmaking Machinary 3: Milling Machine

 Watchmaking Machinery 3 

Milling Machine: Meet the beast!

Rational

I chose the cheapest milling machine from Little Machine Shop that had belt drive, and then went up one level to get the version with DRO (digital read outs). That is as of winter 2021 the HiTorque 4190 milling machine. 

It also has variable speed with no gear shifting. The belt drive is quiet and robust. They have smaller machines with plastic Sieg gears that break and are extremely loud. 

This LMS machine has more horsepower, DRO, more work area than the other machine I was looking at: a Taig. The Taig is a very nice machine--and a great deal at half the price! However, I wanted to make large items in addition to watch parts. This meant the Taig was a bit underpowered.

The Taig machine is basically their Microlathe II (which I already own) turned vertical. 

It was a very hard decision but the deal-breaker was this: the Taig machine's Z-axis is controlled by a circular hand-crank mounted on the top of the machine meaning to lower the Taig you have to reach up and crank parallel to the ceiling!!! The LMS machine has a regular pull-down crank like a drill press.

If I bought the Taig I would probably have had to buy a slow, metal drilling drill press to drill holes. With the LMS machine I can use it like a super slow metal drill press, or use it as a milling machine. I have other drill presses, but not a big slow one. In the end I would have probably wanted to do something larger and needed a second mill. 

The LMS machine also has DRO. I like digital readouts for things like, let's say: I have a 1mm wide piece of stock in the vise and I want to make it 0.3mm wide. You can't really dab blue DyeChem and scratch a line at the 0.3mm mark on a 1mm piece very easily. I'd probably need to get another binocular microscope--and the work envelope area of the Taig wouldn't allow that anyway. With the DRO I find the edge, hit zero and then mill to -0.7mm, which leaves .03mm left. Easy!

The LMS machine takes R8 size tooling/collets/etc. You can put much larger tools (end mills) into the LMS than you can in the Taig, which takes ER16 collets. To be fair the Taig is a MICRO (not mini) mill. 

Also, since the Taig mill is literally the Microlathe II turned vertical I already have the capability in my lathe. I have a Taig milling attachment (which is super nice, and inexpensive) for my lathe. That let's me mount and mill things sideways on my Taig lathe. The view is much better that way for tiny parts.

So, I didn't want to duplicate much of what I had. I can lathe and mill on my Taig Microlathe II and use the LMS 4190 for milling and heavier (slow) drilling projects.

Ordering

My order list from Little Machine Shop for the Milling Machine and all the tooling was: 

1757 Space Block Set (for the Sine Bar).

3068 Surface Plate, Granite, 12" x 9" x 3" (heavy, cheap, flat). 

3535 Sine Bar, 2.5", Fisher  (lets you mount stuff in vise at precise angles--if you use trigonometry, made in USA). 

4084 Tooling Plate, 6 x 12" (lets you mount tiny things on mill table, comes with clamps, made in USA).

4190 HiTorque Mini Mill, Deluxe (with Digital Read Outs / DRO).  

4304 Shim Stock Assortment, 0.0005" - 0.005" Plastic  (for tramming/leveling).

4653 Indicator Arm, Universal, 6"   (for tramming/leveling).

4858 Tooling Package, R8 Mini Mill Premium (the best package) .

5868 Combination Square Set, 12" 4R Precision (lets you easily find center of circle/rod end).

5874 Machinist Square Set, 2" 4" and 6" (three L-shaped things).

6258 Clamping Kit, 8 mm, Professional Grade 8-Piece (even more extra clamps for the tooling plate, which I probably didn't need).

6294 Tap Guide, Reversible (I think this was actually for my lathe).

2675 Clamps, Screwless Vise (this was for a little screwless vise I already owned).

Doesn't look like much, but that's 305lbs of stuff. I would have almost doubled the tooling, but I already have a bunch from the lathe. I also got stuff from Amazon and eBay. 

Budget for that: the cost of the tooling equals that of the machine. 

I bought the 4653 universal arm and the 4303 shim stock assortment. They have a package of these two things along with a dial test indicator gauge in a nice cheap set; however-I just got a SUPER nice Mitutoyo dial test indicator, so I'm sticking with that and just bought the other two components separately. This is for tramming (leveling) the milling machine. You measure, loosen the column and place thin shim stock under the column's base and re-tighten. I'm hoping it just arrives perfectly level out to .0001" and I can ignore it. One can hope for lots of things though.

I could have saved some cash by delaying the purchase of the Sine bar and the spacer kit for it. However, that's a lot of weight and LMS ships tooling purchased at the same time as a machine for FREE so I just got everything.

I got the most expensive tooling package for the 4190 Mill. It came with the most stuff. It also came with the best stuff. Machining stuff comes at tolerances/accuracy of: .001" or .0005" or .0001". If figured that if I started off with cheap stuff that is less accurate I'd never do what I want. If your vise and measuring tools and spacers and blocks are all cheap and off more than the best stuff that error adds up...and I need all the help I can get. 

Buy once, cry once for the good stuff. I'd rather buy once and be happy, than at some point have to figure out why I can't get something build correctly--and then realize it's an inferior gauge or vise that's tilted or some other thing. That's why I bought Starrett and Mitutoyo magnetic bases and gauges and surface/height tools.

Shipping

Here is the shipping list with box(?) codes. It shipped a few days after Thanksgiving and they didn't send any tracking email yet.

4190 HiTorque Mini Mill, Deluxe Trk

1757 Space Block Set RRB A1  

6258 Clamping Kit, 8 mm, Professional Grade 8-Piece RRB A1

4653 Indicator Arm, Universal, 6" RRB A1  

5868 Combination Square Set, 12" 4R Precision RRB A2

4084 Tooling Plate, 6 x 12" RRB B2 

2675 Clamps, Screwless Vise Sml FRB  

3535 Sine Bar, 2.5", Fisher Sml FRB  

5874 Machinist Square Set, 2" 4" and 6" Sml FRB

4858 Tooling Package, R8 Mini Mill Premium Std Ctn

3068 Surface Plate, Granite, 12" x 9" x 3" Std Ctn  

 

6294 Tap Guide, Reversible FR Ep

4304 Shim Stock Assortment, 0.0005" - 0.005" Plastic FR Ep  

Possible shipping codes, these are my guesses:

Trk = Tracking? The big crate that is tracked?

RRB = regional rate box?

Sml FRB = small flat rate box?

FR Ep = flat rate envelope? Padded?

Std Ctn = standard container? 

It arrrived from Pasadena to Metro Detroit on the 8th day after it was picked up by the shipping company. The shipping company had tracing (which is just another name for tracking). One morning I got a call from the truck driver saying they'd be there in about 35 minutes. They were!

On paper the mill doesn't sound that heavy, but strapped to a heavy dolly/hand-truck it was a bit scary to take down the stairs to it's new basement home. One person holding it a top and two people down the stairs blocking so it only rolls down one step at a time. 

Lifting it from the dolly to the desk bench it seemed a lot lighter. The dolly turned out to be quite heavy just by itself.

Turns out there were heavy items in with the mill and also the DRO tablet was taped to the bed! Probably should have taken that out before going down the stairs--if nothing else, just to save weight.

We had the crate tipped back and loosened all four bolts that held the mill to the crate floor. I believe they were Allen head bolts that took a 6mm Allen key wrench. We put the entire crate on the table and then took off the front of the crate. Totally removed the four Allen head bolts and just pivoted the mill off the box and onto the tabletop. It was very cold and greasy, so I went back to work to let everything warm up from the wintery truck ride. 

Setup

Day two was wiping shipping grease off the machine (don't start the machine up without doing that!). 

They included a little bracket and 3 screws in tapped holes to hold the DRO tablet. Unfortunately it doesn't fit without a little grinding. The forward facing corner (right side/top) needed to be ground off. 

It's not mentioned in the manual, but I matched the 3 little screw holes with 3 little screws that were already loosely screwed into the left side of the column. THANK YOU Little Machine Shop for pre-drilling and tapping those holes! The plastic hose conduit can knock the tablet off the stand if you lower the head-velcro or a rubber band is needed for safety.

They included the owner's manual for the lesser model, but it's an old manual. It doesn't show what this little lever/knob combo does. Facing backwards the machine turns on. Facing up/down/forwards the machine will turn on but you have to hold the power button down. Also, it makes a horrible clanking noise! 

I think this is a magnetic interlock thing? There is a depression in the spindle that I think clacks against a stop mechanism...but not enough to actually stop the machine from spinning. It's like a safety that doesn't work! Or it's something else? It's not in the manual. I'm not sure how a lock that still lets power to the machine (if you press and hold "ON") is a safety feature. Either the machine is off or on. Having one-and-a-half on/off buttons isn't any safer--especially since the .5 doesn't really do much? I dunno. Would have been nice to put that in the manual.

Here is the machine.

Here it is in the dark, showing off the tablet DRO and green light showing it's on.

Anyway, the four bolts that came with the machine are very nice. However, they are too short to go through the big 2" slab of tabletop I'm mounting this machine on.

I used a Wixey digital level and a couple spirit levels and got the bench top leveled. Then I leveled the machine with the levels on the XY table. Left to right the XY table is at 0 degrees level: perfect! Front to back (if the machine was falling toward or away from the user) the machine is 0.1 degree level: almost perfect. To be clear this is the entire table top and entire machine--this is NOT the tramming of the mill's column. That's way more precise.

I have drilled the 4 mounting holes to attach the mill to the benchtop. Just waiting to get four longer bolt's: 3" long threads instead of the 1 3/4" shipping ones. I'll reuse the nice washers that came with the shipping bolts.

Shimming

I shimmed the left two bolts on the column to bring the left/right table level.

Then I added shims to both the front column bolts to lean yhe the column back (to reduce the "nod" of the head).

I used the Little Machine Shop shim set. Thicknesses weren't labeled on the package.

I got the right to left table to .001" and the front to back .002" which the manual says is good. It takes a lot of bting and unbolting the column screws. Easy but hard, like walking 50 miles: step by little step.

The vise. Enraging: to mount the big swivel vise you throw away the huge bolts that come with it and use the (pay extra) vise mounting bolt kit.

They tell you that you can't use the swivel mount. Hmmm... Then why did i pay so much extra for to he swivel base vise?!

All you have to do is ditch the tiny washers and cut and grind the threaded rods in the vide mount kit down.

You will end up with less than a .001" clearance between the top of the nut and the bottom of the vise, but it will swivel just fine.

Cut with a hacksaw, then grind a little.

You  can't even see light between them but the vise is mounted and it can still swivel!

...and here is the culmination of 3 years of research, planning, procurement and setup: a mirror smooth milled channel. Done with a 2 flute roughing end mill (too slow pm and no coolant, lol).

Beautiful irridescent and smooth.