episode 7 - cannons and a stage

so, it's been a while since I've written anything, but I've been way super swamped with projects.

I got a huge shipment of steel in the other day, it took some finagling to maneuver 10' pieces on a pallet jack. but I did finally get it in. most of it is for those simple tilt stands, and the new universal bases.

here's most of the parts for the confetti cannons, and and one fully assembled. they are going out this weekend and just need to be painted black. they all operate on 12v dc and I'm hoping to soon have DMX control. but for now it is a 4 channel controller with arm switches and a fire button.

So, this past Sunday I was contracted in to re-rig the truss on the stage. I was able to rent a 36' lift this time so I finally didn't have to do a ton of climbing around in the ceiling. well it started out as this...

and 15 hours later was something like this. I did learn an important lesson while I took this picture, you will notice that the lift is at the other end of the truss. I was planning on repelling off this end, but realized that not only did I forget my rope, but I had on the wrong harness. So, yeah, have fun gettin' down from that:-)

I had no hinges for this truss, so some pipe, cheeseboroughs, and extra shackles should do the trick. I was asked if it was legal to do this. I replied that the police haven't arrested me yet. lol. But I assure you, everything is hung completely safely.





well, that's all for today, tomorrow is going to be a long day for me, I just found out last minute that I have to be in early. so since I only have 5 hours till I have to be back up...

30 days episode 6 - tangent lines in google's sketchup

So, I use Google's Sketchup on an almost daily basis, and compared to Auto Cad, it definitely lacks some features. But over the years I have developed some techniques to help get around it's surprisingly simplistic interface.
If you haven't already watched my video check it out:

it goes through it all step by really fast step.
I'll show you two trick with circles, how to create tangent lines off of, and how to create a circle from 3 points. As you probably know, Sketchup only allows you to specify centerpoint and radius. By default sketchup uses 24 sides/ points to draw the circle, but you can type in any value for more precision. I like using 100 or 360.

 

 ok, so on to tangent lines, let's say we want to connect two circles for a v-belt for a pulley or something create two circles and group them together

draw a line between the centers of each circles and use the center of that line to draw a circle of the same diameter. then move a copy of the smaller circle to the top of the larger. the center of the smaller should be at the top point of the larger. note that if you are connecting circles of the same size it kinda messes up the whole process. simply draw a line out perpendicular from the connecting line and copy the connecting line to where the perpendicular one and the circle cross...

draw a circle from the center of the larger to touch the bottom of the smaller copy. then draw a line from the same center through the crossing of the newest circle and the one we drew in the previous picture. then draw the line that is blue in this picture.

now copy the blue line up to where that line crosses the larger circle.

and we're done! fairly straight forward once you do it several times. I know I kinda breezed through all this, let me know if you need any of it explained better...

30 days episode 5 - new R&D and a new song

Hey guys, unfortunately it has been a long time sine I wrote, not because I really forgot to, but just not that much has happened that I thought would be enteresting. So, I'll write a few things that are coming up.
One of the original projects I built was an automated balloon drop and some cheep but really efficient confetti cannons. Those of course are left at a previous job, and now it looks like I will get the opportunity to re-create a version 2 of each. That should be a lot of fun, and testing always means getting to shoot fun projectiles from the tubes just for grins. If the contract goes through, then they will have to be finished before the end of the month, so look forward to pics, and video of all that. Also going to start running a whole lot of those stands through the shop. and if there's time left in the month I'll prototype a new base for truss and a new speaker stand.
I also have finally recorded a version of one of the songs I've writing for a while.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXNd5OuCtlE
Leave comments on the video and lemme know what you think. Hopefully I will post some more songs I've written soon.

30 days episode 4 - so, is there anywhere I CAN carry weapon?

So, it's no secret that I enjoy anything dangerous, cool guns, and stuff that blows up. But recently my friend and I were talking about how frustratingly few places a CHL holder can actually carry. After perusing through a 100 pages of rules and stuff from www.txdps.state.tx.us I finally landed on page 70 and 71 where an englishified list of places you can NOT carry is as follows: (none of these are required to post "the sign")

1. anywhere that makes over half of it's money from alcohol sales
2. in a correctional facility
3. on the property of a school or educational facility
4. polling place while voting is taking place
5. in any gov't court or office
6. at a racetrack
7. the secured area of an airport
8. a hospitle
9. a nursing home
10. anywhere where a high school, college, or professional sporting event is taking place
11. in a "permanent" ammusement park
12. on the premises of a church or other religious place
13. at any government meeting

and in addition, employers can outlaw firearms for their employes without being required to post a sign (other people entering that facility would be allowed to carry assuming the sign was not in place). Interestingly enough though banks are not on the list, and if you go to the capitol in Austin it's like an express pass if you have your CHL... So I was thinking, in my normal day, how often could I carry (assuming i kept it on me all day so I didn't have to lock it up in my car at any point). So, on Sunday's I go to church, so that's out. If I go to work at my normal job it's technically a gov't facility. I go to college a few days a week, so that's out. And now what's left is... nothing.
Ok, so that didn't work very well, what if I do lock up my weapon in my vehicle. Well, I still can't carry in any of those places, at least I have it in my car... I'm sure that won't be awkward putting on and taking off every time I get in or out of my car. I can carry it in my house, but I wouldn't need a license to do that anyways...
Hmmm, so it looks like the only time I can carry is when I go out to eat and the movies, assuming I don't go to a bar. Well, at least I'll stay safe on dates I go on;-)

As a side note, I did run across one website I wanted to share regarding allowing CHL's to carry on college and university campuses. The website is www.concealedcampus.org

That's my thought's for today,
-Steven

30 days episode 3

I'm writing this a day late cause last night I ended up getting sick and wasn't done testing stuff at my job till nearly midnight. So, I'm sorry that my consistency is rather lacking. But as I recall I promised some pics and stuff so enjoy!!

This is my flyer I made up to give to distributors. All the drawings are from Google Sketchup.

So, in case you've never seen one of these, you open it up and slide the "forks" under the bottom of the case...

... roll it upright, drop down the legs in the back so it can't accidentally roll back over. remove the lid, and you're ready to mix!
Leave me a comment and et me know what you think of the stands. Anything you would like to see me build? let me know and I just might do it.

 

So, I'm sure you are wanting to know who my distributor is, 

The Audio Dawg:

Michael "Spunky" Brunone

400 E. Royal Lane, suite 230

3 Dallas Communications Complex

Irving, TX 75039

972-759-1131

spunky@theaudiodawg.com

www.theaudiodawg.com

He carries all sorts of recording stuff, so if you're trying to buy stuff for a home studio (or if you wanna buy my simple tilt) give him a shout.

Also, today I updated my website, put out some pics of the stand and a new contact page.

www.entertainmentfabrication.com

That's all for today, I'll talk to you all soon

So, re-wiring a rack... it's what I love about this industry... there is always room to improve upon an older design or method. But it seems like no matter how well you plan a project, there is always something that comes up unexpected. I couldn't really risk that though since we have nearly daily shows in all our rooms. Fortunately I was able to schedule during a few days off to hook up a set of splits on stage for a monitor console, since this will save us a ton of money on our shows and be a great service we can now offer...

 so it started with chasing down conduits, pulling of tons of covers on junction boxes, thinking, writing out how things were currently wired, and then thinking some more. The problem was that since panels had already been moved around once, the numbers didn't match up, and some of the higher numbered lines had been removed and re-purposed. So I kinda had to work backwards through history and then rewrite it...

 I'm pretty sure whoever installed this last though thought it was called "service slack" not a "service loop". Between jumps and extensions on terminal blocks and cables that were a lot more tangled than I thought, it took a whole day on just one rack, and I got 2 more.

But fortunately on this one I mainly just had to rip stuff out of it.

Here are some of the final documents that I generated to reference wires, since not all of them were numbered I had to also write down the color combinations, in case I needed to remove more than planed to re-pull wire through a conduit or something.

 

and that's all for today... Tomorrow I will be taking a prototype console stand to a distributor to see if they want to carry it. Hopefully all goes well and is worth my driving all over town. I'll post the press kit and whatnot tomorrow.
But until then,
-Steven A.

So, today marks way too long since I've last blogged, too much has happened to catch up, so I'm just gonna pick up for 2012. I have made a new years non-resolution to blog for 30 days about the interesting stuff that happens. And assuming I remember to take pics and stuff I have some cool stuff planned for this month.

Tomorrow I start rewiring several thousand wires in a rack. Hopefully at some point we're gonna weld some stuff on my friends car for storm chasing. Cut down some trees and  prep land for shipping crates talk about some guns and stuff and hopefully build some fun targets to shoot, maybe even finally get around finally recording a song I wrote a little while back.
So, anyways, stay tuned, leave me comments of what you think of my work, and I'll be back soon.
-Steven