All Gremlins, Large and Small

  Well, just like an epic game of Mortal Combat, I finally met the boss of the gremlins.  And he is dead for now.

  A cnc machine uses pulses of electricity to drive the motors to precisely position the axis. These pulse at about 10,000 per second. They can be altered for calibration. For months now the Novakon has been randomly repositioning itself and also going in to emergency shutdown, which also loses its position.

  This problem has been a real pain because it resulted in so many ruined molds and countless hours of lost work.  Thinking about it, I kept going at the problem from the wrong end. Always looking for the answer in the pulse drivers or the pulses per second setting, and never getting it fixed.

  One thing I noticed is when I would boot up the computer it would sometimes ask, "Hey, what day is this?".  So I would type in the date and figured it was just double checking. Then it occurred to me that a computer unable to keep time on a calendar might be having issues keeping track of seconds to within 1/10,000'ths of  a second. So I went to Walmart and spent about $5 on this.

 

 

  Yes this is the big boss gremlin, the mightiest problem causer of them all.  A battery that tells time. I thought once the PC was running the clock would be fine.  I was wrong again.  This is starting to get ridiculous.  What kind of problem solver gets his ass kicked for months by this little glitch?  Me.  Well no more. The gremlins are vanquished!

 

 

 

 

Ok, except for this one.  Exploding capacitors are always good for a few laughs and some smoke inhalation.  2 in one day is a new record.  Damn these gremlins are resilient, I will give them that.

 

 

  But, overall things are really going well. I made this mold with my new $5 Walmart battery keeping time. Ran it overnight while I slept too.  Perfect cooperation from the machine.

 



  Going to run some parts next week.  This is the second of my designer's products. This is a marker for a hero style board game. Look for a post once this gets cleaned up and run.

  And next up is this;

  This is the work of another of the designers I have contracted. We are filling in the other spots and going to have a go at it.  Figures are the final challenge and someday it will be overcome.

  I am still planning on running a thank you giveaway contest to my customers. I got to figure out if it is legal and all, but the basic idea is this;  the winner will get 100 sprues of their choice for free.  Meaning any that I make, or any that they want made. Come up with an idea and I will do my best to make the mold and give you 100 of them.  A lot of gaming people are creative and have great ideas but no access to the means to have those ideas realized. The contest will let someone have their idea come to life.  I got to work out the details but will post more info when I work out all the legal bits.  Like "rude forum posters are not eligible" and other fine print.

  And thanks for people who took time to vote for the grant contest. I made the 250 votes. The odds of getting the grant are small, but I figured why not give it a try.  If I get the money I will be hiring a helper for sure and getting a contract person to run the internet part of things. If I do not get the money you will have to continue to tolerate my amateur handling of things.


  OK, time to get busy again.  Have a great weekend.