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Fix your Keurig
The Keurig is a cool machine, but it has a bit of a flaw. There are two needles that pierce the K-cup, one at the top and one at the bottom. Since the needle at the bottom is piercing plastic and the needle at the top is piercing foil, the needle at the top will pierce first. This wouldn’t be a big deal but the top needle is hollow in the middle and connected to the water supply. When you press down to puncture the K-cup you pressurize the cup so that when it does pierce the foil coffee from the cup is pushed up into the needle. Over time the coffee builds up in the tube behind the needle until one day all those coffee bits conspire together to clog the needle and it won’t brew. Mine only took a little over a month to do this.
It’s not too hard to fix. You have to get some of the plastic covers off of your Keurig though. You will need a philips screwdriver and a T15 Torx driver. All of the Keurigs are a bit different on the outside, but they all appear to have the same mechanism for handling the K-cup. So your covers might be different but the internals are probably the same. Take the covers off so you can get to the internal plumbing. › Continue reading
Forza 3 multiscreen setup
I recently put together a multiscreen setup of Forza 3 motorsports for Xbox 360. Forza 3 is the first driving game I’ve played that made spending the time and money worth it. However, I had a few annoying problems along the way so I’m writing this article to potentially help anyone with problems like I had. This isn’t about how to use multiscreen to increase the field of view on one monitor (which is about all you can find on the web). It’s about using three screens together for one wide display with Forza 3. At the end I share how I did all this for cheap.
First off, you need three of the SAME copies of Forza 3. Mixing in an ultimate collection with the regular versions won’t work, they won’t connect. It took me a while to figure this out. Either use three ultimate collection versions or three regular versions. If you have three regular copies and you bought the ultimate to get more cars, you don’t need to go out and buy two more UC copies. Just put the UC disc in each machine and install disc 2. Then put the regular copies back in.
Second, you need a switch. I read somewhere on forzamotorsport.net that the data sent between the three Xboxes is a large amount of minimum frame size packets so a hub will work but you run the risk of dropping packets which will cause lag. Remember a hub and a switch do the same thing but a switch can learn where packets need to go based on their address, and a hub always just broadcasts to all stations. That is, a switch is more efficient. Use the uplink port of the switch that connects the three Xboxes to connect to your wireless router or gateway (internet).
Then you will need to verify the connection between the three Xboxes. There are a lot of people on the web saying that you need to be connected to Xbox Live, you need a Gold subscription to Xbox Live for each console, etc. None of this is true. You don’t need Xbox live for this to work. I know because I tested the multiscreen capabilities before I signed any of my consoles on to Xbox live. In fact I probably wouldn’t have bothered with Xbox live but I wanted the LFA from Stig’s Garage car pack.
Anyway, sign in on the Xbox that will be your center station, it will be the host and have your profile. It is easiest to test your connection by connecting to Xbox live through the test network utility in the console settings. If you go to: my Xbox / console settings / network / test settings it will test the connection from the console all the way through the local network to Xbox live. If you feel like it you can log on to your router and assign a static address to the three Xboxes to keep it tidy. You can see what IP each of your consoles was assigned by the router in the network settings on the console. All that matters is that they are different and in a range accessible to your router. None of that is really necessary though, if you only have a switch connecting the three consoles. The Xboxes will each assign themselves an address if they can’t find a DHCP server like your router. Your router is typically what assigns local IP addresses. › Continue reading
DIY Router table
I made my own router table because, as usual, what is affordable and available in stores is lame and insufficient for my needs. I don’t really want to spend something like $500 just for a good router table so I made one. I also made my own adapter instead of buying one by re-purposing the fixed base I already had.
Piezo pump
Some time ago I designed a piezo pump to demonstrate a concept for an extremely low flow liquid slurry pumping application. The pump was based around AdaptivEnergy’s Ruggedized Laminated Piezo actuator, or RLP-125. AdaptivEnergy also manufactures the Joule-Thief, which is also based on piezo technology. The actuator was driven by the company’s proprietary electronics that they call the Energy Key. I used umbrella valves from Vernay that allow the pump to build pressure and move fluid.
The pump works very well for extremely low flow liquid and slurry applications. The wetted parts of the actuator are 300 series stainless steel, and the valves and housing can be made of a number of materials for resistance to many fluids. This pump design is a great selection particularly if you are moving an abrasive slurry, as there are less contact wear surfaces like in a more conventional pump.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this pump is that both the frequency and displacement of the element can be varied. This allows the pump to operate at different resonant frequencies for different fluids, and still accurately control flow.
Here is a 3D section view of the model that I made in Solidworks.
Textile needle loom
Probably the most complicated piece of equipment I’ve designed and built to date would have to be a textile needle loom for Goodrich. This machine is fully instrumented with position sensors, accelerometers, load cells, etc. for characterization of a textile needling process. Every parameter from speed and feed to force and distance is adjustable real time. This was definitely the most challenging mechanical design I have completed. I modeled the entire project in Solidworks to verify the design, and had over one hundred custom parts machined.
Cascade process heater
One of the first big projects I completed was a machine that supplied a variable heated flow of gas to a process. The temperature and flow of the process gas was controlled to a setpoint with PID loops, and the machine could switch between one of two different gases required by the process both manually or automatically. The process required the flow of gas to be switched automatically at a certain temperature, and had to recognize the change in temperature at any one of twelve thermocouples.
An immersion heater placed inside of a tube was used to heat the flow of gas. A frame was constructed around the heater to support it, and an electrical enclosure was mounted to the frame. The frame was mounted on wheels so that it could be removed when not needed, and full-flow quick disconnects were used for the gas lines.
This project was also my introduction to AutoCAD. I designed the whole thing in AutoCAD, including assembly prints and prints for the machine shop. Since then I’ve been using Solidworks, and I’ve never looked back. Solidworks makes designing and maintaining a design so much easier.
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