Case Mod - In Progress Project: Bärsärkar-gång, 25th December, no update; Every Who down in Whoville says...

heavyweight, definitely!

 

Thanks for the comments folks and for your patience. I'll update you on the tubing a little later. Work/life have slowed my progress but I've got an update for you.


Conspiracy theorists believe that Dr Suchong's focus on marine life was influenced by Fontaine Pharmaceuticals, a CIA sub-contractor with an early connection to Operation Paperclip. CEO Frank Fontaine, a self made millionaire and entrepreneur, made his fortune with a fleet of Atlantic fishing vessels and fish processing plant dotted along the US east coast. A convenient cover for his wartime smuggling of weapons, contraband, and after the war, German scientists. His payment appears to have been millions of dollars in CIA research funding. The link between Suchong and Fontaine is suspected, in part, because both disappeared days apart in 1948. At the time, foul play was assumed by investigators but never proven. Suchong was reported to have surfaced again in 1957 at the University of Reykjavik in Iceland.

Given the direction of Dr Suchong's experiments, what secrets did he unlock?

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Remember the analog meter? The idea is that it will be used to show hard drive activity, temperature, fan speed, pump speed, etc. A couple of mods are in order…

If you recall this is what the gauge looked like disassembled. I tried using a more up-to-date meter in place of the old mechanism but it didn't look as good. Luckily, I watched ebay auctions for a few months and found one that was similar. Jewel made these meters to have interchangeable mechanisms, so I was able to swap in the "new" mechanism and back in business.

While I was modding it, I added a new mounting arm. While the old was cool looking, running the wires through it was a little tight.

A little solder led to something a little wider

This is hard silver solder. It is much tougher and almost invisible.

The back of the meter was designed so that you could wire directly on the positive and negative posts. External wires won't do though. A little modding is necessary.

I had this picture kicking around in my idea file because I liked the deco design. It’s a good thing…

Because it gave me the idea for this

A little muriatic acid and peroxide etching later

Holes drilled and filed to size

Back to the brass shell bag for bezel material

A lot of brass for a little bezel, no?

With a piece of acid green plexi in place

Bezel soldered in place. Got carried away with the flux.

Screws in place and a wiring test. Wiring for what you might ask? The obvious is the wires for the meter and the light for the back of the meter. It also needs a switch that you see in the center and lights for the inside.

Those lights are BlinkM MiniM's. They are "smart" RGB leds that can run light scripts stand alone or be controlled by an Arduino. They are very cool bits of kit made by some very geeky and nice folks. The larger versions will feature in another update. These will be used to signal what's being displayed blue=water temp, green=hd activity, etc

The space to work them in is a little tight though. Concerns about them shorting out was mitgated by an excess of hot glue. Anyone figured a good way to apply hot glue without it looking a mess?

For the switch, I was surfing around allelectronics.com ( a great place to get cheap electronic components) and found these microswitches. The little glint of yellow looked like brass which gave me an idea. A few tries at soldering a 0-80 screw

and I had a threaded switch.

The switch, mounted on the back, changes what is shown on the meter. The resistor is for the smd led scavenged from the led microswitches used for the front bezel.

To keep with the hex socket screw theme, I drilled and tapped a screw head to fit the stud.

This is the original meter face which has a nice deco design and reflective paint.

A little 3M relective tape and some adhesive vellum paper.

Here's the new meter face. If your familiar with Bioshock, you might recognize some of text and logo.

While looking for reflective tape, I found this tape which is glow in the dark made for fishing lures. Someone might be able to use if for their project. Always looking for new material

When I soldered the casing, I lost the awesome chipped and peeling paint. So I'll put the paint back with some self etching primer, black spray paint, and air brush.

A drinking straw with half round notch cut out.

Placed on the end of the spray nozzle and taped in place.

From spray paint to air brush paint. It does fizz a lot though so you have to leave it out-gas for awhile.

Masked off for painting

First primer coat

Close up. I love an airbrush, so precise.

Black coat

Once it cures, I'll sand the high points on the back so that the brass shows through but that's another update.


Thanks for looking and many thanks to my sponsors!

Bitspower


Galaxy


HardwareLabs

 

Every update blows me away with your precision and attention to detail.

Mod on, man!

 

That's some fantastic work on the hephaestus brass meter face - looks just right. How does the muriatic acid etching work? - Looks like you etched into brass - did you need to cut out the black bits of the design first, or is there some clever trick for just etching a the printed bits?

 

Beautiful work, I was starting to miss this project.

 

Incredible modding as always Mach , this is going to be absolutely amazing when it's done .

 

Gorgeous work! I love the analogue dial, too...

 

I am always amazed my friend, this is a worklog that makes me want to read more and more, pls mod on!

 

Welcome back. Another great update, hope it's not as long for the next one.

 

Amazing work as always, the attention to detail is incredible.

You did all that work on that one piece and it looked the part and then you just spray painted it black? IMO thats a shame because it did look good in brass.

 

It's not finished yet Dj. It'll look good when done, I'm sure of it.

 

Ah, I didnt read the bit where he said he was going to sand the high points back to brass.

 

Thanks stonedsurd! Glad you like it.

Thanks Monkey Puzzle! You have to put down a resist first. The resist that I'm using is toner from a laser printer. You print the image on special paper (photo paper or press n peel blue) similar to etching a circuit board. I used press n peel when I etched the silver barbs earlier in this mod. You can also use photo paper. This site is a great source of info : http://fullnet.com/~tomg/gooteepc.htm

Here's a how-to from a previous mod using photo paper. This should give you some idea of the steps.
http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showpost.php?p=196675&postcount=22

Thanks the boy 4rm oz. Yeah, without the updates it fell into the back pages. The amount of modding churn on bit is insane.

Thanks Waynio! A little closer to done would suit me too.

Thanks PureSilver, me too. I've got a whole box of these things waiting for the right mod. Look for video of the dial in action next time.

Thanks AnG3L, more on the way!

Aw man, you had to go there. I have been chastised by the human CNC mill. You know you finishing your mod was the kick in the butt I needed.

Thanks Djayness. Attila has the gist of it. Wait for it; the etched in area will be black but the high areas will be brass. If it goes as planned, it'll offer a nice contrast and look time-period correct. Check the data plate on this old engine part.


from http://www.oldengine.org/members/durand/F-M%20Jack/F-M%20Jack.html

Getting there...

 

A brief aside for details on the meter/Arduino interface. Some folks were asking how to hook up a meter to their computer. It's pretty easy. I got the idea from here:

http://www.diylife.com/2008/02/02/show-pc-stats-on-analog-gauges/ and
http://www.uchobby.com/index.php/2008/02/12/arduino-analog-gauge/

The second link was especially helpful because of the arduino code. Hopefully, between those links and the following, you'll be well on your way if you want to try this:


Meter
The meter in the video is a 1mA meter from allelectronics.com. Hooked directly to the Arduino, it'll peg at full signal unless we add a resistor. I dropped in a 5.6K resistor which is a little too high (a 5K is closer) so the meter doesn't go full scale if you watch the video. So the meter is simply wired to an Arduino PWM pin (pin 11) with the resistor in line and to ground on the Arduino.

Arduino
The meter is attached to an Arduino Duemilanove which provides PWM output on pins 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11.



For an explanation of PWM, take a look at this Arduino link.

LCD Smartie
So we now have a meter hooked up to the Arduino, we're almost there. To talk to your PC, you need LCD Smartie. Install it and set it up as follows:



I'm showing "CPU usage (%)" on the meter by selecting the variable on the left. Make add a letter after the variable. I'm using "A". This will act a separator between the numbers as the the program loops.



Double check that the com port is the same in LCD Smartie as your Arduino IDE.



Code

I've added the documentation to each line of code if you have questions. This is the basics of what you need to interface. You can get more creative with multiple meters or multiple readings but more on this later.

Code:

int PWM_Out = 11;                       //We're using pin 11 but you can use any of the PWM pins (3,5,6,9,10,or 11)
int rxChar;                             //variable for storing characters coming from LCD Smartie
int controlValue;                       //variable for accumulating value to be shown on meter
int SetPWM(int value);                  //function that talks to the meter 

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(19200);                  //open up a line to USB/LCD Smartie
  pinMode(PWM_Out, OUTPUT);             //Setup pin 11 for output
  controlValue=0;                       //set accumulation to zero to begin
}

void loop()                             //start looping
{
  if (Serial.available()) {             //check if serial line is open
    rxChar = Serial.read();             //read each character from LCD Smartie
    if((rxChar>='A') && (rxChar<='Z')){ //check if the character is a letter
      SetPWM(controlValue);             //if it is, talk to the meter by passing the accumulated value
      controlValue=0;                   //reset the accumulated value to zero
    }      
    if((rxChar>='0') && (rxChar<='9')){ //check if the character is a number
      if(controlValue>100) {            //check if its over 100 
        controlValue=0;                 //if it is reset it to zero
      }
      controlValue*=10;                 //if its not, multiply it by 10 - assume if the value is 25, the
                                        //first character(rxChar) is 2 but control value is still zero
      controlValue+=rxChar-'0';         //now controlvalue is 2, the next time through it becomes 20 with 
                                        //the above step and the second character(rxChar) is 5 and it gets
                                        //added to 20 to become 25.  
    }
  }
}

int SetPWM(int percent) {               //this function talks to the meter on pin 11
  int valid=false;                      //variable to indicate whether call worked; set to false to begin
  int pwmPin=0;                         //Set the pin variable to zero 
  pwmPin = PWM_Out;                     //Re-assign to PWM_Out
  float pwmValue;                       //Declare a variable to hold the meter value converted to a percent
    if (percent>100) {                  //If its over 100%...
      percent=100;                      //...reset to 100%
    }
    if(percent<0) {                     //If its negative...
      percent=0;                        //...reset to 0%
    }
    pwmValue=percent*(255.0/100.0);     //PWM output is from 0 - 255 so this scales up the value
                                        //Read this for more info http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/SecretsOfArduinoPWM
    analogWrite(pwmPin,(int)pwmValue);  //Writes the value to pin 11
    valid = true;                       //Everything ok
    return(valid);                      //Go back to the main loop
  }

Cut and paste the code to your Arduino IDE and upload to your Arduino. Make sure you don't have LCD Smartie running when you upload. After you successfully upload, start LCD Smartie again.

Your meter should be showing CPU activity so open a few programs and watch the needle jump. You can also try other variable from LCD Smartie like memory usage.

That's the basics of how the PC to Arduino to Meter works. Any questions?

More on how I'm doing this next time.

 

Great tutorial!

 

Thanks Elledan!

 

This mod continues to baffle me with the little details. Incredible work.

 

Watching the needle jump is too fun! I don't think I would get any work done.

_____________
-Lobster

 

Since it hasn't been said enough, this is the best project log ever. Waiting on baited breath for the next installation of your "viral" meta-log.

 

This is just super duper awesome. I just went thru the whole thread and now my mod seems a bit, well pedestrian compared to this. The amount and the quality of work is just mind boggling. great going man.