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So over the years I’ve uploaded ALL of my YouTube content to the same channel, so there is a mix of DNN Training videos, Racing videos, family videos, and even a refrigerator repair video. I’ve never had anyone actually complain about the mix of content, but I have always thought that the Racing and family videos kind of get in the way, as most of the views on my channel are for the tutorial type videos.

Here are a couple of time lapse videos from the winter (spring) snow storm here in St. Louis over the past weekend.

The first video got a couple of media inquiries via YouTube this morning, and was featured on Fox 2 here in St. Louis on their 5 o’clock news broadcast. It is an hour’s worth of shoveling on Sunday morning compressed into 27 seconds.

The second one is of our trip to see the Moolah Shrine Circus at the St. Charles Family Arena.

Both videos were shot with a GoPro Hero3 Black.

The @Netduino tank is finally ready for @makerfaire

It was About 8 or 9 months ago that I posted my first video using my Netduino powering a Tamiya Tracked Vehicle Chassis Kit. After that I actually did a little more work on the project, but I never posted any video or updates for the project itself.

Last week I was asked if I still had the project, and would be able to bring it to the Maker Faire. I thought, sure thing! So I got to work making it actually do something a bit more than going in a very long slowly arcing circle.

V1.5 (if you consider the video linked above v1) actually had a piece of plexiglass as a base, sitting on some standoffs up off the wooden base of the Tamiya kit. But it was my first time working with PG and I ran into a couple of issues, I drilled holes and they weren’t right, so I drilled some more, and they still weren’t right, the "rectangle” was off center on the vehicle itself, and I never even got around to taking the protective coating off the plexiglass. I did mount a GoPro camera on it, using zip ties, and drove it around the office scaring the pets, but never published that video, or even took pictures of the setup.

Thursday evening I decided I would try to take the motorshield I was using and make it work with the Netduino Go. Unfortunately due to a bug with PWM in .NET MF 4.2 qfe1 (or whatever is currently release) I was unable to get the Go working, so I wasted a full evening of time.

Friday evening I got to work getting the original Netduino going again, along with the motorshield, and a new piece of plexiglass. The end result was the photo seen above, a cell phone picture taken at something like 2 in the morning Saturday before Maker Faire, so I apologize for that :D

I ended up doing a little bit of coding, on the project (all sample code is hosted on Codeplex, at the time of this blog it is using Changeset 67198 (motor test project). I didn’t add a bunch of logic to the code, it basically has 4 programs, one that spins, goes, and repeats. Another that just spins. Another that goes forward then backward, and finally one that doesn’t do anything (stop). You can trigger through the programs using a button that was wired into the breadboard. Not the ideal setup, as the button was hard to get to while it was moving, but it was 2am and I just wanted to finish.

I made the programs fairly short because I figured that the area where it would be displayed wouldn’t be very big, unfortunately even with the short programs there wasn’t any way to safely have it running during the Maker Faire, so it for the most part remained unplugged the entire weekend. But it looked cool!

Speaking of looks, I took another piece of black plexiglass and cut it, shaped it on the belt sander, and then took the drill press to it to create holes for the standoff mounts, and somewhere to mount the Netduino/Shield to.

I also stuck an old (think original AAA battery powered, pre HD/960) GoPro camera to the front, this was all for show at this point, there was no chance I was going to get it wired up, and I really just needed the weight up there to keep the nose down. The back end was rather heavy due to the two battery packs, one for the Netduino one for the Motorshield, and it wanted to ride a wheelie without the camera up front.

Update (before I even posted the original blog) I stuck the GoPro 3D Case and two cameras up front to shoot some video and photos, you can see them below. This setup weighed the front end down heavily, and also, on a rough surface (bricks outside) started to cause problems for the tracks, I haven’t tried to figure out why yet, but they were coming off pretty regularly.

Here’s some video of the Netduino Tank in action, though I promise you it isn’t all that fancy yet Open-mouthed smile

and then of course 3D Video of what it sees (you’ll want to wear red/blue glasses for this one, or turn off 3D on youtube)

Photo Gallery

Parts List (quantity)

  1. Tamiya Tracked Vehicle Chassis Kit $20 (1)
  2. 9V Battery Case (1)
  3. AA Battery Case 4-AA (1)
  4. Plexiglass platform
  5. Long screws (4)
  6. Nuts, for above. (4)
  7. Aluminum spacers, mounted between base and platform (4)
  8. Small breadboard (1)
  9. Heat shrink
  10. Solid core wire
  11. Plexiglass Sheet

What’s Next?

1) I would like to add some sensors to it so that it can move around on its own a bit, and know when it should turn around.

2) I’d like to get the Wi-Fi-bac for the GoPro Hero 2 setup, whenever it comes out (this summer) and mount a Hero2 up front so I can stream video using the camera. This wouldn’t actually wire into the Netduino in any way, but I can imagine putting the GoPro on a servo system so that the Netduino could at least “point” the camera, at what, I don’t know yet.

3) It needs either a remote control (DotNetNuke module) and Wifi access or some other wireless access to the tank and send commands.

Project350z Garage WorkSo what did you do this weekend? Did you spend two days under your car? I basically did, well more like 1 day, but it was broken up over an afternoon/evening and then the following morning after I ran to get a new “nut” that I needed to finish things up.

Why was I under the 350z? Well, removing the fun parts of course. I planned to remove the front and rear Hotchkis sway bars, along with the TrueChoice Phase 4 Konis (front) and the off the shelf Koni Sports (rear) along with springs/perches. Though in order to deal with the rear sway bar I also ended up pulling the Injen Super SES exhaust system off the car as well and put the OEM exhaust back on.

Read the whole blog post for the time lapse video

So where I Chris at? I’m doing this all week!

What I'm doing this week

I’m at the 2011 SCCA Tire Rack Solo National Championships in Lincoln Nebraska. Stay tuned to Flickr and YouTube for videos and photos from throughout the week!

So this blog post will consist of videos of Jacqueline!

First, she has started to be come mobile with a combination crawl/roll motion, check it out.

She also now likes to “cough” and will respond to other coughing

Then there's tonight's video where she gets talkative at dinner

Holy Cow! If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and don’t have plans tomorrow, or if you do have plans, cancel them. You need to get the Maker Faire at the San Mateo County Event Center. Check out www.makerfaire.com for more info! I went this morning, and I am going to go again tomorrow, this time taking the family with me. This morning I headed over with my GoPro camera attached to my head, with the intention of time lapsing the day. I stuck it to the top of a trusty Boston Red Sox hat, which I hoped would last.

A week ago I posted a “question” on Facebook to see what color we should wrap the 350z in.

Well it looks like the final tally is 31/13/13

31 for Matte Black
13 for Matte Green
13 for Don't Do It!

So Matte Black it will be! Time to order the vinyl! I would hope to have it done by the end of the month, but realizing we are moving before then, we’ll set a goal of the end of June to have this completed. Of course we’ll have a time lapse video of the process!

So the car is naked, well about as naked as it can be.

Saturday evening I took it to the car wash and removed all of the vinyl. I plan to put it back on, but it’ll be a while before that happens. I figured it was a little too much right now to attract attention. I’d post photos, but there really isn’t much point, right now the car is just a blue 350z that is a little lower than normal.

In honor of the occasion here’s some President’s of the United States of America, with Naked and Famous

Today was a practice day at the San Diego National Tour. This morning I took part in the Evolution School advantage program, basically you get a ton of seat time in the morning before the practice course opens up for the rest of the entrants for the National Tour. My r-comps were on a truck otw to the tour, so I ran my street tires for the morning session. I also had the car set at full soft (bump/rebound), most definitely not the configuration needed, and my evo instructor Brian let me know.

He knew me (not to be cocky, a lot of autocrossers do because of my involvement with SCCAForums.com and announcing at events throughout the years), but he made the mistake of assuming I knew what I was doing Open-mouthed smile. He assumed I knew about suspension setup, I corrected him, and asked for help! He was very helpful and provided me some guidance to try things out.

In the morning sessions on street tires (Azenis 615s, decent tires) I got down to 30.0*, not bad, but nothing near the 27.* that a SS Z06 was running.

I also had a horrendous knocking coming front the front end of the car, though that wasn’t new, it was happening all week. When I put the new bushings in I failed to apply any grease to them (other than when they went into the control arms).  My father is here in town to watch me run at the tour, so we headed over to autozone to get some white lithium spray grease to try to help with the knocking. I thought, there was no way that it would help, but geez, it’s amazing how much quieter the car is now.

When the tires showed up I got them put on and adjusted the Konis a bit, then went back out and ran a few more practice runs to see how the car felt.

I got faster on each run, finishing with a 28.555. Still not up to snuff against that Z06, but definitely better than I had been doing in the morning.

I ended up going with the following settings on the Konis

Front Double Adjustable Truechoice Coilovers
Rebound:
1 full turn from soft (2.5 turns is full stiff)
Bump: 6 clicks (12 or 13 clicks is full stiff)

Rear Koni Sports (single adjustable)
Rebound:
2.5 clicks (10 clicks available)

I’m still trying to get the time lapse video from drive down to San Diego yesterday together. I can’t get Windows Live Movie Maker working very well on my laptop. I’m hoping it finishes up here soon.

The night before an autocross, and I’m stoked for tomorrow, even if it rains (as forecasted). I got a replacement GoPro HD camera today in the mail.

For those of you who don’t know, I had a problem with my GoPro camera, which I use a LOT! I use it for autocross videos, and time lapse videos of working on the car. A few weeks ago I was working on the car doing a standard time lapse, but the camera freaked out. I came to find out that there was a bug in the camera software that would show up with time lapse mode after 10k (I think) photos were taken. It was a known bug though, and there was a firmware update for the camera to fix the bug.

So I applied the firmware update, but something during the process failed and the camera ended up “bricking” which basically means it wouldn’t work. You couldn’t power it on, you couldn’t use it, nothing, it was as useful as a brick. Since I got the camera for xmas it was still under warranty so I contacted GoPro about getting it fixed, while it took a bit of back and forth via email with their customer service reps, they provided me with an RMA number to send it in.

This was a couple of weeks ago, right before a 2 day autocross and right before we were heading out of town for vacation, so I didn’t get the camera mailed out until Tuesday of this week. On Thursday I got an email from them saying that they had a replacement camera ready to mail out, but I hadn’t included a return address. I replied with our address, and then on Friday I got an email saying it would go out. It is nice that we live about 15 miles from their headquarters because the camera showed up today via USPS.

I’m not positive that the firmware fix has been applied to this camera yet, but I’m going to leave it as is for now. I want to use it at the autocross tomorrow, so I don’t want to run the risk of bricking it again!

How was today?

COLD AND WET!

Hard to see but there is snow on them thar hills #autocrossBeyond that? Very cold and very wet. I went to Great America today for the SFRSCCA Divisional Autocross. I got there around 7am and put the Kumho tires on the car, big mistake! I was sort of drying out, the sky was almost clear, but the drive down there was rainy, and there was snow! You can’t see it very well in this picture, but yes, there was snow in the “hills” around the Bay Area.

So I installed the wheels/tires and walked the course a few times. The driver’s meeting got delayed, then the start of the event got delayed. Then the rain started back up Sad smile

Let me tell you this, Kumho V710s don’t work well when it is <40 degrees and raining. My first run I went out and it felt horrible, I turned a 66.*, I wasn’t too thrilled about that. Here’s a video of that run.

Flash Not Installed

But I was too lazy to go get my street tires (freshly mounted the previous night mind you). Big mistake, I went out on my second run and decided I would take things slower, expecting to actually go around the course faster. I slowed down and ran a 69.*. That broke this camel’s back, I ran off to get my street wheels, drill, and jack so that I could swap to the Falken Azenis RT-615s.

Thankfully Grant (in a Nismo 370z) followed me over and helped me bring 2 of the tires back to my grid spot. I don’t think I would have gotten them changed in time had he not helped! Thanks for the help Grant!

The Falkens were MUCH better, not perfect, but way better than the V710s in the rain. I managed to run a 60.*, a big improvement over the first two runs, though I just wish I had put them on before my second run, or even to begin with!

Here’s a video of the third run

Flash Not Installed

So what’s gone on so far in 2011? Let’s recap on this 33rd day of the year.

So far I’ve kept up with my blogging commitment, every day, You can find a list of all the blogs at https://www.chrishammond.com/

I’ve managed to post 33 photos of myself for #Flickr365 and 33 photos of Jacqueline for #Baby365. The baby is growing! She’s up to 13lbs 13oz last time she was weighed and in the 95th percentile for height at her age, a jump from her last measurement.

I’ve managed to autocross the 350z once already this year, and have at least 2 more events coming up this month, with a possible 4th as well.

The Super Bowl is coming this weekend, I’m ready for it, we’re going to finally get up to Fairfield and see some friends we haven’t seen in probably 8 months!

If you followed the blog post earlier this week you already know that Injen came through and got me the replacement midpipes for my Super SES Exhaust which I removed late last year.

Today I took the OEM exhaust off the 350z and put the Injen exhaust back on. The job itself is easy, probably could do it all in about 25 minutes if I really pushed it, but I didn’t. I took my time, cleaned up in the garage a bit, cleaned up the exhaust a bit as well. I also managed to weigh both the Injen exhaust and the OEM exhaust to see what the difference was. I was hoping it would be more!

Read the full blog post for photos and video!

So today’s blog post is going to be boring one, but hey, it’s my blog right? Was up late last night, working on a variety of things, but mainly on homework. I’m now halfway through the assignments for my Money and Banking course, I need to get my midterm exam setup somewhere here in the area and get finished up with the rest of the assignments to do the final. I have to be done by the 8th of February, as that’s when my online course expires!

Yes, it's true folks, the Project240z lives again! Check out the latest incarnation!

PHOTO REMOVED

So what if it is in a web based video game.

So this weekend’s goal was to get the Garage packed up and ready for the move. I didn’t get much done in there yesterday, mainly just a few things assembled on the 240Z (https://www.project240z.com) today however was a whole different story. I spent 9 hours in the garage, packing, cleaning, assembling, and throwing things out. I managed to get the car running, and even drove it around the circle (check out the 240Z site later for the video).

I packed up the things in the garage that I could get into a box or container. There are a few more things to pack up, but mainly it comes down to getting the boxes out of the garage and onto the trailer next weekend. I have quite a bit of stuff to throw away or scrap. A load of metal I don’t think I want to move, so I’ll try to find a scrap yard this week where I can go and maybe even get some $$$ out of the deal?

With the success last night I decided I had to work on the car this evening a bit. The first thing I did was get it up on all four jack stands so that they were under the frame and not under control arms of the car. This would allow me to begin working on the suspension pieces.

When I got the car from Jeff, uhhh over three years ago now, it came with a second suspension that had been pulled off another car. This other suspension has springs (yellow), new(er) struts, a larger front sway bar, and also the addition of a rear sway bar. It also is a lot cleaner then the current suspension. So tonight I started pulling off the front suspension, starting with the sway bar, and moving on to removing the rest, at least what I could, of the right front.

I got stuck at the tie rod, but I did manage to get most of the other bolts removed. I came to a conclusion though, I’m going to likely just drop the whole front suspension out, including the cross member as the second suspension has one as well. In order to do that though I am going to have to dismount the motor. I will attempt to do that by lifting the motor up off the mounts with the cherry picker, hopefully without having to disconnect the transmission and not removing the whole thing from the car.

Before I do that though I will likely fully disassemble the other suspension and take it to a friend’s house to sandblast everything. I’m heading to Tampa for a conference tomorrow, so that will have to wait until the evenings next week. I’ll try to get everything disassembled during the week, both front and rear suspensions, and then probably go down to his place Saturday if he’ll be around.

So here’s the time lapse video from yesterday’s garage sale. No audio, so turn up your Zune software if you need music to go along with it, what, you don’t have a Zune? You should!

What do you think? I think I need to get a power cord for the camera (if they make one) to prevent the times where I missed video because the battery ran out and I had to switch.

UPDATE: apparently I did add audio to it... uhhhh

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Chris Hammond

Chris Hammond is a father, husband, leader, software developer, photographer and car guy. Chris focuses on the latest in technology including artificial intelligence (AI) and has spent decades becoming an expert in ASP.NET and DotNetNuke (DNN) development. You will find a variety of posts relating to those topics here on the website. For more information check out the about Chris Hammond page.

Find me on Twitter, GitHub and LinkedIn.