In college, we did a lot of projects related to shooting freakin’ laser beams at weeds to kill them. Mostly, the work was about trying to recognize weeds, instead of building the lasers.
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Please don’t tell my wife - she’s something of a pyro-technician with her map gas powered flame thrower, a laser might send her over the edge!
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I don’t suppose the cost of this is an affordable number of zeroes.
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Bah!! It’s less than the cost of a tank of diesel in the camper! 
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I absolutely love this!!!
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Keep building LR4’s as orders come in and continue building 3DTMT Wheel Chairs!!! These chairs have been one of the most rewarding things we have ever done! We have delivered 6 so far, and got the pleasure of meeting 3 of the families!
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I’ll mostly be following the open source farmbot project. FarmBot | Open-Source CNC Farming
To placate Britt, maybe try to swap out some of the rails for conduit and lowrider styles of movement. But this is a longshot; its already April and 3/4 weekends are already taken up with travel and weekdays somewhat busy as well.
I think your weed muncher is a pretty good way to go.
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First project from the LR 4 completed:
Next is to make one of these, but life-sized:
Also just ordered a K60…. So making a mount for that beast may be top priority.
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The garden is looking great. It won’t be much longer and I’ll be harvesting squash and cucumbers. WooHoo
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Nice! And timely… Happy Earth day, fellow Earthlings!
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Some kind soul cleared out some of the stuff in the garage and decided my next home improvement project for me…
The lock on the bay door was pried off and everything that was in convenient, ready to carry containers or bags that had much worth (or apparently play value) went missing. Some stuff is really puzzling, like.my old SNES and Commodore 64 seem to be missing. The air tool kit and welder tote are a bit more understandable. My old R/C cars are saddening. I had a couple of nice vintage 1/10 scale cars that will be impossible to replace, and I’ll miss them. I’ve got to stop putting kendo stuff in the garage. The carry bags seem to be too tempting.
Everything that was on the shelves is now on the floor. Well not everything, there’s still some stuff on the shelves if it obviously wasn’t worth going through.
I am so tired of this crap.
So, the project is:
- New garage doors, lock mechanism, hinges
- Some sort of network connectivity to the garage, and a few ESP32-Cam cameras to take video. Maybe some sort of intrusion alarm.
- Clean up the mess and re-arrange shelving. Maybe even some new shelving, as stuff was kind of crammed into not enough space. Looking on the bright side, it’s an excuse to finally get to doing some of this stuff…
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Oh! I’m late, but my spring project (once I get the DARNED strut plates cut) is a folding bed of nails with offset hinges, that will use aluminum nails and fit into a small suitcase. The complicated bit will be the design of the hinges, because they have to simultaneously support the performer, align the nail beds into a single surface, and lock down the positioning consistently. The LR4 will definitely cut the bed plates (1/8” or 1/4” MDF backing and 1/2" or 3/4” plywood with the actual holes for the nails and recesses for the heads).
When I’ve made this in the past I or my wife have hand drilled everything with a drill guide and then cut the nail-head recesses with a plunge router and a depth stop, and having a robot do it will be the best thing I’ve ever done :D.
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Say what?
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Haha yeah I know a bunch of circus and sideshow performers, and I perform myself occasionally. I’ve become the “weird prop lady”.
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I would suggest skipping the DIY/ESP32 for this one. If you want real security, it needs to look like real security and my esp32s were ok, but not enough for even a homelab system like frigate. Dammitjeff on youtube just posted a video a few weeks back about how to make the commercial offerings more privacy friendly. That’s where I would start if I were to do it today.
I’m sorry you were robbed. That really sucks. Especially because they probably got almost nothing for your very valuable stuff.
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Ahhh, Spring you say! The season that comes before winter! 
I’ve been having jabs to stave off all those nasty bugs and feeling a bit sedentary for a few days so a dose of screen time fixed all.
It looks as though Emirates are planning to flay again just in time to pick us up in around four weeks, so there’s a little bit of early onset panic happening!
I’ve been back on the Globe580 project for a few days - just modelling so we can make some final decisions on some of the details before starting work. My friend has entered the single handed round the world race in 2029 so construction has to commence in the next few weeks.
Hopefully I’ll get a half-model cnc’d later in the year - a spring project for me - so see you in September for that one!
But another friend wanted a wall mount for his new garage door opener, and that was a pretty satisfying project this morning and as a bonus it printed nicely and fitted perfectly first time!
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Well,for budget, a couple of things that my garage would need for actual security are doors that can’t be pried open or kicked in in less time than it takes to properly unlock them, which at present it does not have.
The bay doors have been in bad shape for the past 16 years. Most of the security was that the stuff in there wasn’t really all that valuable. you’re right, the thief/thieves probably got very little for it, though it will cost quite a bit to replace. The R/C cars and some other stuff probably won’t even be sellable, so unless they just want to play with them, they’re not real profit. Mostly I think it’s the post-covid increase in homelessness and substance abuse issues that drove someone to get as far as breaking into my garage. Property crimes in this city have been increasing year over year.
But… Yeah, I’ve been looking at some whole home security upgrades as well. Probably video surveillance will be as part of the equation. I just have to bite the bullet and put up something that won’t be more likely to be stolen than to prevent a theft. The idea of the ESP32 cameras is that they’re cheap enough to just replace in bulk, so if I put those on the exterior, I can save the pictures locally, and have redundant cameras. Actual security cameras might be worth enough for someone to slip a balaclava on and rip off of the walls. Anyway, other projects on hold until something gets done about this.
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If you want to check out the video I referenced:
Reolink isn’t too expensive. The esp32 cams I used gor about 1 frame per second and they were about 640x480. They were cheap, but by the time you ran power or PoE, the camera wasn’t the major cost.
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This is what I have here at the house and they have been great for me.
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