K2 - Night Thirteen

Tonight was a quick night at the bunch. I managed to to attach about 34 more capacitors
on the main RF board. Not too exciting but it is work that needs to be completed
to be able to move onto the next section.

I have about another hour of work and then it will be time to start winding the inductors.

It was hard to focus on the K2 project tonight. The combination of late spring snow
(which will probably cancel our camping trip this weekend) along with the 2008
recession (the constant bad economic news) has me in a kind of funk.




I am looking for a couple of sunny 70 degree days and
a road trip with my camera to straighten out my mood and to get me thinking about
spring in a positive way.

May Snow in Minnesota - Does not sound like Roo weather

I am watching the weather on NOAA
web site. I am trying to decide if we are going camping this weekend. Right now
the forecast is not looking too good

How does that work?  At first it does not sound very favorable for snow...
so I am thinking that we might see a couple of flakes overnight... but not a big deal...
then the next sentence is talking about a couple of inches of snow.



Come on... this is a May forecast that we are talking about... give me a
break!

Roo Season is almost here

We hope to take the Rockwood
Roo out this weekend. You would sure think that by first weekend in May the weather
would be nice enough to hit the road.




The forecast for this weekend is looking iffy right now. Rain on Thursday and Friday
with a chance of snow Friday night. Low 50's on Saturday and mid 50's on Sunday. We
are only going about 75 minutes away for a short shake-down trip to Sibley
State Park...




......but still that weather is well, yuck. 

I changed out the batteries in the smoke and CO2 detectors tonight. I also packed
up some of the blankets and sleeping bags and put then in the storage under the couch.
I spent some time looking around inside and planning some storage mods for the 2008
season.



I am reserved but hopeful that we can hit the road on Friday afternoon for Sibley
State Park

Roo Chocks

I built the chocks yesterday and assembled and tested them tonight. Right now I just
have it setup for one of the trailer. We will try it out and see if we need one for
the other side. Initial testing seems to show an improvement in stability.

I used 4x4 lumber that I had in my scrap pile. There are two pieces cut about 7 inches
long with 25 degree taper on each end. I used a 3/8" thread rod with jam nuts on one
end and a small piece of threaded steel plate in the middle of the other block. (I
cut the block in half, add the threaded plate and then glued the block back together.)

/Blog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=b5fe98f7-792f-43dd-986b-e06171411bb8

The link above will point you to some of my research notes. I will try to post a picture
when time permits.

Wheel Chocks for the Roo

I decided to splurge and get some better wheel chocks for our Rockwood Roo. One challenge,
the Roo has the axles very close together. I stopped at CW to look at my options (I
need some other small items anyway) and decide get the BAL
Deluxe Locking Chock. It is very nice except that it needs 2.5 inches of clearance...
I knew that it was going to be close... but not that close. I will need to stop by
CW and return it this week since it does not fit.

It should have looked like the picture below except that the picture below has axles
that are 6"+ apart.

I am also considering the Rotochock...
but it is a little more than I really want to spend.

Or maybe I will go the cheap skate route and do
something like this:

RV's in the winter (I thought it was spring)

So, it is April 26th in central Minnesota. Last weekend I brought out Rockwood Roo
23B from from storage. Since spring had arrived and it had been above freezing for
a couple weeks I thought it was time to un-winterize the trailer. I blew out the antifreeze
and then filled the water tank with fresh water and took care of all of the waterlines.

Well this morning it is below freezing with a mild blizzard outside. (It is really
white with blowing snow... some parts of the state not to far aware are under a blizzard
warning.)

Ok... I will start up the electric heater (since the trailer is plugged into shore
power) and drain the water lines. Easier said that done. All of the rain yesterday
iced up the door locks. So I went and found my small propane torch and warmed up the
locks so that I could get the key in. 45 minutes later all of the waterlines and the
water heater are drained and blown out with compressed air. I have a small portable
electric heater running in the camper to keep it about freezing since there still
might be a little water trapped in the lines.

I almost went camping last weekend.... this weekend I need to shovel snow. At least
the snow should be gone by Tuesday with some luck. Now it is time to get back to my
scheduled projects for Saturday that don't involve snow or ice.

Spring Snow

It is April 26, 2008..... we just got a couple of inches of snow overnight. What the heck is that all about?  We had three days of 70'ish weather just a couple of days ago.

Robot Battle for kids

http://www.midwestroboticsleague.org/

Here is a robot battle league geared for high school aged kids. I think that we will
probably go watch on Sunday.

Initial Canon XSi photos and thoughts

I took a few quick photos with the new Canon XSi this afternoon and evening. The initial photos were nothing impressive from a subject point of few.... but the technical image quality was incredible. Moving from an 8 megapixel to a 12 megapixel camera with a newer processor is a huge improvement in the image quality.



I am looking forward to getting into the field for some landscapes and/or lightning
photos. I am really excited about the image quality so far so I want to get some better
examples that stretch the camera a bit.

K2 - Night Twelve

It has been a while since I have spent any time working on the K2 project. Spring
is here so I am getting nervous that it will not be done in time for camping and Field
Day activities. There are so many other things going on that it is hard to find time
to dedicate to this project.

Tonight I sorted capacitors for quite a while. I got through about 2/3 of the capacitors
on the RF main board. These are easy enough to install assuming that you can find
the value that you are looking for and the matching label on the circuit board.



Since I have not posted pictures in a while and I have a new camera I thought that
I would include some photos of the project so far.

RF Main Board

Sorted capacitors

RF Main Board

K2 Control Board