I once 'accidentally' made wooden rotating 'propellers' in DT (to go onto the front of the battle robot). In the event, one of them flew off, and severed the other robot's hydraulics system. None of the teachers could believe it, and I got the luckiest win prize.
I got my finger caught in a gear mechanism and it tore out a chunk of flesh. Did I mention it was a LEGO gear system?
Ones where the other end are connected to a PC still trying to generate video output. PC survived actually, hand did carry on twitching for another half hour or so.
Ooh! Can I have a link, I've been looking for some cheap multimeters. On topic: I also have an old oscilloscope (Textronix 2465b) I plugged it in after doing a quick home PAT test and it was fine for a few seconds, then the tube exploded, muchos smoke, turns out it had essentially filled with water... I now have a very expensive smoke machine sitting in my room! Fun times.
once tried to hook up a ps1 without the original power cord or one like it. Just tried to put the stripped wires on the leads. Shorted 120v and there was a pop. lol. Another time i was trying to figure out why a fairly nice antec psu wasn't doing anything but making a whining sounds so i opened it up to check. While it was plugged in i touched one of the heat sinks and it shocked the hell out of me. Threw it out after.
I think we need a seperate thread for electronics builds and funny moments! Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk
Haha, very nice! Allways wanted to try that myself but did not do so yet. I used IR leds to build my own FreeTrack, which is the open source alternative for TrackIR. http://www.free-track.net/english/ All you need, beside the free open source software, is a webcam which has its IR filter removed, 3-4 IR led that have a wide beam angle, resistors and a battery. It worked very well and its quality was depending on the framecount and resolution of the webcam in use. Was playing ArmA2, Live for Speed and IL-2 Sturmovik with it, awesome fun! The stupid part of it is how you look with such a selfmade "helmet", check the point model gallery. http://goo.gl/5WQ8p2 edit: i guess i have to build one again for DayZ SA... once it has some more content and less bugs.^^
I have done that as well. It looks somewhat less goofy than some. But it's still weirder than the official Natural Point model.
In a way you are getting what you pay for, they all work but quality varies unit to unit (had 4 and none have been remotely identical yet). Ultimately they do work though. Bigger issue. This is the vendor I used: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190774031117?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 Current price appears to be £60, no idea what has happened there, was only about 2 months ago I got one for alot less. The location information appears to be correct. My ones were all post marked as originating in the UK and there is a place called deviltronics on the St Ives industrial estate. No idea why the price is listed as £60 right now, they certainly arent worth that much xD Probably an error of some sort. Sadly I dont own an oscilliscope, but I saw a dude made a crude one with a parallax propeller and I have 2 propeller proto boards so might have to build one. The propeller is an awesome chip, 8 cores ftw \o/ Not a fan of the SPIN programming language they push and the C api isn't as well documented, but you can get buy. Freetrack I may have to look into.
Didn't seem too stupid at the time, but now it does (and not in the way you think). About 2 years ago I bought a Traxxas SVT Raptor 1/10 scale RC car, basically a re-shelled Slash. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up. Well, it was advertised as waterproof, so I ran it for about 3 months several times a week by using a hose to turn my driveway into a skidpad. Also drove it in the snow. Fast forward about a year, and it mysteriously stops working. Turns out I'd stripped the main gear. Sat for a few months before I decided to buy a new gear, installed it about 6 months ago. This most likely happened from jamming it from full power forward to full reverse a lot to get it to slide. Finally running again last fall. There was an annoying corn maze across the street (idiots kept parking in our lawn), so my brother and I decided to annoy the people there by running it in there. And the car has a top speed of 25-30 mph. Turned out to be very fun, but it was empty by that time. We were going to return to it the next day. While driving it back into the garage, it started making weird screechy noises (I assumed from the gearing). I looked up the problem, and it seemed to be a problem with the slipper clutch (basically a clutch disk under the main gear to keep the engine from being damaged by instantly going to full power from a dead stop. Spent the next day trying to get the clutch adjusted so it would work right, but nothing worked. Also nearly lost the little rubber seal over the access hole to the clutch adjuster. Gave up and it sat until a few weeks ago, when I asked a friend what the problem could be. He gave several possible problems, so I tested them in the basement. Didn't seem to be the problem. While adjusting the clearance between the small gear on the motor and the large gear that went to the transfer case, I moved the motor so it wasn't touching the larger gear, and rolled it. Turned out that the drivetrain wasn't the problem. I removed the motor, and learned that the motor was the problem. Basically, all my running in the wet probably caused this, so now I have a ruined motor and a quandary. Should I buy another motor of the same type ($15), or should I upgrade it to a brushless motor ($120, but doubles the speed and won't wear out as easily)? Also RC car related, I was driving it in the parking lot with a little camera attached to the bumper. Well, I decided that it would be a smart idea to drive it down some stairs. I went down them a few times without trouble. Then I did one more run a bit faster. Heard a bang, and when I got to the bottom and looked, the camera was dented pretty badly. Took it home, and it was dead. Also, the SD card didn't save the video when it died. It really sucked because I had been doing some awesome drifting on a baseball field in the same video. Sorry for the huge rant there, it was one of the few things I could think of for this. Also, does anyone else here like RC cars?
The traxxas motors are pretty bad for wearing out prematurely from what I hear, brushed motors do only have limited lifespans, ignore rust and lubrication though and they are fully waterproof. Brushless motors however are *NOT* waterproof, light splashing they will cope with, but you will want to spend on an actual waterproofed model (which usually needs a large heat sink compared to non waterproof counterpart as they cant allow air within the motor anymore) if its going to be submerged. I don't think its stupid, I think your just having fun with your truck and a part has inevitably worn out. Sometimes they can be repaired, but for the sake of fifteen bucks I would just get another. Oh, small and large gear. Gear on the motor is the pinion. The other one is often just called the spur (and doesnt have to be larger). I like RC, just havent been able to afford to buy one Want an SCX10.
I quite like R/C cars. I've got a Slash and a few others which are pretty fun to drive. I put some slick tires on the back wheels of the Slash from another Traxxas car I have, and I enjoy drifting it sometimes. As far as funny moments, I was driving my brushless E-Revo in a parking lot once, and I hit a curb going about 40 MPH. One of the wheels, rolled right off, and the other was pretty badly damaged. Good thing my local hobby shop fixed it up without it costing too much.
Cool, I guess you're more into rock crawling? And I knew about the names, but didn't use them so that peeps wouldn't get confused. - - - Updated - - - Nice, I did something somewhat like that before. My first proper-ish RC car was an Exceed Rally Monster, which has the crappiest ESC I've ever seen. Basically on-off power, and reverse only works occasionally. Anyway, I went to a track on a wet day and smashed it into a barrier within 30 seconds. Smashed the lower steering/suspension link and couldn't get parts from the shop. Still drive the thing occasionally because it's crazy fast for such a small car (also 1/10 but a good couple inches shorter than the Raptor). And it can do doughnuts at 20mph because the tires have no grip. The 4WD system isn't brilliant. Seriously, the RWD Raptor is way less talihappy than that thing.
here a stupid thing i did: I was visiting a friend and we were messing around on our BMX bikes and i noticed there was a fence across the road. We built a ramp so we could jump it since im only 15 right now and it happened 3 months ago. i invited some more friends over to see who could jump over the fence the highest. when i looked at the fence i saw it was electric and thought it was off. We had jumped it a lot already and i was coming for my final jump at my back tire slips off the ramp which resulted of me flying into the fence. i found out that i was still on. i actually got tangled within the fence and passed out. the next thing i remember was waking up in the emergency room and i had to get a tetanus shot to be safe. (that shot really hurt!) And yet im still doing stupid stuff like that today. so NO lessen learned there
the funny things I have done is that I drive one handed because if I drive the normal way my mind is in conflict with itself and the only way I can resolve that conflict is driving with my right hand...and leaving my left hand to deal with the gears...haha
One time at the lake, we were tubing behind the jetski. It was me, my friend and my sister. In the cove, my dad got on the tube and let me pull it with the ski. So I started doing circles in the cove, and I wasn't really thinking, and the tube was going way faster than the jet ski and apparently I was pulling it REALLY REALLY fast and in a circle. Pretty sure my dad fell off first, and everyone's like "that's the fasted I've ever gone on a tube" "wow that was scary". I really wish I was on there, because my dad never pulls it fast or crazy enough to flip us. I've gotten really "good" at riding it though, so I guess it's kinda my fault too. One time we ended up flipping and then flying around up in the air and I held on. I have attached a picture of the tube. It's really a great one.
Last summer my Aunt thought I broke my back when I hit the water from a gnarly tubing accident (I was just shaken up, it didn't hurt at all). Me and my cousin (who is considerably smaller than me so the tube was off balance to begin with) were both going crazy on the tube. We were probably going around 35-40 mph because the lake wasn't particularly choppy that day. Well as we were tubing, we didn't notice a storm rolling in. Within seconds the wind started to pick up and the lake got real choppy real fast. We were still going ~40 mph when we hit the edge of the wake causing the tube on my cousins side to lift in the air. We then hit a massive wave propelling me 15 feet into the air and smashing into the water at 40 mph. Needless to say I was done after that. I tried to stand up on the teak platform of the boat, but my legs collapsed from shaking and all energy was drained from my body. My dad was laughing hysterically while my Aunt was balling her eyes out. Apparently she thought I broke my back or something (I probably would've if those life-vests weren't so protective). I was done for that day, but the next day I went back out and had a bunch of fun and only fell off once
One time when I was 7, I was fishing out on a dock, and my normal fishing pole was nowhere to be found, and there was this really damn big bass (big for a 7 year old; it was about as big as I was) almost directly under the dock, and I got it with this super tiny Spongebob fishing pole that could maybe catch a minnow, but I managed to fall off the dock. My dad had to grab hold of the fishing line, to avoid breaking the pole, and needless to say, we caught it. Very fun day.
