Chandelier drawing – 2013
What we do: use CAD to create shop drawings for our fabricator clients.
Software: SolidWorks (95%) | AutoCAD (5%)
Clients: NYC area metal fabricators
I am always struggling to make things easier when creating models. This week I am experimenting – I have remapped my “~” key to be a decimal point. This way I don’t always have to move my left hand off the keyboard when entering dimensions. So far it has been pretty helpful. (The silly label you see is only for this pic)
I use the SharpKeys program to change the mapping – which has been pretty handy over the years, since I like to use an Apple keyboard on a Windows machine AND I use the incredible SYNERGY software to allow me to control both mac & pc with same keyboard/mouse.
UPDATE 10/27/16: This hack began to be unreliable – causing lots of erratic keyboard behavior, so I abandoned the attempt. Instead I bought a wireless numeric keypad to put on the left side of my keyboard, which is a much better long term solution.
Pic of the day of Georgia.
Really happy to hear NASA scored a win with JUNO’s successful orbit around Jupiter. Fantastic work!
Awhile ago I pulled both my blog & Wilsonbuilt’s old website offline and I’ve put them back up – for the moment. For all those who are interested – the old Wilsonbuilt website covers work that I did long ago (the most recent project on the website is from 2012). Wilsonbuilt no longer does any fabrication work. Occasionally we will do some light machining or quick assembly for one of our design clients, but for the most part our business is ONLY design services & shop drawings.
I use a PC every day. I also use a mac every day. My workhorse, the PC ( a Dell Precision T1650), is for CAD work – Solidworks, Rhino, AutoCad. The mac (a workhorse 2008 MacBook Pro with a great 17″ screen and a 500Gb SSD) is for pretty much everything else – emails, some web surfing, timekeeping, bookkeeping, image editing etc. Tying together these two computers and their files has been a slow evolution to a pretty great system which I thought I’d share:
The last years have seen so many changes – It’s been so long since I’ve actually made anything. These days most of what I do is 3D modelling with Solidworks and creating shop drawings for a few metal fabrication clients. Every once in awhile I get a small fabrication job or installation, but it’s all a spin of the mouse now-adays….
I’m spending too much time at the computer(s) doing detailing these days, so no work pix. Oh well. Links it is.
Computer Virus Catalog – a nice site that catalogs history’s computer viruses, along with cute graphics to make it less scary…
How to turn a pencil drawing into a capacitive sensor – who knew? (pencil = graphite = carbon = conductive-ish ….OK)
And a related : Pencil drawn Piano with Arduino.
Kinda related: A Banana Piano
I LOVE this : The bttn : A stand-alone (and nice lookin) button that can interface with the web. Can’t wait to have a few.
I wish I’d thought of this, but I’ll settle for seeing it: An illuminated swing set at Green Mountain Falls in Colorado.
Funny : Things that don’t need to exist. I especially like the campfire phone battery charger.
Actually… now that I’m looking at it, the battery charger thing is kind-of awesome. I’d leave that off the “Don’t Need to Exist” list and put it on another titled: “Things that probably shouldn’t have to exist according to some pastoral set of ideals, but are pretty cool anyway.” Here’s a better link to it.
Some time ago I had to quote an electronics project for a client (I can’t remember what it was) and it needed to rotate 360 degrees. I probably found something on the web or designed something myself that would handle the electrical connections at the axis, but it was a great deal of expense or trouble. So what do I find while surfing over at Adafruit? Just the thing – a miniature 12-conductor slip ring. Fantastic.
