Hawk’s Babble-Log

I took a PHP 5 test recently. I was actually looking forward to it. I had forgotten what it was like to take a test (it’s been a long time).

The first question went something like this:

$a = 1;
echo (++$a * $a++) + $a;

What is the output?

I thought, “This is CAKE!” I got it wrong. That set the theme for the whole test. Throughout the entire test, I was trying to do bit-shifting, modulus, and other math equations in my head. I got ‘em all wrong. I did not get all the questions on the test wrong, just the ones about stuff I don’t use and the ones requiring me to do math in my head. I was never all that great at math, but I understand formulas pretty well. As it turns out, it was a suppressive test. Let me explain…

If I were to go through the documentation for PHP, pick out the most obsecure and difficult items, and then build questions and queries around these, requiring the person to do math in their head, then I would have a suppressive test. Does it test if the person can use PHP to do something useful?

To be fair, not all questions were like this. In fact, I got a simple one wrong. It was the one about the function which converted an array to a string with a string seperator between each element. I chose explode() instead of implode(). I totally got it wrong and realized my mistake after I had hit the submit button. I made this mistake because I was so upset about failing most of the test.

After this test, I began to doubt my own abilities with PHP. I thought to myself, “Well, maybe I don’t really know PHP…” Then I took a look at my products. A “product” is that thing which you were trying to create (or a service), which is complete, and is valuable (can be exchanged for something).

I get products almost every day with PHP. I built a full singles website in L.A.M.P. (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). It works, I just haven’t done anything with it. I wrote it all from scratch. I wrote a mailing list manager in PHP from scratch for work and they love it so much they wrote me a commendation. I wrote a database interface for a specific application in PHP and it works wonderfully. In fact, I can think of about 6 I’ve written, from scratch, in PHP, and they all work. I wrote an online focus-group system composed of about 38 scripts, MySQL on the backend, and about 17,000 lines of code, and it all works. I wrote it all from scratch over many years. I have created web-based systems in L.A.M.P. (from scratch) which I can’t talk about, but which are products. They work, are complete, and are valuable. So I can get products with PHP.

I’m getting so good these days that I can write something, a function, for example, from top to bottom, including an SQL query, make it return the data properly, and it works the first time.

After thinking about my products with PHP, I realized it was a suppressive test. The average for this test is 50%. I got 33%. Some of the ones I got wrong, I should have gotten right. I was upset that I was getting so many of them wrong, and I was on a timer. Being under the gun on a time schedule is always annoying. It’s like playing chess with a time limit; my mind is on the clock, not the game. As it turns out, I should not have been concerned with the time as I had plenty of it.

Much of the test was about bit-shifting. I don’t use bit-shifting except in the config file. I don’t use it in every-day programming. It would have been better to focus on aspects of PHP which were in every-day use. Some of the test was about modulus. I don’t know how to do modulus in my head. Here’s how I use modulus in every-day programming:

$alternating = ( 0 == $count++ % 2 ) ? 'alt_1' : 'alt_0';

… which alternates the background colors of rows so that they are easier to differentiate. Here’s another example:

if( 0 == $row % 10 ) echo $table_header;

If you do a database query and get 10,000 rows of results, then throw them all into a table, you’re going to have a very long webpage. If a person is scrolling down this mile-long list of results and stops on a certain row and says, “Wait a sec here… which column is this?” Now they’re going to have to scroll all the way back up to the top of the list to see the table header and the column names, then scroll all the way back to where they were. To solve this problem, I repeat the table headers every x number of rows (usually 10). This is very useful, I use it all the time. But if you look at the results of my test, you might say to yourself, “This guy doesn’t even know how to use modulus!”

To find out if someone can get products with PHP, give them a task and let them do it in PHP. This is how you find out if someone is competent in PHP.

When in school, I met a guy who could practically ace any test. He did this by memorizing. He’d memorize any datum he could, any datum which might be on a test. He tested very well, got high scores. I never did that, instead focusing on using the material.

This guy I’m talking about, he had a hard time using his material. This is because he didn’t really know it. Instead, he memorized it. So if he were asked to do a task with the material, he could not do it. But he could ace the test! He had trouble applying his memorized data.

When at SpeedyClick (a dot-gone), a network admin was hired to help maintain the internal network. This guy had certifications all over his resume. It was very impressive. No one gave him a task to see if he could do it or to see how he would handle it. He didn’t know his stuff, didn’t know his data. When we asked him to handle a problem, all he could do was restart the server. One time, I witnessed him daisy-chain a bunch of hubs together in a rack. That’s the most inefficient way to connect up a series of hubs, creating the most number of hops and the most collision-prone network path. He probably tested well, but he couldn’t apply his data. We let him go within his first month.

This is the difference between memorizing data, and knowing it. When the rubber meets the road, you should understand your subject, not just memorize the data so that you can pass the test.

While at SpeedyClick, when I was hiring a Perl programmer, I did not give the candidates a Perl test. Instead, I had the person sit down at my station and bang out a Perl script which would output a 10 x 10 grid of random numbers to a browser window. This script only required basic Perl skills to complete. And the random part wasn’t even important. It could have been consecutive numbers. That was not the point. The point was to see if they could perform a simple task in Perl. Some could do it, some couldn’t. Some got up and walked away.

So… if you know your stuff and take a test on it and don’t do so well, don’t get upset. Realize it was a suppresive test and move on.

If you can create products (that work, are complete, and are valuable), don’t let a test shake your certainty. Rock on.

This post has a lot of images. Why? Because I wanted to show what is involved in installing a CPU cooler like this one. Actually, once I started, it didn’t take very long; did it in one evening and finished before bedtime. Who knows… maybe this will be useful to someone!

Here, I’ve removed the original plastic bracket which surrounds the CPU socket. This bracket was used to lock down the original heatsink & CPU fan. See previous game machine posts for detailed pictures of the motherboard and CPU as I assemble them together into the case.

Here, I’ve removed the metal bracket which lays across the CPU on the back of the motherboard. When buying this CPU cooler, I had no idea it would entail removing the entire original brackets. Well, live and learn.

Here are the parts, old and new. Near top-right are the old back-bracket, front-bracket, and heatsink with fan. The new brackets are below, and the new heat-sink is the huge tower of heatpipes and heatfins near center, the Thermalright Ultima90. Bottom is the new fan, way too big but what the heck, let’s see if it fits anyway. It glows evil red, you’ll see, keep reading. That screwdriver, by the way, is one of the most useful screwdrivers I’ve ever used; you can find it at Thinkgeek.

Here, I’ve got the new back-plate installed. It was easy. The instructions which come with it are pretty good, but the stuff they’ve got online is better.

The new support posts are visible here. I’ve already removed all the old thermal paste from the CPU. I used paper towels or small squares of toilet paper to get it off. Be careful with the stuff, the tiniest spec may short out your motherboard There is no new plastic bracket which surrounds the whole CPU area. You’ll see, keep reading…

Here, I’ve put the new thermal paste on, Arctic Silver 5. Good stuff. I used the flat edge of the knife pictured here (it’s not good for much else as it has a tendency to close on your fingers when prying with it). Be sure to spread it nice and thin. Also, you may notice that the two new side-brackets are installed on the posts from the back-plate.

Here, I’ve got the new thermal paste on the bottom of the CPU cooler tower of heatfins and heatpipes. Spread it nice and thin, as even as you can. Use a square of toilet paper or tissue paper to wipe up any excess.

Finally, the new gigantic tower of heatpipes and heatfins (Thermalright Ultima90) is installed on the CPU with plenty of thermal paste, (Arctic Silver 5). I call this tower the “Tower of Coolness”. Makes the motherboard look small. Hell, it makes everything else in my case look small! I had concerns that the side of my case wouldn’t fit. As it turns out, this is sort-of true. You’ll see… wait until I put the huge CPU fan on!

Here’s how the Tower of Coolness is fixed to the top of the CPU. Those two side-screws are connected to the two brackets on either side of the CPU, and those two side-brackets connect to the back-plate. So there is lots of good, solid, non-damaging leverage here. The two side-screws hold down the base of the tower using springs which push down upon a flat cross-bar. The flat cross-bar pushes down upon the top of the base of the tower. This cross-bar piece has a pointed dent in the center, visible in the previous picture, which seats perfectly into the top of the base of the tower. This is the only pressure on the Tower of Coolness, and the only thing holding it onto the CPU. All of these components are visible in this shot. If you look carefully, you can see some of the thermal paste squishing out between the top of the CPU and the bottom of the cooling tower (maybe I put too much on).

Here’s the new CPU fan! It’s huge! It’s taller than the huge stack of heatpipes & heatfins which make up the Tower of Coolness. I think I’m overdoing it a bit here. Oh well, gonna be cool!

Here’s another angle of the new gigantic CPU fan.

Once it’s installed, it will blow air straight up into the power supply’s huge 120mm fan. Perfect.

Here, the mobo has been re-installed in the case, the power supply is also in place, and I’m almost done. Those of you who work with fans like this one may notice that I’ve got it installed backwards; it’s facing down, so it would be sucking air down instead of blowing air up. I realized this mistake and turned it around later on, but didn’t get a picture of it.

Oooo, coool! It’s back in operation and glowing with fantastic red evilness! Everything still works perfectly.

The evil red CPU fan is directly under the tower of coolness, blowing air straight up, where the heat gets sucked through the power supply and out the back of the case. The side of the case no longer fits; the huge 120mm CPU fan sticks out too far. I’ll replace it with a smaller, 80mm fan soon.

OoooOOO! Evil red CPU fan spinning away, good evil glowy red goodness. Just to the right you can still (barely) see the lights on top of the high speed gaming RAM. The blue fan to the left is the one that came with the case, and I’ll be replacing all the original blue fans with red ones soon.

I sure don’t have to worry about my CPU overheating!

Dear Jeff,

I have a lot of respect for you. I think you’ve done amazing things with Amazon.com. Indeed, truly remarkable things. When idiot investors were walking away from your presentations, you were creating the amazing future which eventually became Amazon.com.

Example: You started Amazon.com as a book store, then just took it to the moon. Outstanding!

Example: Amazon created wish-lists. I don’t know if y’all were the first, but amazon.com was the first site I found that did wish-lists. This made it easy for me to keep track of the items I was saving up for.

Example: Amazon One-Click. It’s very convenient, fast, and easy to set up. Makes shopping on amazon.com a cakewalk! No one else did that, and not many other sites do that now either.

Example: Amazon Associates. Made it possible for me to have an online bookstore without the actual bookstore (or moviestore, etc.).

Example: Amazon Marketplace. I’m not saying eBay hadn’t hit the mark first, but you guys there did a bank up job on the Marketplace and I still find amazing deals there, when I don’t want to pay full price, or when it’s out of print.

Example: Amazon MP3. I like being able to buy the songs that I like on an album, instead of being forced to buy the whole thing. In the past, I have purchased CDs for just one song on the disc. The downloaded MP3 is high bit-rate, and not DRM’ed. This is a big point, as I can put it on any of my audio player devices (like my phone).

Example: Amazon Unbox. I just may use Unbox for all my video purchases. I’m kinda undecided on it, but it’s still intriguing. I can buy a movie and start watching it within about 10 minutes (sometimes less) right on my big-screen computer. Nobody beats 10-minute shipping. Plus, it’s there for me forever (can’t lose it); that’s a big plus.

And finally… The Amazon Kindle. Wow! I love it! I just LOVE IT! This is the device that I want all my stuff on. This is the one. It’s just the right size, in my humble opinion, because I can slip it into my side pants pocket (even with the cover on). I love all it’s features, except the DRM’ed books. I can only read ‘em on the device, not anywhere else; that’s a minus.

From my perspective, it looks like you are giving us people/consumers what we want. I think this is exactly the right thing to do. How do you know what we want? Do a survey. Doing surveys with enough people will give you a very accurate picture of what we want.

In a Charlie Rose interview with Marc Andreessen (creator of Netscape), Marc spoke about the Kindle. He said something like, “Oh, Kindle, I mean, it’s just–it’s gigantic.” He then went on about form factors… “The iPhone with a sort of three or four inch screen… a laptop or netbook with a 12 or 14 inch screen… and now you’ve got the Kindle with a sort of seven inch screen.” He and Charlie Rose go on to talk about others making a bunch of little “pads”, or “net pads”… Marc continues: “Somebody will figure it out. That thing, I mean, the Kindle does books and magazines and newspapers, but that form factor and that shape of a device and that weight in a couple of years is going to be doing video, it’s going to be doing music, it’s going to be doing video conferencing. It’s going to be doing telephony. It’s going to be doing Web browsing. It’s going to be doing everything, right? And so that’s the next — one of the fascinating things is that’s the next screen size and the next killer device, I think, is what’s going to happen.

In a recent interview, you were asked about putting other media (such as video) on the Kindle, and you said something like, “Would you use a Swiss-army knife at the dinner table?”

Actually, I would. But that’s because I’m a geek. And I have used a Swiss-army-knife-style spoon-and-fork thingy for eating a whole meal. It worked quite well, no problemo.

Anyway, here’s my point: I (the consumer) want a device just like the Kindle, which can do e-books (just like it does now), play my MP3s (with all the features of an iPod), full color e-paper, play movies (e-paper is almost there, you can watch demos on YouTube of video-capable e-paper now), with a big SSD (Solid State Disk) to hold my entire library (of everything, audio/video/ebooks/PDFs/etc), two additional SD card slots for my own SD cards, wireless access to the internet (just like it does now), GPS services (just like it does now), longer battery life, and a good internet browser for web surfing & email (such as Mozilla Firefox). You could even hook it in to Amazon Unbox and sell me movies directly to my Kindle. Cha-ching!

I would pay a lot for a device that did all that. I’d bet others would, too.

Cell phones come close, but they’re too small to read whole books on (plus they don’t use e-paper), and they’re also too small for movies/videos. The best a cell phone has going for it is that it’s already networked. I can do a lot with my little flip-phone: web, Gmail, Google Maps, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, texting, IMs, take pictures (and post them to Flickr), listen to my MP3s with sterio Bluetooth headphones, and so on, but it’s not a good e-book reader, and it doesn’t have a fast-enough processor for video.

Now, let me go back a step, back to before there was a Kindle. Sony had a pretty good e-book reader, but it wasn’t networked, you needed to have a computer to put the books into it, there were not a lot of e-books available for it, and it cost a friggin’ arm and a leg.

I would bet I could not have convinced anyone to put any money in to a project to create a cute little e-book reader which used e-paper, ran for days/weeks on a single charge, was networked (for free), had a deal with a big book-seller such as Amazon.com for all of it’s content, ran on a free, open-source operating system (Linux), and did all the other things (such as note-taking) that the Kindle does… and make it affordable. No way, bub. I would have been laughed at, all the way out the door.

Then Jeff Bezos creates and releases the Amazon Kindle. Bam!, now it’s possible. Before that, it was not within the realm of possibility. Now that it’s been released, the Kindle has shown that such a device is actually possible… and is really what people want.

NOW I could convince someone to make such a device. Indeed, I could convince someone (with money) to invest in a project to create the all-my-media-needs device described above, the one which is fully networked over the existing Sprint wireless network, portable (with long battery life), color e-paper, full-motion video, MP3/music player, with lots of storage, web browsing, email, VoIP, everything.

Google may already be working on such a device. Google has money to throw around, and they’ve got talent as well. Just look at what they did for cell phone operating systems with Android. They’ve also got a huge e-book project already in production, and one for the iPhone & G1.

The guy who owns that big news network, Rupert Murdoch, he’s got money to throw around. And he loves the Kindle. I’d bet he’s working on a device to do what you, Jeff Bezos, won’t let the Kindle become.

Let the Kindle fulfill it’s destiny. Create an API for it and let people play around inside it and create with it (just like Google’s Android OS for cell phones).

If you don’t, you will lose the market to devices which do what we want them to do, not necessarily what you want them to do. And if you lose the market, your dream of “everything ever printed available in the Kindle” will not happen.

Thanks for your time.

-Hawk
Humble Kindle owner

Time to put all this new stuff in the case! Here’s all the stuff I had at the time. Power supply, motherboard, 4G RAM kit (2 x 2G), AMD CPU, cables, connectors, manuals, stuff… see pic.

The Motherboard is an ASUS M3A79-T DELUXE, AMD 790FX chipset, ATX form factor, 4xPCI-E(x16) / 2XPCI / 4XDDR2, SATA2 RAID, 1GB lan, 1394 (firewire), lots of USB 2.0, and amazing audio capabilities. CPU type: AMD Socket AM2.

Power supply and motherboard installed in the case. I popped out the connector plate which came with the case, installed the one that came with the motherboard, and it all fits perfectly!

The RAM installed in the motherboard, and the CPU is ready, along with the CPU heatsink & fan.

The RAM is a CRUCIAL 4GB KIT (BL2KIT25664AL80A), high-speed gaming RAM set.

I like this motherboard because I can simply add two more 2G RAM sticks and double it. I’m not saying Windows XP will be able to use it (as of now, not all of my 4G is used), but I can expand it easily. This ease of expansion is important to me.

CPU installed. It went in easy as pie.

The CPU is an AMD ATHLON X2 7750 2.7G – Black. It was just under my pricepoint for this system. I can always upgrade.

And finally, the CPU heatsink & fan. Now I almost have a working computer.

I’ll probably replace this heatsink & fan with the kind I’ve got in my linux server; it looks like a tower of heatfins with a fan on the side.

Most of this stuff has been discontinued, but you can find suitable replacement components at mwave.com

So far, so good! More to come.

Here’s the new motherboard, RAM, video card and hard drive installed into the new case.

At this point, I still had the original heat sink and CPU fan. Later on, I swapped it out for a better one. More on that later.

It’s almost a new machine! I just need to add some power and I’ll be ready to boot it up for the first time. Also notice the position of the RAM; I started with it in the first two slots, the yellow ones. Later on, while I was debugging (what I thought was) a RAM problem, I moved ‘em over to the two red slots. More on that later.

This is my new kick-ass Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H motherboard. It’s a Socket AM2 with dual-channel DDR2 800 RAM (four slots), integrated ATI Radeon X1250-based graphics adapter, Dual PCI-E graphics interfaces which supports ATI CrossFire (though I probably won’t be using it here in my server… then again, I might), integrated SATA 3Gb/s (with RAID support… if I wanted one), 8-channel hi-def audio with S/PDIF in/out (and support for Blu-ray/HD DVD), and a gigabit ethernet adapter. I got it from mwave.com.

The processor is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5000+, and it also kicks ass. See that CPU fan? That came with it, and the CPU came pre-installed on the mobo because I paid an extra $10 to have it assembled and tested before shipping it out to me. BUT… that CPU heat-sink & fan is not the one I’m using now. More on that later.

Here it is installed into the case. I put insulator washers on both sides of the motherboard, just to make sure it was a good, snug, isolated fit. When one builds his own computer, one can use as many insulator washers as one pleases. As mentioned in the [previous article](http://jedihawk.com/hawksblog/?p=158), the connector backplate doesn’t fit, so I left it off.

Here’s one stick of the Crucial RAM, BL12864AA804 Ballistix 240-pin DIMM DDR2-800 PC2-6400, Unbuffered, non-ecc. I got this as part of a “kit”, meaning two sticks of 1Gb RAM sold together in it’s own cute little box. This is good because you need two sticks of RAM to take advantage of the “dual channel” feature of my mobo anyway. I got this from mwave.com also.

More to come.

I finally decided to upgrade my server. My server is also my primary workstation. It’s the one on the left when viewing my desk. This thing is so old that I’m a little surprised that it’s still running. I got it back in the late 90’s when I was working for Speedyclick.com (now a dot-gone). It’s a dual Pentium 2 running at 600MHz with a little over half a gig of RAM. Back then, it was really impressive.

Anyway, here’s my new case. It’s a Logisys clear acrylic CS888CL case, and I got it from frozencpu.com.

The only problem I had with it was when I tried to install the motherboard with the motherboard’s own connector backplate; it didn’t fit. At first I thought it was a problem with the case. I thought the mobo standoffs were too tall (a standoff is the cylindrical screw-receiving connector which holds the mobo to the left side of the case). Then I learned it wasn’t the case that was out of alignment, but the mobo’s own connector backplate. It was about 5mm off. I know the case isn’t to blame because the video card seated perfectly.

So I just left the connector backplate off and all is well.

There are two main types of connectors used in holding this case together: the L-shaped metal connector, and the cubical acrylic + metal threads connector. I think the L-shaped connectors should all be replaced with the cube-type; they’re much better and much more solid. The L-shaped connectors bend easily with your fingers. On the plus side, only the cube-type connectors are used when good structural support is required.

I’m very satisfied with this case and would recommend it. But I’d recommend you get it from xoxide.com, they’ve got lower prices than frozencpu.com and they’ve got a fantastic support forum.

More to come.

Yes, I am kinda addicted to milling and metalworking. No, that’s not what this article is about.

This article is about my new kick-ass Sherline milling vice and rotating base! Check it out!

These little guys are awsome. The rotating base is easy to set down onto the milling table, easy to lock into place, and it’s easy to rotate to virtually any angle. Both items are highly accurate and very well made.

In this view, the vice is mounted directly to the mill table. I do not recommend this setup because the milling vice is not firmly fixed to the table. When used with the rotating base, however, it is much more firmly fixed and has virtually zero chance of movement. It doesn’t wiggle at all.

I tried cutting an aluminum bar with just the vice fixed to the mill table. This worked okay, but the angle was a little bit off. See how messy my mill is? This is because my kick-ass 4-inch carbide-tipped saw blade really rips through aluminum like it were wood. Even though I’ve got the vacuum positioned right behind the saw blade, it still manages to throw little bits of aluminum all over the table.

Here, the milling vice is mounted to the rotating base, and the base is fixed firmly to the mill table. This setup works very well for cutting aluminum bars down to size. I’ve also got the vacuum positioned about as close as I can to help catch the aluminum flecks.

This is just a slightly different angle on the same setup.

This is a close-up of the saw blade doing it’s magic on that small aluminum bar.

The mill vise with rotating base:
http://www.sherlinedirect.com/…Product_ID=74

Just the mill vise:
http://www.sherlinedirect.com/…Product_ID=71

Just the rotating base:
http://www.sherlinedirect.com/…Product_ID=73

By the way, it costs less to get ‘em both together than it would to buy ‘em separately.

In summary: I’m very impressed with these two items. I have confidence that I can cut and drill virtually anything small enough to fit within the vice jaws.

I got a shop vac to help me clean up after I make a mess, and also to help control the small aluminum flakes I make when cutting.

This little guy is the Craftsman wet/dry shop-vac Clean ‘n Carry, with a 5.0 peak horsepower motor and 4 gallon capacity. I got it from OSH (Orchard Supply & Hardware) for about $70 or $80. I also got the extended warranty, just in case it breaks within the next few years. I do plan on using it a lot, after all.

It’s small enough to easily fit under my desk. It was the smallest 5.0 peak H.P. vac I could find in the store. I am quite satisfied with it.

Here, you can see how I’ve got the hose rigged up. The hose runs up from the vac on the floor, around the front of my workbench, and into a little hobby vice. The hobby vice is attached to the forward-backward slider of my milling machine, and it’s almost perfect for holding the vac hose in place. This way, when I’m cutting, the little aluminum flakes get sucked up by the vac rather than collect on my workbench or float around in the air.

I am very happy with this little shop vac. One might even say… it really sucks. Sorry, I couldn’t resist!

Literally: my new table vice. No, I haven’t started smoking anything, and I haven’t joined the millions of addicted World of Warcraft players. If I were to win the lottery, however… I may consider getting a WoW account, because, hey, at that point, I wouldn’t even need a life.

Anyway, this is my new table vice and I love it. It cost me a whopping $20 from Home Depot.

I mounted it to the side, near the corner, of my workbench. I couldn’t mount it on the corner as the workbench leg is fixed there. And I couldn’t mount it on the end because there are a few steel rods which run the width of the table right where the two left-hand supports would have gone. I discovered this the hard way: by drilling into the table and meeting steel.

Here it is, mounted on the long side, near the corner. It’s a good location as I can rotate the thing around 270 degrees and it hangs off the edge of the workbench nicely. It’s wide enough for just about anything I’m going to be doing; the box says 4 1/2 inches, but it’s more like 4 3/4 to 5 inches wide. I know because I ran it out far enough for it to fall off.

Mounting the vice
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First, I drilled some holes. The holes in the four corners of the vice base were huge, so I grabbed the largest drill bit I had: 3/8″. I made sure it fit within the holes of the vice base, then went to my local hardware store, OSH (Orchard Supply & Hardware) and bought some bolts, nuts, and washers. I had measured the thickness of the top surface of my workbench, and I made some allowances for the vice base and the washers, but the thickness of the edge of my workbench is a half inch greater. So I got several different lengths of bolts, just in case my measurements were a little off.

Here you can see I was pretty close with my length measurements. Well, close enough. It’s fixed good. One of the holes that I drilled was a little off, and I had to grease the bolt to get it down into the hole. I gently coaxed it down into the hole by hitting it repeatedly with my hammer. The bad part about this is that I was off in my placement measurements. The good part about this is that the vice ain’t moving. At all. Nadda. It’s tight and it’s fixed but good… even if the bolts and nuts weren’t tight. Now I just hope I never have to remove it!

Here it is holding a block of aluminum I’ve been workin’ on.

The first real use of my vice
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Here’s the first real use of my new vice. The part you see mounted came from under my vacuum. This part is responsible for raising up the fromt of the vacuum, to adjust the brushes for different heights of floor/carpet/etc. The problem with my vacuum was that it didn’t go high enough for our carpet. So it was always grinding away needlessly. Recently, it began to overheat easily, so I thought I’d better do something about it.

Near the top-right of this part is a raised piece of plastic. This raised part slides against a wedge-shaped slider which is accessible from the top of the vacuum. This way, the operator can slide the slider, adjusting the height of the front of the vacuum, because the slider is thicker on one side than the other.

In this picture you can see the small screw I installed. I drilled a guide-hole in this piece of plastic, then drilled a hole which was the exact size of the screw core. I used a wood screw so that the threads bit into the plastic. Now, because the screw is there, the front wheels press down lower than before, and additional height is attained. And it’s adjustable because the screw is very tight.

Could I have done this without the vice? Of course. But the vice made it much easier.

EvilGeniusHawk continues his quest for world domination.

Well, it’s been almost a year now and my little water distiller is still distilling water like crazy!

As you can see from the picture… sort of… I kept a log of the number of gallons that I distilled. I marked one tally for every gallon, month by month. It was just coincidence that all of 2006 fit on one page. Well, almost all of 2006; from Feb 2006 until the end of Dec 2006, I distsilled about 166 gallons. That’s about one gallon every two days.

Cleaning it has not been much trouble. I even let it go for a month or so because I ran out of cleaner, but it works well even if it’s really nasty inside. Now I clean it once a week, sometime over the weekend.

If you don’t want to buy the cleaner from the distiller guys, you can get some from Urnex. I found some good cleaner from these guys:

[http://urnex.com/](http://urnex.com/)

The product is called Dezcal:

[http://urnex.com/productsfordescaling.htm](http://urnex.com/productsfordescaling.htm)

Works well, but if your distiller is really nasty (like mine was), you’d do well to use two packs (or more) per gallon until she’s clean.

Here is Sherline’s Step Block Hold-Down Set in action… or, rather, inaction. The whole idea of a hold-down set is to keep your part fixed in place to the mill table so that you can work on it. In this picture, I’ve got a 70mm x 70mm x 147mm block of aluminum fixed to the table with the step block hold-down set and two blocks of wood. I needed the wood because the block of aluminum is much taller than the two included step blocks, and I didn’t have two more step blocks to stack. In fact, with the current threaded studs (3.5 inch), this is the maxiumum height that I can hold down. I could go taller, but I’d have to get some longer threaded studs and some bigger blocks.

Here’s a better look. I’m not using an endmill for this, just a regular drill bit that I found in an accessories kit for my Dremel. It’s the smallest drill bit I’ve got. You can see the bits of aluminum which have been carved out of the block. Also, in the lower-right, under the X table, is an additional step-block included in the set. This one is uncoated aluminum and is intended for me to cut to specific size. I think that’s pretty cool.

Not too long after I started, I rotated the whole mill so that I could get a better look at what I was doing. “But Hawk, _what_ are you doing?” you may ask. Let me take a moment here to clarify something: I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But it’s fun!

Actually, I’m trying to cut a smaller block out of this large block. After quite a bit of grinding, I did put a good notch in the side of the thing. But this tiny drill bit is not designed to do what I’m trying to do; it’s the wrong tool for the job. It’s not even an endmill. It took about an hour to do the first notch, and about a half an hour to do each hole.

Here you can see that I’ve made four additional perfect holes. A note about the handwheels on this mill: they’re _excellent_! I can easily adjust my part in either X or Y direction to 1/100th of a millimeter. And this is only if I stick with the markings on the handwheels. I could turn a handwheel between the markings, and get half of a hundredth of a millimeter travel.

Notice how the additional holes are exactly spaced? I advanced the X handwheel exactly two millimeters for every additional hole. Same thing applies to the Z axis, which moves the drill bit up and down. I was able to make good progress using this tiny drill bit, by advancing down one millimeter, then pulling out to remove the excess shavings, advancing one millimeter, puling out, and so on. When I reached 12 or 13mm depth, I had to pull out every half millimeter. It was easy to tell how deep I was going just by turning the handwheel and counting revolutions: one revolution = one millimeter. I went to 14 millimeters depth.

I’ll make better progress once I get a circular saw blade. Then I’ll turn the headstock 90 degrees, change the orientation of the block, and be able to cut straight down the whole block. That’ll be fun!

Ever since I got my little Sherline mill, I knew that I was going to mount it to one of my spare shelf boards. The instruction manual even recommends it. The base is pretty narrow.

So… I got the screws, nuts, feet, and (recently) the drill and drill bits so that I could actually make the thing. In this picture, you can see that I’ve got all eight feet mounted, plus the holes for the screws & nuts which will bolt the mill to the board. I used eight feet because I wanted direct support for the weight of the machine, plus I wanted extra vibration absorption, just to help keep the machine quiet. Already it’s pretty quiet; it doesn’t make much more noise than a sewing machine.

Incidentally, my dad gave me the Ryobi drill pictured on the table because he managed to score himself a Hilti, the lucky dog. I’ll get a Hilti eventually. Thanks dad! Now I’m dangerous; I’ve got a cordless drill _and_ [drill bits](/images/sherline/drill_bits.jpg)!

In this pic, you can see that the original screws I had were too long. If you ever decide to get a Sherline mill and then mount it to a shelf board, use 1 1/4 ” screws, not 1 1/2 “.

Here you can see that the 1 1/4 ” screws fit almost perfectly. I didn’t plan it this way, but the way the feet are arranged allowed me to set the machine on the board, with the board partially off the edge of the workbench so that I could thread the nuts on. I did this on both sides. I think that worked out nicely.

And here’s the final product. The mill is secured to the baseboard, and I put the headstock and motor back on (it’s a bit lighter and easier to manage without those). Plus, I could re-square up the vertical z-axis column (it was a little off).

You can also see the little 3/8 ” end-mill set I got from Sherline on the back right-hand corner. I also had to get an end-mill holder for the spindle because double-ended end mills will not fit in a regular chuck.

I also got a step-block hold-down set. You can see it on the table of the mill, holding down a simple piece of aluminum. A spare step-block (non-coated) is sitting on top of that. It’s designed to be cut down to whatever I’d like it to be. Pretty sweet!

I finally got a good, solid, heavy, big workbench!

This sucker is made of solid oak, and was made back when they knew how to make stuff. It’s very well made, very solid, very high, and big enough for any project I have on my plate currently.

Pictured on the workbench is my little Sherline 2010 Milling Machine and some endmills. More on that later.

Here’s a pretty good intro to metalworking by a guy named Koichi Hirata. His English isn’t great, but he is understandable. Most of the articles are translated into English. And he’s got lots of pictures. Don’t forget to click on ‘em. They don’t look clickable, but they are.

http://www.nmri.go.jp/eng/khirata/metalwork/index_e.html

I found that, by going through this site, I was able to pick up some very basic things that, probably, any machinist knows. I’m starting from zero knowledge of machining, and this site was good at helping me along.

I hope it helps you, too.

I got my Sherline Series 2000 Milling Machine recently! Yay!

Dang, this sucker is heavy! And it’s _very_ solidly built. I’m impressed with how solid it is. I had a concern with this because the head and vertical column can be positioned in so many ways, but lemme tell ya: once you crank down on the bolts and get it tight… it’s _solid_.

Anyway, on with the pics! But first, a quick note about these pics: I did not have the lights turned up because it was pretty late by the time I started and even later by the time I finished. So the main light source for these pics was the built-in flash, which has a distance of, well, not much. So I apologize in advance for the crappy pics.

Packaging: it was very well packaged. The base & table (the base and lower portion of the whole thing) was bolted down to it’s own piece of plywood. Everything was wrapped in either bubblewrap, or light paper. It was very secure as it came with a loose board on top, which kind of made it’s own little box. This kind of box could take a lot of abuse.
Here you can see the swingarm and vertical Z-axis with it’s saddle. It was very well packaged and wrapped in paper. The belt guards are in the plastic bag. They will be at the base of the motor and secure the speed control.
Here I am in the middle of taking stuff out of the boxes and getting oriented with what’s what and what goes where… ‘n stuff. Near center is the speed control and motor (still in the box). I’ve got the swingarm mounted on the column base, and the spindle is mounted, too. You can see the assembly instructions lower right. The instructions are excellent, written in regular english (not Chinglish), are in color, and are complete with many diagrams, including a complete exploded view in the back with parts listings.
I put my hand on the swingarm to give you an idea of how small this mill is. By this time I had un-bolted the base from the plywood, but I left it in there because it’s a good solid board to use–better than the carpet! If I slide the swingarm out far enough it’ll tip the machine over.
Here it is from the front. The model is 2010, because I wanted the metric version. The regular version is in American inches, model 2000. Normally, I would have gone with the American version, but all the stuff I’ve been working with lately has been in metric, and I want to continue working with it, so I’m sticking with metric. Anyway, Sherline sells a conversion kit if I need to switch to American.
From this angle, you can see that I put the extra riser block on the column. I didn’t know it was optional when I put it together. I was just building a kit, and I had the pieces, so I put it together. Later on I found out that it was optional. Actually, the Z-axis (up and down) travel is so good (both low and high) that the spindle almost touches the table _with_ this extra height in the column. So I’m going to leave it on.
Another angle. With the swingarm slid all the way out, and swung around like this, and with the motor attached, it would tip over. This machine has _a lot_ of motion possibilities.
This is the motor mounted to the spindle with the speed control. In the first pic, the spindle is lying down on the paper, and the motor is facing away towards the power cord. It’s a very solid mounting, and the position of the motor is variable to apply tention to the belt, or to loosen it so that you can change the belt position (for more torque). In the second picture, the speed control is on top and the spindle is down and to the left. The third pic is for size comparison. Oh, and by the way, did I mention that these things are heavy? And solid? Well, they’re heavy, and they’re solid.
At last, the motor, speed control, and spindle are mounted to the Z-axis saddle! By the way, the speed control is continuously variable from 70 to 2800 RPM, and it does it’s best to keep the motor spinning at speed. Even under load, it is continuously adjusting power to keep it spinning at the same speed. It’s a good quality speed control unit and a good quality motor. As I was getting the tour down at the Shirline factory, the guy demonstrated the power of the motor. He turned it down to a very slow speed, then tried to stop it from turning by holding his thumb and fingers on top of the spindle wheel (the one with the belt). He pushed down as hard as he could and was unable to stop it or slow it down. When he let go, it maintained speed. I was also unable to stop it. I was impressed. In the third pic, the whole unit is facing away, so you get the rear-view. As you can see, the spindle is almost all the way up at the top of the Z-axis travel. The little brass thingie sticking out is a lock. Slide it counterclockwise and the Z-axis is locked from moving. I believe all axes have locks (but I’m no expert on this machine yet.
Here’s a little rotational tour of the thing all put together and ready to do some milling. In the last pic I slid the spindle down most of the way and attached the chuck. Also, it’s on top of the box so you can see the thing better. I can’t wait to start making stuff with it!

Okay, here’s the story how I got my Sherline 2010 Milling Machine:

My dad and I were chatting engineering talk over lunch. He was down here from Oregon because of three birthdays.

Okay, let me back up a bit. Me, my younger sister, and my youngest neice are all having our birthdays within about the same time. Actually, we’re all a few weeks off, but because my older sister is down in Vista, and because it takes at least an hour and a half just to get down there, we decided to celibrate them all at the same time. I was the lucky guy who got to drive my mom and my younger sister. The whole way. Both ways. Good thing I had my MP3 player with me.

So, what’s the point of my family’s pack of birthdays? My dad came down from Oregon for the partying! The next day he decided to drive on up to my area: Hollywierd. We had lunch at the Palms (Thai place just down the street from me). While I was muching down Chicken Fried Rice, we chatted about engineering. I can talk engineering with my dad, but not with my mom. Very different. Sometimes, I can even talk with Chicken Fried Rice in my mouth.

So… I asked him what tools I would need to build a flywheel. Between bites, he told me, “milling machine”. Actually, it sounded a bit different when spoken through a mouthful of Pad Thai, more like “mummumng makeung”, but I knew what he meant.

He also told me about lathes, but I figured I wouldn’t need one for my needs. When I got back home, I searched Google for “milling machines”. Bam, right there at the top of the list was Sherline. I didn’t know what Sherline was, so I clicked through:

http://www.sherline.com/

Holy moley! I had found the holy grail of home milling machines, on the first link! I didn’t even go back to the list of search results. I just stayed right there on the Sherline site for about a week. It’s HUGE. Not only that, but it’s big and it takes a really long time to read through it. I’m still haven’t even scratched the surface of this site. Plus, they’ve got all their manuals, parts list, catalogs, etc. online in HTML and PDF formats. I was in home/hobby milling machine heaven!

So… after much research and comparisons, I decided on the mill that I wanted: the 5410. It seemed to do just about everything I needed, and it was small enough to fit into an apartment. Here’s the picture:

Plus, it seemed to be a really good platform for upgrades. This means I could upgrade it to do all kinds of things, such as full CNC (Computer Numeric Control), greater height on the Z-axis, tilt on the Z-axis like the series 2000, electronic readouts on the controls, etc.

I figured I could start with the good ol’ 5400 and then upgrade as needed. Then I toured the factory.

Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself again; let me back up… After doing much research on the net (we’re talking about _a lot_ of reading) I decided that this was the company I wanted to go with (they’ve been around for over 30 years; they must be doing something right), and this was the machine I wanted. Coincidentally, my Mom calls me up and says, “I’m going down to Vista to visit your sister on Wednesday, have some lunch, spend some time, etc. Wanna come with and drive ‘n stuff?”

By this time I knew Sherline was in Vista, just about five miles south of where my older sister lives. This fact strolled into my mind as I was listening to my mom. A very short moment after she asked her question, a plan formed in my mind. While deciding upon my answer, I think I took all of about 0.0137 seconds (approximaly) to decide.

“Yes.” was my prompt answer. I’m not even sure that my mom got her question all the way out before I answered.

“Really?” she asked. I think she expected me to decline.

“Yeah,” I said, “and while you’re having lunch, I can take dad and visit a store down there that I’m interested in.”

“Oh, sure. Great! You can drive!”

I made a mental note to put fresh batteries in my MP3 player and said, “You bet!”

And then it was just a matter of waiting until Wednesday. Three agonizingly long days! During this time I continued researching Sherline’s website. Hey, there’s a lot there to read!

Anyway, Wednesday finally considered about thinking about getting around to arriving, and off we went! As it turns out, my older sister was sick in bed that day, so there wasn’t a whole lot to do. Undeterred, we fed her some drugs and got her to a resturant for lunch. But after that she crashed in bed again. So while Mom read a book and tried to ignore the big dogs, Dad and I took off for Sherline.

According to the website, all were welcome at the Sherline factory and they would even give us a tour. I had already taken the online tour (several times), so I kinda knew what to expect. I just wasn’t sure how old the online tour was. We only got lost once, then parked and went in. The building looked exactly like the picture in the online tour. Once inside, the lobby looked exactly like the picture in the online tour. Up the stairs and there were the admin offices… yup, exactly like the picture in the online tour.

Are you sensing a pattern here? Lemme cut to the chase: It’s exactly like the online tour. The way it looks in the online tour is exactly the way it is. My Dad and I saw it all. A guy named Craig took us around and showed us everything, from receiving of raw material, to the finished product. We even got to play with a 5400 machine. I cut a groove in a small block of aluminum. It was so cool.

Now remember, this was my first time actually using a milling machine (of any kind), so regardless of how inane and useless a cut it was, it was still very, very cool. Also, quite surprisingly, it was quiet. It made about as much noise as a sewing machine.

My Dad asked which one I wanted. I told him, “The 5400.” He pointed out that the 8-direction mill (the 2000 series) had more clearance. Sure it did, but I told him that I could upgrade the 5400 to be kinda like the 2000 series. He pointed out that by the time I did this, I would have spent what it would cost to get the 2000 in the first place. And the 2000 was an 8-direction mill, which kicked ass over the 5400. Sure, I said, but it costs more. He offered to help me out on the purchase.

I took about 0.0138 seconds (approximately) to consider this, then said, “Okay.” A half-an-hour later it was done and in the trunk. Here’s a picture of the 8-direction 2010-series milling machine:

I was quite calm all the way back to my sister’s place. I was quite calm as I hung around and visited with everyone. I was quite calm helping my dad with his computer. I was quite calm the whole time.

I was quite calm as I drove back home. Mom even mentioned how calm I was, with my new toy in the trunk. I calmly replied, “I am containing my excitement.” And I was. Inside I was jumping off the walls. Outside, I was quite calmly calm.

When we reached my apartment building, I hauled the thing out of the trunk and just kinda grunted at how heavy it was. Shipping this thing would have been expensive. I took a deep breath, tensed up my body, and hauled the thing all the way into my building, down the hall, down the other hall, and into my apartment. I had to go through four doors and I never put it down.

Once in my apartment, I kept it in the box for a few days. See how calm I was? I calmly left it in the corner next to my dresser while I continued research and continued my regular work. I still had bills to pay, after all. The subject of it’s assembly will be the focus of my next blog post.

But in all this little adventure, I find it interesting how things seem to get done once I decide that they’re done. Isn’t that an interesting thing? I decided that I had a milling machine which would fit in my apartment. I decided this weeks ago, and then I made it happen. I would not have done anything with it without the prior decision.

Interesting. Now I’ve decided that I have a girlfriend. MMMmmmmm… my LadyHawk… where are you?

After I cleaned my water distiller for the first time, I noticed a bad smell and a bad taste in the water that it produced. I asked my roommate to smell it (a college grad in chemestry) and he said it smelled like iron.

Wierd. Well, I tried various things to get rid of the bad smell/taste: I cleaned it again. I scrubbed it hard with the dark-green (scratchy) side of my sponge. I cleaned it again with the stuff they gave me. I ran it without the carbon filter. I even ran a distilled gallon through again. But the bad smell/taste persisted.

“Oh GREAT!” I thought, “Somehow, I’ve already broken my distiller!”

I emailed customer service and got no response. So I called ‘em up and left a brief message about the problem. A guy called me back and figured out the problem almost immediately. The guy was good. He asked if I had used something scratchy to clean out the tank, and I told him how I had scrubbed it with my scratchy sponge.

There was the problem. There is some kind of coating on stainless steel which prevents the iron from seeping out into the water. This makes sense because stainless steel is made of iron and crome (please correct me if I’m wrong). This also makes sense because the bad smell/taste started right after I had cleaned it out the first time (using lots of fource with the _scratchy_ side of my green sponge).

So… how to fix: he said put one cup of vinegar in the tank, and fill it the rest of the way up with water, and run that through once without the carbon filter. Then, run a regular gallon through (tap water) still without the carbon filter to clean out the vinegar smell/taste. Then resume normal operation.

Well, actually, it took one or two more gallons going through to get the vinegar smell/taste out completely, but that _totally fixed the problem!_ Now I’m back to perfect, pure water with no bad smells and no bad tastes!

If you decided to get one of these little water distillers, don’t clean the tank with something scratchy. The support guy said it was okay to use something like a washcloth, but nothing more scratchy than that.

I hope this helps.

So, it’s been about a week now, and I’ve made a total of 5 gallons. I seem to be drinking a little less than a half-gallon per day, so I can easily keep up with both my needs, and my roommates needs (if he were to go near the stuff). The total loss of water (steam loss) in the receiving tank is about four ounces / gallon. That’s pretty darn good efficiency! I’m very pleased.

The water tastes great! I’m very pleased with the results. However, sometims I can pick up a slight plastic taste. I’m not sure if it is from the little plastic bottles I use, or the receiving jug. I’ll let ya know as I use it more and more.

Here’s what the tank looks like after distilling five gallons of L.A. water. Can you say YUCK?! It smells really bad, too. There is a strong amonia smell mixed in as well. I took more pics, but they’re all about the same. The interesting thing about a distiller is that I _could_ continue to use it like this and it would still make perfectly pure water! I love it.

Okay, time to clean it out. These are two animations of the cleaning process. The directions say to put in two tablespoons of the cleaning stuff in a full tank (actually, over fill it a little). Now leave the top off and plug it in until it starts to boil. Leave it like that for 15-20 mins and then dump out the water and wash it clean. By the way, the second animation is what it looks like inside when the unit is in normal operation–but you sure don’t wanna pull the top off and take a look! You’ll burn yourself from the steam.

Here’s what it looked like after I was done scrubbing it out with dish soap and a rough green sponge.

BTW, in the instructions, this procedure is recommended once a month. HA! I’ll probably have to do this once a week. After all, this is L. A. water we’re dealing with here. L. A. water is… how can I put this gently… BAD. As in NOT GOOD. But, on the other hand, it probably won’t kill ya. I’ve been showering in the stuff for years.

It took about 30-35 mins to get it boiling from hot water straight out of the tap. Then I let it go 20 more mins, so that’s about 50 mins total. That ran up 0.45 KiloWatt Hours of power. No problemo. Do the math on how much this cost–if you want; I’m not going to bother with it.