Category: Uncategorized

The horns update!

Finally as promised, an entry about the horns!

Okay, so some of you will have seen these at MCM Expo, surface-finished, mounted up to headbands and listed in three price bands. Since then I’ve got the final blank horn prices sorted. They’re all individually priced now, along with their various options.

These horns are made for costume use, so are designed to be lightweight. They have a thin outer layer of polyurethane resin to preserve surface detail, which is then reinforced within with a rigid polyurethane foam. This provides a good balance between light weight, excellent detail reproduction and good damage resistance. The horns however can still be trimmed to length with a serrated knife or junior hacksaw.

Use of a double-density reinforcing foam is available as an option, but will increase item weight. Integral resin colouring is also available.
Foam-rubber is sadly not yet available due to poor surface reproduction, and issues getting them out of the moulds fully intact.

Please see this image for examples of surface detailing effects: EXAMPLE

Here’s the group-shot:

 

Basic pigments (Red, Blue, Yellow, Black, White, Green, Orange): £1.00
Custom pigments (each, per order*): £5.00

(* Per order means a single £5 charge whether the custom colour mix is used on just the horns or a match set of horns, claws and paw-pads, etc)

Type #1
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 230g (pictured examples 190g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 210 x 175 x 55mm
Base price (GBP): £30.00

Double-density foam: £3.00

Type #2
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 160g (pictured examples 106g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 275 x 160 x 40mm
Base price (GBP): £22.50

Double-density foam: £3.00

Type #3
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 130g (pictured examples 100g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 220 x 140 x 30mm
Base price (GBP): £17.50

Double-density foam: £2.00

Type #4
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 90g (pictured examples 54g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 185 x 135 x 27mm
Base price (GBP): £12.50

Double-density foam: £2.00

Type #5
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 280g (pictured examples 240g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 190 x 170 x 120mm
Base price (GBP): £35.00

Double-density foam: £4.00

Type #6
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 70g (pictured examples 64g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 185 x 115 x 25mm
Base price (GBP): £10.00

Double-density foam: £1.50

Type #7
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 70g (pictured examples 56g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 135 x 185 x 35mm
Base price (GBP): £12.50

Double-density foam: £1.00

Type #8
Maximum weight (pair, untrimmed): 50g (pictured examples 41g)
Approx dimensions (outer): 95 x 145 x 25mm
Base price (GBP): £10.00

Double-density foam: £1.00

Postage
Will be sent 1st Class Recorded within the UK and Airsure internationally. Please ask for a shipping quote.

EDIT: Prices adjusted. Used old formulae sheet. Oops.

Pre-expo panicking

The load of disposable vinyl gloves arrived this morning and I thought “fantastic! I can get all the last fibreglass work done tonight afterall!
I go out, come home, hit the workshop and open the gloves.

And find out I’ve ordered 200 in Small size. My own fault, didn’t read the listing right. Fuck.

More have been ordered, but they’ll take at least 2 days to get here.

Tomorrow I’m going to have to go and find some at retail prices because I can’t wait that long for them.

I’ve also got the roto-caster dismantled to a large degree now. I’ve spent some of the would-be-fibreglassing time working out how to make the inner motor drive two spinning frames instead of one. Should be able to get it all fixed up again in a few hours tomorrow. This way it’ll actually be able to do what I intended it to.

Running worryingly short on time now though.

Video rage

My Fuji FinePix S5600 records at 30.00030fps, 640×480, Motion-JPEG. Audio’s PCM, 16000Hz, mono, 128kbps.
I’ve got a 4-second animated graphic I want to use with my youtube videos, but it’s MP4, 25fps, 768×576, no audio track.

I’ve got VirtualDub and Avidemux, both free software. VirtualDub won’t load MP4 video, even with it’s import plugin. I can convert the resolution in Avidemux but can only do the frame rate to two decimal points (30.00 not 30.00030). This means it gives a sample rate mismatch in VirtualDub when trying to edit in with footage from the camera. Adjusting it in VirtualDub to 30.00030 still gives the mismatch error.

These programs only support appending as best I know, so you have to load the video segments into them in order. If I load the logo into VirtualDub, on the following video I get a mismatch and it fails. If I load it into Avidemux it stays with the logo segments lack of sound all the way through. If I give the logo a soundtrack from inside Avid, the sound on the following segment becomes gibberish. If I add a soundtrack to it in VD and load it in Avid the video scrambles.

Is there another free/cheap to use bit of software that’s simple and actually WORKS?

Fitted a HDD up to the machine I found a few weeks back, have loaned it to the hackspace as the new lasercutter PC since the old one died.

Picked up a 99p ankle brace from Walthamstow. It’s worked wonders. All I’ve noticed is how uncomfortable my new shoes are.

Looked over the brazing hearth at the space again. The adapter I brought appears to be visually similar but a slightly different tread. Have brought home all the fittings to try and work something out.
Frame needs welding and there’s some firebrick missing. Possibly asbestos. :P

Feeling pretty shattered. Going back to the space tomorrow afternoon to look over the diffusion pump that’s being donated. Will take the bus in. Will be a LOT cheaper.

Get angry and build robots. Part 2.

More tinkering today.

Pulled the frame apart and flipped it over to give the motors more ground clearance and enough space for a trailing castor.
Rather than cut up the push-scooter bearing tubes, I made a new longer one from a piece of old vacuum cleaner nossle and bolted it into the clamp from an old satellite dish mount. That gave me some bolt holes and nice steel plate to attach some more scrap 1″ box section to as an angle-block. Another couple of bits of smaller box-section went on top again to provide rigidity.

I’ve run out of M6 bolts now though, so will have to get some. Studding would probably be better though.
The motor assemblies were already made up, so it’s really only the frame that’s the product of the last couple of days.

The motors look a little wonky because they’re not bolted down properly. Neither are the bearing-blocks, which’ll need three more M10 carriage bolts. Probably want to put some fibre washers between the motor mounts and frame to help prevent damage to the aluminium gearbox housings.

Here it is with the existing battery box roughly in place.

It’s a large box because it contains a commercial van battery (12v, Lead-acid), as well as positive and negative bus-bars, keyswitch, automotive fuse panel and emergency-stop button on the rear hatch.
May had a high-current plug to it too to allow it to provide jump-starts. If I find one of them laying about anyway.

No motor controllers as yet. I still need to test the stall current of the motors (12v, 180Watt, ~220rpm geared).
Wheels are ten-inch pneumatic sack-barrow wheels. Freewheeling hubs were previously ground off and fixed hubs with a coupler-dog brazed up and bolted on.

Got some aluminium car-phone enclosures with surface-mounting holes that should take a controller each quite nicely.

Whatever this ends up being, it’ll be pretty powerful and be able to go a long way.

Need to make mounts to secure battery box and fork-extensions to turn the current front wheel into a castor. Wanted a pneumatic castor, but there’s not enough space under the frame currently. Maybe later.

Will keep my eyes on the river; see if a shopping trolley turns up. A trolley basket could be a good addition to it for the moment.

[20/06/2010: Amalgamating old posts from “Dreamwidth Creative Blog” into sci-fi-fox.com to re-purpose DW blog account.]