{"id":309,"date":"2009-03-09T10:31:09","date_gmt":"2009-03-09T17:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpproducts.com\/blog\/?p=309"},"modified":"2009-03-13T09:57:03","modified_gmt":"2009-03-13T16:57:03","slug":"march-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nmpproducts.com\/blog\/?p=309","title":{"rendered":"March, early"},"content":{"rendered":"

Had hoped to have calliope #4<\/strong>\u00a0done in a final rush job, so that I could take it to Sunday’s Maker Faire auditions<\/strong> in San Jose, but it just wasn’t in the cards. There’s just too much work to be done, to wit: it took several days to organize a paint job<\/strong> (powder coat gloss white) for the manifold<\/strong> and. once I had it back home, I still had to\u00a0build something to allow me to tune the bells in a more efficient way (ha ha) than the\u00a0air compressor method. And once that was done I had to do the tuning<\/strong>, which meant another set of fixtures<\/strong> so that I could do quicker bell mods<\/strong> on the lathe<\/strong>. Bottom line: I didn’t even finish\u00a0tuning of all 12 whistles until\u00a0Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Delays in getting new circuit board<\/strong> caused by\u00a0various emails being trapped in my graymail filter means I won’t have the way kewl new circuit boards that Kris Magri<\/strong> designed for me until the middle of next week.<\/p>\n

Anywayyy with a little luck I’ll have the bugger working by this coming weekend, whereupon I hope to create a clean spot on the workbench (!!), then I’ll add a roll of gray paper for a\u00a0nice neutral background.\u00a0Then I can\u00a0make a decent video<\/strong> of the finished\u00a0contraption in action. I’ve decided on a name for it too: Calliopus Minimus<\/span><\/em><\/strong>; whaddya think? Photos of latest work follow.<\/p>\n

\"Whistle<\/a>

Whistle Blower Box<\/p><\/div>\n

Photo #1:<\/strong> The whistles<\/strong> now need very little air to toot; no more than 2 to 5psi<\/strong>. It was impossible to reduce the air compressor output\u00a0properly so I built this plywood box as a plenum<\/strong> that could supply HVLP<\/em><\/strong> (High Volume Low Pressure) air from the ass end of a vacuum cleaner<\/strong>. I added a 0-15psi pressure gauge but I never got the needle to move… The\u00a0assembly in the foreground shows the inside of one of the frequency adjustment sliders<\/strong> I devised. These allow me to\u00a0increase bell length<\/strong>, necessary\u00a0when I switch from cold compressed air to hot\u00a0propane<\/strong> and steam<\/strong>.\u00a0Clamping ‘nut’\u00a0is circular ‘ so it won’t fall out of the slot\u00a0if it rotates.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Backwards<\/a>

Backwards Vacuum Adapter<\/p><\/div>\n

Photo #2:<\/strong> Other end of the contraption: this particular vacuum cleaner<\/strong> didn’t have an exhaust port<\/strong> that the hose could easily plug into, so I had to make one. I welded up a mini-plenum<\/strong> out of steel scrap but the force of the vacuum kept blowing it off of its seat. I tacked on a shelf<\/strong>, then flopped a buckshot-filled exercise weight<\/strong> (the blue thing with the black stripes) onto it. What makes this vacuum particularly kewl is its variable speed motor; i.e. a\u00a0variable pressure<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Kris<\/a>

Kris attaches last tuned whistle<\/p><\/div>\n

Photo #3:<\/strong> Kris Magri<\/strong>, designer of the Parallax Boe Bot<\/A><\/em><\/strong>, dropped by and helped out, screwing the last tuned whistle<\/strong> into its solenoid valve<\/strong> on the manifold<\/strong>. It was cold<\/span> in the shop, too!<\/p>\n

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\"Whistle<\/a>

Whistle Assemblies<\/p><\/div>\n

Photo #4:<\/strong> Shot of several whistles and their solenoid valves<\/strong> on a section of the painted manifold<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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\"Assembled,<\/a>

Assembled, awaiting Electronics<\/p><\/div>\n

Photo #5:<\/strong> The whole magilla lacking only electronics, computer, air compressor, some sort of base, a power supply, wheels to make it mobile, etc, etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Had hoped to have calliope #4\u00a0done in a final rush job, so that I could take it to Sunday’s Maker Faire auditions in San Jose, but it just wasn’t in the cards. There’s just too much work to be done, to wit: it took several days to organize a paint job (powder coat gloss white) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[53,13,19,11,14],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-burningman","tag-calliope","tag-fire","tag-shop","tag-stamp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nmpproducts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nmpproducts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nmpproducts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nmpproducts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nmpproducts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"http:\/\/www.nmpproducts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374,"href":"http:\/\/www.nmpproducts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nmpproducts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nmpproducts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nmpproducts.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}