The day started somewhat
later than a normal day with the occasion being that it was a Saturday and I
stayed up until 12 talking to our host cousin. Anyways when I eventually did
get up I had breakfast and grabbed a shower. Kevin left wicked early at like
7:50 AM because he was heading to the bus stop to grab an 8 AM bus and ride all
day up north someplace. Breakfast was fairly normal. Now Dan and I had decided
to stay home this weekend on account of him recovering from sickness and it being
our last weekend here in San Carlos, so this being the case, it has been a slow
weekend. Not to fear! I did bring some work home with me (in that autoclave).
Before I got started working on the autoclave I decided to spend some time
chillaxing on KF and reading up on some interesting videogame and game related
articles online (one particularly interesting one was from Wired and talked
about the story behind the Gizmondo and here’s a link to it: Wired
14.10: Gizmondo's Spectacular Crack-up. It talks about one of the directors named
Eriksson who has a sketchy past and questionable dealings with the company
(Enron?). Anyways it was interesting to read about because I remember the
Gizmondo was wicked hyped but never really showed up after launch. Anyways
after that I played some KF and just vegged for an hour or two (I don’t really
have anything to do down here in San Carlos so…). Anyways after that I
motivated myself to figure out what was wrong with the autoclave and why it was
not turning on. So the first thing I did was remove the exterior case and look
at the inside for obvious wire breaks etc. This didn’t seem plausible as the
unit looked mint inside (save for some cobwebs in the front) near the boards
for the display. Anyways I also noticed back when I got the unit that the reset
switch on the back seemed kind of funky as it would slide in and out when it
should have resistance to doing that. I plugged the unit in and started
checking voltages across the unit. Everything checked out fine (nice 110V
across the switches etc) (and I managed to NOT get a shock with this unit, so
win!). Anyways I checked all of those and it still did not seem to be working.
So then I had the idea to try jumping the two contacts on the back of the reset
switch to see if that was the issue. Keep in mind that I was working on this
unit in the living room of the hostel and by this point it was sitting with the
case off on two green milk crates (that my host dad had brought me) and I was
tinkering with it. Anyways the connection I needed would have been an easy task
at the workshop, but I had just tools and no wire or other connectors. So I
used my tools the best I could and broke off a razorblade segment from the
knife and stuck the two connectors on that (because this is supposed to pass
110V and probably high currents so I couldn’t just use 20 AWG. Anyways after
getting the connections on the blade, I plugged the unit in and BAM! I heard the
clicking of relays and the screen came on! So it appears this reset switch is
broken, but otherwise I think the unit is functional! I looked up the switch on
the internet and it turns out to be a Campini capillary thermostat (which is a way
of saying a thermometer against the drum of the autoclave used to break a
circuit in case of excessive temperatures). What this means is that basically
the reset button on this is broken and also means that I can’t really just
replace the switch, but have to take the temp probe from the outside of the ‘clave
drum (-.-// very difficult). I also found the piece online, but the company is
in Italy and doesn’t even list prices online, so that looks incredibly promising
for finding another one of those. I think I can just short the connection in
that manner, but this removes a level of safety for the autoclave. This could
be made up for by greater care by the operators and checking the temperature,
but it’s not a great solution. I will talk to them on Monday to see what they
want. After getting that working I was quite happy to look up additional information
about the machine as I had a good start on the work. I continued my research of
trying to find the elusive “error 8” message produced by the other machine, but
I had no luck after checking several websites and trying to find a manual. I
emailed Ron about the temp probe and the manual and the company about the probe
to, so I’m waiting on that. After that I was pretty much done with my work and
it was raining outside, so I figured while GMOD continued downloading the 2 GBs
it had started working on during Friday I could work on a 3ds Max model
(something that I haven’t done in too long). Normally I model objects that I
can feel/touch/see so I chose to do my camera for this trip. 2 hours later I
had a nice 3d model complete with minor materials and rendered that sucker with
2000 polys (an alternate version with some text knocked the poly count to
around 2700). It was fun and relaxing at the same time.
Back rendering of my camera
Front render (manufactured by FrickCo of course (adding another 700 polys for flair))
An earlier render of the front
After that I waited for
dinner which was good. After that I took a nap (times are riveting down here).
Later I left with our host sister and host cousin to go to the Champra and go
dancing to celebrate the host sister’s birthday (on Sunday). Anyways it didn’t
start until like 10 PM, but we arrived at like 9:05 and had to just chill
inside until it started. Dancing was a ton of fun, with the music being electro
and some Salsa songs (so got the best of both worlds there). Eventually at 1:30
AM we headed back and actually could make it in the hostel (with Sol unlocking
the door) instead of cat burglaring inside. It was a good day (probably one of
the better ones in San Carlos).
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