Every few days or so I'll try to post a little update about whatever progress I've made on the mutantvehicle.

Final Day 8/24/2007 11:54 AM Yesterday was supposed to be the final day of work on the IPB (and the new dome) but since it rained all day I decided to allow today to be the last day of work. All I plan on doing today is to finish the accent painting along the sides and front and to, perhaps, rebuild the aft end panels. If I end up with a couple free hours I may cobble together a shitty shade structure. In any case; when it gets dark I'll have to call it complete for tomorrow we pack it up and start the long drive.

Is it wet? 8/21/2007 1:00 PM I made a flow chart to illustrate today's painting technique. The particularly astute will notice the lack of any sort of "completion" state.

 is_it_wet_2.gif  

Serious Set Back 8/20/2007 11:45 AM This weekend's and the continuing rain has dealt me a serious blow. Not only was I not able to do any significant work this weekend but all of the unpainted (and much of the painted) hardboard panels have become warped and damaged. I was not expecting this much wetness when I was deciding on construction materials. I'm not sure what to do, now. The weather forecast is showing rain for today and tomorrow; possibly clearing up a bit for the rest of the week. Not only does it have to not be raining for me to make any progress it also has to be mostly dry. I can't paint wet hardboard. (Read More)

Rain Rain, Fuck Off 8/19/2007 3:19 PM It has rained non-stop this entire weekend which has completely ruined my work schedule. I had hoped to get a good twelve hours of mutantvehicle work done between yesterday and today but, instead, I've got maybe two hours done. If I had ordered the grommet press (due to arrive tomorrow) a few days earlier I could have spent this entire weekend grommeting which, you know, would have been fine. Instead I find myself with lots to do and no way to do any of it. What makes things even worse is that the forecast for next few days (which is all I have) is nothing but rain, rain, rain and more fucking rain. All of this just underscores the mantra I've been repeating since July: I need a bigger workshop. Something barn sized. I can't stay here, this property is not conducive to what I want to do.

Doming 8/15/2007 5:16 PM Of late we've been focusing on our steel ribbed dome which is half down, now. I did a tiny bit of work on the IPB's deck but not really enough to count against anything on the schedule (which now shows me at 4.72 days behind). I think I said this last week but I hope to have all construction done by the end of this weekend. Actually, if I could have it done by the end of Saturday that would be even better. At least the weather is marginally nicer than it was in the beginning of August.

Works Still! 8/11/2007 7:04 PM Oh, yeah, the new remote drive system works great! The emergency "slamming on the brake" addition is perfect. I no longer worry about not being able to stop in an emergency. I think the BM DMV will like it. Well, I really hope they do, anyway. A couple more tweaks and then I won't have to futz with it anymore: the manual engine kill switch override should really have its own 12v relay and I still need to install the accelerator jog component. Neither of those things should prove too tricky (they'll just take more time that I don't have).

UGH 8/11/2007 6:55 PM It just gets more and more humid and makes it harder to accomplish anything. I modified my spreadsheet so that only "critical path" items count against the deadline. Having done that I find that I'm still nearly a day behind. (A non-critical item would be, for example, a shade structure.) To make matters worse I still have to do all the other usual pre-burningman things (making sure I have all the stuff I need, packing, prepping bicycles, etc, etc, etc and etc) and we still have to finish our new steel dome. To make matters slightly better my brother might be able to help me get all this stuff done (as long as his so-demanding girlfriend lets him work over here for more than a couple hours every night). Also, I bought a generator yesterday from Northern Tools. I wish there was a Northern Tool somewhere in the Twin Cities. I hate having to drive to Burnsville or Blaine to check out their goods as I really do like that shop. A nice salesman named Jim S. helped me select the McCulluch 1800 Inverter (1600w running watts, 4 hours run-time at full load, 1.3g fuel tank). I don't have a good frame of reference but I think it's noisier than the comparable Honda - but since it was $350 cheaper I don't mind too much. After failing to get it started with some bas gasoline last night I dumped and refilled the tank with good gasoline and it fired right up. The "Smart-Throttle" quiets it up significantly when there's no load on it. After Burning Man I'll be able to either recommend for or against it.

Okay. 8/3/2007 12:03 PM I'm going out of town for the weekend but I did enough this morning to get the number of slack days above zero (.5). Another way I can get back on schedule, aside from doing the tasks on the list, is to remove tasks from the list. I can just push things into next year's version 2!

Good 8/3/2007 12:03 PM I'm still a day or two behind "schedule" and I'm further worried because I keep thinking of things I should like to do that aren't on the schedule. Maybe I should just work harder? I do have the control system nearly finished. Another couple hours this evening and it'll be done. Oh, except for the addition of an acceleration component. I think I have an entire day blocked out for that work, though, which I can probably actually accomplish in a few hours. Also, as BM approaches, I have lots of other things I need to do. My brother and I just started building our steel ribbed hemisphere; bikes need decorating and lighting; costuming? It goes on and on!

The Schedule 8/2/2007 9:20 PM I have a spreadsheet that lists all the tasks I have yet to do on the Interstellar Pleasure Barge along with the estimated number of "days" it'll take to complete each. I designed is so that if I did a reasonable amount of work every day I would complete the project in time without overly stressing myself. At the bottom of the spreadsheet I have it display the total number days of work remaining, the estimated day of completion and the number of "slack days" between the completion date and the deadline date (which I choose to be the Thursday before we leave for the playa). Whenever I finish a task (like, "build lower nose-cone folding panels" or "paint upper railings") I delete it from the list and all the values change to reflect the state of the project. Currently I have -1.89 slack days which means that I'm nearly two days behind schedule. That doesn't mean that I'm going to blow the deadline, it just means that for a couple days I have to work twice as hard as I normally would in order to get back on track. If the weather continues to be as "nice" as it was today I might actually be able to do that.

HOTHOTHOT 7/29/2007 4:19 PM It's too hot. It's too humid. I can't work outside in this weather or I will die. And it doesn't look like this coming week is going to be any better. At best I'll get a couple hours in the early morning and, if I have the energy, another couple in the evening. If this weather doesn't abate soon I'm not going to get enough finished. In good news: I got primary approval from the BM DMV - so I no longer have to worry about that. I just have to do the best I can during the next four weeks (and hope that I don't encounter an insurmountable obstacles).

Holy Shit 7/21/2007 10:41 AM It works!

Blimey 7/17/2007 2:28 PM I finally solved the mystery of the steering control short: the motor's chassis is grounded internally. Which is fine until the polarity is reversed (turning left, say, instead of right) at which point it shorts out the whole system. Since my frame is not meant to be grounded in that way all I had to do was isolate the motor by way of a piece of insulating plastic and electric tape. Having solved that problem I was able to finish wiring the rest of the drive system: it's now ready for beta testing. The steering system works, the brake works (it has both slow-brake and fast-brake now, which works great) and the indicators and kill-switch all work. Tonight, hopefully, I'll drive out to some abandoned parking lot and give it a thorough testing. Then, tomorrow, I can start the decor (and finish as much as possible before the parade on Saturday).

Aha! 7/16/2007 6:48 PM I think I figured out the steering control circuit problem: in prototyping I used a pair of 5v DPDT relays in my 12v circuit because that's all I had lying around it. Since it worked I never bothered to replace them with proper relays. I bet continued use of 12v across the 5v coil contacts burned one of them out. Fortunately, I devised a way to use four common 12v automotive relays to do the same thing as these DPDT relays. I just need to get to an auto parts store and buy some.

Set Backed 7/16/2007 11:13 AM I left for weekend camping on Friday knowing that "turn right" didn't work (it seemed to short out the system). Today I spent a few minutes diagnosing the problem and it was starting to look like the steering motor was shorted out - but only in one direction. That doesn't make any sense so I took the motor out and tested it independently and, fortunately, it's fine. Now I suspect the "turn right" relay. Pulling that is somewhat more irritating because I have to unsolder a bunch of things. Fortunately, I have several replacement relays if that's the case. Oddly, it looks like the controller is fine (I was pretty sure it was the source of the short). Except I'm so very tired this morning and I don't think I should be using my soldering gun.