Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #07736



To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: "Timothy Flytcher" flytch@hotmail.com
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 22:54:34 PST
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Ceramic cutting


>Does anyone know if it's possible to cut ceramic with a Dremel or >some
>such like thing?

My first thought is that you don't "cut" ceramic... but it is easy to
chip... now chipping away is very doable with a stone in a dremel... go
SLOW... and use plenty of ventilation...
my sister makes china dolls... she uses a #11 blade x-acto knife and a
steady hand to scrape away the flashing and clean mold marks... hope this
helps :)
Timothy...

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7737 Tue, 16 Nov 1999 07:59:03 +0100 [alt-beam] Re: solar smart head beam@sgiblab.sgi.com Thomas Pilgaard Nielsen

JVernonM@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 11/15/99 3:57:30 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> ascii@hum.auc.dk writes:
>
> > I'm not sure
> > what a "Dupro collar" is. Would you please explain that to me. Is it
> > possible to buy that somewhere?
> It might be Dubro, I'm not sure. They are little round sleeves that have an
> allen screw in the side to lock the thing to an axil or whatever. You can
> find them in various sizes at your local hobby shop in the RC plane section.

Thankyou for the reply. (Perhaps the only other) Danish Beam'er Michael
has informed me the danish term and pointed me to a retailer.

Your pictures make it itch in my fingers to make a PSD. The people on
this list are so cool!

Cheers

Thomas, Denmark

>
> See ya,
> Jim
> http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/8281/beamart.html

--
---
"Fremtidens computere vejer maaske ikke mere end halvandet ton."
Popular Mechanics 1949



7738 Mon, 15 Nov 1999 23:01:38 PST [alt-beam] Re: BEAM Prism ?? beam@sgiblab.sgi.com "Timothy Flytcher" Idea... the sun moves in an arc... so that it moves up and down as well as
side to side... if the prism is mounted so it moves in the same arc as the
sun then you only have to control one motion...
Timothy...

>I'll have to get working on one, but now that I think of it,
>the angle between the sun and the wall spot would not remain
>constant. The sun moves but the wall doesn't, so I will have to
>have a mirror, also rotating, to reflect the beam exiting the
>prism toward a constant spot on the wall angle of the prism to
>track the sun. Might be tricky, geometry-wise that is....

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7739 Mon, 15 Nov 1999 23:11:29 PST [alt-beam] Re: Ceramic cutting beam@sgiblab.sgi.com "Timothy Flytcher" NO.... the heat will destroy it... go slow and keep it cool... water is a
good idea but go slow...

>I think you can do it with water, and a highspeed fiberglass cutting wheel.
>Running at high speed of course. The higher speed the better, so go for a
>smaller disk.
>
>
>
>
>James Taylor
>URL: http://fly.to/springmeadows
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Richard Caudle
>To: BEAM
>Sent: Monday, November 15, 1999 6:19 PM
>Subject: Ceramic cutting
>
>
>Hi all!
>
>I'm making a BEAM Angel tree toppper for my Christmas tree and have run
>into
>a snag. Does anyone know if it's possible to cut ceramic with a Dremel or
>some such like thing? I've taken a flapping mechanism out of one of those
>flapping bird toys and attached a LEGO right angle gear to it. I need to
>carve out the back of the head-and-shoulders bit to make the wings fit.
>Any
>suggestions? I gave some thought to putting a head on it, but I thought it
>would be too creepy...
>
>Don't want to traumatize the bunchkins! (or me late at night slaving over
>the computer!).
>
>Richard Caudle
>www.geocities.com/frankendaddy
>Home ICQ - Frankendaddy
>
>Guardians of the sacred words: Nee, Ptang, and NeeWhon!
>
>

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7740 Tue, 16 Nov 1999 01:25:06 -0700 [alt-beam] Re: If you can't come to the museum, a virtual version of the beam@sgiblab.sgi.com Jean auBois At 08:06 PM 11/15/99 -0700, Kyle wrote:
>On your sat bot picture, and comments, you say, (paraphrasing) What was
>interesting is that the satbot oriented itself towards the flash using
>only it's coils and interaction with the earth's magnetic field.'
>
> Am i sensing sarcasm?!

Nope, not a bit of sarcasm whatsoever. I have attempted to be purely
journalistic with regard to any message that has a photograph in it.

> Note the two eye-looking things in the top of the silver box.

I do see two rounded-corner rectangular cutouts in the aluminum (?)
box. Toward the center, there are greenish spots that look a little like
LEDs. Immediately above this (in the picture) there is a caption
"Sensors". I will take the time to look far more carefully the next time
I go to the museum (to take the next batch of photographs) and I will write
down notes in order to report more completely.

> Maybe it sensed the magnetic force your flash put out? (I'm
> sure there's some there... do I even know what I'm talking about?)

Yes, I understand what you are talking about, but the magnetic field
generated by a photographic flash unit is likely to be quite small --
generally speaking, we are talking about an electrostatic effect: a very
high voltage applied across a gas-filled tube but with relatively small
amounts of current. Someone correct the error I'm about to make: under
the circumstances, with such a low current, wouldn't the resulting magnetic
field generated be ignorable?

> Anyways, what I'm asking, what is your opinion on that bot? Anybody know
of schems for it?

Janet Frigo (sp?), a physicist at the Lab, worked with Mark to develop this
concept. I'm not sure where they are, but I have at least one abstract and
one paper that was written about SatBot. Furthermore, there have been a
huge number of articles in the popular press describing this device,
including one that compared it to a "space butterfly" showing a fanciful
graphic of thousands of butterflies floating away from a shuttle.

In essence, a "proper" SatBot is three solar-powered heads, one each for
the x, y, & z axes (or roll, pitch and yaw if you prefer). I believe that
the basic circuit of each is a bicore with two photosensitive elements
providing a differential signal -- given that the model on display only
works in one dimension (i.e. it can rotate parallel to the surface of the
earth) only one pair would be necessary, corresponding to the comment about
the two "eye-looking things" above. As far as the electromotive force is
concerned, we are talking about something vaguely similar to the
Solarbotics Magbot Butterfly (http://www.solarbotics.com/kit_3.shtml)
except that the kit uses a local magnet rather than the magnetic field of
the earth.

I believe that the two solar cells sticking out from the cube are being
used to keep the device powered up as long as light shines on them, using
the power-regulation tile captioned "PWR". There is light continually
available from fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling in the museum, but they
aren't terribly bright and they are at a fairly steep angle to the surface
of the solar cells. I'll have to check if there are any "activity" LEDs
blinking when nothing else is happening (e.g. me flashing my camera at it.)

If you navigate back to the first message on the

BEAM Heretics: Virtual Los Alamos National Lab Museum BEAM Exhibits:
Introduction

page, you'll see a photograph of the prototype of this system with three
coils mutually perpendicular to each other.

Looking carefully at the photograph for the SatBot, it is fairly evident
that the SMT-style tiles:

BEAM Heretics: Virtual Los Alamos National Lab Museum BEAM Exhibits:
SMT Bicore Tiles

are being used to construct this system.


Zoz



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