“The only reason I’m caught up on my life is because I haven’t slept in three days.”
— Unknown
It’s been a few days since my last update and boy they’ve been a tough few days.
I’ve been working quite a bit on the program that I use for the car tax discs that I sell and trying to set up the new website for them.
I’ve made progress with the plating setup so that’s got new legs installed to keep the trays high enough and the three power supply units are in place. I’ve also dug out the old wiring and 3d printed a new switch box for that, but by far the most fun has been trying to drill holes into the little metal plates that I use in the actual plating fluids.
They’re made of 3mm marine steel. If you’ve never had the opportunity to play with that stuff, it is impossible to drill through and that’s what that picture of failed attempt is below. I ended up having to get some specialised drill bits for it which to be honest I’m quite happy about because they went through it almost like butter.
I’ve also been working on ProbeSmith a little bit more. That’s the program that controls the CNC to make PCBs and engrave images onto metal, and it does standard milling.
I’ve been concentrating mainly on the PCB section getting all the settings right getting it set up and making little adjustments to the program which has been great because I’ve got my first genuinely completed PCB from it. Nice clean tracks with clearance around them. The drill holes absolutely perfect right through and also the actual cutting out of the board.
So all in all I’ve been quite busy. I’d like to get the plating set up completed because that will let me get on with making the rings that I want to create, but I really need to get the tax discs website sorted first.
