Category: Personal

Custom Walnut top for IKEA SKARSTA Desk with magnetic tray.

Some pictures of building a walnut desktop for the IKEA SKARSTA standing desk. https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/skarsta-desk-sit-stand-white-s59324818/.

I was looking for a natural matte/satin finish for the Walnut so I went with Tried & True – Original Traditionnel. It’s food/environmentally safe, no VOCs, safe for skin, and made from renewable ingredients.

It contains Beeswax which offers some hardness and protection from water, and was perfect for a computer desk. The low odor/no vocs allowed me to finish it in my apartment as well. Ended up doing 3 coats, burnishing in-between each coat.

Wood was machine sanded, and then hand sanding up-to 220 before finishing. Put felt underneath the magnetic tray and computer monitor as added protection from scratches.

Huge thanks to my buddy Adrian Orozco for milling, assembling, and cutting everything! If you want a custom piece, use the link before to reach out:

https://www.ditworkshops.com

Process:

  • Cutting felt for tray and computer stand
  • Applying first coat of Tried & True – really thin coat, wiped dry after 60 minutes, 24 hours before next application.
my buddy Adrian testing the magnets!
  • Glue up
  • Board selection
Initial planning concepts

Kato HO Metra with LokSound 5 Select Direct and Custom Sounds

A hobby project I’ve been working on recently. This project involved:

  • soldering small electronic components
  • using a multimeter (to measure current, resistance, amperage)
  • understanding and installing resistors and LEDs
  • painting/spray painting plastic and installing small plastic pieces to the body shell
  • knowledge of DC
  • removing the old light board and installing a new LokSound DCC Select Direct board
  • using LokProgrammer to configure the board and install custom sounds
  • creating custom station and announcement sounds to use within LokProgrammer
  • creating a custom sound schedule with logic for station and route sounds

Photos of the train with the shell off:

Wiring

Wildflowers in epoxy resin with NFC

I’ve been wanting to experiment with epoxy resin for awhile and I finally found some wildflowers from the local forest Preserve that I run in frequently. They made the perfect subject to create a balanced and visually stunning composition.

I also wanted to add a technical touch, so I embedded in the bottom layer of the epoxy a NFC chip. See the video below!

  • Bottom, NFC coil up close
  • NFC coil cont.
NFC in action. Most Android phone / iPhone XS and later support background tag reading.

Process:

  • Dried flowers
  • Base layer of epoxy with flowers
  • Top layer of epoxy
  • Top layer of epoxy

Resources:

https://www.artnglow.com/blogs/news/7-steps-to-a-bubble-free-and-flawless-cure

Products used:

Porsche kiosk POC, iPad app developed in Swift

Porsche Paint to Sample Explorer (PTS) built with Bootstrap, Photoshop Scripting and AR QuickLook
Related Post

Fresh off of building PTSExplorer.com I had some inquires about building an adaption for a kiosk or exhibition. I was excited by the challenge and below is what I built in a night to show my vision of what that could look like.

The iPad app uses the didConnectNotification from UIScreen to detect when a secondary screen is connected, via HDMI or AirPlay. Once a second screen is detected at runtime I programmatically create another window with a root view controller from a storyboard.

Misc Projects over the past few years.

  • Concrete + Wood table project. Was building this right before my kids were born for my new house, however I wanted to redo the concrete and then the girls were born so this got tabled (pun intended). Wood was a beautiful piece of hickory I sourced from Tennessee. Gaps in concrete were for bowties, which would have been routed out of the slab as well.
  • Creating the form
  • Post concrete pour and vibration
  • Hickory slab from Tenneesee
  • Office train shelf I built with my dad – metal studs and drywall. Corner pieces CNC’d MDF. Shelf was hollow to easily run wires, and work on track sections.
  • The girl’s nursery. I painted the accent wall, applied the star decals, sewed the mobiles, and hung the chandelier.
SnapChat Filter for my daughter’s first birthday.
Birthday invites for my twin daughters, a series.
Coffee mug I designed to commiserate the release of a major Android app at Walgreens. Illustrations on the back were done by the amazing Enrique Sanchez.
Animation I was working on for More cupcake app, never finished but always loved it.
  • Stripped and repainted Chicago CTA cars
  • two tone finish – they came from the factory with a YellowBook graphic!
  • O gauge, small track section with cross gates
  • Decals
  • Train collection, O, HO, and N

Model train crossing/bridge controller using an Arduino Mega using C/C++

Command: a macOS app that interfaces with the NCE usb module via RS-232

One of my favorite things about the model train hobby is getting to experiment with my love for hardware and code. One day I was playing with a crossing system I bought from a big retailer and quickly became frustrated with its shortcomings, I literally had an “ah hah” moment when I realized I could create my own, pretty easily.

The video below describes in detail why I decided to build my own, and how I went about doing it. I go over different “activation methods” and why I chose to go with sonar over voltage or light.

One additional thing I did was add a BLE chip so I could control the whole system with my smart phone (luckily I know a good iOS developer to build the app).

Grossing Gates, Turnout, and Signal Bridge

Components used:

  • Arduino Mega
  • Sonic sensors (HC-SR04)
  • NJI Crossing Gates (NJI 1164) & NJI dwarf
  • Adafruit Bluefruit LE UART Friend – Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
  • Innovative Train Technology Products HQ-300 (Sound module)
  • Tolako 5v Relay Module for Arduino (Works with Official Arduino Boards)
  • SMAKN® 5V Active Low 2 Channel Relay Shield Module for Arduino UNO 2560 1280 ARM PIC AVR STM32 Raspberry Pi
  • BLMA 3 track modern signal bridge
  • Circuitron 6000 Tortoise Switch Machine
  • Misc. servos (crossing gate and car stopping mechanism)
  • Rare earth magnets (interrupts the reed switch in Faller car)
  • Faller – Car System Start-Set MB Sprinter
  • Adafruit Speaker – 3″ Diameter – 8 Ohm 1 Watt [ADA1313]

Faller car system

Web application to easily view financial information with Chart.js

Key Technologies: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, CSV, Chart.js

I really wanted a quick and secure way to get a breakdown of my spending without having to give up my banking details to a third-party. For the longest time I was using an excel spreadsheets and doing a lot of work manually to categorize transactions and compute totals. One day I decided to just build my own tool!

  • Chase’s developer API is invite only, so used their csv data dump option
  • Lots of pre-work happens before rendering the charts, data from csv is converted to objects, grouped by months, computed for totals/averages/etc., and then categorized by user inputted data
  • The transaction list allows me to flag what category a transaction should fall under – under similar transaction will automatically be assigned that category unless explicitly overwritten.
  • Using chart.js to render the charts – this framework is incredible and really easy to use

Below is a video of what I settled on for a v1. It does everything I need it to quickly, and makes understanding where I’m spending my money clear. Some future enhancements will include:

  • Monitor Chase’s API to see if it opens up for normal developers
  • Flag transactions that fall outside a specific variance (unexpected transactions)
  • Show top 5-10 places I’m spending money, e.g. how much money am I spending at Chipotle!
  • Add pagination for transactions list
  • Show YOY information and trends
  • Add ability to layer in a second account
  • Refactor code to reduce redundancies in calculations
Example with fake data.

Porsche Paint to Sample Explorer (PTS) built with Bootstrap, Photoshop Scripting and AR QuickLook

Key Technologies: Bootstrap (HTML/CSS), JavaScript, JSON, and AR QuickLook

PTS Explorer is a quick way to find instagram photos of a given PTS (paint to sample) color. A few months ago I noticed there were many Instagram accounts centered around PTS colors – this worked well to see many examples of different colors, but what if you didn’t know all the colors, or wanted to see many examples of a certain color?

These questions prompted me to create PTS Explorer.

Responsive layout using Bootstrap. Tap image for larger view.
Filter colors by name. Tap image for larger view.
Filter colors by hue. Tap image for larger view.
View instagram photos tagged with color. Tap image for larger view.
Example 2. Tap image for larger view.
On iOS12 via Mobile Safari preview colors in AR QuickLook.
Use photoshop scripting to quickly generate swatches from JSON data file.

https://www.ptsexplorer.com

Command: a macOS app that interfaces with the NCE usb module via RS-232

Key Technologies: RS-232, Hex, and Cocoa (Mac)

Command for Mac is a [native] application I built to run DCC trains on my office layout. It works by using the USB Interface for Power Cab to bridge the gap from the computer to the NCE cab bus. The application uses the RS-232 serial interface to send hex commands to control the locomotives.

The application’s main interface can be accessed from the OS menu bar, this interface allows you to open the manage the connection, add/remove trains, and create new throttles.

Want to develop your own application? Hex command documentation can be found here.

Menu Bar Application. Tap image for larger view.
Manage Trains Window. Tap image for larger view.
Single Throttle. Tap image for larger view.
Multiple Throttles. Tap image for larger view.

HO DCS Wiring Guide

A simple approach to some DCS basics.

I started working on a small HO DCS layout about a year ago and found it pretty complicated to find clear answers on wiring best practices. I would ask simple questions in train forums and get back long, complicated answers filled with personal opinion (I also found out that most people are or think they are electrical engineers, which I am certainly not!) and more times than not the answer didn’t address my question completely.

So this site is my attempt to list out anything I’ve learned over the past few months, as simple as I can put it. I will be updating this website as I go along, please feel free to ask me any questions or suggest any additional information, we’re all in this together.

Imprortant Points:

  • • MTH HO PS3 engines require DC voltage.
  • • MTH TIU takes upto 24VDC, 10.0 AMPs. You can find a list of MTH recommened DC transformers here. I find it simpler to use a filtered DC power supply, right now I’m using a spare HP laptop power supply that puts out 19.5VDC 4.62A 90W (watts = volts * amps)
  • • Most Diesel engines take 0-24 VDC ~230 – 650mA, so look for a power supply with higher amperage output to run multiple trains at once.
  • • Only Fixed 1 and Fixed 2 can take DC power, and you must use Fixed 1 to power the TIU if you are not powering the TIU via the Auxiliary port. You can power the Auxiliary port with a power brick like Z-500 or Z-750 e.g. Variable Channels are AC only.
  • • PS3 Engines eliminate the need for a polarity switch on the engine and the engine can receive the command signal from either track (All MTH HO trains are PS3). Although the PS3 engine isn’t polarity sensitive, the TIU is, so make sure you have the right power connections at the TIU.
  • • PS3 engines require your TIU/Remote be upgraded to DCS version 4.20+
  • • You’ll often hear home run or star wiring in the DCS books, see the image below for a simple explanation:

Okay, let’s see some examples.

Simple Loop with Single Feeder

Large Loop with Multiple Feeders

Multiple Loops with 2 TIU Channels

Atlas Turnout with Circuitron Capacitor Discharge Unit

You can also skip the Capacitor Discharge Unit and hook the AC power right into the Snap Switch, however this is highly discouraged as it’s very common for the solenoid in the turnout to burnout if the switch is pressed for too long or gets stuck.

Atlas Turnout with Circuitron Capacitor Discharge Unit and Atlas Snap Relay controlling a NJI Dwarf