Welcome to my digital home! There are lots of articles you might find helpful buried in this site on topics such as modifying an Alfa Romeo 159, rebuilding a Lotus 7 (Robin Hood 2B), not to mention a ton of stuff on technology in general. It’s all here somewhere, so use the search function or navigate using the menu structure. if you want to talk, reach out via the contact function, I usually do answer!
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Alfa 159 / ElectronicsWell, I continue to work on this and now have a beta unit in my car on a long term test. It is pretty rough around the edges and has one major(ish) issue that I am working to resolve, but its a good starting point to work from.
So what I have now looks a bit like this:
(click to enlarge)
Its still a very simple design that uses as few components as I can, but as a result it has some issues:
As the the LEDs are quite hungry (50Ma each) the ATMega328 & the voltage regulator has to work hard to feed them.
The above point causes a small delay in start-up of the unit of around 200-300ms.
This delay is a problem as the unit is powered by the feed to the brake light, when the brake is pressed, so in essence it adds a small delay between the stop/tail lights of the car illuminating and the high level brake light. Long term this is unacceptable, but for now its a work in progress so I can live with it.
The first generation PCB was designed to fit into the dust cover of the brake light, but after I attached the ribbon cables for the LED’s it didn’t fit so is now wedged under the parcel shelf for now. This gives me easy access form the boot to change the unit as I progress the design to remove the delay and make it instant. Here is the mock-up of the PCB using matrix board (left to right we have the finished design, the component layer, the jumper cable layer on the front, and the soldered join layer on the back):
And the finished article looked like this:
In the end I decided to opt to hot glue the LED’s into the reflector and wire them back via a ribbon cable to allow me more flexibility on changing the circuits easily:
Long term I intend to make a unit that can replace the original light bar, so the LEDs will be mounted direct to a PCB that will be installed into the light bar in some way, or easily attached to the back of the reflector housing, not sure which yet.
I am working on a number of new designs at the minute that remove the delay and am getting some help from a true expert in the field of automotive electronics who actually designed stuff that is used in the Mclaren MP4-12C.
The current V3 unit that is in the car looks like this when operated:
You can download all of the project files (sketch, layout & schematic) from the downloads section.
Watch this space for V4 of the unit.Related Images: [...]
LiveMixeshttps://jabawoki.com/wp-content/mp3/Jabs_20102001_Progressive_House.mp3
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3DWhy this Kit?
This kit is well built and well packaged which combined with the relative cost is absolute value for money for the print size. It does suffer a number of issues though and the “community guide” is an invaluable asset in the build of these printers.
The community around this printer is great and has many people both skilled and novice, all of whom seem happy to help. The community is mostly in the Facebook Group, or at least that is where I found them! There is an extremely detailed and maintained “Community Guide” that contains a wealth of information about the printer, its issues, its features and how to get the most out of it. This can be found linked from the Facebook Group or can be downloaded from this link.
One of the best features for a first time builder like me was the very extensive video build guides from:
ruiraptor. His 15 video series on the full build process took all the pain out of this for me. That said, It would have taken more pain out of it if I had watched all 15 videos before starting to build the printer as sometimes he will show you how to do something the “TEVO Way” and then his own way, which is often much better!
The community guide also holds some key information not covered in detail or at all in the videos such as the BL Touch installation.
TEVO Black Widow 3D printer – All assembly videos
Aside from the support. Guides and quality of this printer, the main reasoning behind the choice was the build area. A whopping 370mm x 250mm x 300mm build area was exactly what I needed to support some of the planned projects that I will use this for.
Where to buy it?
Do not buy this kit off ebay! Buy it direct from the manufacturer shop via AliExpress. This will ensure you get the latest version direct from the manufacturer stock rather than an old one that has been sat in someone’s stock room for a while. At the time of writing this, V3 was the latest.
A key reason for this is that early versions of this printer had some serious faults such as an earthing issue on the power switch that could electrocute you!
Additional Mandatory Parts:
12 x 28mm Cast Aluminium Corner Brackets
24 x 8mm M5 High Tensile Butten Flange Allen Bolts
24 x CNBTR M5 Thread T Spring Nut 20 Series EU
1 x Red Button 4 Pin DPST ON/OFF Illuminated Rocker Switch AC 250V 15A
1 x 2 metres of 10mm Expandable Braided Sleeving
1 x 1 roll of 9mm cloth wiring tape
1 x Standard Floated Glass 400mm x 250mm x 3mm with Polished edge (from local glazier)
1 x Right-Angle USB2.0 B Male to USB B Female Socket Panel Extension Cable Cord
Optional Parts:
7 x Solid V Xtreme Wheel
8 x Mini V Xtreme Wheel
1 x 24v 40mm Layer Fan
1 x 3m of 28 AWG red & black silicon wire for layer fan
2 x pair of 2 PIN JST SM Plug Socket Connectors – Soldered / Crimp
1 x 400mm x 250mm PrintBite+
Optional Tools
1 x 15 or 30cm metal ruler
1 x 8mm flexible head ratchet spanner
1 x 60 in 1 S2 Tool Steel Precision Screwdriver Nutdriver Bit Repair Tools Kit hv2n
Tools & Assembly
Although the kit comes with all the tools you need to build it, it does make it quite hard work if you only use them. The additional tools suggested make light work of the job and if you don’t have them, come in handy in many other places! The general assembly is straight forward, although if you are following the build videos, make sure you have watched them all first. I found that in certain videos, Rui would build something and take it apart then show you a better way to build it! If your following the video for the first time this can mean you build somethings twice or more.
Modifications
Let me fist answer the question of why modify? These kits are “Open Build” based which essentially means that they are based on 100% open sourced common components that have been pulled together to make this kit. TEVO have a number of custom parts size / length and manufactured their own versions to suit this kit perfectly which makes this kit very good.
That said, a number of parts in this kit such as wheels or angle brackets are not the absolute best that are available, and as with anything built to a market price point, some compromises exist. It is these compromises I am not willing to accept and that I wanted to tackle as part of the build process.
Joints
I was unhappy with the quality of the L brackets given the need for a true and non-flexing chassis and as such decided to opt for the 28mm cast aluminium brackets instead. These make a much stronger connection that is less likely to flex during use. For me this was key as a chassis of this size will likely have a lot of pressure put on the joints and any flex in a joint will lead to an inaccuracy in the layer.
Wheels
I was not initially going to replace the wheels despite hearing about the issue of some users reporting flat spots. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a bad decision and in fact I needed to replace the stock wheels straight away. Essentially, the stock wheels will deform if they are left in the same position for a period of time due to the malleable nature of the material used. What I was not expecting in my build was for the heat bed carriage wheels to do this within the first 24 hours! Some people suggested that this is simply because they were too tight, but personally I don’t think that they are as you need to have them tight enough to stop all lateral movement or “wobble” as this will effect print quality. For me, the wheels deformed very quickly so it was better to change them for a much harder polycarbonate compound that is less prone to deformation.
Rocker Switch
Although supposedly fixed in V3 with a new style toggle switch, the possibility of getting electrocuted didn’t appeal. Looking at the toggle switch that comes with the kit, its metal and rated at 12v /20a which just doesn’t sit right with me given its switching the mains live wire directly :/. Instead I opted for a much better quality 250VAC / 15A plastic illuminated switch to ensure that I am insulated from any potential shorts in the switch that could give me a nasty jolt.
Drag Chains
Each of the drag chains can cause the wires to rub and eventually fail unless they are put into nylon sleeving. This sleeving helps to prevent the rubbing and allows the chains to keep everything neat. It is also useful for hiding the mess of cables that connects the control box to the printer and keeping everything untangled.
Layer Fan
A Layer fan is option but seems to be quite a common modification. Even if you are not installing a layer fan on day 1, I do recommend running the cable for the fan through all of the sleeves and drag chains while you build it to save having to take it all apart at a later date when you decide you want one. Its worth running the wire (30 gauge red & black) from the control box to the print head and putting a 2 pin JST connector on it ready for the addition of a fan at a later date. You can also add a break where all of the other cables join from the control box to the printer and using a JST connector (male & female) to match the stock wiring setup
Wiring / Controller Box.
The way in which TEVO suggest to organise the controller box is flawed and Rui does a great job in showing you a much better way. Essentially you need to transpose the holes for the motherboard and mosfet from one side panel to the other, and then mark and drill holes on the original side where the motherboard and mosfet were to be located, in order to mount the PSU on its side. The result is much more space, much less cable mess, better airflow and room to work!
The other major change to the controller box is the power switch. If you use the power switch I suggested you are going to have to cut a square hole around the existing round one. A Dremil some painters tape and patients is all you need. And just remember if you make a total hash of it, you can always print a new one once your printer is up and running!
Firmware Upgrade
I’m a subscriber to “the latest version is best” way of life and as such, job one, even before an actual print, is to upgrade the firmware to the latest version. The printer I bought came with 1.1.0 RC7, while at the time of writing this, 1.1.8 (RC8 V4) was available. The best guide on how to perform the upgrade is here from Rui:
How to easily configure and flash firmware to a TEVO BlackWidow 3D printer
Calibration
This stage is key. Take your time on Video’s 13 & 14 and make sure your eSteps and extrusion is perfect. If you have opted for the BL Touch (recommended) then you do need to follow the community guide on how to calibrate it, but once done its ability to self level the bed before a print is so time saving.
First Print
The first print is always going to be nerve wracking but as long as you have taken your time with everything during the build process and especially the calibration, then it will come out just fine. Here we have my first print, a 20mm XZY Calibration cube printed at 0.2mm layer height:
Key Builds
Universal Spool Holder
Part Cooling Duct for Tevo Black Widow & 40mm Fan
Its best if you print the part cooler and one of the velocity stacks first. Then assemble that and fit it before printing the rest.
Overall the quality is very good though:
Build Gallery
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GeneralBack in 2008 I wrote an article on an idea for a new deck stand. After a few years of not needing one as I migrated to a midi based solution that fitted on my desk, I added a few more bits of kit and ran out of space. So about mid 2012, I ended up with 3 days free in my schedule with no family or work and decided to build a new platform. I designed a fresh platform from scratch but used the same MDF sheet approach to keep costs down.
The plans are here: (visio)
The build process ended up requiring me to invest in far more tools than I actually owned, so it cost way more than anticipated, but it was worth it. The build process can be viewed below:
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InfoSecCourtesy of the Institute for Information Security Professionals
As I mentioned in the opening CEO article, the inaugural Top Gun event in Manchester was a great success on many fronts. We had 20 participants, organised into the Red and Blue teams, plus 5 members of the Control Team, and the day just seemed to fly past, so intense was the concentration, interaction, ingenuity and fun.
We cannot give too much away as to the content of the case study or the processes we followed on the day, for fear that we might spoil some of the element of surprise for participants in future events. Suffice to say that those who were there threw themselves into the exercise and, accordingly got the most out of it, as well as proposing a few additional suggestions for developing and improving it for future players.
Let us however, convey the particular views of a member of one of the teams, and let them tell you what they thought of the event.
“TopGun, The Blue View. (Jay Abbott, PwC)
I have to admit, I was genuinely sceptical about the TopGun event as the idea of playing the Security equivalent of Battleships during one of my busiest times of the year was not one that featured far up the “to do” list, that said, I am genuinely pleased that I made the time to attend. We arrived with very little information about what was planned, and were immediately split into two teams, Red and Blue, The Red were of course the attackers, and Blue were the defenders and the teams split had been pre-planned by the organisers to ensure that a good cross section of skills rested in each team to keep things fair.
The remit was simple, we each were given suitable pieces of a puzzle, i.e. some deliberately sketchy information related to the organisation, typical of that you would find on your first day of work or your first information gathering exercise. From there it was a case of building a better picture of what you have and figuring out the best way forward (sound familiar?). At this point, the teams were physically split and departed into adjacent “war rooms” to prepare their respective strategies. We each could communicate with our “control” staff, who acted as the coordination of the event and holders of information. The co-ordination role was pivotal in the success of the event as they were able to coordinate the virtual attack and defence strategies in real-time to keep the feeling of real-life and to ensure that the game was fair.
From a blue perspective it was business as usual, we had a budget and an environment to protect, we had to evaluate the skills in our team, establish specialism’s that could work in key streams, and run the entire thing like a project.
All in all it was a very worthwhile day that created a great deal of discussion and provoked much debate. What I personally took from the day was something that I see all too often, but is perhaps not as obvious to all, to quote Paul Dorey on the day it is summed up in the phrase “Security is Asymmetric”. Put simply this is the fact that someone attacking an organisation need only find one hole or vulnerability in order to succeed, while those protecting the organisation must try to plug every hole and mitigate every vulnerability to be secure.”
Event wrap-up discussion and lessons learnt – great work everyone!
The participants captured their comments on an evaluation form and we are reviewing and acting on those comments. They also scored the event out of a scale of 1 to 5, and rated the event at 4.3 overall, but with specific scores of 4.5 for facilitation and presentation, and 4.6 for opportunity to discuss and exchange ideas. A great success by any measure.
Thanks to all involved, and to PwC, our hosts for the day.
Courtesy of the Institute for Information Security Professionals
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Alfa 159 / ElectronicsThis is the final update to the schematics and overall design and concludes the R&D aspects of the project. What I have now is a good mix of design good practice and intelligent thinking that results in a solid architecture for a production run. So far I have just prototyped the design into the car using readily available breadboards, however, the next step is to move to a manufactured circuit board that will give much better longevity and easier assembly.
Content relocated to Project Page
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InfoSecIt seems that since vendors started bringing out bug bounties, for all the right reasons I might add, a new breed of “security researcher” has appeared. This new type of researcher is single minded in his/her task and has a simple, no effort, no thought way of achieiving it “fuzzing!”
Dont get me wrong, fuzzing is a legitiamte and good technique, but dont hide behind a wall of fuzz and consider yourself a security researcher, have an original idea, something that would benefit the community/country/world order, and put your efforts into that instead of lining your pockets with vendor dollars!
Right now, we have an entireley new breed of researcher, focussed on notoriety, fame & profit, and that is not the right thing for the industry. What we need are innovators, original thinkers, thought leaders (real ones not self proclaimed hacks that peddle vapourware to the masses, I work with lots of these fools).
You will notice a distinct lack of personal research from myself, and probably decide as a result I have no business writing this post, however, That is largley due to the fact all of my “original thought” is applied directly to my business and through that to my clients and therefore the actual, realised benefit of improving the world in some small way, so rather than hunting for kudos in the ether or “peer respect” from people I have never met, I prefer to come up with an idea that benefits people, opperationalise that idea, apply it to my clients, and make a profit along the way.
//RANT OVER//
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LiveMixesAnoter day another mix…… back in the style of electro madness!
David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland – When Love Takes Over (Electro Extended Mix)
Melleefresh, Deadmau5 – Sex Slave (Original Mix)
Costello – Girls Speak Louder (Donique Mix)
Alexis, Darmon, Eran Hersh, George F – Girls Who Like Girls (Original Living Room Club Mix)
Larry Tee Feat. Roxy Cottontail – Lets Make Nasty (Afrojack Remix)
Jewlez – Get Down (Original Mix)
Pain, Gubellini – Shake It Up feat. Darook Mc (Maurizio Gubellini & Stefano Pain Main Mix)
Martin Solveig – Poptimistic (Bingo PLayers Vox)
Mowgli – London To Paris (Original Mix)
Laidback Luke, Lee Mortimer – Blau! (Original Mix)
Funkagenda – H3lix (Original Club Mix)
Wolfgang Gartner – Latin Fever (Original Mix)
Starkillers – Bitch Ass Trick (Original Version)
Incidentally, this is my first recorded mix on the APC40 with Ableton 🙂
https://jabawoki.com/wp-content/mp3/Jabawoki_DirtyFriday_05032010.mp3
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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RH2B Build DiaryThe original seats in the 2b were a little worse for wear when I bought the car, but I had mistakenly thought that it would be a relatively cheap thing to fix. Little did I know that trimmers charge a small fortune for their skills!
In fact, I was being quoted around £200 per seat to have them fixed, and new seats were about £200 per seat! So, well, you know….. I bought some new seats! That said, I wanted to minimise the cost here as I had hemorrhaged way more than I initially budgeted to get it ready for the summer, so I set about some ebay stalking, and after several back and forth’s on buying expensive branded, quality seats vs something secondhand and cheap, I found a seller with a new pair of the exact seats that were in the car currently (retro style buckets) but in plain black vinyl.
The best part about this find was that the seller was clearly just a regular guy that thought he would get rich selling motorsport parts on ebay but clearly didn’t have the roaring success he planned for and was sat on some stock he needed to shift. This presented an opportunity for a cheeky offer! So an offer was made, and accepted, that got me 2 brand new seats for £260 delivered 🙂 #Result!
New Seats
As part of the change I also wanted to put in new low profile, double lock rails, so that added another £50 to the bill but it was necessary to get the seats fitted in the best possible way.
Double lock low profile adjustable rails
Once I had modified the rails to fit the bolt pattern of the new seats (nothing is plug and play in the kit car world!) I offered the seat into the car and sat in it for an initial test. This is where my heart sank. I was a good 4 inches over the top of the windscreen at eyeline 🙁 Not an ideal seating position by any means. It turns out these new seats had a 6″ pad in the base that meant I was 4″ higher than the set that came out. This was not going to do, so after several emotional responses from frustration to anger to sadness, I decided there was only one option….. heat a large carving knife up till it was glowing red and trim the foam!
Its not that difficult to do as it stands (although i do recommend breathing apparatus as you get very dizzy very quickly!). Just pop the staples off the bottom on one end, remove the foam seat base, heat the knife, slice (like butter) through the foam, then reinstall the foam, glue back on the cover, staple the excess material out of sight and your back in business… all be it a lot lower to the ground! Its not perfect, but I do plan on a major rebuild this winter, and I am likely to be looking for some better / more modern low profile buckets as part of that so this is just for the summer.
Once I had the seats ready for install it was onto the floor. I wanted to reinforce the floor where the seats mounted to as the floor had developed flex in one corner of the seat mounting position whcih made the seat seem loose and rock. To solve this I decided to replicate what the builder had already done to reinforce the floor in the front seat mounting location. Essentially adding a 25X25x3mm angle iron from side to side. Again, this was a seasonal fix as come the winter I want to weld in a lowered floor to gain an inch of height inside the cabin.
Front (existing) and Rear (new) angle iron reinforcements
A purchased a 25x25x3mm 2m length of stainless steel angle iron and cut it to size. I then mounted it on the front edge of the 3mm steel subframe mounts in the rear floor location whcih was the right daytum to provide me a straight line side to side I could use as the rear seat mount. After measuring, cutting, drilling several holes, painting and bolting it all in with M8 stainless bolts, I had the perfect strengthening part that meant the weight of the passengers was spread evenly across the chassis on both sides via the subframe mounts and in the middle via the tunnel mounts, so therefore would not move.
Floor reinforcement rail
Now the seats, floor and seat runners were all ready, it was just a case of making a cardboard template, measuring, drilling, and then bolting it all together with M8 Stainless bolts. The finished article is great IMO. they look period to the car and are much less garish that the ones that came out, which had some interesting colours and the word “dubollox” embroidered in….
Old vs new seats
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Alfa 159I finally got round to installing the Wireless OBD II dongle I bought off ebay into my car the other day and thought I would document the process for those that may be interested.
First your going to need to pick one up. I bought a clone Kiwi Wifi dongle off ebay for £45 which is a third of the cost of an original branded version so a complete bargain! Its a great little unit and perfect for interfacing with any OBD application you may want it for. Once you get the unit delivered you will notice that it is a simple plug and play job with no configuration. While this is true in its simplest form, one slight issue I found is that the OBD port is always powered up, therefore you would have to plug it in and remove it when you were not using it or it would always be broadcasting direct access to your cars ECU via a wireless network, which in my book is not the best of ideas!
So the first job you have is to retro-fit an on off switch to allow for a more permanent installation! Its an easy job and Maplin have micro 12v switches that will fit and do the job well for a few pence. Just slide your fingernails around the edge of the front plastic cover and it will literally pop off in your hands, giving you access to the internals. All you need to do is de-solder the power connection (trace pin 16 on the connector), add a new bit of wire from the board to your switch and back to the original wire where you can splice it back together. To do this nicely you need about 12cm of wire, 2cm of heat shrink wrap, a soldering iron & solder & a small switch.
Fit the switch on the side of the unit for easy access and put the cover back on with a dab of glue to hold it in place.
Here is an image of my modified unit.
Once the unit is installed in the car, you can connect it to your chosen application which for me was Rev2 from Dev Toaster on the iphone. This app is a bit pricey at £26 for the pro version, but gives me everything I want in terms of access to key metrics in real time, full data logging and even engine code interrogation and resetting! It can get data on a large number of points including:
Vehicle Speed
RPM
Fuel Consumption
Engine Coolant Temp
Fuel Pressure
Calculated Engine Load
Throttle Position
Intake Manifold Pressure
Air Intake Temp
Timing Advance
Mass Air Flow
Fuel Level
Barometric Pressure
EVAP System Vapor Pressure
Fuel Trim
Boost
Examples:
In terms of the actual connection between the iphone and the OBD II dongle, its as simple as:
Connect the OBD II and power on
Go to settings > WiFi on the iPhone
Press the arrow next to “CLKDevices” network
Set a static IP of192.168.0.11 & netmask of 255.255.255.0, save and exit
Open Rev2, go to settings, hardware choose Kiwi Wifi, then select custom from the bottom
Set the device to 192.168.0.10 and port of 35000
Done.
From this point your up and running!
You do need to configure a profile for your car, with its kerb weight as this is used to calculate torque and BHP. My kerb weight is documented at 1680KG, but I have the top spec TI version with all the extra trimmings so expect it to be closer to 1750KG. I am of course excluding the 75KGs of lard I personally add to the equation, but I think thats fair! I will actually get it weighed at some point just to be pedantic, but for now 1750kg’s is close enough for me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWvbQ1RdHCo
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