<Sigh>
This weekend was suppose to be the weekend for real progress; sadly – it didn’t happened.
On Friday; I went to techshop to check on file readiness and water jet a unique piece for the Playfield.
Turned out all the work I’d done (6hrs or more) in the Trial version of Cut2D wasn’t usable in the production version Techshop had. Those a-holes think it’s cute to prevent files created in the trial version from working in the production version unless you spent 500 on the full version. OFcourse the Trial version only outputs from their trial library so I couldn’t export tool paths. I recovered; but I spent a lot of late night hours rebuilding the CNC files. I understand a company wanting to protect their IP – but this is just well – going too far.
I kept my Saturday reservation time - as I worked OT to get the files repaired... When I got to techshop; I realized the didn't stock a full line of Collets for the Shopbot. They only stock 1/4" and 1/2" collets and they don't provide a drill collet for drill bits. I needed a 3/8" ER25 collet and a drill holder for the PF. I don't blame them really - they clearly stated as such in their SBU for the shopbot. I mis-read it. This puts the Pinball table on hold until I get an 3/16" and a 3/8" ER25 collet for the machine. I proably also need to get a v-cut bit and/or a ball nose bit to do the kickout hole and ball lane.
Now onto the unique piece I was to water jet. I built the file in CorelDraw. Let’s just say CorelDraw is absolute crap when it comes to outputting DXF files. When I bring it into FlowPath to generate the waterjet files... the parts have in-exact curves and broken lines. I have to repair it in FlowPath which takes about an hour. When I take it to the waterjet; the part some how grew by 1.2x ... not that I caught it at the time. So; 40 in aluminum and 40 dollars in machine time is down the drain. I’ve recreated the design in a real cad program and we’ll see about cutting it in a few days when I get more material.
After about 4 weeks; my 12A Nixie tubes arrived from Russia. First thing I noticed is that the numbers are upside down to what I thought the proper orientation was. To make matters worse the Library that I dled for the Nixie tubes was incorrect and the pin numbering was off. This renders one of the two circuit boards for the nixie displays invalid. I’ve fixed the pinout in the library and have re-laid out the display board. Plan on submitting it to BatchPCB tonight. I think the PCBs are running behind because of Chinese holidays... so not sure if I’ll actually get the PCBs in time for TPF’13. I gambled by committing the PCB before I had the tubes... and lost that bet.
I did get my ColorDMD for the STNG installed last Thursday... so at least that went well.
Hoping your weekend was better,
John
