windows update is awesome

Update failed.
Update failed.
Update failed.

At some point it says something like..

Nevermind. You don't need that update after all.

No longer an employee at HH

I'd asked about switching my HH schedule a few months back. The core hours were exactly wrong in combination with watching my kids. It was pretty brutal on me. I was either with the kids at work or sleeping ( 7 hours. ) Anyway.. They stuck to their guns and I was denied.

Things changed a bit when Janel started school for this year and we got a new nanny. I now had a few hours each day to do stuff other than kids+work. It was amazing how much better of a mood I was in.

I had a bunch of paternity leave I needed to use up before it expired so that left me with even more free time. Of course with this new found free time I of course had to find a way to fill it up with work. Two contracting projects fell onto my lap.

After I got back to work ( actually I told one boss well before ) I told them about my upcoming contracting gigs and that I wanted to switch to contractor status so that there was not a conflict of interest. As a contractor I offered to work in-house for the same hours and pay. So pretty much the only thing that would change was my status.

The response.. I'll think about it.

A week passed and I still had not heard anything. My start dates are approaching and I really was not about to give these contracts up. These are very well paying part-time contracts. I would make in a little over a month what I would make in 6 months at HH. This income boost would be perfect because lately I'd been a bit miffed when I realized that I only net 2.5 times what I my nanny nets!!

So I send another email..

Today is my last day as a HH employee. blah blah. I'm available for 20 hours in-house a week contracting at my same hourly salary rate. blah blah.

I up'd the anti a bit with the 20 hours since I was pissed that I didn't get a response. It was what I wanted anyway, but I was willing to do 40 hours if they would given the go ahead.

After I sent the email my boss came into my office ( talked with officemates ) multiple times and didn't say a word. The end of my day came and nothing. I put my keys in an envelope on the desk and left.

It's been two days now. I've still not heard anything.

Basic CNC router drawing

I'm finally going to get around to building a CNC router. Mainly for routing out circuits on copper clad PCB's, but I'm building it to have a bit more room for other projects. It's a small one for my desk that should be able to handle 8" x 8" x 4" working areas.

Here's the first drawing. Not to scale. Just a rough out.

For linear slides I am going to be using high quality ball-bearing drawer slides. The ones I found cost 5 bucks a piece and have zero slop. I'm going to be using them in a non-standard type of way from what I've seen internet folks do. All the folks I've seen lay them flat ( and use just a single slide. ) I'm going to be all crazy and use them just like they were designed.. So each axis is basically just a sliding drawer!

For the screw/nut I just got some threaded rod and a coupler from the hardware store. Lame yes, but I want to see how well it works. If it sucks I'll rebuild it and move up to a lead-screw, though I have been eyeing ball-screws on ebay.

To motorize the rods I am going to use some of my robot servos. They have a continuous rotation mode, but you only can read the angles from 0 to 303 degrees. I'll be adding another encoder to the back of each servo ( just like the one that's inside it ) to get the remaining data. The servos should have plenty of oomf at 220 oz/in and they'll be super easy to interface since I already have that working. They spin at 60rpm. I'm not sure have fast that'll allow me to route. Probably faster than I can anyway without breaking bits.