Shop Life 2.0
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Where do you work? We do the same thing and are literally 3 blocks from Pro-active.
And I agree, confident is not cocky.
Me? Concept 2 Solution, Inc. in West Bend. Where is Pro-active?
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Pro-Active is in Sun Prairie. Oddly, Jason and I rarely seem to cross paths despite working blocks apart, although he did spot me pulling into Woodmans recently.
We're an electronics company, but our management likes to toss us curve balls on a regular basis. Most of the mechanical stuff that I've done are things that are used in-house, particularly test fixtures for circuit boards. I call these things "prototypes" because they're all one-offs, and built on a tight budget. This is my latest creation:
We charged our customer a mere $8k for this thing, and it was my project from beginning to end. It's a "functional test", which means that as long as the board does what it's supposed to, it's considered good-to-go. The customer supplied some circuit boards and schematics, and I had to figure out the rest.
I do all the design work myself, using out-dated software, since it's what I know and costs nothing:
I also machine the parts myself on a CNC router table that I bought off craigslist and sold to the company after I convinced the VP that it was something we needed. The picture shows the new table that I made (old table can be seen at far right; the PO used drywall screws to hold parts down to the table, I came up with a slightly better system).
One of the guys in the engineering department is a "mechanical guy", who thankfully has Solidworks and some ability to use it. The other two that are left are software guys. It's a little sad that I'll have to pass the torch with the mechanical stuff, but being able to get back into electronics hardware is a great opportunity for me, since I feel that's really where my biggest aptitude is. Depending on who/when they hire for the manager position, I may have to take on more manger duties than I'd like to, but as I said before, the bar has been set pretty low, so even though I don't have any managing experience, I'm confident I can do a better job than the out-going manager.
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Nice, I didn't realize you guys were so small. We do alot of what you guys do and our software department has be growing vastly since I started. Nice work on the router bed!
https://www.instagram.com/_jdesigner_/ http://nevertoolow.tumblr.com/
🥳SOLD BMW E24 633CSI - BMW M30B32 🧪SOLD HCH ES9 - 1.3 LDA
👽BMW E30 325IC - Toyota 1JZ-GTE ⏰ HONDA EF9 CIVIC SI - JDM B18C5
☠️BMW E36 318i - Ford 5.0 FE302 🚴♂️ GT-Labomba - 26x2.75 Freeride
🤹♀️SOLD BMW E36/7 Z3 - BMW M54B25 🧓SOLD BMW E10 2002 - BMW M10M05 -
I'm glad to see you made the new bed for the router, I recall talk of that while it was at the shop. I'm also stoked that you've got potential to end up in the engineering dept, as you've certainly got the knowledge and thought process for it!
Your thread title made me a bit sad this morning, I miss hanging out at the shop and "working" (drinking beer, blowing shit up, and setting things on fire counts right?) On things over the weekend.
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Plot twist: We "bought out" a small engineering firm, and now have a new engineering manager and 3 new engineers. This probably sounds like it would hurt my chances of getting a job, but I'm not too worried. I think I've gotten my message across to my boss and HR, and they'll be helping me get over there.
Half of my machine programming responsibilities I've already off-loaded onto a guy we hired a couple months ago. We're also hiring another guy that wants to take over the the rest of the machine programming and maintenance that I'm currently doing. After that the only thing left on my plate (asside from keeping tabs on those two guy to make sure they're not blowing things up or starting them on fire), will be building fixtures, so I'll have plenty of time on my hands to take on some more interesting things.
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Finally pulled the car out and replaced the wastegate controller. The new "7psi" wastegate was still hitting boost cut at 10psi. In hindsight, this isn't hard to believe, because the the size of the wastegate and lever ratio of the actuator affects the end result, and the controller isn't specific to my application.
Looking at the logs, it looked like the wastegate was trying to open around 10 psi, so I bumped up the fuel and raised the boost cut to .8 bar (11.76psi). No more boost cut. Did a bunch of ripping around and it seems to be holding it just fine.
When I chose the injectors, I wanted to prevent myself from turning up the boost beyond ~250hp. Currently hitting 85% duty cycle at redline, so it looks like I did a good job there, although I'm still running extra safe AFRs (11.5:1 at peak boost) and guesswork timing, so I'm probably nowhere near that target. Even so the car is significantly faster than it ever has been and is quite amusing.
2nd gear pull:
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What EBC are you using?
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Electronic boost controller.
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Went up to storage to grab some stuff I needed/put snows on the compact/winterize the e21. I've been wondering for a while how the e21 would look on 13s now that the suspension and flares are "done". I find it quite novel. I could see going back to them if I even manage to keep the car running long enough to wear out the RS4s.
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Did the RS4s find a warm home?
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Did the RS4s find a warm home?
I bagged them up and they are in my bedroom closet. Safe and sound.
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the 13"s look like you mean business, in a track car way.
Dan
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Shop life is tking a different turn this year...
I bought this thing off ebay back in the early 2000s to replace my 1980s Magnavox CD player. The backlight was burnt out, so I got a killer deal on it. I think I payed something like 20-30 dollars for it + shipping. I wasn't expecting much of a difference, because digital is digital. A CD player is a CD player right? Wrong. This thing made way more of a difference than any other component I've ever added to my audio system.
Fast forward to now. The loading mechanism on this thing crapped out about 5 years ago and I've been getting by just fine without it. The NAD has been relegated to collecting dust in my storage unit.
Recently I've been working on building an audio amp to get myself back in the swing of things since my career trajectory has me pointed towards electrical engineering. I haven't finished that project yet, but when I do get it it done I want to make sure I have a good source to drive it from to make sure it sounds good. So...naturally, I've dug the NAD out of storage. Turns out it just needs some cleaning and a fresh coat of grease and possibly a new belt to fix the loading mechanism. However...
What I wasn't expecting, again, somehow, Is just how damn good this thing sounds. I hate to start spouting adjectives, because as an engineering-minded person I feel like the audiophile world is full of subjectivism and pseudoscience, but damn. Compared to playing CDs on a PS3, this thing is next level, despite being 25 years old.
The separation between the different voices and instruments is the biggest difference to me. Everything seems to be presented in front of a inky curtain of blackness. I attribute this to a lack of noise and low distortion, but currently, I don't have the tools to measure this. Another thing I'm working on...
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What I wasn't expecting, again, somehow, Is just how damn good this thing sounds. I hate to start spouting adjectives, because as an engineering-minded person I feel like the audiophile world is full of subjectivism and pseudoscience, but damn. Compared to playing CDs on a PS3, this thing is next level, despite being 25 years old.
I didn’t think vintage CD players would be a thing when I donated my ‘90s Sony ES years ago. I could see how analogue audio output would change things. Granted CD quality is also higher bit rate than any streaming service these days.
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I didn’t think vintage CD players would be a thing when I donated my ‘90s Sony ES years ago. I could see how analogue audio output would change things. Granted CD quality is also higher bit rate than any streaming service these days.
I don't think vintage CD players will ever really be a thing given that CD is still the mainstream physical medium for music distribution. Besides that they're all made of plastic which has a tendency to get brittle as it ages, so they're difficult to keep running after 20 or 30 years.
Analog output is required in my case because my amp doesn't have digital in. Digital interconnects are nice, but the signal degradation that happens on a 3ft interconnect cable is pretty negligible.
Unless the NAD starts behaving nicely, I'll probably be getting a new CD player.
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Went on adventure today. Took a bus up to Appleton to collect the car. I didn't really have a plan B if anything went wrong with the car, other than calling a tow truck. Battery was flat when I got there. Luckily Sam was at the shop and gave me a jump. Good news is I got the car back to Sun Prairie without it blowing up or falling apart. Bad news is I think the bus driver had the 'rona, so I'll be self-isolating for a few days... no bueno.
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Looks like the I'll be using this my daily for a minute until I find a replacement for the compact. Took it out for some tuning runs today to make sure everything is copacetic. Found a couple issues that I got corrected, but nothing too serious.
TODO list:
Catch can/resurc for crankcase ventilation: I smell like a quik-e-lube after driving 20 miles
Do something about scraping: The way I built the bash bar/oil pan protector is terrible and scrapes way too often. Entering steep driveways at 45 degrees with stiff suspension results in one rear tire just about going airborne and no traction. Not ideal.
Tune closed loop idle control: Did some work on this and it's getting better, but still oscillates/stalls when coming to a stop. Software accepts values from 1-3000 for PID parameters, but I have no idea what values are sane here.
Put summer tires on: Boost pressure and engine RPM have a strong correlation regardless of vehicle speed. Need to procure a low-profile jack.
Grind welds/fill/paint rear flares: Underground parking is humid AF, need to do this before the rust sets in.
Find wiring gremlin: Engine sometimes continues to run after key is turned off. I have a couple ideas where to look for this one, but it could be anywhere...
All of the other things: There are many.
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