I am making progress with the linkage simulator. I now have a guess as to how to write the code for the sliding connectors. Waiting a while before trying to write code sometimes lets it work itself out in the back of my head somehow. The boat didn’t…
Continue readingWe tested the boat yesterday. It smokes a little bit and leaks a little but seems seaworthy. We’re heading to the boat-in campground tonight. I need to pull the breaker on the bilge-pump so it doesn’t pump all night and run down the battery. I have jumper cables…
Continue readingThe new hoses for the hydraulic trim on the boat just arrived. Too bad we’ve decided not to keep it (the boat). We’ll have it for a month but once it’s time to store it for winter, we’re going to either sell it or pass it along to…
Continue readingAs expected, I have tired of blog writing after a few days. More importantly, I’ve run out of things to write. So much for “blog therapy.” The boat outdrive trim hydraulics uses motor oil, as far as I can tell and from what my brother tells me. That’s…
Continue readingA title of “Nothing to Write” is an oxymoron or some such thing. The simple act of writing that title means that there was something to write. I rebuilt the trailer brake master cylinder. That involved replacing the replaceable parts in it. it took about 15 minutes and…
Continue readingI ordered hydraulic hoses for the outdrive trim. There are four of them and two looked ok. Still, they are old and who knows what might happen. Hoses are available at a variety of prices. Some websites seem to double the price of everything hoping you won’t shop…
Continue readingI wrote a small PHP script last night to do image processing. I was surprised that it works. I needed to accept a file name, rotation angle, and color. The script opens the PNG file, enlarges it a few pixels to ensure that the rotation doesn’t cause edge…
Continue reading10/7/2014 See the most up-to-date information about the Linkage program here: linkage-mechanism-designer-and-simulator I have a spare minute while I’m running a debugger and waiting for the my program to get to the bad data it is supposedly processing. The program usually runs a few minutes with optimizations, etc…,…
Continue readingI ordered rebuild parts for the trailer master cylinder. It will be a miracle if the parts are right. I had to search a brake manufacturers site until I found a master cylinder that looked right and had the right size bore. I then found a car that…
Continue readingI took apart the master cylinder on the boat trailer yesterday and cleaned it. It’s been sitting dry for 10 to 20 years. I cleaned the cylinder walls as best I could and reassembled it but it seems to leak a bit. Still, after adding fluid and bleeding…
Continue reading