cjthomas
Sep 10, 2017 18:45
- Made incremental progress on the enclosure design. Prof. W. has spelled out why the extra feature he wanted is needed, and I've drawn a diagram showing how all of the pieces of the enclosure need to fit through the door of the room. I think we're on similar pages now.
- Continued chasing paperwork for my work visa for visiting the US. This is
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cjthomas
Sep 04, 2017 15:34
- Produced a first draft enclosure design that Prof. W. is reasonably happy with. We're still wrangling over some of the details, and I've deferred a fairly difficult part of it to an add-on component, but progress has been made.
Lining up vendors and opening communications with the preferred contractor is next on the list.
- Made progress on work-
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cjthomas
Aug 28, 2017 07:13
- Finished the adapter widget, and also machined a case for it. The case did not come out very well, but it'll be easier to file off relevant pieces of the current one than to machine a new one. Partly this was due to a design oversight (not leaving enough clearance between fitted parts), and partly this was due to the recurring issue with pocketing
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cjthomas
Aug 14, 2017 18:35
- Reached milestones on two of the three components of the widget; these are now with their respective vendors for comments prior to fabrication. If I don't hear back from them by the end of the week regarding generating quotes, I'll ping them again
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cjthomas
Aug 07, 2017 20:13
- Spent the week with back-and-forth design discussions for two of the three components of the widget. These are now approaching final form, about a week later than intended. I have approval on the mechanical design of the holder component, which allowed me to revise the cable component to a version that's easier for that contractor to make.
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cjthomas
Jul 30, 2017 21:35
- Made progress on the design of the three inter-related parts of the widget for work. The support frame and cabling have been heavily modified, though it looks like the subsystem I finished last week will stay unchanged. Negotiations over how exactly the cabling will get implemented should wrap up by mid-week, at which point I can get back to
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cjthomas
Jul 23, 2017 21:28
- Spent the week working through iterations of the first subsystem of the mechanical widget that will be needed for the experiments. This is now very close to being done, thankfully; it needs to be drawn up and then go out to our mechanical engineering contractor for sanity-checking. Once I know what tolerances he's comfortable making it to and what
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cjthomas
Jul 16, 2017 09:31
- Continued with the mechanical design task from last week. The fiddly part of it is close to being finalized, though I may end up having to revise it or make it larger to meet other design constraints. If I can keep its current density, it actually surpasses our design goals for the unit, which was a pleasant surprise
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cjthomas
Jul 09, 2017 22:21
- Juggled several tasks at work over the last couple of weeks. The fun part was researching several options for improved hardware for the data logger widget I'd built (of which at least two new variants are desired). I've found candidate processors and two candidate RTOSs to run on those processors. Most of that development is shelved for now, though
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cjthomas
Jun 25, 2017 08:46
- Made incremental progress on software abstraction and work visa paperwork, but spent most of the week dealing with additional high-priority short tasks. These have been mostly squared away, but there are still at least two items left to finish before I'm back to the big project
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