General Stuff(tm)

[stephen_usher]

Today's fun... breaking 3D modelling programs, or at least FreeCAD.

Somehow, just trying to make the base of a case for a PCB (the QIMSI card) I caused FreeCAD to make an illegal memory request, several times not be able to reparse its own data to update the display, make all the objects rotate into strange angles by undoing an operation and suddenly have loads of lines with too many degrees of freedom by just mirroring a sketch. It seems almost as broken as Inkscape.

I've downloaded to try, Blender and the personal license of Fusion 360 to try next.

To be honest, I wonder how people actually design stuff using CAD/CAM systems as it feels so clunky.

Other than that I've just cleared up the building and put all of the reels of filament into the AMS, so I can do more than just orange.

[HigashiJun]

Nice little room...

That's the small "workshop" end. to the left of that is the 5m model railway. :-)

My (unfulfilled) dream when I was a kid.

[chronicthehedgehog]

I haven't used FreeCAD for a while. I'm no expert with such things but it felt a bit broken.

I found OpenSCAD to be quite usable though. It's script based - good for programmers :-). It might not be the first choice for 3D printing but I did use it for such once.

[stephen_usher]

That's the small "workshop" end. to the left of that is the 5m model railway. :-)

My (unfulfilled) dream when I was a kid.

Here's the other end of the room...

IMG_3498.jpeg

[stephen_usher]

I haven't used FreeCAD for a while. I'm no expert with such things but it felt a bit broken.

I found OpenSCAD to be quite usable though. It's script based - good for programmers :-). It might not be the first choice for 3D printing but I did use it for such once.

For the sort of thing I'll be doing eventually, model railway architecture, platforms etc. I think I'll need something more visual. Thanks for the recommendation though.

[stephen_usher]

Had a quick look at the "Chess Champion" late 1970s chess computer.

Well, it's trying to run code from the look of things but probably not getting very far.

However, the state of the soldering!!! Lots of pins not really soldered and brown flux EVERYWHERE!!!!

IMG_3501.jpeg

I've never seen a commercial product this poorly made. (Yes, that is a mostly unsoldered pin.)

Of course, they've made the wires between the main circuit board and the display and keyboard too short to be able to move it out far enough to get to the top side of the board. *sigh*

[HigashiJun]

Here's the other end of the room...

IMG_3498.jpeg

Looks good... Still some work to do and you'll have a nice model !

8-)

[stephen_usher]

Yeah, it's a long term project, getting the expensive parts done before I retire and don't have the funds.

[rubber_jonnie]

Had a quick look at the "Chess Champion" late 1970s chess computer.

Well, it's trying to run code from the look of things but probably not getting very far.

However, the state of the soldering!!! Lots of pins not really soldered and brown flux EVERYWHERE!!!!


IMG_3501.jpeg


I've never seen a commercial product this poorly made. (Yes, that is a mostly unsoldered pin.)

Of course, they've made the wires between the main circuit board and the display and keyboard too short to be able to move it out far enough to get to the top side of the board. *sigh*

That is some ugly soldering! I hope it gets a reflow for Christmas!!!

[stephen_usher]

I've been doing some reflowing, but it's not allowing it to work.

The Fairchild F8 processor is a strange one. It's actually supposed to be at least three chips, the ALU (which has 16 bytes of RAM for registers and general use), the software execution unit (holding the program counter register) and then either the dynamic RAM control unit or the static RAM control unit.

However, this chess computer doesn't have a software execution unit so they must be doing something clever to reduce the chip count.