Man.. I’m beat.. I stayed up last night ’till 3L30 determined to get the lights for the time cylce workinng.. I’ was ready to give up around 11.. but I took a break, blogged.. and cleared my head… That gave me the clarity to jump back in and sort out the next layer of problems. My struggle was with eh poor quality of the components I’d ordered from China.. they were beautiful when they worked.. but every small moveent of the strips caused a few of the solder connections to the tiny chips to break. I ended up doing ‘bypass’ surgery on many of them.. I soldered jumpers around them.. But the tuime I went to bed near four.. all of it was working. I managed to sleep until 1L30 which was really wonderful…
   I woke rested.. but still had much to do before headign over to David D’s house to install the lights.. Once again I spent 80 percent of the day working on this @$# kighting porject and NOT hanging with my family, relaxing, exercising, etc..
I’m sad to have devoted so much time to fixing these lights.. Max is only here for another week.. I need to find time to hang with him and to go campong with Gabe..  I love my family so much.. why do I let myslef get so distracted from them sometimes ?

Anyway.. I worked on the light strips, lasers, power supplies and wiring harness until about 3.. It felt very good to make that last solder connection..  
 
I packed everythign up and headed down o bristol .. THere were about 6 folks there still working.. The Timecylce is really an amazing thing to see now.. 20 feet high , 3 tons (I’m guessing) / Homer and crew are still working like crazy to see if they can finish the vehicle before Wednesday when they have to leave. They still need to add the hydrolic motors !

I hadn’t seen the device for about a week since I’d been working on the lights with Seth here at our house. The progress was amazing. The thing looked exactly like the model homer had made.. and like the drawings he’d made. It’s so very amazing to see somethign this big and real jump from someones imagination into reallity.. I think that’s why we all make things.. It’s an existential thrill like no other. .. to make something appear from nothing !

While hthe mtors aren’t installed yet, were able to push the thing pretty easily. It’s amazingly easy to move by hand given its size.

Here’s the 40 Horsepower diesel engine that will run the hydrolic pump and the alternator

I spent the first few hours tie wrapping the plastic encapsulated led strips to some 5/16 inch rolled steel stock.. This will define the arc of the ligths and keep the strips form bending.   THey looked good as we worked !

At around 8 I couldn’t resist the urge to test mount the strips. David used the forklift to lift the wheel and allow me to rotate it so I could put n the light strips. The whole process took only 20 minute

The end effect was awesome.. Sorry this is only my phone’s camera.. it doan’t really cpature the impact of these lights..

Around 9 I started back home. I’m so happy to be nearing the end of the poroject.. It’s been fun.. but I need my life back.. I hope the the stuff remains robust for the next  couple of days .. We’ll just have to see…

Right now I just have to see my pillow.. More tomorrow’s folks.. thanks for dropping by.. Gnite all.. Gnite Sam !

-me