There's a thought out there that I do ten times as much stuff as most people do... and there may be some merit to that. Though, in my own head, I seem to do about half as much as I think I should be able to.
This weekend I started up, in welding class, the steel donut project (13" outer diameter, 4" minor diameter). It should be... interesting!
After that, I burned a half hour in napping, and at four or so went on to do... something? Well dang, now I don't remember. I was going to talk about what I _actually_ did this weekend and now my mind is a blank over the sequence!
Sunday, I know I mowed and edges the front and side lawns, but those are pretty small tasks, just taking an hour. Did some shopping for parts and with Marla, ate out, a couple nice hours in the world.
I cut the parts for the radio tower, and rolled the brackets into nice round shapes. Next up I have to heat-bend the tabs, and weld on the uprights. Easy!
I assembled the Tesla and carried it to the shop. I also put away a raft of crap that had tumbled out into the living room, and packaged up a bunch of boxes. Before THAT, I did measurements on the primary and secondary LC networks in the Tesla, and came up with an approximate resonant frequency of 190kHz, which corresponds roughly with expectations. However, my signal generator has a horrible blind spot above 175 and below about 50 on its dial... meaning, the 190kHz range is really really hard to work in.
Plugging in the Tesla on Saturday... nothing. Not a glimmer of life. So I'll have to open it up some and debug it further.
That's the story of my life right now... debugging things that should be working.
The new Variac I bought didn't work, for example, when I tested it Saturday. I took it apart... no, I TRIED to take it apart, but a critical set screw was broken. Cheap Chinese crap, you know? So, got a screw removing device, drilled out the knob around the setscrew (that was in crooked, so hard to access), drilled a small hole in the setscrew, and then cranked it out. Tada! A 5-minute task expanded into an hour!
Then, take apart the variac to discover that whomever built it had weird ideas about lubrication. The thick, sticky grease you find covering Chinese import tools? Yeah? Well, it doesn't work very well when used to lubricate a moving part (the contact in the variac that must drift up and down to track the coil).
Cleaned, lubricated with REAL oil, re-assembled, and it's better than new. Literally.
I watched a Luc Besson movie on Saturday, burning a couple of hours there, and it was fun! "District B13" -- a good action movie with some fun Parkour, and a buddy-antibuddy-buddy thing going on, in a dystopian future France. It was also transparently political/social, but I forgave it that clumsiness because it was also very pretty.
I did sketch up the pneumo/propane networks I need for my Flipside shows, and started hunting down parts for those. Parts! I swear, it's like pulling toenails, finding the right parts sometimes.
What I _hoped_ to do was get a working Tesla (and WOULD HAVE if it had worked; this guy made a few design decisions I feel were ill-chosen, and I'm sure one of those is causing the grief). I hoped to assemble at least part of my second Ruben's Tube (got parts, no assembly). I hoped to do a fire test of the Fire Pillar (which really isn't a pillar, but more of a tripod). Hoped to finish a bracelet with lights for Marla (got parts, though). Had a vague hope of experimenting with an interesting sound resonator, but not even!
So, ten times? No. Maybe twice. And yet still half or less of what I had hoped for.
I think that, overall, I am pushing forward on too many projects this year, with deadlines that are too aggressive (I wanted to have a big splash at Flipside), and as a result, am just getting bogged down. That, and five hours of class, plus an hour of travel, on Saturdays is a huge hit.
So overall, this Jan-May experiment, not a success. I'll reset in June.