IZation Labs

Tell me that this doesn’t freak you out just a little?

I have already showed this to some of the College-Now students, but here it is for the world to see. I’m not entirely sure what causes the dark circle in the middle of the bowl. I’m certain nothing is clipping through the bowl, even if it was it wouldn’t be a perfect circle like that. Perhaps the water made some weird shadows. Alas, I’ll never know for sure, as I lost the fluid data after I rendered it. Oh well. Big thanks to Lordoftheringsjunkie on the blenderartists forums for the video tutorial that got me to this point.

Enjoy!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a true feat of engineering. I’m happy to introduce the Bagger 288.

(Click for the amazing full size view)

I’m not sure that you realize how big this thing is. But let’s describe what it is before we get to that. This machine was meant to assist in removing overburden while coal mining. Basically, it is one of the world’s largest earth and coal movers, literally a mobile strip mining machine. Some of the more meaningful specifications:

• Consumes 16.56 Megawatts of electricity, and has to be tied to the grid.
• Moves from .06 to .37 miles per hour
• Took almost 3 weeks to move it 13.6 miles
• It is sweet. (Warning: This may be a personal opinion.)

And now, to give you an idea of just how big this monster is.

At 40 seconds, you can see a person standing next to the machine. It. Is. HUGE.

Okay Juniors, I’ve been talking to Mr. B and showing him some higher level blender stuff. After visiting on Friday I can tell that it won’t be long before some of you are way past where I’m at in Blender. Good!

So here’s a goal you can shoot for. The following video is of a 608 Bearing. It was made using exact units, and is basically a great example of precision modeling. This .blend file could be output to a CNC machine and the parts could be made with very little human interaction. This is where the money is in the real world. The best part is, there is a tutorial you can read that will walk you through the entire process.

Here’s the link to the tutorial. If you can make it through this, awesome. It will help you in your 3d modeling coursework and will throw you right into the world of 3D. Enjoy!

Hey! The world is a big place, and there’s a lot of life to live, so we’re looking for some more people to help out here at IZation Labs! With so much ground to cover, we could use some more good people with an eye for all things technological! If you think you have what it takes, send us an email via the contact page and sign up for an account. You can do as little as tip us to something interesting you think we should cover to as much as writing articles and having them posted on the front page!

IZation Labs wants you!

In other news, I made some changed to the About page, the link to which is on the top right corner of the screen. It’s a bit more descriptive and informative now!

Here's a post from Clifford [woodchuck62] Green, with a bit of grammar based correction on my part. PS: Cliff's views do not directly reflect the views of IZation Labs or it's owner and creator. Please be responsible.

When I look for new computer products I always look for a great deal, unique products, and the smallest size available. Two of my most recent purchases along these lines are the Super Talent Pico C 8Gb flash drive and the Acer Aspire One 150 Laptop.

A couple of months ago I was looking for a replacement for my old Patriot 1Gb flash drive. After a couple hours of shopping I found this; the Pico Series by Super Talent. It was the physically smallest flash drive in the market, and at 8Gb and only $27 with free shipping it was quite the deal. It runs warm to the touch after transferring files larger than 500mb, and I lose it in the couch frequently. I wear a lot of shirts with a pocket and I sometimes forget that I have it there. Well worth the buy and it run portable apps perfectly even though I have heard that this model can suddenly “die”.

(*Editors note: Mine did die. I’ve just been too lazy to get a refund yet. It really is an amazing little piece of equipment though.*)

I have been shopping for a laptop ever since my school laptop was given the ‘Deep Freeze’. As of this summer, net books caught my eye. Net books are laptops with no optical drive and really small screens and keyboards. Currently the company ASUS is charging $450 or more for their systems (Eee PC 901 series) with the brand new Intel Atom processor (1.6 GHz).

Acer had the hardware specs that I wanted and Windows XP for $350. The only trade off that I have was not getting a Solid State Drive. After messing around with my system for a day, I love it. It’s so small and dinky. Folded up the Acer One is smaller and lighter than most school textbooks. The keyboard is indeed smaller, but after a couple of sentences I had adapted to the news layout size. The screen is too small for gaming or serious photo editing, but just right for Open Office 3.0 and already ripped movies.  It’s also worth mentioning that through the VGA out plug you can run a extended desktop with another monitor. With a 1024 x 600 resolution LCD, a 1.6 GHz processor, 1Gb ram, and a 120 GB hard drive I think that I did good. And for all of those who call it too small, I typed almost 400 words and cropped/resized the photos with this machine.

The Powerpack is still not quite done, but I got some footage of one of the first test runs and threw it all together during a 2 hour editing session for everyone’s enjoyment!

For those of you interested in the technical aspects of the Powerpack and Air cannon, here’s some information.

• The sprinkler valve on the air cannon is a solenoid valve that costs around 40 dollars. It runs off of three 9-volt batteries in series, and is the device that cycles the air from the reservoir into the barrel, propelling the projectile. The air cannon in this video is the first I ever built, and is also the best one; It has never caused me any problems.

• The Powerpack started as a fancy looking battery pack for my 15 watt solar panel I purchased months ago. I realized that it was the perfect size to act as a ‘universal power supply’, and the Powerpack was born! Inside are two 12 volt 12 Ah Gel Cell sealed led acid batteries. They are wired in parallel, which means I should be able to draw about 24 Ah’s out of the battery pack before I should recharge it, for the sake of prolonged longevity.

• The mini air compressor was purchased from Harbor Freight for 25 dollars. Every time I go there I spend at least 3 times the amount I meant to. That store is just too amazing for words.

If I get the chance I might do a more complete write up someday so others can learn from my experience (and mistakes), though I bet that most people don’t need me to tell them what to do, there may be some who would be happy for a few guidelines. Cheers!

-Lace