badobsessionmotorsport
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Binky Update!
🕑 Added 2024-04-26 15:31:41 +0000 UTCThe feeling of relief was palpable at the shed recently. We’ve been plagued by an issue we didn’t know we had and that has been going on for years unidentified. It hasn’t been a problem up till the advent of our metal solder 3D printing malarkey. Since the very first foray into this idea when initial tests on a cheap 3D printer showed promise, we’ve been fighting a battle with one armed tied behind our back – and we didn’t even know it.
As you lot know, we converted our venerable old Taig mill into a 3D printer because we needed the extra X travel that that allows us. We added a 4th axis to become the extruder part of the set-up and we built an Arduino powered control box to take care of the nozzle heater. So far, so straightforward…
Early on, the Mach3 control board expired – it was after all probably 20 years old and had been abused on a regular basis - and we took the opportunity to rebuild the insides with a new board and a new power supply that allowed us to junk the 240v-110v transformer that it had been supplied with.
Okay, great, let’s now get on with it. Only it wasn’t that simple. We struggled like mad to get consistent results; sometimes it would be absolutely perfect and then the next day you’d spend hours trying to dial the settings back in. It was infuriating. We managed to get the switch panel boards done and filmed and went back to do the main instrument cluster PCB. Again, no consistency. Cue tearing out what little hair we had left at this point, along with a desire to burn the whole place to the ground, pack it all in and go and live on an island somewhere, as a hermit.
We were losing steps on the mill’s stepper motors completely randomly. When the tolerance on the Z height is as fine as it is, any lost step is downright disastrous, but it was happening on all the axes. Then we lost the Y axis completely. F**!
The cheap new power supply blew a transistor and that left us with 75% of the axes we needed and no way to power the steppers. Brilliant. The control board had been discontinued so we had to think of a different way of rebuilding the mill, again.
We sourced some new parts (4 individual stepper controllers and 4 individual power supplies) and waited for them to arrive. We had the steppers hooked up to 2 x 12v car batteries to give us a stable 24v, the Arduino powered nozzle heater powered by our “scientific” adjustable power supply and what was left of the stepper controller powered by the PC’s PSU just to try and figure out what the hell was going on. Talk about Heath Robinson…
The 12v batteries we hooked up to an old school “start and charge” type battery charger to make sure they didn’t go flat. You know the type – the one with the needle indicator to show how many amps it is drawing. Well, that turned out to be the key to unlocking the mystery.
While the mill was running through a program designed to check the settings, Nik finished off some wiring by adding some heat shrink to the terminals using the heat gun. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the battery charger amps dropped from 8 to 2 while the heat gun was on. “That’s odd” he thought. So, we did some investigation. We plugged a multi-meter into one of the sockets to log the mains voltage and switched various things on around the workshop. The kettle dropped the voltage from 236v to 211v. The big pressure washer did the same. Even the lathe had an effect, especially at start up.
It turns out that there wasn’t an electrical ring main on the socket circuit in the shed. Every single socket was essentially on one long spur, and the shed contains a lot of sockets with a lot of different equipment hooked up to them. The loss of voltage meant that the current draw ramped up as a consequence and the delicate electronics in the mill controls and its power supply simply couldn’t handle it, so that’s why it was missing steps and blowing up controllers.
We installed a ring main to finish off the socket circuit properly and the voltage is now stable despite throwing everything at it to test our work.
Subsequently, the mill purrs like a kitten and once we dialled in the new controllers and power supplies, it’s been absolutely spot on since. So much so that we’ve now completely finished the solder printed PCB boards – to a better standard than we’ve ever managed before – affixed all of the electronic components to the traces, completed all the daughter boards and we’re assembling the instrument cluster for the final time.
God its been a slog and we’re forever grateful to you all for keeping the faith because believe me, we nearly threw in the towel on numerous occasions. We’ve got probably 2/3rds of Binky 39 complete and edited and we’ve got a few final shots of plugging the instruments in to test them along with the pieces to camera to do to tie it all together. Episode 40 will be a continuation focussing on the switch panel and we’ve already shot parts of episode 41 so it’s all systems go, and we believe we’re back on track.
You lot already know that we’re using the colour changing WS2812B LED’s for the backlighting, but keep shtum, because we won’t be letting that slip until episode 40…
Thanks again everyone, we hope to reward your patience with some great content coming regularly from now on.
Cheers,
Nik, Richard and Ben.
Comments
Ryan Blajda
all the butthurt here from people shelling out $2 a month expecting a miniscule shop that works on real cars to bend to their whim is hilarious.
Adam Edwards
Starting to feel the same way. I'm a patient guy but now I feel the lads are taking the piss. The content has simply stalled.
Nathen Fredrick
What, the whole £30 that they'll get off patreon? Barely enough to buy enough hobnobs for a week.
RobJ
"Thank you for the money it means the world to us"
RobJ
I feel really stupid that I contributed to this project for so long.
RandomMark
I'm sorry guys, but since it's more than a year since the last real build update (Binky, Escargot or one of the other, many, many builds), I have decided to stop my Patreon support. I have lost faith that any update will come out, since the episodes are "almost" done according to the last Patreon posts. Take this update as an example, almost done, and 3 months later and still no video.
Linton Hart
Any update on the next video?? I was hoping to see Binky at Goodwood
Andy Dangerfield
My Dad passed away in October 2021 and never got to be Binky completed. I am starting to panic, at the age of 42, that the same thing will happen to me.
Frank L Copeland
For many years the legend of "Episode 39" has haunted the denizens of the internet. The meaning of this name has been lost to the ages, but we wait. What will Episode 39 be about? mankind can never know. Perhaps we are not meant to know. but we wait. Hoping for an answer to the eternal question: "Who is Episode 39?"
Ron Walsh
Hey lads, any updates for us?
Trev
Coming up on 3 months without hearing boo. Less than ideal
Blake Whalen
Any idea on when, if ever, episode 39 will be released?
Chris Krieg
In the previous reply, I think you made a typo when you spelled year. You spelled it "week"
Trev
Unlikely
Bad Obsession Motorsport
Wene both had issues outside of the shed shenanigans if I'm honest but we're still muddling through. Update next week ahead of the video. 😁
Matt Friend
Is Nick doing ok? We've seen the rest of the crew pop up in the latest BOM videos but no sign of Nick for a while. Did this wiring issue finally send him to the home of the curtains?
Fatboy
Any closer to releasing episode 39?
Lars
Until I made the calculations I was tempted to believe "2/3rds of Binky 39" was something good! Episode 38 aired late April '23. So following the ⅔ indication we'll have to wait until end of August '24 … This also would mean that this episode would cost 16€ per viewer 😳 Can I get some popcorn with it at least?
Matt Cerbone
Thank Goodness! Binky needs to be completed before I can die happy. The Shed is my personal “Make a Wish” Foundation 🤣
Shropy Shrop-Lec
Let me know if you need any assistance with the wiring in the shed. We’re a local based company and more than willing to pop up to contribute to the cause !
Mark B
That (after the pain of identification and fixing) sounds like a very positive step forward.
Alex Abroad
I think I can officially put my Binky Patron membership on my tinder profile to prove that I will patiently suffer great strife for the things I love. Fellas, don't rush. This is what makes this project different and you will have my subscription till death cometh for me or his horse
Lorenzo
Binky forever
TMoney2007
A PCB exactly like the ones that ran every new car's instrument cluster for decades and hundreds of thousands of miles and are completely invisible when the car is put together would fail and look out of place? They had their reasons, but none of them were strictly functional.
Dafydd Williams
Which, of course, would not have done the job correctly, would have looked out of place, and would have needed to be ripped out and replaced in episode 42. I like this way better, even if it means a year or so of delay.
Bernard
Thanks for the update! I admire your tenacity as much as your skills!
Tim Hill
Tally Ho floats. Though Binky drives... yeah, your guess is as good as mine.
Fatboy
Any plans for more on the Escargot?
Fatboy
That's an interesting yet frustrating problem you had there - glad it's sorted and who'd have thought to check the building power supply as the cause of those issues?
ColdHeart
I can! aha
Jonathan Baker
Tally Ho.
Linton Hart
Who is going to be finished first Binky or Tally Ho???
K Nakamura
Building PCB boards has caused issues due to ongoing component failure. When charging they realized their wiring was incomplete, fixed it, and are now back on track.
Steve
I gave up and cancelled my subscription.
Trev
Can someone give me the bullet point version of this
Craig Lemon
Congrats, guys! Does the kettle boil any quicker now? ☕️🍪😁
Carlin Comm
Wow, that's pretty epic in itself to find and solve a problem like that! Well Done!
Bruce Gorney
Can't wait to see more of Binky!
Dwain Frankel
I can't believe cups of tea were contributing to the problem.
Frank L Copeland
Y'all are troopers. I really thought Binky would try to kill y'all on a track. Somehow a Mini trying to kill you with fiddly electrical gremlins makes more sense.
Frank L Copeland
Is this the Welsh language I've heard about?
Ed Walters
So happy you've put that behind you!
Niek Hoogendoorn
Wow! That's some update and a half. Well done boys and shoutout to Nik for spotting the voltage drop. Yes, voltage fluctuations can play havoc with electronics. The trouble with this leccy stuff is you can't physically see what's wrong, unlike mechanical items where you know a piston is dead when it's got a massive crater in it. Keep it up lads and thanks for getting to the bottom of this. Sweet.
The Mad Scientist
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Patrick Kennedy
To their credit, they talked about in one of the previous updates that this is something people generally would like to have for rapid prototyping without the turnaround time. But also yes 😁
Matthew Wilson
I've been there, you really do feel like you are going mad. Well, madd-er in my case. Keep up the great work!
Patrick Kennedy
Wow! What even is electricity! Sounds like a general upgrade to the shop too, making everything more consistent and safe
Adam Stadnick
It's always something! I hate those kinds of problems, but solving them is so satisfying - it doesn't make them worth it, but it's a little bit of satisfaction in the mess. I knew you guys would come through, never a doubt in my mind!
William Squier
Only two days until the 1 year anniversary of the release of Episode 38! I need a t-shirt "I was waiting for Episode 39 before waiting for Episode 39 was cool!"
Money Grip
I miss you guys
Edward Graff
Good I’ve missed this well done boys
Eric Ohmit
Nice!!
AB
What a ball ache. I know someone with a recording studio who had to time their recording around their neighbours milking their cows or they'd record the electrical hum generated by the vac pump. Maybe keep that in mind when youre running the mill...
Daniel Kedney
Looking forward to seeing your solution to protecting the solder traces from the vibrations of the car - some exotic epoxy or the likes no doubt!
Dan North
Atta boy.
Louis
🤨
Jon Weston
Yep, I've had similar problems, feel your pain ❤️
Andy Pugh
If you want to shift from Mach to LinuxCNC send me a message (if you can). I would love to help, and I am the lead developer.
David Carson
Disco Binky! 🕺 On the bright side - at least you’re only 18 months behind where you wanted to be 3 years ago 😉
Simon Fuller
Crikey, you might need to change the name to Blingy!
John Duuring
Um… Y’all do live in an island 🤔
Colin Wetz
Alright, that means another run through the Binky series! I don’t need much of an excuse, to be honest.
Russ Smith
Nice work! I kitted out my mancave in the WS2812Bs - yep, too bright. The power draw on those buggers can be pretty hefty when you've got ~280 of them like I do. :)
Jacob Granger
Glad to hear you're still making progress, I'm looking forward to seeing the video shenanigans that'll result!
Jonathan Lyster-Clayton
Nothing worse than a pain in the ring!
Grant Browning
Binky. Rings a bell… can’t quite place it though.
TMoney2007
The years long quest to avoid ordering a PCB from a fab shop that would have showed up on your doorstep in 7-9 days for under $100. This is what I come to BOM for.
Andy Dangerfield
Incidentally, I have literally just finished binge watching every episode in order. I’m ready for Ep 39. Bring it on boys!
Andy Dangerfield
Woo and may I add, hoo
Jitesh Mistry
Hurrah for good news!
Jeff Longley
Finally!
