Day 3699

 I woke up a little before 8, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that I decided to do some design work on the flatbed trailer.  I've been wanting to do that for a long time.

Before working on the design I installed the outdoor camera on the corner of the house.  I've had the box on the kitchen table since I bought it to make me feel guilty.  It was a nice morning so I decided to get it done.  Then install wasn't hard and there were no real problems.  It still took awhile with several trips to the garage.  The result works well, but the UI on the phone app is a little hard to use.

 I began the trailer design by figuring out the tire spacing.  That was pretty easy.  Then I worked out the spacing that will be needed to mount the springs.  That took a little calculation and drafting skills.  I made two drawings of the result so that I could place them on my trailer template.  Finally I figured out the placement for the axles.  I actually went out to the real flatbed and measured its axle placement.  Then I duplicated it on my drawing.  I almost wore out the calculator. converting from the trailer measurements to the drawing measurements.  I'm really happy with the result.

After that I had lunch.  I got emails saying that a package from Amain was coming along with one saying that there was a Chinese package at the post office.  I decided not to go to the post office.  Insteat I went to the garage to do a pop rivet test.

It was 80 degrees in the garage.  I had some problems.  The first was the need to sandwich the floor board between two pieces of metal.  After a failure taught me that I learned that the rivet I'd bought at Lowe's were mis-labelled and way too long.  I did get a proof of concept to work though.  then it was back to the house to order the right size rivets from Amazon.  I learned two things.  Pop rivets aren't cheap and You have to look carefully at the size measurements.  There is no standardization.

About then the Amain package came.  The email said it would be the 10 cent junk part.  Instead it was the K10.  I put the battery on the charger and went to Aliexpress to look for weights.  The prices were still much higher than the one I'd tried to buy yesterday.  I ended up buying one from Amazon for less than it was on Amazon.  In general Amazon prices for SCX30 parts are comparable or cheaper than Aliexpress.

When the battery was charged I had fun playing with the K10.  I got out some of the SCX24 obstacles.  It did well on them.  After that I sat down for videos.

Ellen fixed sausage and eggs with toast for dinner.  After that I spent the rest of the night looking at videos and playing with the K10.