News From Steff and Nols http://www.steffandnols.com/index.php?inc=news en-us CuteNews <![CDATA[Sharing memories]]> http://www.steffandnols.com/index.php?inc=news&cat=SteffAndNols&subaction=showfull&id=1219221840&archive= This could be fun. And jog my memory of a lot of the crazy and ridiculous things I have ever done. Or just remind me of good times. Here are the directions:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn’t matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It’s actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I’ll assume you’re playing the game and I’ll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Thanks for sharing!

]]> 1219221840 Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:44:00 -0700 <![CDATA[Custom Wii "Sensor Bar"]]> http://www.steffandnols.com/index.php?inc=news&cat=TechnoBabble&subaction=showfull&id=1217388451&archive= Bryan and Ily and the rest of the Murdock clan were here for a few days this week, and Bryan and I decided to undertake creating a new Wii Sensor bar for our 60" TV. 

When Bryan was sitting back on the couch his wii cursor was jumping all over the place, and that just wasn't acceptable, so the project was started.

As you may have heard the "sensor bar" doesn't have any sensors at all, but has InfraRed (IR) LED's that emit light our eyes can't see.  But the Wiimote has an IR camera on it.  It uses the location of the two dots on the screen to decide what way you are pointing, what the rotation of the controller is as well as some front to back motion.

Since it is just IR LED's you can easily build your own, which enables you to spread it out so the spacing is better for the playing distances used when playing on a big screen TV.

We only had a day or two for the project so we had to use local Radio Shacks as the source for parts.  They are convenient but not cheap.

Now for the design.  The IR LED's that Radio Shack sold had forward voltage drop of 1.2V and a continuous current rating of 100mA at 25deg C.  I wasn't sure how I was going to power it in the end, but if I decided to use batteries, I could use 4x1.5V to power it with around 6V.  So I decided to use 4 LED's in series which would give me 4.8V drop across them.  That leaves me with 1.2V to drop across a resistor.  If I had a 12ohm resistor I could get the 100mA continuous current.

One thing I do is save AC/DC power supplies from electronics which are gone.  It has come in handy a number of times.  Sometimes I need the power supply and sometimes I use the connector from them if the power connector on another supply dies.  I looked through my collection and found a 6V 300mA supply (I actually had a couple supplies that would have worked with other voltages/currents).  I thought that this would be perfect!

When I was at Radio Shack I bought the LED's, a project box for them, and some resistors.  I bought 10ohm and some 33ohm 1/2W resistors, even though I might not need them.  This ended up being a very good decision.  You'll see why later on in the project.  I also bought a couple small breadboards, some 22gauge solid core wire, heat shrink tubing and quick set epoxy. 

A while back I bought an older HP Desktop Power Supply off EBay.  It is a variable triple output supply. +/-20V @ 0.5A and +6V @ 2.5A.  It only has Constant Voltage mode (no constant current or current limit circuitry) and it has nice analog meters showing the Voltage and Current of the selected channel.

We put together the circuit on breadboards and hooked it up to the power supply.  I decided to use the +20V channel because it has a lower max current than the +6V channel which would be safer in the event of a short or some other failure.  We increased the voltage and watched the current start to increase until we got to about 6V and just under 100mA.  This s exactly what we wanted!  We tested out both circuits and they were working.

Since you can't see IR with the naked eye, I pulled out my digital video camera and you can clearly see them lighting up and getting brighter as we increased the voltage (which increased the current).

Next we moved the breadboards and power supply over to the TV and taped them up on it to try it out.  LED's have a pretty narrow beam of light (much narrower than a light bulb), we fanned the LED's out so we would have good coverage over the entire seating area people usually play from.  They worked pretty well, but sometimes we would get a weird wrapping behavior when we moved the cursor off of the screen.  We figured out that the lights over the dinner table were hot enough that they were being picked up by the wiimotes too!  So I learned make sure the lights are off when you want to play.  After we turned the lights off, the prototypes worked great so now it was time for to try out the real power supply and then put it all in the box.

Before I hooked up the power supply I measured it's open circuit voltage, and it was up around +12V.  I expected that it to be a bit higher than 6V, but that seemed exceedingly high.  Knowing that it was higher than 6 and armed with 33ohm and 10ohm resistors we did some experiments with different resistances.  I wasn't really worried about the voltage as long as I could get the current down under 100mA.  With both circuits attached and a target current of 2x100mA (200mA), using a single 33ohm resistor on each circuit caused about 190mA to be drawn, which under the 100mA per circuit limit.  The voltage produced by the 6V supply was well over 6V but as long as the current was right, it didn't matter what the voltage was.  I guess the designer of the power supply expected the end device to regulate the voltage it used.

Power is always a concern for discreet components.  I knew the LED's were ok because I was under their continuous current draw.  But resistor calculations need to be done for current carrying resistors.  The power equation that is best for this situation is P=I2R.  P=(100mA)(100mA)33ohm = .33W  The 33ohm resistors are rated for 1/2 watt.  So they might warm up during operation, but they will not fry.

The project box:
First we created a template with some graph paper so we could put the holes in a nice evenly spaced row and so both boxes would look the same.  We then took the template and drilled pilot holes in the plastic and then drilled out bigger holes that were a little larger the size of the body of the LED, but smaller than the lip around the bottom of the LED.  Next we turned the lids upside down and placed the LED's in them and because the lips were bigger than the holes they just stayed there (care was taken to make sure the polarity of the LEDs were correct for easy soldering to one another.  Next we mixed some epoxy up and put generous amounts of epoxy around the LED's and holes (on the inside of the lid).  As the epoxy started to dry we angled the LED's out, like we did with the prototypes so we could get good coverage of the room.

After the epoxy was hardened it was time to start the soldering. I twisted adjacent LED leads and soldered than snipped then.  I probably could have soldered them in a lower profile manner, but I had lots of room in the project box, and this required less bending of the joints.  Then I soldered the resistor to the positive side of the LEDs.  It actually doesn't matter what side it was on, but if I matched the schematic I would be easier to know where to hook up the power and ground.

The next step is to hook up all the power supply wires.  I already had wires long attached to the "6V" wall wart power supply to reach the first sensor box, but I needed to make a pair of wires to go to the second box.  I took about 6' of both red and black 22 gauge wire, clamped one end in a pair of vice grips and had my daughter hold them, and I put the other end of the wires in my drill.  And started drilling which created a nice twisted pair wire to go between the project boxes.

Next I drilled a hole in the back of both project boxes for the power supply wires.  The first thing to do is to feed the wires through the back of the project box.  If you don't do this _before_ you solder them to the circuit, you'll have to unsolder and do it again!  (I forgot to do it on the second project box...)  Then I cut some heat shrink tubing and slid it down the power supply wires a ways so the heat from soldering wouldn't cause them to shrink as heat goes down the wire.  After that I soldered the wall wart supply wires and the red/black wires to the resistor and LED lead per the schematic.  Then I soldered the red/black power wires to the second project boxes resistor and LED the same way.  Before heating of the heat shrink tubing, I tested it out with the digital video camera, and everything lit up so I was good to go!

I slid the heat shrink tubing up over all the solder joints I had just made. Since I don't have a heat gun used a lighter to shrink the tubing.  After that I pulled pushed some power supply wire into the boxes and bent it around a bit until it would easily fit in the project box.

The building was all done.  All that was left was to put them on the TV and experiment with position of the sensor boxes and rotation of them if necessary.  As I worked on this I took some pictures of the wii's sensitivity adjustment screen that shows you what the wiimote sees when it looks at the TV.
]]> 1217388451 Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:27:31 -0700 <![CDATA[Funny Story]]> http://www.steffandnols.com/index.php?inc=news&cat=SteffAndNols&subaction=showfull&id=1217358740&archive= 1217358740 Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:12:20 -0700 <![CDATA[New Fish]]> http://www.steffandnols.com/index.php?inc=news&cat=SteffAndNols&subaction=showfull&id=1216973136&archive= Lexa has been bugging me to let her have a fish and I thought, Why not? I asked Nolan one night if he could help her build a table and if she could have a goldfish. I guess he only remembers saying yes to the table! But tonight I sent them both out to the store to get the said goldfish. They came back with a cute bowl, some glass beads for the bottom, a bridge, and two goldfish. Lexa was going to name them Nolan and Steffenie, but decided at the last minute to name them Clocky and Leafy. She is a goofy girl. The cows by our house are named Blacky and Sits Under Tree. The minds of children are certainly interesting.]]> 1216973136 Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:05:36 -0700 <![CDATA[Swimming]]> http://www.steffandnols.com/index.php?inc=news&cat=SteffAndNols&subaction=showfull&id=1216542405&archive= Today we went swimming with our friends the Pippins. It was their son Ryans 3rd birthday. We tried going to City Park Pool in Fort Collins. We drove all the way out there from our house only to find out that an hour before it was closed for 24 hours due to contamination. So we drove to the good old Windsor pool. Lexa and Nolan, and Alan(dad) and Carson(son) went down the water slide about 100 times. It was Clara's first time swimming ever. At first she was very grumpy and screamed a lot. Then after a nap she had a lot of fun in the water! Lexa has turned into a regular water dog. Lessons have helped a lot and she goes under with ease. The funniest part of the day was when Alan showed up in the exact same swim trunks as Nolan! And they each bought them like 8-10 years ago.

Nolan and I have both reminisced about the old Sunday night Disney movies both our families used to watch. We recently discovered (or realized) that ABC has a Saturday night movie. So we are trying to implement family and movie night with my family from Longmont. Tonight was the first attempt. My mom and uncle Bob came. Bob was on a role and mowed our lawn. We ate Papa Murphy's pizza and watch Freaky Friday. Next week it will be Peter Pan!

After the kiddo's crashed, Bob went home and Mimi (my mom) Nolan, and I played dominoes, Mexican Train. One time about a year ago we played and Nolan won 11 out of 13 rounds in a row! Tonight he was the big loser and I was the winner!

 

]]> 1216542405 Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:26:45 -0700 <![CDATA[Lexa is so cute!]]> http://www.steffandnols.com/index.php?inc=news&cat=SteffAndNols&subaction=showfull&id=1216069752&archive= Yesterday Lexa and I had a conversation about getting married and having babies. Lexa said she wanted us all to still live together someday or maybe be neighbors. It was a great opportunity for teaching to tell her that if we all live righteously, that is what heaven will be, all of our families living together forever! She also asked what if she didnt have any babies? I told her that Heavenly Father wants us to have a family. But if something were to happen and she couldnt then we would still love her. When recounting this conversation to Daddy later on, she told him that she might not have babies. He asked,  "Then what?"  She replied, " Then I will just lay around and hang out and get to go shopping all by myself!"  I died laughing. She is so much fun to have around! ]]> 1216069752 Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:09:12 -0700 <![CDATA[Months of June and July]]> http://www.steffandnols.com/index.php?inc=news&cat=SteffAndNols&subaction=showfull&id=1216069504&archive= We have had a relaxing summer compared to last year, but the month of August might make up for that! The weekend of June 20th we went camping at Hermit Park, just outside Estes Park. It used to be owned by HP, but was sold to Agilent, then sold to Larimer County. It was a lot of fun. The campsites are few and far between. It was very dusty though. We went with our friends the Baldwins. Lexa and Lydia had a great time. We went hiking at Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. They left Saturday after dinner and my mom stayed the night. Clara did wonderfully and we still love our trailer.
The first Sunday of July we had friends from Texas stop by. They are living in Salt Lake now and came to see other relatives in Denver. They were Josh and Julie Black. We havent seen them in at least 3 years and when they got here, it was like no time at all had passed. We ate and played games. It was really good to see them.
Nolan had the 4th of July off so we decided to finally stain and seal our fence, deck and Lexa's new playset. We got the deck scrubbed off, powerwashed the fenced and got the deck sealed. Since then we have done a second coat on the deck and part of the fence. My family came up that evening and we ate steak, corn on the cob, fruit salad, and much more! It was great. Then we drove to Windsor and watched the fireworks over the lake.
Nolan's best friend from Washington, Bryan Murdock, and family  drove to Oklahoma to visit his wife's family. On the was there they spent one night with us and on the way back they spent 3 nights with us. We took them to the Lee Martinez Farm in Fort Collins, swimming at Picnic Rock in Poudre Canyon, the Discovery Science center in Fort Collins and to see the movie WallE. I hope we didnt wear them out too much! I was exhausted and had only been going for 3 days. They had been traveling and seeing the sights for about 11 days, and they had a few more to go. Hope they made it home safely!
Just before their stay I also got my hair highlighted, again, and had a purple stripe put in right behind my left ear. I will try to get some pictures of that up later.
This weekend we got to see the baptism of the boyfriend of one of the Laurels I used to teach ( I got release from Laurels advisor last week). That was very happy to see. We also got to spend and evening playing games with our friends the Pippins. We played Cities and Knights of Catan.
Our friend KT Child is starting her bone marrow transplant today and would ask everyone who reads this to keep her in your prayers.


]]> 1216069504 Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:05:04 -0700 <![CDATA[The Wrights (from Washington) go to Greece and Turkey]]> http://www.steffandnols.com/index.php?inc=news&cat=SteffAndNols&subaction=showfull&id=1213080052&archive= ]]> 1213080052 Mon, 9 Jun 2008 23:40:52 -0700 <![CDATA[photos for Clara's 3rd and 4th month]]> http://www.steffandnols.com/index.php?inc=news&cat=SteffAndNols&subaction=showfull&id=1212769379&archive= We definitely arent taking as many pictures of Clara as we did of Lexa. We will have to remedy that situation. The older she gets and the more defined features she develops the better it is to compare her to Lexa. I still think they do not look very much alike.

 

 

]]> 1212769379 Fri, 6 Jun 2008 09:22:59 -0700 <![CDATA[Tornado]]> http://www.steffandnols.com/index.php?inc=news&cat=SteffAndNols&subaction=showfull&id=1211579259&archive= Yesterday was a dark cloudy day. It was the last day of school for Lexa. Lexa, Dallin ( a boy I babysit), Clara and I were eating lunch at our house when it started to hail. The lights were flashing and the satalite reception went out. I looked on the internet real fast to find a tornado warning in effect. When I saw the hail I knew we needed to go to the basement. A few minutes later my mom called to tell me about the warning, and Dallins dad, Shawn, called to say we needed to get down and he was coming right to our house. When he got here he told me that he saw the tornado coming right for his office and left as fast as he could. He later found out that the tornado hit his work about 3 minutes after he left and it is gone. A few guys he works with got in a building with a basement right as it was collapsing and had to be taken to the hospital. We all stayed in the basement for a while and kept trying to call people to get updates and listening to an am/fm radio. We had limited cell phone service. We finally decided it was ok to come out again. Shawn went back into Windsor. We were out of electricity and the kids all fell sleep. I kept an eye on the sky for a while until it looked like everything we going to be ok. There is a lot of damage, as I am sure people have seen on Tv. We got our power back at 1 am. The tornado hit about 1/2 mile from our house. We got very lucky. Nolan is in Windsor now helping the clean up efforts. I went to bring him lunch and was very emotional when it came to seeing all the damage. It is the street we drive to school every day. I think Nolan might spend our whole weekend helping and luckily no one was hurt. It was a very emotionally and physically draining day. But we are ok

Here are Nolans pictures of town: http://www.steffandnols.com/index.php?inc=PGallery&gallery_name=Tornado2008

]]> 1211579259 Fri, 23 May 2008 14:47:39 -0700