Open avocados and guacamole brown due to oxidation (exposure to oxygen).
Just submerge the avocado in water and put it in the fridge. I did this to half an avocado and after 4 days, it still looks good.
If you have a container of guacamole that you don’t want to brown, add water to cover the top surface.
Let’s say you have a bunch of songs and for each song, you want to have different colored lights come on and off and/or move around.
In order to do this, you need a few things:
There are different types of light fixtures.
Ellipsoidal Reflector Spotlight (ERS)
This type of light is used to highlight certain subjects or stage pieces with a relatively narrow beam angle.
Parabolic reflectors (PAR)
This type of light is used to light up large areas. They come in a variety of lens types to get different beam angles. This light doesn’t have zoom or focus options. This is the most common fixture because it’s the cheapest.
Fresnel
This type of light is a happy medium between a PAR and an ERS. They have a zoom function but not a focus and usually cast a much “softer” light than ERS light fixtures.
Moving Head
This type of light can move. It offers different beam angles for spot (narrow), wash (wide), beam (laser) and hybrid light effects. It is the most versatile stage lighting option.
Above are only some of the more common types of lights.
To hang your lights, you can get a lighting stand with T-Bar.
DMX (Digital Multiplexing) or, officially, USITT DMX512, is a unidirectional serial data protocol, meaning the signal leaves the controller (computer or lighting board) and travels through all lighting fixtures in a daisy-chain. It was standardized in 1986. DMX networks typically only have one master device on the network, usually the DAW software / controller, and many slave devices — the lights.
The 5-pin XLR the standard connector.
The reason for five pins is that pin 1 would be the ground, pins 2 and 3 would be data link 1, and pins 4 and 5 were reserved for data link 2 and/or proprietary data. Over the years, the second pair of pins (pins 4 & 5) on the connector stopped being used, since 3-pin DMX proved to be very reliable. This is why you may sometimes see fixtures with a 3-pin, 5-pin, or both connectors on the fixture.
Some DMX cables are 3-pin cables. Don’t confuse them with 3-pin audio or mic cables. DMX cables use roughly 110-ohms whereas microphone cables are typically around 45 ohms. The different impedance between these cables matters with lighting networks and can cause your lights to either not respond or respond sporadically.
You cannot have more than 32 devices connected on a single chain. If you have more than 32 light fixtures, you would need to use an Opto-Splitter. A splitter like the Chauvet DJ Data Stream 4 will allow you to have 32 devices connected to each DMX output connector. You cannot use Y-cables, as this approach does not electrically isolate the DMX lines and would cause data reflections.
A DMX line is limited to a total of 512 channels, which is also called a universe. Each lighting fixture you have uses a number of DMX channels depending on how many parameters the fixture has. Lights can also have multiple personalities, or profiles, depending on how much or how little control you want. Note that the 512-channel limit is independent of the 32-light fixture limit.
Let’s say you have 40 lighting fixtures that use three channels each: you are only using 120 channels total. You can fit these all in the same universe of control, however, if you have more than 32 devices. You would implement an Opto-Splitter and split your devices up among the outputs in whatever configuration you would like, as long as each DMX leg has less than 32 devices on it.
Let’s look at the Chauvet DJ SlimPAR Pro H.
This light has three different personalities, or profiles. It can be used in a 6-, 7-, and 10-channel mode, and again the more channels a fixture uses, the more control you have. Let’s look at 7-channel mode:
Each DMX parameter on a fixture operates independently. Say I was to make this fixture a magenta color. I would turn up channel 2 (Red) and channel 4 (Blue) until I got my desired shade of magenta. However, turning up just these channels on the fixture (2 & 4) would not put out any light. I would also need to turn up channel 1, which is my dimmer that controls the overall intensity. On moving fixtures, this control becomes even more complex, because there are other parameters available, such as Pan and Tilt or gobos, again all independent.
The best way to understand a light’s capabilities is by checking its DMX assignments. For example, the ADJ Starbust’s manual shows this.
When setting up a lighting rig, each light fixture needs to be assigned a starting address. If I have four of the same fixture mentioned above in the same personality (7-channel mode), their addresses would be 1, 8, 15, and 22. All 512 channels of data flow through every fixture in a DMX lighting chain so each fixture needs to know which channels control it based on channel addressing.
There are many different DAW software, for example, Ableton Live and Pro Tools. They can be used to create music and control lights. This article isn’t about creating music but just controlling lights in sync with existing music. Therefore, the software we’ll use is Show Buddy.
To sync light effects with music (e.g. an existing mp3 file), we’ll use this setup.
Terminate the DMX cable chain by inserting a DMX terminator into the DMX Out port of the last light fixture.
This software allows you to load audio files (e.g. mp3s) and for each song, place a preset (light effect) created in DMXIS at certain points in the song. Light effects can fade out over a specified amount of time.
This software allows you to preview light effects.
Simulate a magic ball with these lights:
Chauvet DJ Rotosphere Q3. $300
ADJ Starburst RGBWA+UV LED Sphere Effect – $300
Create a moving beam with these lights:
Lixada Moving Head – $71
Wash walls or a stage with these lights:
Kebert Par Lights – $20
Create very bright white flashes of light with these lights
Blizzard SnowBlind™ and SnowBlind™ FX strobe fixtures. – $119
MFL S100 132LED White bright Stage Lighting Strobe Blinder and Wash Light – $88
Subtotal: $680
Subtotal: $419
Subtotal: $36
Total: $1135
Wall Wash
Regular
Laser / Pin Spot
Beam
Magic Ball / Disco
Moving / Scan
Blinder (super bright light)
Chase (lights turn on and off sequentially like dominos)
Strobe / Flash
If you’re on a Mac, an alternative setup is to use LightKey coupled with Ableton Live.
or SoundSwitch.
Here’s a quick intro to 3d modeling using SketchUp in the browser.
Note: you can use SketchUp online or using the downloaded app. The free version of SketchUp doesn’t support creating Bezier curves. For that and other features, you’ll have to upgrade to SketchUp Pro.
When we create a new SketchUp sketch, we see this screen.
Let’s say we want to make four posts for a pergola. The posts are 6″x6″x10′ tall (actual dimensions are 5.5″x5.5″x10′).
First, under Model Info, we set the length format and precision.
To create our first post, we choose the Rectangle tool.
We click once in the 3D space and drag to create a rectangle which is 5.5″ x 5.5″. When dragging, we see in the bottom right corner the dimensions of the rectangle.
Instead of dragging until you get the right rectangle dimensions, just type 5.5,5.5 and then hit Enter.
Now, to complete making the first post, we need to “pull” the rectangle (actually, it’s a square) up 10 feet. Click the “pull” button.
Then click the square and drag up.
Again, to simplify getting the right dimensions, just type 120 and hit Enter to make the post 10 feet tall. Since all measurements are in inches, we type 120 instead of 10. SketchUp then converts the 120 to 10′ in the Dimensions box in the bottom right corner.
To verify the dimensions of any side of the object, click the Select tool.
and then click a side, e.g. a long side of the post, and in the Entity Info panel, we see that the length of that side is 10′.
Now, we’ll copy and paste that post by selecting the entire post, hitting Ctrl+C and Ctrl-V, and clicking where we want the other posts to be.
Now, the 2nd post is clearly not lined up with the first so we have to move it. Moving objects in SketchUp can be confusing to new users. Here are some ways to move an object.
Let’s say we want to move the 2nd post flush against the first post. First, we orbit the view, if necessary, and select all of the 2nd post.
Then, we click the Move button.
and click on one corner of the 2nd post that we want to touch a corner on the first post.
Then, we click on the corner of the first post where we want that corner to touch. Now, the posts are flush and lined up together with each other.
Let’s say the 2nd post is higher up than the first post. We want to lower it so that both are on the ground, so to speak. We want to move the 2nd post vertically along the Z axis down until its bottom is on the same plane as the bottom of the first post. To do this,
You can also constrain movements to other axes as well.
Using the dimensions tool, we mark the distance between the two posts along the green axis. We get 12′.
Let’s say we want the distance between them to be 10′ instead.
Relative coordinates in SketchUp are indicated as <r,g,b> or <red,green,blue> (the colors of the axes). So, if we want to move 2′ (24″) towards the first post (towards [0,0,0]), we can do this
Now, the distance between the two posts along the green axis is 10′.
Absolute coordinates in SketchUp are indicated as [r,g,b] or [red,green,blue]. So, if we want to move to the center of the coordinate system, we do the same as above except we enter [0,0,0].
Using the techniques above, we can make 4 posts that are exactly 10′ apart and all on the same red-green plane.
Following is a comparison of exterior wood stains on expensive redwood and cheap douglas fir.
For the redwood, I didn’t want to change the color of the wood so I went with a transparent solution. However, I did want to accentuate the natural color and the grain. I also wanted a glossy look. Of all the sealers tested, the Varathane sealer looked the best to me. It also looked good on Douglas fir (cheap construction wood) as it also brought out the grain lines.
Here’s another look at the Varathane oil-based stain on redwood and douglas fir. Of course, the vibrancy of the color will differ in different lighting.
For interior wood, I find that the Minwax oil-based stain in the Gunstock color produces nice red results with clear grain lines followed by triple-thick glossy polyurethane.
As you can see in the photo below, water doesn’t penetrate the wood because the sealer adds a protective layer on it.
Creating a time lapse video is great for quickly showing changes that happen over a long period of time, e.g. the sky changing from day to night. I recently made a time lapse video of a pergola construction project using an Android app called Framelapse. It’s a very simple app which takes pictures at a user-specified interval over a set period of time or until you stop recording. What’s great is this method doesn’t fill up your phone by taking an actual video at the normal frame rate of 30 frames per second. For my first timelapse video, I chose a frame interval of 4 seconds. When I stopped recording, the timelapse video was instantly done and available in my Google Photos app and backed up to Google Photos in the cloud. I added some background music and I was done. Here’s the final video.
This weekend I built the frame of a pergola. The posts are 6x6x10 Redwood posts and they’re heavy. We had the posts go 15″ in the ground but before pouring cement, we wanted to make sure the posts were level and plumb.
To hold the posts in place while we measured, we filled buckets with dirt and temporarily secured each posts to them using either screws or clamps.
Once the posts were held in place, we installed the headers on top. This would hold the posts in place and, theoretically, help ensure the posts are plumb.
We then measured for level and plumb using straight levels and post levels.
We also measured the distance between posts to ensure corresponding sides were the same length. We could have also measure the two diagonal distances but we didn’t. We measured using a laser measure and a tape measure. Unfortunately, these can give inaccurate readings if, for example, the laser or tape measure isn’t perfectly level when taking measurements.
Despite measuring using levels and checking distances, we still found some posts were not lined up perfectly with other posts.
To make measurements easier, stick a nail near the top and bottom of each post at the same vertical position.
Then, hook the end of your tape measure to the nail head and pull to measure the distance to the corresponding nail on other posts.
Another, albeit extreme, way to ensure all posts are plumb and positioned perfectly is to use scrap 2x4s to temporarily secure all sides at the top and bottom. If you don’t have any 2x4s, you can use 2x3s. They are cheap at the Home Depot. If your 2x4s are not long enough, you can join / splice them together using metal plates or scrap plywood.
Again, you can temporarily secure the 2x4s to the posts with either screws or clamps. By securing these 2x4s around the top and bottom of the posts, and ensuring they are level, there’s no way the posts could end up being offset from each other or not plumb.
I wanted to build a pergola in my backyard. The patio is a cement slab. I could fasten post bases to it for the posts but I felt that that wasn’t as safe as having the posts sit 1.5′ in the ground. The control lines of the cement slab are just bricks with mortar. I figured I could just remove 3 bricks and dig to 1.5′ for each post hole. The concern was to not crack neighboring bricks and cement. Here’s how I managed to make rectangular holes with clean edges.
First, I drilled into a brick until I reached the dirt. This gave me an idea of how deep the slab was.
It wasn’t too deep.
I then used a cordless angle grinder with a diamond blade to score the perimeter of my desired hole. This was especially important so as to not crack the brick next to the hole.
You could also use a circular saw with a diamond blade.
I used a jack hammer to demolish the bricks.
I have the XtremepowerUS 2200Watt Heavy Duty Electric Demolition Jack Hammer Concrete Breaker which I got on Amazon.
It easily broke up the bricks into nice big chucks.
Below the brick was a layer of cement.
I broke that up, too, with the jackhammer.
The next layer was dirt.
I dug into the dirt using the Bosch Bulldog Extreme jack hammer and a heavy duty drill with an auger drill bit.
Result: nice clean hole. I’ll have to put back two bricks for each hole but that’s easy.
I’ve decided to move move and back up files files in the cloud. This includes moving all photos to Google Photos. Apparently, I had many duplicate photos in different folders that needed to be reorganized and deduped. Fortunately, CCCleaner makes finding and duplicating files of any time free, safe and easy. As you can see in the screenshot below, you can compare files and mark which ones to remove before removing them. There are many filters and controls so you can customize the search.
If you need to securely close a really heavy bag, one option is to use rebar wire ties.
You can buy a pack of 100 rebar wire tires at the Home Depot.
Grip-Rite 67/100 ft. 16-Gauge Rebar Tie Wire (100-Piece/Bag)
To secure, make a neck out of the plastic bag, fold the rebar wire tie around the neck, insert the screw end of a hook into a drill, insert the hook end of the hook into both loops of the wire tie, pull the trigger on the drill to twist the wire until it secures (chokes) the neck of the plastic bag.
To install closed-loop hooks, insert a hex key / Allen wrench into your drill and use it to drive the eye hook.
To install an open-loop hook, insert a closed-loop hook into your drill and use it to drive the hook.
