Working on the lit guitar, Mark III

I've spent most of the last two days working on parts of the lit guitar, creating a small circuit board for power distribution and cutting out the LED circuit board and plexiglas cover. I also wanted to see if I can figure out how to post photographs in this blog.

 

 I've traced outlines for cutting the circuit board and plexiglas. I traced an extra cover so if one breaks, I've got a spare.

Wearing proper ear protection, I cut out the circuit board that all of the LEDS will be soldered to.

Oh, good. They're both the same size! I still have to cut out the hole for the bridge and pickup on the circuit board.

I've laid out the circuit on the computer. I just have to print out a mirror image on special paper, then iron it into the copper coated board.

Before I iron on the decal to affix the toner, I have to make sure the copper is clean by lightly scrubbing it with steel wool.

OK, I've ironed on the decal, peeled off the backing, then added a plastic coating to the toner on the board (another iron-on product). Before I etch the board, I have to check the integrity of the lines under my magnifying glass and remove any extra bits with my exacto knife.

  Here, I've protected the rest of the board with scotch tape. I'm applying ferric chloride with a sponge (the plastic container is my reservoir - nasty stuff that stains your skin, hence the nitrile gloves). Everywhere there is green plastic or tape on the board, it won't remove the copper, but  I want to completely remove it everywhere else.
 

The board is etched. I still have to drill holes for some of the components (some are surface-mounted). The light greenish stuff is the nonconductive epoxy circuit board under the copper conductors. It looks bigger in this photo, but this board is less than two inches long.

I've soldered on the voltage regulators, ribbon cable socket, and capacitors. I need to add the transistors (on the plate with the little vise holding the soldering iron and wiping pad), power connections, and the wire that connect to the LED board (the one that you saw me cutting out at the top of the page), then cut off the excess board (below the black ribbon cable connector) and drill mounting holes.

I still have to lay out the LED board (the one that is shaped like the front of the guitar) and the logic board (the board with the microprocessor that will control the lighting effects). Since the battery hasn't arrived yet, I'm not in a tremendous hurry but I'd like to get it finished as soon as possible so I can see it run (maybe even post a video), then ship it off, and get paid.

Making a custom circuit board isn't any harder than any other fine craft project; it merely requires a degree of care bordering on anal retentiveness. The fourteen little voltage regulators each have five legs/feet that are one millimeter apart; I had to create pads on my board for when I solder the legs/feet to the board that accommodate them but not touch the adjacent pads and cause a short circuit. This is why I make the layout on the computer, where I can magnify to my heart's content. But, I still have to print it out life-sized (that is, really tiny) and transfer the toner on the special paper to the copper, then coat it with the special plastic for etching. This requires a gentle touch to not smear the pads or otherwise goof up the transfer process. I've discovered that a black sharpie pen can touch up any breaks in the traces after I've attached the green plastic (but a blue one doesn't work). And practice, of course, makes it more likely that I'll get the outcome that I want.

I'm pretty good at soldering these finicky little bits onto the board and I've stopped losing the parts as soon as I remove them from the plastic tape/machine feed device. If you hold the soldering iron to a small pad for more than a second, the pad pulls off of the circuit board. And these are very small pads. But, if you don't heat up the pad enough, the solder won't stick. I pre-solder the pads, then attach the tiny surface-mounted devices (like the voltage regulators). I've squished ants that are bigger than these things! There is a paste solder that you can apply, then carefully place all of the devices and heat it all up in a toaster oven to melt the solder to stick down the parts, but I've never tried this method. Maybe next time. In any case, practice is the key. I'm not boasting; I AM good at soldering but this is very difficult work. But, it is very time consuming and it feels like you aren't getting anything done.But I just love creating intricate little things; if  I could afford the raw materials, I probably be a jeweler.

Well, I'm tired and I'm going to bed, now. I may not get back to the board until I've done my taxes. The horror of it all!

John's latest book

    I’ve been postponing writing about John’s new book, “Be Different” because my life has been quite busy since he gave me an advance copy, about six weeks ago. But, the book is out now and I just realized that I never really talked about it.

    This book gives good advice for young men on the spectrum who feel alienated and want coping mechanisms. John is always a great storyteller and he does his best to impart experiences that were obtained with a certain amount of difficulty but young women are very different from young men. All adolescent men, even nypicals, think about sex a lot more often than women do, although the specific amount of difference is contested. So a book that talks a lot about how to find a girlfriend is of pressing interest to adolescent men but the flip side, how to find a mate, is of less interest to a girl on the spectrum.

    Girls are more interested in learning how to fit in - I informally surveyed my former high school students. High school girls are mostly interested in how they fit into the brutal company of other high school girls. While relations with boys are a part of that, girls want to be accepted and respected by all of their peers. Boys just want girlfriends. For a boy, a girlfriend can make up for a lack of male friends but the reverse isn’t true for girls. Girls are vicious to girls who don’t act properly in ways that boys just can’t imagine. In short, the book didn’t really speak to me as a woman on the spectrum. It’s a good book; since the stats seem to be one in 70 boys but only one in 260 girls are on the spectrum, perhaps a book that is targeted to boys will have a great appeal but girls need a how-to manual, also, and this isn’t really it. Hmmmm.

    My main advice to a girl on the spectrum is to learn how to smile. Use a mirror and find a good smile, then ask a trusted person to critique it. You don’t want a giant shit-eating grin, you want to emulate the Mona Lisa. A smile is more than just mouth, it extends all the way up to your eyes and even your posture. Practice smiling until your muscles hurt. Then smile some more. Make a point to smile at everyone, every day. I started doing this when I was about 16. Prior to then, I never smiled and was pretty depressed all of the time; suicide was a daily thought that I kept to myself for fear that talking might encourage me to do it. I found that smiling made me feel better, less depressed. The better I felt, the easier it was to smile; it was a positive feedback loop. I haven’t thought about suicide at all since I started smiling regularly.

    By the time I started college, people started to describe me as the girl who always smiled and wanted to know - what made me so happy all of the time, could they have some, too? I was surprised by the description but acknowledged that I really WAS happy without chemical assistance despite some really horrible things that happened. Finally, when you smile, people smile back. You don’t need to see it but they also feel better when they see you and will subconsciously associate you with those good feelings and will tend to like you without you even saying anything. So that’s my advice - learn how to smile realistically, use it as your default facial expression, and life should improve.

    An Aspie girl at John’s talk at Smith College mentioned to me how, in the past, a teacher had punished her for “losing it” and crying in class, habitually sending her into the hall. A hint for any kid on the spectrum is to keep a printed reminder card saying that you are on the spectrum to give to teachers when you can’t speak. Handing it out also needs practice, but remember that teachers are human; they forget really important things about other people. Every classroom should have a designated safe site in the room for any kid’s emotional moments; when I taught, I always had an extra desk pointed away towards the wall for anyone who needed to take five minutes for a private moment. Of course, I had to chase out a couple of nypical kids who wanted to monopolize it all class, every day, but it was useful for those occasional moments that everyone suffers, even nypicals. And since the space was still in the room, it allowed kids to continue to listen to the lesson or discussion while getting their emotions under control.   

    The most important hint I have is, you aren’t alone, no matter how alienated and bewildered you feel at the moment. You have to figure out ways to enlist nypicals to help you accomplish what you want. Think of Tom Sawyer, getting everyone else to whitewash the fence. He didn’t get help by asking for it directly; he was tricky. If you want people to like you, smile at them. If you need a teacher to help, get another teacher’s advice. Don’t try to do it by yourself. Humans are social animals. But ne wary of the advice you get from peers; they may be out to sabotage you.

    If you’re a boy who wants a girlfriend, read John’s book, but he made one major mistake with me when we were in high school. When I declined to go out with him the first time he asked (I needed to think about it before deciding), less than 15 minutes later, he asked a “friend” of mine to be his girlfriend. After accepting, she promptly told me (with a bit of malicious glee; this is an example of how nypical girls can be vicious). I was positive that I had made the right decision; it made me feel like I wasn’t a unique individual, that all he wanted was someone with a vagina. Nothing makes a girl feel less like a girlfriend than to be treated by a boy like she’s fungible.  It took years before I forgave John and this paragraph will undoubtedly come as a surprise to him; I doubt he even remembers that dance. Boys - wait a few days before you ask the next girl out. It’s only polite. But girls, be careful about your friends. This particular girl repeatedly made passes at boys who seemed to be interested in me. I finally set a trap with a gay friend, pretending that we were inseparable when she came to visit my college. She tried to kiss him and even grabbed his genitals while I was down the hall! I dropped her from my list of friends and haven’t missed her as bit in the thirty years since.

    In conclusion, John’s book is very good for boys, less so for girls. This make sense; he’s a guy and even nypical guys can be clueless (to say nothing about spectrum guys).

Gah! April already!

      So, were you an April Fool? I enjoyed Google's Gmail Motion fool - control your email on the same fashion as playing with a Wii. I liked their fool a few years ago (I missed last year's joke) where they introduced email by U.S. mail.

      I didn't play any tricks on anyone this year; I rarely do. I worked a bit on my  renovations today. It took me a long time to figure out a solution to an early design error. My new bathroom/laundry is located in a former closet, expanded when I added a shed dormer to the back of the house. It is oddly shaped, however, wedged between a tiny landing at the top of the stairs and the two bedrooms. Part of it sits atop the space where the chimney used to pass through the second floor and the room accommodates the vent stack for the first floor toilet. There isn't enough space to move the (new) washer and dryer past the (future) bathtub; there is a bottle neck around the vent stack. I had left enough room in my plans but the plumber shifted the tub placement when he roughed in the plumbing. I could have ignored the issue by moving in the new appliances as soon as I finished the flooring (before building the tub surround) but what would I do when the machines eventually fail? I could have let the (hypothetical) next owner deal with the problem but I never anticipated living in this house as long as I have and I have no plans to move! I decided that trusting machines was unwise. The bathroom still has only studs - no finished walls yet - and I didn't want to complete the place until I had a reasonable method to remove the washer and dryer.

      I finally solved the problem. If I moved some wiring, I could remove a short wall next to the laundry area leading into the second bedroom. I can install a flush-to-the-walls door into the space and cover it with the same wall coverings that I use for the bedroom. The door will have a coverplate over the latch, not a doorknob. For all intents and purposes, the door will be invisible. When it is needed, the door can open into the bedroom and the washer and/or dryer can be removed, first through this door, then through the bedroom/landing door, and down the stairs!

      I built a very study skeleton for the walls; it took me two days to remove the small section and I needed a saw, a hammer, and finally, a three foot long wrecking bar along with my ladder. I was glad I hadn't used construction adhesive everywhere; I meant to but had run out before I put up this section. I started building the bathroom four years ago. I hope to finish it this summer. Maybe.I had plans to build the tub surround last year, during the April vacation that never happened. Life is what happens when you've made plans.

      I have the materials to put up the new door; I bought replacement wiring and a framed door a long time ago. I tried to remove the framing last fall but ran out of energy halfway through cutting the plates (the horizontal pieces of wood at the floor and ceiling level). Actually, I built the framing incorrectly; it is a lot stronger than a typical interior wall. First, I nailed and glued plates to the floor and rafters. Then, I created wall-segments that attached a second set of plates to studs (vertical pieces of wood spaced 18 inches apart). I raised the frames into the space between the plates, wedged the top to plumb it straight, and nailed the whole thing together with long spikes. I used a lot of nails, screws, and construction adhesive to create walls that won't budge if someone runs into them (or pushes a washing machine into one!)  I only removed the second plates; I don't think it is possible to remove the outer ones.

     If I build the tub surround the same way as the walls, I don't have to worry about it collapsing under the weight of water. I love my new tub. It has ten jets and a heater, just the thing for cold winter nights. I put an electric heating mat under the tile floor, to make a floor that you want to walk on barefoot in the winter. I spent a lot of time planning this renovation; I just want someone else to finish it for me! Yesterday!

      Oh, well, back to the salt mines. I went upstairs earlier to find my saber saw to cut materials for the new lit guitar. I got sidetracked. So what else is new?

     Only 16 days to send in your tax return. Gah! And that's no April Fool (but I wish it was one).