Building My own House

So I dabbled with building and architectural design. No Bigger test than designing and building your own House! I paid for the engineering degree, might as well put the skills to good use heh? So we purchased the house in 2013 with the intention of extending the side and the Back We completed phase one in 2015 i think. Nothing Exciting, bog standard side extension. I did the surveying and the Cad model For the proposed build; supplied them to our Draughtsman, Brian Gill, to check the design add the details for meeting building Regs. He laughed at me when I asked what him what software he used; Good old Manual Method. Old school! Brian Retired and we were unable to hire him again for part Deux.

Her she is, on the right in her original state, when we purchased her in 2013 as seen from google streetview.

Phase 1 (side Extension) completed.Circa 2014. Ran out of pennies to the drive, So cut a gap in teh edge and parked on the grass for a while. The neighbours were not impressed. Once the design was granted building permission, I let the builder, our friend and neighbour Mark get on with the building works.

Finally got the drive done and fenced in time for the arrival of our Second child Charlie and before our first, Lily started walking.

Another Iteration that didnt get allowed by the council. We extended the house in 2 phases for budgetary reasons. Council said we couldnt link an extension to another. Period. so the some of the extension had to go. If I'd been loaded and been able to do both phases in one fell swoop.It would most probably have been allowed. grumble.

Time to start planning Phase 2 (rear open plan living area). Lets start with a crude Mockup We went with the 45 degree angle as the neighbours thought that they would lose outlook from their rear window. It took a lot to-ing and fro-ing, rejected planning permissions, planning inspectorate appeals, in the end We managed to agree on the current design . It took modelling their house as well as my proposed build; setting a viewport from their window and rendering the view to show that their view would not be obstructed. All under the watchful eye and excellent mediation services of our surveyor and town planner Toby

Then a proper scale model.

Figuring out the roof inner structure. That was not easy. We were originally wanting to go for two part Sip roof and clad it win a rubber membrane. Mark preferred tiles, and also we had ran out of energy to fight the council planners..Boring unimaginative lot. If it was up to them, we'd all be living in identical regulation cuboids.

First lintel is up, Lily and mommy inspecting the works.

Getting hands on in the roof build. This obscure build is starting to get to Mark. It looks easy on CAD,but to the non CAD use, it's not immediately obvious so the scale model helps. Random fact. I actually used the spirit level bubble app on my phone to help set the roof panel angles on the model to meet the minimums inclination for the roof tiles. I then back calculated the timber lengths and rafter angles. Got some strings on there, laser level. Took some work to convince mark that the design was going to work. He has been in the trades 20 years +. This roof was winding him up :). It worked. I had a blast getting involved this time. Mark had always jokes that I was some sort of mad professor kind of guy. Working together on this roof earned me some kudos in his eyes , I think :)

Going old-school and using string to demonstrate to Mark where the vertices and panels will be

Progressing with the roof build. Lifting up that main ridge RSJ without a crane was quite a stunt!

Roof membrane is on, batten are on, roofers are waiting for the storm to pass... just our luck.

When completed , the roof will look like this. Mark is a bit worried about water stagnating.Im confident that all areas meet the minimum slope for the tile inclination. I demonstrate the slopes by dropping little plastic balls on the model roof. I think i have convinced him. Phew, i was nearly starting to doubt myself.

Planning how to layout the kitchen inside.

Fast Forward a bit , kitchen units are fitted. Need to finish the inside now... Outside is done!

View from the Sky! Mischief managed. and from within: The children love it. the open space has really improved how we live :)

Dabbling in Building

A client was having Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) at his house and the supplier wanted some 2D drawings of his house to plan the Job. So I put in my CAD skills and Basic building experience to the test : I visited the site, took some measurements, Built him a 3d Model, some renders, the 2d drawings. And An a VR viewable model, as I just happened to be experimenting with these technologies at the moment.

Not bad for a chance encounter on reddit, Happy client,

unfinished coaxial drone

Well Well! Here are the latest little projects that i've been working on over the past few months! Over the summer I improved the 3d printed quadcopter designs and clocked a lot of airtime! The reliability of this little workhorse is very satisfying. I got confident and let her fly over the cliff at Otley Chevin ! The next step was obviously To stabilise the camera with a gimbal. The Day of flying the Big Beast with A go pro on Full autopilot looms closer.Baby steps first! But first to get Rid of that Blasted Jello effect!

Here was the first iteration! And Below a short clip showing the testing output was okay, but the quad was nose heavy and I had to move the battery backwards to counterbalance it, not ideal..So we switched to a belly mounted gimbal design with extra damping to remove those pesky vibrations.

Gave it a test Flight! Results weren't too bad. Stabilisation was decent, vibration jello effect was damped sufficiently, so the tech works, however we lost some agility and flight time due to the extra weight, guess it's time to install the gimbal on the bigger quad and maybe purchase a go pro. Maybe at Christmas.Below Was the footage using the bottom mounted gimbal. well That was okay! now To find a go pro ...

3d Prints

Too late and too tired to blurb! so for now a few snippets of some prints i've done! all Designed from scratch! no thieving from the thingiverse here!

Another ongoing project, making a hand held vac for the car, the 12 quid one i bought from asda was Dire...and I don't make enough to be able to be able to afford the dyson hand held quic sells for about 200 bones... so i'll make my damn own. And after i saw the Dark knight rises, I wanted batpod, so i made a clone, not gotten round to motorise it, soo many projects soo little time!

The 3d prints are gettin more intricate and bold day by day, its a far cry from this: my first print! a simple pillow block for a skate bearing!

Status of the multicopters!

Well having failed miserably with the self build arduino and wii motion plus and wiimote combos, i bit the bullet, I am only a Noob programmer to be honest , gave it my best bash, but MAn's gotta know his limitations...I gotmyself a few kk2.0 control boards, cheap and simple, they would take care of stabilising and I can take care of navigation ( the coding is in progress) I have 1 ardupilot(on a an x5 wing- not dared to fly her for 6 months..no rush...) and 1 arducopter ( tuning in progress on the big 3d printedd quad!) anyway without further ado! I did get airborne after all!

this little bird there(i call her bumblebee) partly CNC'd and partly 3d printed was my best and most agile bird! so stable too, a clumy pilot like myself racked hours on this thing, so i;ve made her my standard design and designed a carbon fibre and 3d printed one! and I am currently in the process or tuning a Scale up version ( my camera ship - see below) flow by an arducopter.

above is Bumble bee 2, ultra light and awaiting a nice body shell to cover her bits!

and off she goes! this clip below show bumblebee's prototype's first flight! and in progress is the bigger brother : the Macaw : in progress!

bit of CAd to test fit the things..

parts assembled and awaiting motor installation. of course by now the motors are on m the ardupilot is on and im tuning the PIDs to get her stable atm, so to be COntinued!

Where the CNC project is at now!

A summary of Completed Projects since the last update (which was a while back! The CNC has been upgraded and changed many times to its final incarnation which is now mainly Metal and HDPE and a nice solid pine base! WE have cut a few projects on it and I've also acquired a 3d Printer kit which has seen a lot more action than the CNC! So while i find time to get this this thing back up to date, here is a quic retrospective! So the CNC got upgraded to a few more wooden iterations, until i managed to find some linear rails and bearing that did not cost an arm and a leg!

There she is being assembled in the new Lab (after having been in storage for 6 months as I was back at the rents, saving for the house deposit..phew hard times!

on on a nice solid chunky pine base:

awaiting bed levelling as it she it straddling two table and I cant seem to get them at the same height...see the clutter building up!! Prior to moving in the new lab, id put her thru her paces and done a couple of jobs one it!

built a nice ultra light with a clark y built up wing. Never flew it, just built for the sake of building... typical.. then I got myself a reprap prusa kit clone from a chap in poland, Assembled the damn thing and tinkered for weeks, and ahow emerged my first PRints but that a different story!