forteh

You saying his misses is bigger than 8 blue euro pallets? I jest, I do 90% of the washing up

My weight has stayed exactly the same, still 76kg. Never been to a gym in my life so sitting at home instead of sitting at work had made absolutely no difference Back to working in the office from Monday though.

More time spent on designing the shifter Decided on getting the shell of the shifter printed so I had far more freedom with the design, will send it over tomorrow and see how the prints come out. Additional centreing leaf springs for the sequential shifter will be laser cut from 0.9mm stainless with the capbablitly to add more leaves in if more force is required. Still got to design a couple of clip on covers for the microswitch terminals and some wiring management. I wanted to get the removeable sequential cap to be stowable on the shifter body but it just didn't fit right no matter how I played with it. Will have to model the two aluminium spars that are holding the wheel to the desk so I can finalise how it's going to actually bolt down and be stiff enough!

That was with the season pass and all dlc, whatever you do, don't look at dirt rally 2. Base game is now only 25 quid but with 58 dlc items at an average cost of about 3 quid a piece I got my full version with all dlc from cdkeys for 14 quid, legal yes, morally correct, perhaps not but if codemasters hadn't sold out to facebook and made dirt rally 1 VR only work on oculus headsets (instead of htc/valve/WMR) I wouldn't have bought DR2 as I was quite happy with DR1 - well that was till I upgraded my oculus DK2 to a lenovo explorer which obviously runs on the WMR platform

Yup, back to 70 quid, think I paid 11 for it

Picked project cars 2 last week in a ridiculous 80% steam sale, been hooning round cadwell in a caterham in vr and just came second in my first ever race against really novice AI So much sweat from sitting down, mind you it is about 32°c in here!

Fore and aft selector pivot printed, bearings fitted. Got all the microswitches and usb encoder board. I've changed the design to include a slot on module that converts it to a sequential shifter. The pivot bearing centering mechanism isn't going to be stiff enough for the sequential so designing in some adjustable leaf springs so I should be able to fine tune it. All good fun but making me hanker after a 3D printer

This is only a partial makers thread post Following on from me setting up my sim racing wheel and pedals with the cobbled together clutch and handbrake I've been spending quite a lot of time driving a mk2 escort in dirt rally 2.0 and can't help but feel that I'm not getting the true visceral experience of it with a flappy paddle gear change. The thrustmaster th8a H-pattern shifter is about 150quid but it's a no go because it's really noisy and risks waking children. So I've fired up solidworks and I'm making myself a 7 speed + reverse H-pattern shifter A friend is 3D printing the triangular shaped pivot in the middle, the rest I'll make from aluminium and steel.

Now we're a little more relaxed on the lock down and Persephone can view ride, I've been taking the kids out on short bike rides. I'm sure the child is made of blutack. Dusty rooty downhill path with loose pine cones and sticks, going a bit fast and gets a wobble on, grabs a handful of front brake, front wheel folds under her and slams her face down in the dirt. She jumps up, shouts "I'm alright" and sets off. Procedes to do exactly the same thing ten seconds later. She's going to make a proper rugby player at this rate

Mk1 hope minis with sport levers, still going strong

But you keep your legs warm, your feet stay warm. Your core temperature is ok but as soon as the blood is in your extremities it's cooling down, manage your core temperature separate to your legs. More layers is the only real way you'll keep the heat up, good thermal compression tights really will keep your feet warmer, shouldn't need anything else except shorts and a good foot insulator. Neoprene over shoes keep the wind chill and water off which is where the majority of the heat is lost, merino socks (not just some cheap wool mix) will help retain the heat. Think of it as lagging for a water pipe. I suffer from reynauds syndrome so if the weather is cold my fingers and toes go numb extremely quickly. The above is what I've learned works best to keep some warmth.

Neoprene over shoes, silk or pure merino wool socks and not too tight should help. Keeping your legs and ankles warm helps as well, I have some under armour coldgear compression tights for rugby coaching in the winter and they're amazing under some baggies on the bike.

Well I'm back in the office full time tomorrow because the production manager needs to get in and schedule the upcoming works we've got to carry out. He can't lone work so I've got to keep him company as I live the closest to the office. The rest of the staff are still on another two weeks furlough because the muppet accounts clerk took two weeks to submit the claim, hence legally people have only been on furlough now for 1 week or so and the company will get nothing if people go back to work now. Puts me in a bit of a quandary because manufacturing drawings that I am producing now need to be checked and the only people who can check them (iso audit prevents self checking and approval) are furloughed

Today has progressed onto standing up and pedaling, still only clockwise mind edit: boris's announcement today has made her all excited because I'll be able to take her out on her bike properly

Persephone (just turned 5) has been making the most of lockdown, she's taught herself to ride her bike (islabike cnoc16 handed down from her older brother). Unfortunately our garden has an area about 10' square in which to cycle. This week she discovered that if she paddled round in circles she could manage to get some good speed up, then she put her outside foot on the pedal and scooted round in faster 10' circles. At some point on thursday morning there was much squeaking of excitement from the back garden, she had progressed from scooting to full blown pedalling in circles. As of today she has mastered the feet up and start from a standstill, circles of various radii, circles at high speed, circles at less than walking pace, emergency stops when Aneurin (now 14 months) runs in front of her and endos. She likes doing endos Only problem is, she can only go in clockwise circles, if she tries anticlock she crashes into a wall

Don't take the bushes out, just rotate them so the offset is perpendicular to the shock axis to return to factory geometry our back the other way to effectively length the eye to eye length on the shock

It's life as normal for me, except my commute has turned from a 5 minute drive to a 5 second walk across the room

Prepare to be bored! Im a casual PC sim gamer, I've never had the time to fully dedicate to learning an indepth sim (I can take off in an A10C, navigate, shoot things and land but sorely need more time in the office) but even so I like to dip in and out every so often. Because I'm something of a tool tart I will always want the very best equipment I can get my hands on (for as little money as possible). Roll back around 15 years, I bought my first proper joystick off ebay, a then 20 year old thrustmaster FLCS, TQS & RCS (Flight Control System, Throttle Quadrant System & Rudder Control System), it was a replica of the F16 fighting falcon stick and throttle and was a revelation in how to fly. Being a HOTAS (Hands On Throttle And Stick) means you can control the core plane systems without needing to remove your hands from the controls and hunt for keyboard buttons. However come the advent of windows 7, microsoft made the old gameport standard (which the thrustmaster kit was tied to) obsolete and there was no way of making the hardware work. As the flying was somewhat dead in the water I tried my hand at rallying with Richard Burns Rally, unfortunately the cheapy steering wheel setup I had was a bit crap with no ffb (forcefeedback) and general crapness; a colleague at work kindly gave me his old logitech ffb wheel setup (he got it for gran tourismo on the ps3) and that worked admirably unlike my rally driving skills, RBR was completely uncompromising though and would not allow for any mistakes. I soon gave it up as too much effort and the wheel got put away as it was taking up a load of space. Fast forward to 2012ish and I get interested in flight sims again, the DCS A10C sim was out (being my favourite combat plane of all time) so out of curiosity I looked at suitable hardware to use with it, thrustmaster being the obvious primary choice; lo and behold they have produced a replica of the A10 stick and throttle (down to the throw weight of the switches) for an eye watering 375 quid! Somehow I found one locally on ebay for 175 and it came bundled with the A10 sim as a bonus. In use it was magical, very heavy but so precise and comfortable. Unfortunately the lack of rudder pedals (my old RCS setup required plugging into the gameport FLCS joystick) really bugged me so I started thinking about how to convert them to USB so as to work in modern versions of windows. Come back to the logitech steering wheel I had shelved. It got cut to pieces, the motherboard and potentiometers harvested and with a bit of linkage fiddling I converted the RCS chassis to USB and all was good in the world again; ok so I was down a wheel but meh, the rudder pedals were getting more use. Fast forward to 2015ish and dirt rally has been released and being the natural successor to colin macrae rally (which I dedicated many days to at uni) and suddenly I want to drive rally sims, unfortunately having been spoilt rotten by the A10 stick and throttle there was no way I would drive it without a decent spec FFB wheel. Back onto ebay and again a thrustmaster wheel kit being sold locally as spares and repairs for 50 quid, essentially he had bought it, suffered from calibration issues (which are easily resolved if you plug it onto a PC rather than an xbox) and never bothed with it since. Got it home, replaced a noisy fan, recalibrated it and got a 300 quid setup for peanuts. Unfortunately the volume of the FFB motors was enough to keep the wife awake with the new baby so the wheel has been largely unused, just waiting dormant for the last 4 years or so. I acquire elite dangerous and a VR headset and suddenly manage to spend 400 hours getting lost in the milkway but the immersion is mind blowing, I'm still there flying through the black on a regular basis, but only in VR, 2D just isn't the same. Fast forward to 2020, now I'm set up with VR I get the hankering to skid cars down a dirt track again (but in glorious 3D), dirt rally2 had been released but I reckon that perhaps instead of just the FFB wheel and the two pedals I should go the whole hog and get a clutch and handbrake setup sorted out as well. Remember the logitech wheel I cannibilised to convert the rudder pedals? Well I used the main steering axis potentiometer for the pedals but retained the rest of the circuits so I could potentially use them in the future. Last week involved taking the old pedal base, cutting it in half and using one of the pedals as a clutch, making a block of wood so I could screw it to the wall in the right place and hey presto a working clutch pedal. This week has been converting the last spare pedal and potentiometer to make a functional rally handbrake with the addition of a little woodwork. Total cost of the sim equipment setup (joystick/throttle/rudders/wheel/pedals/clutch/handbrake) is around 230 quid. Retail cost to buy a similar setup would be in the region of over 1100, I love being an engineering nerd TL:DR I'm crap at playing sims but I like making stuff on the cheap

With 20mm wide slick tyres Mental amount of skill considering what he's riding.

We're planning on doing the nc500 over a couple of weeks once we've got the camper up and running and liveable

The album is really good at getting under your skin, all of the ghosts albums are damn good but VI:locusts has been on repeat a lot whilst whittling away at solidworks

It works for me! Worst bit is the kids love playing with it* To be fair, she only stitched the cover together, I id the strapping and the joystick plug and socket *something about pretending to fly planes you filthy pervert

I've got an IKEA chair that's similar to the flintan but without arm rests and with an adjustable spring lay back mechanism and a different base. Doesn't appear to be available now but was about 90 quid when I got it 5 years ago. https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/flintan-nominell-office-chair-with-armrests-black-s59208197/ Mesh back is great but I found the seat base got uncomfortable quite quickly and was getting a numb arse after a couple of hours. Mrs wife made me a tapered foam bolster (foam from an old comfy armchair lumbar cushion) with a sheepskin top which I strapped to the seat with ratchet straps sewn to the underside of the bolster. It's cut and shaped like a fighter jet seat cushion so it fits my joystick which attaches to the front of the seat base with a home brew bracket. Chair is super comfy now and I can do 8 hours straight without any pain at all edit: it's cut out like the fronts of these seats and the joystick sits in the perfect position between my thighs. Consider getting yourself a sheepskin to sit on, it's awesome.

Yesterday, Aneurin decided that he would try walking downstairs, tentatively he took one step, panicked a bit and went back to the top to re-evaluate; he made it down holding onto the bannister spindles and my hand. Today he's not been off the stairs if he can wrangle it, climbing stood up and coming down holding onto the spindles on his own, somewhat frustrated that he can't get the stairgates to open not matter how hard he lifts them or fiddles with the catch mechanism! He's 13 months old next week

Well most of our staff have been furloughed, 4 of us left to work full time and keep the company afloat. I'm doing 100% of the design and drawings for about 1.5millions worth of work over the next couple of weeks. Doing it all from home but might need to go out to site a couple of times to do surveys. Would be nice to be able to stay home and work on the van conversion more but on the other hand I'm still on full pay Persephone is 5 on tuesday, today I taught her how to use an electric drill to screw screws, maybe next week I'll get her on the chopsaw