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JLouis Labs

Trust Me, I'm an Engineer.

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A lot of projects with out a lot of time!

It has been a long since I have updated my website. #The_Wookie and I have been very busy with our new house, there have been a lot of project, building, painting, buying tools, planting, etc. During the last 8 months, we have accomplished a lot and there were some pictures taken along the way, so I am posting so of them below.

Unfortunately, all of the house related activities put my “10 Things”  project on hold for a while. I am planning on picking this back up over the next couple months (and hopefully finishing it).

 

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New Project – Toolbox

Rendered Image of Toolbox in Autodesk
Rendered Image of Toolbox in Autodesk

I have started working on a new “10 Things” project: a toolbox. I realize that everyone doesn’t use toolboxes everyday. Heck, I wish I used a toolbox everyday, but I do use one most days. The way I look at it (and that is all that matters), is that it is a form of portable storage (e.g. Luggage, Backpack, Briefcase, etc.) which I use everyday. I started out by building the toolbox in Autodesk Fusion 360*, to get an idea of how it would go together and how much material I will need. I have made on mistake, I designed it with 5/8″ thick panels, which I am unable to purchase, so I would need a planer to make boards in this thick. Therefore, I need to go back and re-size everything for 3/4″ thick panels, which I can purchase at the local hardware store.

Just a quick shout out to my inspiration for this project: Jimmy Diresta – This guy make awesome videos about making even cooler stuff. The toolbox was inspired by this set of shop boxes that he made.

Rendered Image of Toolbox in Autodesk with the side removed.
Rendered Image of Toolbox in Autodesk with the side removed.

* Quick Review: This is my first project using Autodesk and it seems to be a really good product considering it is free for students, enthusiasts, and small businesses. I learned CAD on Solidworks and that is what I use in my day job, so Autodesk is a bit of a departure from what I know but it seems to be working just fine.

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Awesome Laptop Vinyls

Weeding the Vinyl cutout.
Weeding the Vinyl cutout.

I have been wanting a something cool to put on the top of my work laptop for a while, and #The_Wookie has a Cricut. For those of you not in the know (i.e. Me before meeting #The_Wookie), a Cricut is a programmable 2-D paper (or vinyl or fabric or poster board) cutter. It has a snazzy web based interface that allows you to upload images, do some basic manipulation, and have a image to cut out in less than 5 minutes. After manipulating the images to get them ready to cut we loaded up the black vinyl on to the Cricut and hit “Go” (The Cricut software equivalent of “print”). Once the vinyl was cut, I very carefully removed the excess vinyl around the cutout in a process called weeding (I learned that term tonight). Then transfer tape was applied to the vinyl cutouts to remove them from the backing a expose the adhesive backing on the vinyl and allow them to be moved to their final position. Finally, the transfer tape was pressed on the top of the laptop to place the vinyl sticker and then carefully removed, leaving the vinyl cutout behind.

 

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Welcome to JLouis Labs

"Austin 360 Bridge, Long Exposure" by JLouis can be reused under CC BY-SA 4.0
“Austin 360 Bridge, Long Exposure” by JLouis can be reused under CC BY-SA 4.0

Let me start by welcoming you to my website. I am really excited to be rolling out my new website. I am launching this website for a number of reasons:

  1. It is part of my 2016 “Make Ten Everyday Things” goal. More on this over on the Projects Page.
  2. I am always working on different projects and I was trying to figure out a way to document them better. I thought a website might be a great way to do that.
  3. Every once in a while I am working on a project and think to myself, “I bet someone has done this exact same thing before.” I turn on my google-foo and sometimes find a blog post or project page on someone’s personal website that helps me. I would like to return the favor to someone else!

I currently have the website divided into two sections: Projects and Photography. My plan is to include any non-photography projects that I am working on in the “Projects” section and any thing photography related in the “Photography” section. As with all great plans, this is subject to change.

Thanks you for visiting the site, I hope that you will return soon!