Loctor's IR Pen Part I

Gosh! Its more than a week now and I still have not made the pen for Loctor. Its a very simple device, actually. All you need is a switch, an IR LED, battery and a current limiting resistor. The hard part is to look for a nice little pen to house it all in. Needless to say, that pen would be "sacrificed" for this project.

And I have not located a perfect pen until today, when we went to Cziplee Bookstore. This a RM4.30 (which my Wife said was expensive) Whiteboard Marker which retracts like a retractable ball-point pen. All week I was looking for a thinner pen but alas, although I found it in Prai, its not easy to fit in a push-button switch since the pen is made of aluminium and if I try to do it, I would have broken it instead. Actually, to over come the switch problem, I could fit in a very sensitve push-button switch in front of the IR LED so when you start to write on it, the pressure you exert by pushing the pen down would have closed the circuit. But then, therewould arise other problems namely the LED would wear itself out on the surface which acts like sandpaper. Or it might affect the surface instead.

So, to overcome this problem, I would therefore need a transparent teflon 6mm sphere to put in front of the LED. Then, reality hit me. Where the heck am I going to find such thing, even if it exists in such a short time?

So, the only thing I can do is to gut a pen and stuff everything in it.....

Why I chose this market apart from the rectractable gimmick?
Well, the opening is ideal for the 5mm LED which I originally &
stubbornly want to keep the pen's retractable feature.Problem
is, the power to the LED would then have to be those itty bitty
watch batteries, which would last as long as a few hours, I think.

Dissecting the pen, you would have, from left to right, the slip, the
outer casing, the internal mechanism and lastly, the ink cartridge
itself. Yes, its refillable and now, I regret chosing this as sacrifice.
Ha ha ha ha!

Note that in the construction for this pen, there were no screws or even
glue. Everything sort of snaps into place. The black clip does two function
here. It sort of holds everything together and also acts as the locking
mechanism when you push the end.

Now we come to the interesting part; the innard which houses the ink
and also the tip.

Just to remove the ink cartridge, you have unscrew the cap which acts
as the holder and also to make sure its airtight too.

Now, the business end. See the small black round thing? Its a protective
cover for the tip. When you push the pen, it will twist open and the tip
will pop up.

See what happens when I push it? The cover swivels open

And now, the tip comes up. Cool or not?
They have to do this to prevent the ink in the tip from
drying out or there would be a lot of customer returns

In the next post, I will show you how I complete the pen (If I have the time, that is). Until then keep all your pens away from me, OK? Bwahahahahhahaa!

The trip down South ..... Seremban II

OK, so today, I need to go back again to the same customer as it is a standard procedure (for us) to be on standby after we do a system upgrade/installation. This is so that the customer can start using the phones straight away or in case they have changes in mind. Not only that, this would make the customer much more comfortable with us knowing that we're always there when they need us. And just last night, after coming back after midnight, I only had about less than five hours of sleep as it was exhausting trying to stick to the speed limit. Ha ha ha.

Its so nice to see traffic jam only on the opposite side!

OK, so the PABX is finished and so am I
So tired already but, there is another job
in Seremban too. I am heading there in
the afternoon after I wrap this up

An outing with the girls

By now, you would have guessed that we're the kind of people who love to go out. Well, there is a bit of truth in there but because we're tight on money, its the spending part which we do not like. But in Malaysia, once you go out, before you reach your destination, it already costs you money.

Thinking that today is a Public Holiday, I wanted to take them out to Pasar Road (my idea) and also a bookstore (Wife's idea). So, by the time we reached Pasar Road, we discovered most of the shops were closed. This is going to be a problem for me because I need to complete the IR Pen as requested by Loctor before this Saturday. And with so much work to do, its going to be a problem. I will explain the process in another post once I got the parts. Not wanting to waste the trip, we decided to pass by the wet market to pack some Lam Mee for lunch. Alas, they were closed too. And so, we ended up in the wet market itself where Wife needed to buy some vegetables. And when I say its a wet market, you can take my word for it. Somehow, Kristine got splattered with mud on the back of her legs and skirt. Haih

After the clean up, we decided to go to Bangsar's Lucky Garden for lunch instead but when the girls saw Pizza Hut, our plans changed. After that, its off to the bookshop nearby. I don't mean the Popular Bookshop or another the other bookshop, both in Bangsar Village but ther Cziplee Bookshop which I never knew existed. And we had a grand time in there. Choosing and buying pens, stickers and books for everyone. After that, I'm off to Seremban to continue my work as the contractor has completed the floor tiles by five in the evening. By the time I came back to KL, it was almost half-past one in the morning. And in a few hours time, I have to be there again. Haih

Both girls sharing a seat-belt

Everything was wet and so, I put them on top of the cement thingy

I was about to recompose but everyone around us scolded because
they girls were staring straight into the welding so I had to quickly
"escape" but not before reversing and stood on my Wife's feet

Kaelynn loved the Pizza at first but she
preferred the mushroom soup later on.
In the end, both of us had to "DBKL"
all the dishes and I feel worse than a pig

Then Kristine started making faces.Note the almost
fish-eye effect of the picture. No, not the eyes!

And Kaelynn followed suit

Kristine returned the gesture

Yeah, guess who won.

Opening our loot from the store, which is full of books,
stickers, CNY cards, colour pencils, pens, markers, etc.

This is mine; labels, an Artline Clix where the nib can be hidden
back into the pen, the 0.5mm pencil and a correction tape which
costs RM7.00. I should have bought it last year when I was less
than RM5.00 but when I went back to the shop, it was no more.

Oh, let me tell you about the 0.5mm pencil which costs RM9.40.
Its from Pentel and is called the Flexfit II. When I first saw it,
it was normal for me because there is this trend of putting silicon
tubes in pens and pencils for a better grip. But when I held it in
my hand, the feeling was so good that I wanted to have it. It
feels to comfortable to hold, write and sketch. Make me feel like
a different person and with confidence to boot.

If I hold it like this, it felt so nice! To retract the pencil
back into the body, you just press the clip.

MacDonalds Sonic Flying Disc

This was the toy I got for both Kristine and Kaelynn the other day. I think its a frisbee but it seemed to heavy to fly. But when I am free, I think I will play with the girls. The reason I got this was because right in the middle of the disc, there is an optical illusion. Sonic the Hedgehog seemed to be "floating" above the saucer.

I have seen this trick when I was in Singapore years ago. I was in some kind of a science centre and there was this round bowl with a small opening at the top. It was brightly lit and inside the bowl, it had a mirror-like surface. So, anything inside the bowl would see to be floating on top at the opening. Sort of like a 3D image.

When you put your finger on it, the image is still there but
you cannot touch it.

OK, here is another angle. You can see the image floating while
the original is below the saucer. And its turned the other way.