Sunday, August 18, 2019

My Youtube Channel On Tutorials

Hello Friends,
 I am shifting all my tutorials, conference videos to a new youtube channel, keeping my existing youtube channel exclusive to travel videos. The new Channel name is - Tutorial Guru and here is the link-

www.youtube.com/tutorialsguru

You can subscribe for future videos and hit the bell icon for notifications. 

If you are just interested in my travel videos then you can visit
www.youtube.com/gurudattapanda
and stick to the channel for my travel videos.

I will keep sharing new projects for the maker community in my new channel while my old channel will only share travel videos.

Thank you.

Saturday, August 3, 2019

HAM Radio at Rath Yatra 2019

Rath Yatra or Car Festival is a famous Hindu festival when lakhs of pilgrims come to watch the mighty chariots with deities on it, and pulls it along the 3 KM patch in the world-famous Puri town in Odisha. 
 This year I went along with our ham friends Manoj, VU2ODI, Umakant, VU3XUS, Debasish , VU2CFS, Rajni (VU2BOJ), Dushmant, VU2DKD and a handful of Scouts and Guides who were volunteering to help us. 
 We set up a VHF station at the central control room in Town Police station of Puri at which every emergency services were being monitored via the different agency. Our work was to cover the entire sea beach where our volunteers were engaged to report any mishaps so that we can dispatch the Ambulance without any communication delays. Here are some of the photos of the same. 




 On Puri TOWN Ps roof.
 On my way to Puri.
 After antenna installation.
During the control room operations.

 For those who may not know, this year 2019, May 2 morning, severe cyclonic storm names as Fani hit the Puri coast with devastating wind speed to 200KMPH and the communication infrastructure was soiled within hours. The recovery was so delayed that a phone call on GSM was almost impossible after months of the cyclone in the small town. And the communication infra which is insufficient for mere 3.5 lakh citizen of the town was about to experience a 10lakh pilgrims who will be there on the festival day. Somehow, the administration was very cautious, managed the matter in a professional way. As far as HAM Radio help, we merely able to report some 14 number of casualties to the health department for the quick response which was lower than that of 2018 Rath Yatra's casualties at the sea beach due to sea bath.
 All spent well with a Diamong CP22 Antenna, a X550 antenna, one Kenwood 75 Watt Base, One Yaesu 65 watt base and another 85 watt base. with smps power supply, and at least 10 number of walkie talkie (5 watt) thanks to Dushmant bhai who helped by sparing his handys for the day.

Jai Jagannath.
VU3GDP 

3D Printing

3D Printing, Begining With !!
 For years I was reading about 3D printing and when Ashhar Farhan (VU2ESE) introduced me to the Prusha 3D printer, it was another world for me. I had hands-on with 2D cad software like AutoCAD. But when I wanted to purchase a 3D printer for my professional works, it was learnt that there is hardly any valid dealers in India, or those who are there, are asking an impractical price tag which is not close to Joseph Prusa's Price + Custom Tax+ Shipping. Perhaps too much profit margin what they intended.
 Anyway, I straight away went for a friend's suggestion, and Ragav from Chennai, another HAM friend of mine asked me to check out this Ender 3 Printer by Chinese brand Creality. My study said that there is a lot of the user using this model, upgrades and support forums to respond to my answers. And mostly I was beginning with this tech at less than 1/3rd or Prusa, but there's a lot to learn. So I ordered from Amazon India which had offer price of Rs20,000/- on this. And after this, my 3D journey began. 

 The printer came with a couple of damage like the y-axis stepper clamp was band, perhaps due to shipping mishandling, the belts were rubbing against the aluminium bars... somehow, I and my elder bro took an hour to fix those within our own home workshop.
 The printer took around 4 hours to fully assembled by me, which includes some repeated assemble-disassemble time due to misalignment. There is a lot of videos on youtube about this, but I was confused after watching too many of them. I sincerely request those who are watching those videos, follow one of them only (the longest one), and do not watch others, because it will confuse at a different step.
 The manual comes with the printed is a straight forward manual and does not says anything about bed levelling, spring tensions etc. So Be careful about those.
 The temperature is also a vital part for beginners, so in my case, a 5 degree above the Bed and Extrudder temperature was good enough. For yours, experiment with it.
 For 3D design, I preferred Fusion 360, which was very much easy for me. I have not used anything else so I am not judging them for now.
For slicing, I used Cura with Ender 3 Profiles. That was enough for me. So enjoy the 3D printing.