Making haste slowly

A week back from Newcastle, and it seems not a lot has changed on Lunar Lander, but sometimes thinking about stuff is the hardest part. When I got back I found the nixie tubes that will be used to display the score and drivers had been delivered. Making a neat job of mounting and wiring the Nixies looked like the devils job, so I reluctantly decided to make a PCB for the nixie drivers. Reluctantly because I would rather make stuff with my hands than sit in front of the PC and design a board. Still it will be better in the long run! Eagle is a very strange program, it scares me more than anything else except Blender. Still there is something very addictive about routing PCBs. The joy of finding good ways to run the wires and the chase to eliminate the evil vias. Someone should make a game out of it.

I finally got around to painting the bare wood on the lander module and also the housings for the big meters. With that job done I finalised the arrangement of the lighting and instruments on the control panel. That fixes a lot of open design options which means “all I have to do is make it”.

I also started to design the “badge dispenser” which will give out a prize if you complete all the levels. I thought I was making good progress last night, but the first design jams far too easily. Back to the drawing board.