Earlier I just came back from biking and wanted to check my emails, for the suck-o.com account I got a nice "connection failed" message...wtf?

Ok, there was a pretty extensive OS update a few hours before, so I restarted the mail server to see if maybe something kinda stuck during the update procedure....but nope, still the same. So I used telnet to connect to the mail server to check for the general functionality, and it worked....but wait...why to hell do I get the greeting message of the old vserver (where suck-o v1 was on) instead of the new dedicated...and again: WTF?!

next: ping suck-o.com...also returned the old IP! the fun part: ping www.suck-o.com returned the proper one...XD

I suspected the domain service to have problems, so I prepared everything to move the domain to my own registrar service, but first I wanted to make sure not to cause a downtime of 1-2 hours because of a problem on my side....so I pinged suck-o.com from one of my other servers, and it worked fine! so I suspected my ISP and called a buddy to ask him to check for his ping replies (he uses another ISP), and there we go: it worked properly for him.

as last test I decided to boot into Win7 (did 2 XP reboots and 2 ipfconfig /flushdns already without any effect), and on Win7 all was fine...XD

so I booted back into XP and already thought about where to look for the problem, because I knew it must be on XP.....but now: all fine again!

the best part I don't understand at all is: where to hell XP got the old suck-o IP from? it's not possible that it was cached somewhere because I did a full new XP setup a week ago, and there isn't even a website on the old server anymore that I could have visited in the meantime.....maybe my computer was kidnapped by aliens last night, who knows...

So about 2 days  ago I received the wheels that I ordered. I knew they were going to be small but man they just wont fit this frame that I had made. This is always my problem, being married my wife wont allow me to spend a lot of cash on "toys" as she calls it. Thus said, I have to find parts from old or broke systems and often that make its difficult for me to get projects going. This specific project will have to wait for wheels. Next time I see a kid in my neighborhood playing with an RC toy - if its got good wheels on it, I am going to run up and take it from them.

Nevertheless I have a new and better idea. I am still going to make a robot just in a smaller frame and using a smaller battery. Stay tuned...

Chassis –

Today I started to build the chassis of the robot. One small hurdle that could not be avoided was the size of aluminum sheets that I could use / obtain. The 12” by 12” sheets of metal heavily influenced the overall size and look of the bot.

I cut the side pieces out using a band saw and filed down the edges. Finishing up the clean look was done with a countersink tool. This way the screws will set flush on the exterior. For the battery pan I measured 12” x 7&7/8”. This allowed for a 1/16 inch bend allowance on each side. The bends were wrapped up using a finger break. The total demissions for the battery pan are 12” long by 6” wide. I am installing the mini siren and you can see in the pictures that there is plenty of room for other goodies.

This week the wheels should arrive and I will be able to make the hubs on the mill. I am already thinking of colors and programming ideas…

wohooo....after a hard time of development (aka. the world of pain) V2 is finally there!

thanks to all who supported me, I will not list any names because I would most likely forget one...^^