"Super flexible" TV wall mount for fitness room for $0

Last month I purchased a treadmill for my basement to be used by the whole family (guess who is really using it). We also have elliptical and stationary bike there. So we decided to put a smart TV on the wall. Since this is a new TV, it is the best one in the house and kids are often using it to play xbox. All of this requires me to be able to reposition TV on the wall depending on who is using it. The viewpoints are very different. Kids play xbox sitting on the floor, so the TV must be at their eye level on the left side of the room. When I run on treadmill the TV is pretty much against the ceiling on the right side of the room. When someone uses elliptical the TV needs to be in the middle of the room - centered between ceiling and the floor. Overall ===> this TV needs to be able to stay put on this wall anywhere from left to right wall, from the floor up to the ceiling. They do not sell mounts like this, so I decided to make one.

After some deliberation, I decided to use materials I already had from prior projects:

• 10 foot long 1" diameter gas pipes (two of them) with a 2" threaded connector in between (I had used this to clean the rain drain under my driveway this summer and it has been sitting in garage ever since).
• 16 feet metal cable - this was the cable I replaced when re-built garage door this past fall.
• metal guide for the kitchen drawer (leftover from kitchen remodeling I did 10 years ago).
• four mounting screws (whenever I throw away something big, I remove few good screws for future use and keep them in several jars of different sizes).
• metal top from the old laundry washer machine (I replaced the mashine 2 years ago with a new one, but this metal sheet was too good to throw away, so I kept it - see picture below).

First - cut out the sheet of metal from the top of the old laundry washing machine (or use any other think metal and bent it properly:

 Once you complete the cut, make sure to file sharp sides of the entire piece to remove the edge. I filed it very nice so it is very smooth. Then mark holes to mount on TV by using a newspaper and then transferring the holes from newspaper into the metal and drilling those holes. The bent you see on the picture below is the one that was already on the piece and because it is a very think metal, it will hold the TV very well - there is absolutely no chance it will come undone - even if I put my own weight on it. You put your screws into the slots that are already on the back of your TV - these are the same slots you would use for any normal TV mount:

Since my basement room is wider than 10 feet and I did not want to purchase new pipes, I decided to connect two old gas pipes I already had suing threaded connector (see on the left pipe on the pic below). Make sure you screw it on very tight - as far as it gets. I use two pipe wrenches to make it super tight:

 Once you connect the pipes, measure the distance wall to wall and cut one of the pipes so that it fits wall to wall with about 1/8" gap between the pipe and the wall to allow for error and seasonal movement of wall:

Now is time to make brackets - these will be used to mount the pipe into the wall. I made mine from the kitchen drawer that was never used - cut the needed length and bent at 90 degree angle:

File all sharp edges from these brackets and drill two mounting holes in each. Now use stud finder to locate studs on your wall and attach brackets with 2.5" drywall screws to your studs on both sides of the wall.

Drill a hole thru the gas pipe and use a 2" bolt to attach the pipe to the bracket. Once you attach one side, you can mark the opposite side and drill a hole thru the bracket and thru the pipe so they align perfectly against each other - otherwise you can't run a bolt thru it - see below:

 The first part of the TV mount is done - now you can hang your TV near the ceiling height and move it left to right by sliding on the pipe. See picture below - despite the looks, this is unbelievably strong:

 This is what it looks like from the treadmill:

 I used black duct tape to wrap around the gas pipe (you can use any color you like to match your wall):

Here is how it looks when in use - but it is too high when kids play xbox while sitting on the floor (they move elliptical and bike to the back of the room):

Next step is not only to allow for sliding of TV between left and right walls, but to be able to lower it to the floor. This is trivial - simply attach the metal cable (you can buy 16 feet of cable at HomeDepot - I used leftover cable from garage door project - 20 year old cable is more than strong enough for TV). Attach this cable to the gas pipe - one long cable attached twice (only one end of the cable is shown below):

 Now - depending on how low or high you need your TV, wrap the cable one or more times around the "hook" as shown below and it will move the TV lower or higher on the wall - operation that takes only a minute - no screws, no mess. My kids do this easily and so far have not (yet) dropped the TV :-):

 Here is how TV looks when lowered almost down to the floor. The cable can easily move side to side and provides for a very solid connection.

The project took only about 2 hours to complete and cost me $0 as I already had all the parts in my garage. I would be interested to see other ideas on how to do this same thing - mount your TV on the wall so you can move it to any location you desire in less than 60 seconds.

Help me to raise money for a good cause - MS150 ride

This year, for the forth time I will be riding 170 miles in two days on my bicycle to raise money for charity. Here is the link to my MS150 donations page. The goal is to find cure for Multiple Sclerosis, which is a terrible disease.

This is a good cause. Even a donation of $5 will help!

Here is the video I recorded during the ride in 2014:

And here are some photos I took during 2014 ride (click here to see complete album):

Pinewood Derby Car project

Today was Edward's first the first Pinewood Derby Car Race as a Cub Scout. We did this project together and had a ton of fun doing it. Before starting the design of the car, we watched a ton of youtube videos (such as this and many more) and rad bunch of articles on how to build a fast car and it all seemed very simple (and fun). I can't wait next year race - our CubScout Pack decided to have dad's car race the night before kids :-). Before I go into details - here is the final car we've had - it took 1st place in design as voted by scouts. as far as speed - well, it could have done better - and I will tell you why as I know what we will do next year :-).


According to "sources" the proper way to build a fast Pinewood Derby Car is to do these few things:

In our car we have implemented #1, #3 (kinda), #4, #5, #6. We did not do #2 as it was against the rules to modify the wheels and we did not do #7 because the rules prevented changes to the wheel base, etc. We also decided to sacrifice some of the #3 (aerodynamics) for the esthetics - mainly because we felt our car will be so fast, we can afford some drag :-).

First we decided what overall design we are going to have and together drew the shape of the future car on the paper:

Then we transferred the outline to the wooden block and made rough cuts with the large saw and then some finer cuts with the manual coping saw.

Then we used belt sander to smooth out the rough cut and shape the top of the car. This all was done in a matter of a few minutes - very easy.

Once we had the outline done, we used the Dremel tool with the sand paper attachment to make finer shape adjustments. This is a bit more delicate work and requires more precision.

 Nevertheless, Edward did some of this as well (mostly the bottom part of the car). This Dremel tool can easily ruin your design if you overdo it, but we passed this phase with only few minor mistakes.

The last part of the body work was to make a hole for the driver and cut our the rear spoiler and glue it onto the body of the car. These things are not very aerodynamic and were done on purpose - we traded of some speed for the "looks". However this is not what kept us from winning the speed race. More about it later (some drama, eh?). we made a windshield out of plastic box from grapes.

 The biggest thing in the Pinewood Derby car is the weight placement. We decided to make an opening in the rear to conceal all the weight - drilled the opening and made it all the way to the driver seat to that the bolt that will go in can also adjust the center of gravity if needed. Plus we can add or remove bolts to add or remove weight - and all of it will be concealed inside.

 To melt lead I closed one end of the copper pipe, filled it with led (from bb gun pellets - $2.5 per 5 oz box) and heated it with a torch. Then poured it into the opening in the car. The car almost caught on flames - the lead was so hot! We also kept the garage door open and wore face mask to avoid exposure to the lead fumes. Also use protective glasses to avoid potential splashes from hot lead into eyes. This is a risky part of the project, but it worked out very well.

Once lead cooled down, we covered it with about 1/8" of the epoxy glue so nobody will touch the lead and we can sand and pain it. Then I drilled a hole all the way to the driver seat - this is where the bolt for weight and gravity center adjustment will go.

Our center of gravity was 3/4 of an inch in front of rear axle. This is good for smooth track, but may not be great for the track with small bumps as at high speed you can pop front wheels and go off the track. This is why having long hole as shown below is so useful - by using a screw driver I can move the bolt deeper into the car in a matter of seconds without changing the weight of the car, but this can shift my center of gravity in either direction.

BTW - the thread marks you see in the picture below are made by simply drilling the right hole first and then screwing the bolt into it - lead is very soft and bolt makes its own thread.

Once all structural work was done we primed the car twice - with sanding of the first layer.

 And finally painted it once with gold paint and then drew numbers and letters on the car. Next day we painted it once with polyurethane. Once it was all dry we used car wax for extra polish.

Now it is time to work on wheels. First we worked on polishing the nails. First - put it in the drill and apply file while spinning the nail. After that use sand paper to smooth it out and finally use polishing compound. Once you get the hang of it, it takes less then 10 minutes to polish a nail to mirror finish.

 Since we wanted to ride on canted wheels - we had to bend nails to about 2 degree angle. Instead of buying a $100 device to do it, I made my own device from a 2x4" stud. Just make two wide cuts with a regular saw - each cut perpendicular to another, then insert polished nail with its head into one of the slots - with the sharp side of the nail protruding outside of the block of wood by the lenght of the section that needs to be bent. Then tap with a hammer on that protruding part of the nail. Not very precise, but cheap and easy.

 The benefit of this approach of bending the nail - vs. holding it with pliers is that soft wood does not scratch polished surface of the nail. And you must bend it after you polish it - you can only polish straight nail. And once you bend it - if you scratch it - you better start with a new nail as polishing bent nail is nearly impossible.

 Finally - we polished the sides with graphite, added bunch of graphite into wheels and on nails.

We raised one front wheel so it was about 1/16" above the ground. Before we glued the wheels, we inserted nails and ran tests on the floor to make sure our car does understeering for about 2" over 4 feet - this is for rail riding. And this is where we made a big mistake! Later on when I did test runs on the track, I saw how this rail riding slows down the car. I do not think next year we are doing rail riding and will make straight rider. After all wheel alignments were done, we use epoxy glue to attach nails.

 I did not mention, but along every step above, we were constantly weighting the car - so that we would know how much lead to use, what is the impact of paint, nails, wheels and other things on the weight. The point was to build a car that would be 2 or 3 oz lighter than the regulation 5 oz weight and then cut small bolts into short segments (and cut the slot for screw driver). We had about 7 cuts of this bolt of different length (and weight) so we have a choice when getting as close to 5 oz as possible.

These bolt' segments serve 2 purposes. One is to add or remove weight (the race scale can be different from the one we used at home) and Two is to shift center of gravity towards the front or rear as needed - depending how front wheel behave (you do not want those front wheels to pop on a bump). This resulted in our center of gravity being 3/4" in front of the rear wheels. Very fast design.

The entire project took about 10 hours and was ton of fun. We did win the #1 place in design, but were in the middle overall on speed. After the race was over, I did several test runs on the track and it became VERY obvious that our rail riding was slowing the car down by A LOT. It was very easy to spot - I wish we had access to the track when we were doing the tests (before gluing nails to the body). This was a trivial error to avoid, but we did not know simply by not test riding on the track.

The biggest lesson of this is that if we want to win on speed, we need to do test rides on a track. Otherwise it is a gamble and only experimentation can complete the project. The funny thing is that all of the design and construction is 99% of the effort in the project while test riding and adjusting it on the track is 1% of the effort, but it is very critical to achieve high speed.

What will I do differently next year?

1. Next year I will avoid rail riding and adjust the wheels so that car rides straight line.
2. I will bend nails half the amount of what I did this year (probably about 1 degree)
3. While polishing nails, I will use sandpaper up to 1500 grit (see this article for details)
4. Pack the wheels densely with graphite and do not run the car after that.
5. Make shape totally aerodynamic for maximum speed (and make fancy shape on a separate car - for dad's race)
6. Possibly make three different cars with slightly different designs and have them compete in my garage to deserve the race?
7. Make my own short track out of wood and cut grooves with rotary tool - and test test test the car!

Here is the concept car design for the 2016 race - we plan on making a wind tunnel to test aerodynamics and short test track to make sure it rides fast.

Garage door spring replacement project

In September torsion springs on my garage door broke and I had a dilemma of hiring a contractor or fixing it myself. After having three different contractors bid between $400 to $900 for the project ($400 for basic replacement and $900 for complete overhaul of the door), I decided to do it myself.

In addition to replacing torsion springs, I decided to do a complete overhaul of my garage door system and replaced cables, bearing, springs and all 10 rollers with these high quality ones from Amazon:

 Having spent a couple of hours researching the process of replacing the torsion springs, I was very aware how DANGEROUS this process could be if not done properly. I was also having a really hard time finding appropriate torsion springs. This is when I found this AWESOME web site where I ordered two of my new springs, two new cables and new bearing for the torsion rod. This website has lots of instructional videos and very good customer service - I called them three times with questions and they quickly answered all of them! If you ever are going to replace your garage hardware - use this site: http://ddmgaragedoors.com/index.php. Here are instructional videos that they share freely with everyone - these are by far the best videos on the internet about replacing torsion springs: http://ddmgaragedoors.com/diy-instructions.


When you order your new springs, you need to make very careful measurements - the site above explains all of it. Here is what I measured on my setup - I sent a link to the DDM Garage Door folks and they made sure I ordered correct hardware:

This project took me about 10 hours total:

• 2 hours of researching the technical details and watching videos
• 1 hour to measure everything (twice)
• 2 hours shopping for the right parts (I wish I knew about DDM Garage Doors right away)
• 2 hours installing and adjusting springs
• 2 hours to install and adjust cables
• 1 hour to replace rollers
• 15 minutes to lubricate everything
• 10 min to write this blog.

I spent about $150 on parts - all highest quality you can possibly buy on the market. This means I saved about $750 compared to the $900 price for the door overhaul proposed by one of the contractors. This comes to about $75 per hour spent. The joy I had from doing it myself - priceless :-). The parts and work quality - I bet it is the same or likely higher than what I would get from a contractor.

The reason I wanted to write this blog is to share my outstanding experience with the DDM Garage Doors as the provider of parts and their excellent customer service.

The other big reason is to warn about the high danger of replacing torsion springs. This project is not for the faint of heart. It can kill you if not done right. However once you know the process and follow it, it is very safe to do and is not complicated at all. But you MUST DO IT CORRECTLY!!! Watch instruction videos and hire contractor if you are not sure you can do it right.

Sprint Triathlon in North Park, Pittsburgh (Janney and YMCA - 2014)

On August 10, 2014 I raced Sprint Triathlon in North Park. This is only few minutes from my home and back in 2011 this was my first ever triathlon race (photos here). In 2013 I took first place in my age group (race report), so in this race I was defending my title sort of speak.

This year I won again in my 40-44 age group (19 participants) and went faster than the all competitors from age group 0 to 44, except for the overall competitors. I was 9th overall out of 233 competitors. The official results can be found here: http://www.runhigh.com/2014RESULTS/R081014AC.html.

Here is the comparison of 2014 results to 2013 and 2011 races:

	2011	2013	2014
Swim (700 yards)	00:18:21	00:13:48	00:14:29
Bike (12.5 miles)	00:33:17	00:32:59	00:32:46
Run (3.1 miles)	00:23:04	00:21:42	00:22:01
Total	01:14:42	01:08:29	01:09:16

I am happy with the result, however swim and run are slower compared to 2013 - not really sure why is that so. I sure hope this is because conditions were different and not because I got slower :-).

As always - major thing that needs improvement is the control of pre-race anxiety. I could not get any sleep the night before the race. I may have slept for about 30 minutes total - same as last year...

Two weeks in Russia and a week in Japan

Just came back from the 3 weeks trip to Russia and Japan. This was a business trip, but I got to see my relatives on weekends. Fall is a great time to visit Moscow! Beautiful colors in the forest with plenty of mushroom hunting, fresh apples from the garden, crisp air, and great food - any time of the year :-).

On the way from the airport we drove by the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI) - my Alma Mater. With relatives we went into the forest for mushroom hunting - took few photos while doing that and mom cooked delicious mushroom soup that night. The work week in Moscow was packed with customer meetings and I did not have much time to take pictures.

After Moscow, I flew to Tokyo on a direct flight, which was delayed 7 hours because of the Typhoon in Japan. When I landed any trace of bad weather was gone. In Tokyo I stayed at a nice Royal Park Hotel and went to fitness club for a run, swim and sauna every day :-). In sauna I was reprimanded by the maintenance man for going into it in my swim trunks. My Pittsburgh YMCA folks would disagree, but this was not Pittsburgh, so I took all clothes off next time and fit in well :-). There was not much free time in Tokyo, so unlike my earlier visits this time I have very few pics to offer:

Paragliding lesson

Yesterday I took a lesson in paragliding. Having never done sky diving or anything at all related to flying (except for too many commercial airplanes), this was such a fun experience! I have to say that watching youtube videos of paragliding pros I thought this was a relatively easy thing to do. However as it frequently turns out it is easier said than done properly :-) Here are few moments from the 2.5 hour lesson yesterday (I had better launches than these, but they were not filmed). In the end I had a towed launch, but I put it at the start of the video as it "looks" the coolest :-)

If you want to take a lesson, I highly recommend Jon at http://www.pittsburghparagliding.com. I got this lesson for half the cost thanks to the Amazon Local coupon I got by email.