Hi Guys,

I have to go into hospital to have a bit of major surgery, I have renal cancer and got to have a kidney and urethra cut out, and have been told I am going to have 3 months off work to recouperate. The surgeon has said that I am not allowed to work outside on my car or build the new trailer I have planned......no sense of adventure some people. Well needless to say this is going to drive me crazy and my thumbs will be worn out from twiddling them so my questions are....

1. any suggestions for an electronic type model I can use my soldering iron on and possibly have something useful at the end of making it?
2. I think one of those 4 bladed helicopters could be fun or will I get bored with it?
3. any other suggestions?
4. my budget is £150 - £200 is this realistic?

Thank you.

Regards

Bob

Build a Megasquirt controller?

I was just thinking the same - you could even make a few and sell them. Make some pin money to spend on the car when you're better.

Good luck with the surgery and avoid Jeremy Kyle on the telly if you want to keep your will to live.

How about model aircraft building?
Doesn't matter if they ever get to fly it's great fun constructing something from scratch. something like this
With your budget it'll keep you going for months.
In fact I might just do one myself - beats watching the one-eyed monster!
Best of luck with the op.
Cheers, Pewe10

Megasquirt ecu and jim stim, possibly not a 3 month project and a little more than £200. However you could build one test it and then sell ecu on EBAY then build a couple more, make some profit and put that towards the rest of an efi project for when you are well enough to take that on.

oops a bit slow there as MikeR has had the same idea. "Great minds think alike" or is it" fools never differ"

[Edited on 9/8/12 by spiderman]

work towards a qualification, city and guilds or similar,.. Amateur Radio is a great hobby, or perhaps learn a new language?

I'd go with ignoring the docs! I've recently had a radical neck dissection for my cancer (it sounds worse than I think it is) and was out in the garage within 2 weeks. Got fed up of being in the house knowing I had loads of stuff to get on with.

PS, don't blame me if you over do it and explode though!

quote:

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Originally posted by bbwales
and got to have a kidney and urethra cut out,

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"I have to go into hospital to have a bit of major surgery, I have renal cancer and got to have a kidney and urethra cut out"

Mate I hope it all goes well, I'm thinking just get better even if you are bored

Built a 7 chassis when I was having my chemo, it was really good to have a goal and yes it was against advice but I did it myyyyyyyyyy wayyyyyyyyyyy!

I think somethink like a megasquirt will be built in 3 days or so.
How about this:
EMCO Unimat 3 Mini Lathe Machine Milling Drill Machine | eBay - it would cost more by the time you get a few books and materials. You could build a clock, or a pen or lacemakes bobbins, microscopes .............
- learning to use something like that takes months.

I used to build 'billing' boat kits - essentially a set of plans and wood strips etc to build up a decent model. Other makes are supposedly better quality/price now, They take hundreds of hours to build, so cost per hour is low. There are a variety of different boats from the cutty sark to modern fishing boats.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/BILLINGS-Norden/dp/B000TIPI9Q/ref=sr_1_10?s=kids&ie=UTF8&qid=1344516977&sr=1-10
http://www.admiraltyshipmodels.co.uk/acatalog/Yacht_Models_-_Model_Yachts.html

Hope you get better quickly

Regards
Hugh

Thanks Guys,

Some good pointers there, I will be out in the garage as soon as I possibly can, the limitations I have is that they are cutting though my fat gut so I will have problems with potential hernias etc. so no lifting for a while.

Fortunately no chemo involved, just the op.

keep the ideas coming please.

Bob

or another option, listen to every CD you own,... that could take many hundreds of hours,....

read all the books that you always promised you would, or something similar from the bucket list,...

What about learning to tig weld? Although you may need a few extra quid to buy a decent tig machine.

Hope everything goes well my mate, take care and take it easy.

Cheers

R

If you aren't there already how about learning a CAD programme inside out so you can draw bits perfectly
- Google sketchup and pro desktop are £0 which gives you £150 spare for the car parts later
Good luck with op
atb
Mike

Computer games can gobble HOURS, and if you get some good ones from the last decade dont need a state of the art PC.

There are some classics:

Half life
Dues Ex
Command and Conquer
Championship manager
Delta force 2

would be just a few to start with and should run fine on any PC with a cheap £15 2nd hand graphics card, and you should pick them up for next to nothing.

Build a website?

Learn java, c+, VB etc.

None of these are practical, but I lost my youth to those games, so I know they can keep you busy!

There's a feature in this months PPC Magazine about building a 3D printer. Then you use the one you've built to make parts for the next one, etc...

learning a CAD package is a good one, I have a couple of good ones sat there waiting and no time to learn them (pro E and solidworks) which drives me mad as I could do with being able to really for my work.....one of those chicken and egg things!!

pretty sure between folks on here we can rustle you up the software ;-)

You could watch every episode of the Sweeney - there's about 7 or 8 DVds worth, all those fights in the scrapyards.....................
atb
Mike

Games could fill in -a very addictive one is https://worldoftanks.eu/play

Open University course?



And as previously suggested there must be enough guys on here and elsewhere using Megasquirt to keep you busy.



Let us know what you end up doing & good luck....

I took chemo as an opportunity to learn a new programming language (Python) while writing a computer game in it (got it 95% complete before I was back at work).

Good luck with the surgery, hope you caught it in time to avoid any follow up chemo/radio.

TI Launchpad

Buy one of these at £9.99 and learn to program it, you can then build Dash controllers or light controlllers or even wee robots