With the Scouts Klondike Derby this week I’m going to be pressed for time. Therefore I’m picking something I have all the parts for and won’t be too taxing on my time. I won’t count making 2 trays of Sausage and Peppers as part of the 52 things. Even though that may be harder than anything else I made so far.
Front of Makers Quilt Board 2
After a lot of unsoldering and resoldering I have the board properly rebuilt. I went from 30 AWG wire to Wire Wrap wire which is much better. When I wired the matrix to the drivers I alternated blue and white wires to better track where I was. Once that was done it was time to verify all the wiring. Out of 48 LED’s I had three bad ones. In the interest of time I went to Radio Shack and paid $1.49 for a pack of 2 3mm LED’s. I still have to slap together some Picaxe code which is 75% done. I should be finished by Sunday.
Old wiring with 30 AWG Wire
New Wiring using WIre Wrap wire
Added a dog collar for a strap and snapped it all together and voila I’ve got a pretty nifty case. See …
Case with the Jacks and the Strap installed
Now on to Project #3. This is going to be a clean up of my Makers Quilt Board #2. I built the board awhile ago but it was a total mess and needed more LED’s to properly display my son’s birthday. I’ve already added more LED’s and another driver. now I have to clean up the wiring. This project is mostly soldering but it’s gotta get done.
Well the case has been cut to accommodate the data jacks. I’m not that great of a metal worker so this project gave me a chance to practice this skill. Here some pics of the process.
Box Cut scored and ready for the Dremel
I sprayed a coat of flat black on the box once I was done. Oddly enough growing up in The Bronx during the 70’s did not impart any magical spray painting skills. This turned out pretty good though. Of course I forgot I need to make 2 more cuts for the strap. This project is definitely on track to finish this week.
Case Sparyed Black
This week I will be working with a box I use to keep my 5 in1 cable adapters. I built them way back when Make issue 1 came out. The box came with a Jack Skellington watch I got as a Christmas present. In the case I also keep a passive ethernet tap. The tap consists of four RJ-45 jacks that can be used to monitor traffic between two devices. I want to mount the RJ-45 Jacks in the box. I’m also going to add a leather strap to hold the box closed and add a little Goth charm too.
This is the Case Before I the carnage
LED Cube is complete. Took a little time to troubleshoot some issues with my breakaway sockets. They don’t breakaway very clean and I lost a few pins. I didn’t need all the Arduino pins so it was easy to rearrange the socket so I had access to the pins I needed for the cube. Could use a little more power than I’m getting from just the power brick. When I have the USB port plugged in the LED’s run brighter. With the first project done I can get a few things done for project 2 which is going to be a simple mod for a case I use at work.
Started the LED cube yesterday. I know all the real Makers made them 2 years ago but I was busy then. I’m a pretty decent solderer so the assembly was pretty straight forward. This is a good project for novice solderers to practice on.
The design is pretty straight forward. 27 LED’s 3 transistors and a few resistors. I’m going to use the Arduino to control the circuit for now. As a future project I’ll probably put together a one chip Arduino and mount it directly to the board. I could also use an Ardweeny from Solarbotics. For now I don’t need the Arduino for anything else.
Well another year is gone and it’s time for me to start looking the new year. My twitter profile says “Hacker Geek Dad Magician and Occasional Kick Boxer”. Simply put my resolution is to be more of the things I enjoy … Here’s how it breaks down
Hacker
This year I plan on building more things. The goal is 52 things this year. That works out to e a thing a week. To make things more interesting for each thing I build I’ll donate $10.00 to Nuts, Bolts & Thingamijigs At the end of the year if I fail to complete 52 projects I will have to donate $10.00 for every project I fail to complete to The Discovery Institute, an Intelligent Design “Think Tank”. Failure means supporting bad science. There’s nothing I hate more than bad science.
Geek Dad
OK this has two parts. Geek Dad the parent and Geek Dad the blogger. Here I’m talking about Geek Dad the parent. I’m going to do more science with the kids during 2010. I try to include them in my builds as often as possible and this year I plan on doing it more.
Magician
This year I need to perform more. I need to show at least one trick a week to someone … anyone. I should concentrate on performing over learning more tricks or sleights. I do intend to get down a Zarrow shuffle and if possible a second deal. Maybe a pass.
Occasional Kick Boxer
This one is easy … more frequent than occasional would be a good thing.
Geek Dad The Blogger
Well I was totally shocked when I was picked to be a contributor to Geek Dad. I did 23 posts this year starting in May. That makes an average of 3 posts a month. This year I need to at least double that. One of my goals this year is to become a better writer. I intend to write at least once a day and I will participate in National Novel Writers Month 2010. who lknow there could be a short story coming out of this year … maybe.
That’s plan for 2010. Happy New Year !
Well Christmas is finally behind me and I can start really looking toward the New Year. My goals for the New Year are always the same … More Hacking, More Magic and More Training. My Twitter Bio says it all Hacker,Magician,Geek Dad and Occasional Kick-boxer. Only this year I plan on getting more writing done. I am working out the details for two important resolutions for next year, I will post them by December 31st so I can get started right away.
It’s been some time since I last posted. In the meantime I’ve been writing for The Geek Dads, learning Python and rewiring Quilt Board 1 and 2. I also completed some Halloween items which I may post up. I’ve set up the Blog to be the front page of the makers quilt web sight and will be adding the quilt pages to the side bar. In the new year I will be working on this front page in an effort to improve the look and move towards making this blog something worth reading.