Category Archives: Electronics

From the mailbag: Fun soldering

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Eric wrote in to say:

It was fun. It was fun to build the Larson Scanner. It was fun because I successfully put it together and it worked as designed. It was so fun I’ll do this again!

In the mid 70’s I attempted to construct a Radio Shack short wave radio kit with a soldering gun. That’s right, I used a soldering gun. Believe it or not, it worked … as a battery heater upper.

Thank you for the helpful instructions and well designed kit. It’s nice to know that 40 years after my last kit, I can drop the battery killer nickname.

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LED Robot Sign

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Krummrey shared an LED Robot Sign tutorial on Instructables using one of our original Peggy boards. (Peggy 2 would work for this, too.)

I don’t solder the LEDs in. That way I can just pull them back out and make a new sign when I get tired of the current one.

That big pile of LEDs looks like so much fun! He also posted some more sign designs at the end of the instructable.

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Ingenious 1970’s Technology: The Flip Flash

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Once upon a time, cameras did not come with LED illumination or even xenon strobes, but rather with a socket that could fire a one-time-use flashbulb.

An advance from this was the “flip flash” cartridge which held 8 or 10 flash bulbs, ganged up so that you could take one photo after another, without pausing to swap bulbs. Each time that you took a picture (exposing actual film!), the next flashbulb in the cartridge would fire.

But you might ask a tricky question here: How does it know which bulb to fire next?

Continue reading Ingenious 1970’s Technology: The Flip Flash →

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3D LED POV Mirror

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“We Are with You, Mirror” is a piece by Brady Marks from VIVO Media Arts Centre that was shown at the Vancouver Mini Maker Faire. It is a 3D persistence of vision volumetric display that acts as a mirror, using four spinning Peggy 2 boards to reflect visitors movements in low resolution 3D LED glory.

Thank you to Brady for sending in the video!

This entry was posted in Art, Electronics, Microcontrollers and tagged , , , . Bookmark the Permalink.

Lantern Museum Display with Flickering LEDs

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Graham from the Cotswold Motoring Museum wrote:

Do you remember talking to me about getting one of your flickering LEDs working in a motoring museum in England? Well I thought I’d let you know that I’ve now installed it into an old lantern to mimic a gas flame, and it looks terrific. I thought you might like to see a photo of it in situ as part of the scene.

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WaterColorBot-style pen holder for DIY Laser

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Jens added a new tool option to his DIY Laser: a pen holder.

Due to safety concerns I couldn’t run the laser out in public, but to be able to show of the CNC capabilities I built a penholder.

The pen holder design was inspired by the WaterColorBot’s brush holder, with its parallel flexure hinges.

This entry was posted in Art, CNC, Electronics, Engineering, WaterColorBot and tagged , . Bookmark the Permalink.

BAMF 2014: Open Source Sprinkler Controls

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Part of our continuing coverage of highlights from the 2014 Bay Area Maker Faire.

We can’t say how many times we’ve heard people ask questions about hacking or building their own sprinkler controllers, but apparently here are the ones that everyone has been looking for. These open source hardware sprinkler controllers from Ray’s Hobby —  designed so that you can hack and build your own — look well-made and genuinely useful. There are neat irrigation (and multipurpose relay) controls, including Arduino-flavored variants as well as versions for Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone lovers.

This entry was posted in Electronics, Engineering, Open Hardware, Robotics and tagged . Bookmark the Permalink.

BAMF2014: BreadBoardManiac

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Part of our continuing coverage of highlights from the 2014 Bay Area Maker Faire.

Not that I’m normally one to get excited about electronic breadboards, but I’ve had to change my mind after seeing these at Maker Faire. These breadboards by BreadBoardManiac are some of the finest electronics accessories that I’ve ever seen.  Not only do they snap to Lego bricks (making one heck of a cool building set), but they are also super-thin and double-sided, so that you can insert components from both sides. They suggest that you can use that feature to make multi-layer breadboards with vertical interconnects, but perhaps that is a bit of a stretch.

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Their handmade limited edition wooden breadboards are perhaps even cooler, and were made available as part of this kickstarter project earlier in the year. This is what I’d expect kids in school to learn electronics with, and it sure would be nice if a production version became available in the future. It looks like there’s also a flexible breadboard under development, amongst other types.  I can hardly wait to get my hands on all of these.

This entry was posted in Education, Electronics, Engineering and tagged , , . Bookmark the Permalink.

BAMF2014: Makesmith CNC

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Part of our continuing coverage of highlights from the 2014 Bay Area Maker Faire

Let’s file this under “intro machines.” The Makesmith CNC, currently available on Kickstarter for just $195 including everything but the Dremel tool. It makes very clever use of appropriate technology: Three tiny hobby servo motors, modified for continuous rotation, turn gears that turn the lead screws (well, all-thread) to drive the XYZ stage. An magnetic encoder monitors the rotation, making a high-resolution, closed-loop control system.  No bushings, melamine-coated MDF parts, Arduino control.  Planned for future open source hardware+software release, too.

Perfect?  Nope, but the creators of the project seem to be keenly aware of its abilities and limitations (many discussed here), and oh does it have affordability on its side.

This entry was posted in CNC, Electronics, Engineering, Open Hardware and tagged , . Bookmark the Permalink.