Stuff Andy Makes – DIY, make, tinker, play

Bourbon, Yummy Bourbon!

Jun 15

AndyBourbon, Educational/Interesting, Tips and Techniques bourbon, distilling, Kentucky, liquor, whiskey No Comments

I put together a guide pamphlet for our group’s annual trip to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival and for the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. It included quite a bit of collected and learned information on my favorite adult beverage: Bourbon. Here’s the page that contains the “Bourbon To-Drink” checklist, if you’re interested! I thought I would reformat it a little and put it in a blog entry. Here goes…

What is Bourbon?

Woodford Reserve Barrels in Warehouse

Here’s my definition: Bourbon is a type of whiskey made mostly from corn that has a clear amber or brown color bottled at around 80˚ proof or more and has a complex flavor profile with generally vanilla and wood overtones. Or the quick answer I usually give: Bourbon is delicious sipping alcohol. I ain’t met one I hated, yet. Amen. More

Charlieplexing LEDs with an AVR ATmega328

Apr 29

AndyEducational/Interesting, Electronics, Miscellaneous, Projects, Tips and Techniques atmel, avr, charlieplexing, led, microcontroller, pcb 3 Comments

This is the first in a two-part series. This first article made me realize there’s a lot of ground to cover and we’re already in the tl;dr territory.

UPDATE: The MAKE Magazine Blog asked me to make this into a Project so you can also read the adapted version over there: http://blog.makezine.com/2013/05/24/controlling-leds-with-charlieplexing/

How many times has this happened to you? You have a little LED project with an AVR ATmega328 microcontroller (or Arduino) at its core and you need to light up a boatload…. A dingyload of LEDs. Maybe it doesn’t happen a lot to you. It’s happened on three recent projects for me. My latest two LED projects are a timekeeping piece that illuminates 21 characters from behind and a simple LED chaser thing.

As usual I wanted to keep the component count down on these projects. I also tend to prefer not to use a ton of ICs with busses between them and whatnot, if I can help it. So much darn soldering and stuff. Meh. Luckily, back in 1995, so the Wikipedia story goes, a super-smart dood named Charlie Allen at Maxim Integrated devised a super-ingenius way to control a large number of LEDs using a not-so-large number of microcontroller pins. The method is called, “Charlieplexing” and it seems a but daunting, at first, but it’s not that bad once you figger it out.

The core of this concept is based on the fact that diodes only allow current to flow in one direction. The “D” in “LED” stands for “diode.” Ergo, LEDs are diodes. LEDs only light up when connected a particular direction. Put two diodes in parallel BUT in the opposite-facing direction and you can turn on one or the other simply by switching the polarity of the ends of the circuit. Fun! Diagram:

Two LEDs in Parallel

Let’s assume I have a 3V little coin cell running this thing and limiting resistors and CCRs are not our thing, today. Why not? Anyhoo… Looking at the diagram, you see I’m using GPIO pins from an Atmel ATmega168 AVR microcontroller (it was readily available in the library in Fritzing, the program I used to throw together the drawring diagram schematic thing above). If I configger A0 and A1 as outputs and then set A1 HIGH and A0 LOW, I can turn on LED1. If I flip the states of the two pins and make A1 LOW and A0 HIGH, LED2 will light. Here’s a animated GIF of how it works with direct connections from the LEDs to 3V lithium coin cell on a breadboard:

Parallel opposite polarity LEDs flipping state

Watch carefully and you’ll see that I switched the positive and negative to make one or the other LED light. Easy as pie. Imagine each wire from the battery is a GPIO pin from a microctonroller. All I’m doing up there is making one HIGH and one LOW and then flipping them back and forth.

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Standing Desk Improvisation Inspiration with Little Perspiration

Apr 09

AndyProjects, Tips and Techniques, Upgrades/Hacks desk hack, ikea, meltmedia, office upgrade, standing desk No Comments

Today at the office, I walked by a coworker’s desk and something was different: She’d put an Ikea table and shelf together and set them on top of her desk. Nutty, at first glance. Purposeful, after 0.25 seconds of thought. Here’s what I saw:

Stand-Up Desk at meltmedia

Kristian came across this article from Colin Nederkoorn’s Blog with instructions on how to make your regular desk a standing or stand-up desk for only $22 with a couple of items from Ikea! Whatabargain! More

meltmedia meltHack-A-Palooza V: The Lost Pushbutton

Apr 07

AndyEducational/Interesting arduino, coding, electronics, hack day, meltmedia, microcontroller, MSP430, pelican case, pizza, rotary encoder No Comments

Every few months I organize a hack day at the office, usually on a Saturday. This past Saturday we had our 5th installment of hack/make/tinker day at meltmedia and the turnout was great! Attendance was 8, up from 3 the last time around. YESSS!

meltmedia East Kitchen Table Hacking

Nick put together a little video of the goings on:

Or click here to see meltmedia Hack Day | April 6, 2013 from meltmedia on Vimeo.

We had all manner of making and designing, but most importantly, around 1:30-ish, we had PIZZA!!

Fueling the Making with Pizza

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Electronics Workbench LED Upgrade

Mar 17

AndyTips and Techniques, Upgrades/Hacks drawers, lamp, LED lighting, organization, workbench No Comments

I guess I forgot to post an update to the update of my workbench. Not only did I clean up the gigantic mess that had accumulated on it, I improved the lighting and workspace availability:

Electronic Workbench LED Lighting Upgrade

Prior to this upgrade, I had fluorescent lighting under the blue cabinets over the bench. They extended down about 3 to 4 inches and kinda got in the way. I also didn’t think through the placement, so they were back about half-way under the cabinets. This meant they didn’t put light out on the front edge of the tabletop like I would have hoped. Here’s the old lighting:

Old Fluorescent Lighting

The monitor on the left barely fit behind the light and the light extended down lower than the top of the monitor. Dumb. I might have been drinking bourbon that day. Like, more than a shot or two. No matter. That is history. Today, we have wonderLEDs!

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iPhone Lens Adapters from Photojojo

Mar 17

AndySwank-n-Funk, Tips and Techniques adapter, fisheye, iphone, lens, macro, photography, telephoto No Comments

I’ve seen a few different add-on lenses for iPhones out there and decided to nab a set for myself to make my detail photos and product shots a little more neato. I went with the Photojojo three-lens kit for $49 US.

Photojojo Three Lens Kit

These lenses are just little guys. They come with front covers and magnetic back covers that double as little string handles.

Lenses with Covers next to Kinekt Ring

Kinekt Design Gear Ring not included.

The lenses are tough little buggers. Appear to be made from aloominum (or Al U. Minium, if you’re from Canadia, eh), or something like it. The black front caps are flexible plastic and the backs with the little handles are magnetic metal something something. Quality is nice and the glass appears to be very clean and clear. My telephoto lens did not ship with a fingerprint. I had to accidentally add that myself. It was easy to clean off with a standard microfiber cloth.

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Home-Aged Bourbon YUM!

Mar 04

AndyBourbon, Tips and Techniques aging, bourbon, charred oak, home age, moonshine, oak barrel, white dog No Comments

While wandering around at the 2012 Kentucky Bourbon Festival, I stumbled upon the Bluegrass Barrels tent. The guys there showed me how easily white dog (moonshine, or corn whiskey before it goes into the barrel to eventually become bourbon) can be aged at home in your own little charred oak barrel. Is that awesome or what??

BOOM! Brand New Charred Oak Mini Barrel

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Lipstick Camera Turned Video Microscope

Mar 03

AndyProjects, Tips and Techniques, Upgrades/Hacks gooseneck, hacked lamp, lipstick camera, microscope, ntsc, tft lcd, video No Comments

Backstory: In a previous life, I was a freefall photographer. I took photos and shot video while skydiving. Before GoPro and others started popping up on the scene, I had devised a little rig for shooting freefall video without the need for the bulky miniDV camera on my helmet. The setup used a “bullet” or “lipstick” camera which provided a video input signal for a miniDV camera (used as a tape deck at this point) located OFF my helmet and in a pouch under my jumpsuit. I don’t remember where I got the camera. They can be found on the InterWebs for $100-ish, maybe less. Anyhoo, if you’ve ever stuck your hand out of the window of a car moving at highway speed, I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to figure out how non-aerodynamic a miniDV camera is. Needless to say, a lipstick camera cuts through the wind WAY easier than a full-on Sony TRV-20 miniDV camera. A lipstick camera also weighs considerably less than a miniDV camera.

Lipstick Camera

OK, now that I’ve barfed out a giant intro paragraph, let’s get to the nutty-tasting inside of this story: I have this lipstick camera sitting around in a box. I know that when I twist the lens away from the sensor, the camera acts more and more like a video microscope. I have many tiny things I’d like to look at with minimal camera shake. More

Electronics and Hack Workbench

May 01

AndyEducational/Interesting, Electronics, Projects, Tips and Techniques, Upgrades/Hacks, Woodworking/Shop benchtop power supply, cabinets, drawers, esd foam, glass, organization, storage, workbench No Comments

I’ve had a number of requests from readers to see my workbench in its entirety, as most photos of it are just backgrounds to projects. So, I thought I’d post some photos and explanations in an article. Maybe someone will get some helpful hints or perhaps someone will lend me some helpful advice.

First off, here are some wide shots of the mess:

Wide shot of Andy's Electronics Workbench

I made the table. The top is made out of three 10″-ish wide pine boards glued together side to side using biscuits. I had a custom piece of 3/16″ glass to fit the top. Half of the top of the table is covered with conductive foam to keep static at bay. I ordered a couple big pieces of that from somewhere on-line, can’t remember where. It’s super convenient for stabbing parts into to hold them neatly. It’s also great for discharging static. The legs I’ve had a while. They were part of a giant desk I built years ago. I got them on-line many moons ago. They have bases that are screwed to the bottom of the tabletop. They then screw into the bases. They’re made of steel or aluminum or something strong like that. Under the tabletop, I put a big “X” of 3″ wide interlocked pine planks for rigidity. I can stand right on the center of that table and it barely flexes. More

Focus, Dammit! Or, How I’ve Learned to Control A.D.D.

Apr 26

AndyEducational/Interesting concentration, focus, inspiration, techniques, tips 2 Comments

My favorite shirt reads, “They say I have A.D.D., but they just don’t understand. Oh, look! A chicken!” My sister holds a Master’s degree in child counseling and she is absolutely certain that I would have been diagnosed with A.D.D. when I was a child. Maybe one reason I was not diagnosed can be summed up in this sentence from an article on the PsychCentral.com website: “[A.D.D.] also may go unnoticed because the ‘inattentive daydreamer’ may be overlooked…” Yep. That’s me summed up in two words: Inattentive daydreamer.

Focus is something I’ve struggled with all of my life. I remember when I was in the 2nd grade, working through questions in a workbook one minute, then the next minute I’m taking apart a ballpoint pen and fiddling with the parts and NOT getting my workbook work finished. If I wasn’t taking apart things I found in my desk, I was doodling between small bouts of actual work. To my point, I’m supposed to be gathering my notes and thoughts for a meeting in about 8 minutes as I write this, yet I sit here writing an article about focus. Is this multitasking? No, this is not keeping focus on what is needed right now.

[Insert long pause while I scramble to gather my notes and thoughts and attend a meeting...]

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