If you’re like me, and I know I am, you have spools of wire or solder sitting around. I generally put mine in the cabinet above my desk. Lately, with more projects going on, I find myself pulling them down out of the cabinet constantly. I had a collection of the most used spools sitting on the workbench cluttering it up. Well, no more, I say! Here’s how I organized them and made it easier to pull pieces from them quickly.
I LOVE my iPad 2. To protect it, I HIGHLY recommend the DODOcase (http://www.dodocase.com/products/dodocase-for-ipad2). My only complaint would be the lack of a magnet in the case to activate/deactivate the iPad through its little magnetic sensor, which is used by other cases, like the foldy-flippy one from Apple (http://www.apple.com/ipad/smart-cover/). What to do? Hack, of course! […]
The Short Attention Span version: I ripped apart a cheap remote controlled car and repurposed most of the parts into a self-balancing robot based on the Domo character because I thought one of the partners of the company I work for would enjoy it, as he seems to enjoy Domo stuff. I got the idea […]
Needs more shine! The light bulb inside is medium OK in its ability to attract insects and people with ADD, but I wanted a little better (not too much, though). I also wanted signage. This is a super-simple project that anyone with even questionable soldering skills can pull off. Plus, there is enough room behind […]
A coworker walked up to my desk and handed me this USB-controlled Nerf-esque dart launcher thing from Think Geek because it wasn’t working. If it was dead, I thought I’d at least get a number of little motors and gears and whatnot. I took it home, removed all the screws and completely dismantled it to […]
I recently rebuilt the lighting in my office because the crappy 12-volt strung lighting from Ikea that the previous owner installed was insufficient for working comfortably in my Man Caveā¢. Here’s the NEW lighting above the sound-proffed barn door window shade things:
See how I made my office desk, which is situated near a very warm window, much cooler and comfortable.
In my UME Mark II’s (UME = “Useless Machine Ever”), originally I would program an Atmel AVR microcontroller to turn an RC servo forward and backward using timed pulses like you’re supposed to. But, when you want to build many machines, microcontrollers are not the way to go. Simple polarity-changing circuits are the way to […]
This is one of the first “major” projects I built that involved electricity and electronics. This project makes it super-simple for me to manage my expensive (for me) cigar collection with minimal effort. It uses a 6-bottle wine fridge, some custom-cut Spanish cedar, and a Cigar Oasis XL electronic humidor humidifier. The fridge was about […]