Category: Projects
A collection of my projects, from the electrical and electronic to the software and home improvement.
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Day 6: early firmware testing
Things are progressing nicely. I have the display fully wired now to the Mega. It’s a spaghetti mess, but it’ll work.I have the serial port on the Arduino working nicely for debug. I also did a fair amount of thinking with regards to data and address packetizing. It quickly became apparent that doing a bunch…
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Day 3: Arduino setup
I’ve had a bad experience with Arduino. But perhaps I was just cranky that night. I was also unlucky with a defective Uno. The good news is that for my new project (which has a deadline), my new Arduino Mega is not in fact defective. I can attest its functionality tonight, at 10:45pm. This platform is…
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Day 1: setup
I got the display mounted to a breadboard. How about that, it’s green! The display has a self test diagnostic mode built in, which is incredibly handy. Saw little cute LED bits flashing and twinkling. So the thing appears to be alive, after all these years! Here is some video too: The majority of my…
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GaSiProMo
I’m a notorious task-starter, and not a great task-finisher. My garage is littered with old projects that are collecting more dust than accolades. I can lean on the old, dependable excuses but really that’s lame. If every moment is the new normal, then there aren’t any excuses. Our hobbies define us, and I love my…
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The intersection of IKEA and hacking
I heard a really fascinating episode of one of my favorite podcasts recently (99% Invisible). It was about hacking IKEA furniture. They interviewed the curator of a website devoted to the niche art form.
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Inaugural Maker Faire
Well, I’ve officially joined the DIY electronics community. Last week, I attended my first Maker Faire. It was my city’s first ever, and I was determined to take one of my projects as a booth participant. Nothing like a deadline to get my hind quarters into gear and (kind of) finish a project!
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The state of the Arduino ecosystem
At this ripe old age, I have come to value most the quality of a toolchain. I’ll go a step further and say that the coherency and consistency of the umbrella that toolchain inhabits is a most prized quality. And what spurred this revelation? Why the obtuse declaration? I have seen the other side, brothers and…
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Dell OptiPlex motherboard repair
My office was liquidating a bunch of old computer equipment. In the heap, my eye was caught by a Dell box. “Hmm, what’s wrong with that computer?” And so began my next big obsession.
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Failure analysis on the HoMedics Lullaby Soundspa
We have one of these little do-dads for our kid: HoMedics SS-3000 Soundspa Lullaby. It’s a nifty little product, makes different simulated white noise sounds and projects these images from a spinning disk apparatus. Like I said, nifty. But also fragile, and prone to breakage. The company, HoMedics, replaced our first one because its little motor…
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IKEA kitchen light mod, part 2
A while ago, I modified my daughter’s little kid kitchen. In that project, I found my design self teetering on that edge between two goals: get-it-done on the one side, do-it-right on the other. I had chosen the former and even my 2 year old (at the time) could see that this was a critical…