WWI Trench project

Here is a short set of photographs of  a weekend project my son and myself undertook. His brief was to produce a model of a section of a WWI trench.

All the item are made from things we found around the house and painted using Games workshop paints.

Steampunk projects 2009 to 2012

Here are a few Steampunk projects that I have been pottering with over the last few years. Its getting to the middle of winter now so time to get on with a few more.

Derby Mini Maker Faire 2013

Here are some short snippets of video i shot at the Derby Mini Maker Faire 23rd November 2013

It was different to last years event. The building was newly refurbished and looked in cracking condition. Lots more stalls and an abundance or Raspberry Pi to be had for all the RP fans.

Given me inspiration to go to the main maker faire in Derby next year.

Funny Carrot

Not quite sure of how nature got to this solution but a totally awesome result

Remembering Derby Maker Faire 2012

Here is a small video montage of some of the things at the Derby Mini Maker Faire 2012. I had a brilliant day and I am looking forward to the next one on the 23rd of November 2013.

Hope you enjoy it and maybe I will see you there.

EDC Update

I decided after carrying a rucksack around as my edc that it was really not practical on a day today basis. I have now placed the options in the car, more on that in another video.

Instead I have devised a more compact solution that i can just pick up and go with.

My choice of microcontroller

At this point in time there are a shed load of options for picking a microcontroller development board. I had 3 criteria when I was looking to pick my first controller board

1   ease of use

I wanted something that was easy to program and offered a good variety of ports and pins and would give me some flexibility in expanding it for future projects.I love to protoype and the ability to swap and change configurations of hardware and software is really important to me.

2   support

support is very important. I like support were the provider of the device are approachable and have a good community to ask questions to and get examples and tutorials.

3. Price

I'm not rich and I needed something that I could maybe buy multiples quickly of the device quickly and cheaply.

The choice i was considering was between a raspberry Pi, Arduino and Basic Stamp. I discounted the basic stamp almost straight away as it is expensive to get a basic setup going and the bsic stamp is very underpowered when compared to my other choices. The Rasperry Pi is a highly powerful device but what made me bend towards the arduino was the large number of addon boards (called shields) available. For me the Arduino platform is the best I have found if you are an eternal tinkerer.


I love my Arduino it comes in my top the favourite things (the other 2 been the wife and kids and my dremel ).

I started by buying an Arduino Diecimila. this i use for prototyping. I have recently purchased a Arduino Nano. This has a really small footprint and is designed to plug into a breadboard.If i ever get past the tinkering stage i will use the nano as my distribution board. 

Specs for my arduinos are as follows:

Arduino Diecimila

Microcontroller    ATmega168
Operating Voltage    5V
Input Voltage (recommended)    7-12 V
Input Voltage (limits)    6-20 V
Digital I/O Pins    14 (of which 6 provide PWM output)
Analog Input Pins    6
DC Current per I/O Pin    40 mA
DC Current for 3.3V Pin    50 mA
Flash Memory    16 KB (of which 2 KB used by bootloader)
SRAM    1 KB
EEPROM    512 bytes
Clock Speed    16 MHz

Arduino Nano

Microcontroller    Atmel ATmega328
Operating Voltage (logic level)    5 V
Input Voltage (recommended)    7-12 V
Input Voltage (limits)    6-20 V
Digital I/O Pins    14 (of which 6 provide PWM output)
Analog Input Pins    8
DC Current per I/O Pin    40 mA
Flash Memory    16 KB (ATmega168) or 32 KB (ATmega328) of which 2 KB used by bootloader
SRAM     2 KB (ATmega328)
EEPROM    512 bytes (ATmega168) or 1 KB (ATmega328)
Clock Speed    16 MHz
Dimensions    0.73" x 1.70"

If you want to find out more about the Arduino platform go to the main webpage at  http://arduino.cc/

Scooter Death - so proud of my son

Well again it's happened. Every so often I get home and find my teenage son sat on the chair, dejected and fed up holding a broken stunt scooter. Scootering is his life and I have seen him grow with confidence to do stunts I would never have attempted as a teenager.
Its an ideal hobby, he spends hours outside doing a quite physical sport and it keeps him from being glued to the X-Box.

He doesn't ask to be changing scooters every 5 minutes like some of his friends who are less able and who have parents who give in to every whim their kids have. He is a very level headed and unspoiled and I am so proud of how he has turned out as I am for both my sons.

I find it quite refreshing to find a kid that doesn't expect to get things at every request and who has no interest in drinking, drugs or anything negative that you hear being levelled at young people today. He keeps out the way of trouble and is doing brilliantly at school.

So I guess my new glasses will have to wait a month so I can give him his life back, the least I can do for being such a good lad.

Light Following Robot

Here is my light following robot that I built from a kit of parts I bought from maplins. The robot uses a simple circuit using discreet components to make the robot track towards the light.

The circuit uses LDR (light dependant resistors) cells to detect the light source. The left LDR cell controls the right motor and visa versa thereby pushing the robot towards the light source.

This is a basic setup that needs some tuning

Emergency Pizza

Here's my recipe for an emergency pizza using a wrap, cheese, ham and some ketchup. If you have the nom nom's or grumbly tummy give it a try

A fun afternoon components stripping

Found an old untested Alpine CHM-S630 Car CD Auto changer. Decided he resell value on ebay was not worth the bother of listing it so i decided to strip down the device to see what components i could harvest for my projects.

Inside i found 4 really nice 9v motors, a host of cogs and spings and plenty of gears.

The attached video shows how I got on.

12 Inspiration Quotes To Ponder

1. Anyone can make you happy by doing something special but only someone special can make you happy without doing anything.
   
   
2. Don’t be ashamed to be different. Be proud that God made you like no one else.
   
   
3. Every bad situation will have something positive, Even a stopped clock shows correct time twice a day. Think positive=SUCCESS
   
   
4. History is made by those who BREAK THE RULES.
   
   
5. If nobody hates you, you are doing something boring.
   
6. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not put
   ting it in a fruit salad.
   
   
7. Dogs have masters. Cats have staff.
   
   
8. The best way to predict the future is to create it.
   
   
9. If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.
   
   
10. If you change nothing, nothing will change.
    
    
11. Quiet people have the loudest minds.
    
    
12. Negativity isn't the way to go, smile more and eat chocolate.

Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down

My tongue in cheek video about the love, ne obsession of the wonderful cable tie, watch and enjoy

Super cute Squirrel that comes in out back garden

Here is the Squirrel that frequents our back garden, Today its foraging for nuts after it ate through the nut bag on the bird table and let them spill all over the floor.

How not to spend a Saturday

How not to spend Saturday.

 Well, what can I say. Lovely sunny morning, all the chores out the way, my wife happy she doesn't need me to do anything else before i can get on with some disassembly fun on the old tumble dryer. Lots of motors and switches and a nice drum to turn into a fire pit, all possible before tea time. Well that was the plan.
  A lazy lunch and with a coffee in hand, I wander off to the workshop. Before me stood the target of my component source. It had been faithful and well used but its constant belt breaking had become an annoyance and the cost of running it extreme. Time to put its insides to better use.
&nbst;I removed the top and then realised i needed to remove lots of cable ties.I being in a chilled out and lazy frame of mind decided the 6ft walk to my tool chest to get my side cutters was too far. Trying to remove cable ties from an old tumble dryer, i cut towards my right hand and the blade slipped. Ouch.One thing that was always drummed into my by my dad and my woodwork teacher, was to ALWAYS cut away from yourself.
 At that point I felt all the good advice on this point had been a total waste of breath. I stood there and looked at the result of my stupidity. a 1.5 deep gash of shame. After consulting my wife and being told that in this case tissue and a strip of Duck tape (my normal way of handling cuts) was not going to be enough. A trip to the A&E department and 3 stitches later and i am without a totally usable right hand for at-least a week.

 I think you can only learn from your mistakes and build on them. I have some sutures on the way so i can treat this kind of wound without needing to grace my local hospital in future, lesson learned for now.

 I hear alot of bad things about or accident and emergency service. But I had a brilliant experience, was dealt with quickly by very capable, professional nursing staff.

Sunday

 I woke up Sunday morning, intent on finishing the job I had started on Saturday. With the help of my teenage son and some side cutters and other appropriate tools, we stripped out the remaining components. I then set about the hapless tumble dryer chassis with an angle grinder. This made me feel a whole lot better (apart from the aching index finger and thumb).

Now to think on to next weekend, what mischief can i get upto !!!!! click here to see the angle grinder attack

Who needs fireworks, I've got an angle grinder

Just a quick video I filmed this morning.Yesterday during the dis-assembly of an old tumble dryer, who's parts i wanted before being dispatched to the tip, I was cutting the cable ties and forgot the hard and fast rule of cut away from yourself. I ended up with 3 stitches and an inch and a half cut on my hand.
As revenge for my stupidity i decided on taking it out on the poor hapless tumble dryer with the angle grinder. Sparks flew and after 4 minutes it was a heap of cut squares, a sad reflection of its former self.
Watch below to see the sparks fly like roman candles as i cut with into the metal carcase of the scapegoat white goods item.

Brilliant cheap survival shelter

I was perusing the shelves in my local Poundland and came across this emergency survival shelter.
I thought for a pound how can i not get one to take a look at.
I got it home and found its made of similar material to a survival blanket (Mylar). Its very strong and took about 5 minutes to get erected.
At 8 feet by 5 feet its plenty big enough to fit 2 people in without any problems. I did my test erection on a sunny day and within minutes it was roasting inside so the reflective material really works. Also good as a signal to overflying rescue vehicles should you need it.

I did a quick video review , see below

Poundland Solar Light Hack

A blogger friend James (see a post elsewhere on my blog linking to his blog) has
been pulling apart solar lights from the pound shop to see what parts he could
salvage for other projects,

I was wandering the pound store and saw something similar but not the same as
the light he had purchased. I decided to purchase a couple to take to pieces.

Before Hack:-

Whats Inside

There is a solar cell which produces between 2.0v to 2.4v in room light and 3v
in bright sunlight. 

There is also an Ni-MH AAA battery rated 1.2V at 600ma,

There is a small circuit board with a transistor like integrated circuit that
has 4 pins its labelled YX8018. After a bit of poking about I found out some
more information about this little device. It is produced by a Chinese company
called Shiningic.

Initially it confused me that the battery in the solar light was only rated at
1.2v, this would not be a high enough voltage to drive the led. After reading
up on the YX8018 I found that it is a clever little chip that acts in 2 ways,

The first way is an up-voltage converter taking the 1.2 volts of the battery
and providing enough voltage to drive the LED.

The second element is as a light activated switch. the solar cell and the LED
are wired through the chip. The positive output from the solar cell goes to the
battery positive terminal as well as to the CE (chip enable)  pin on the 8018.

when light falls onto the solar cell a voltage is places onto the negative
active CE pin which switches the chip off thereby switching the LED off. This
means that during the day the led light is switched off and voltage is only
supplied to the battery allowing it to be charged.

 Parts After Hack:

Salvaged Hardware:	Salvaged Electronics:

The salvagable parts I will use in my own projects are:

• ultrabright led
• 3v 20ma solar cell.
• AAA 1.2v 600mAh Ni-MH
• 3 small screws

Now what to make with the parts !!!!!

An Intersting new Blog

Here is a local guy to me, nice to see someone with a similar outlook on recycling and hacking to myself. You might want to check out his new blog. More good things to come i think
http://james-gy.blogspot.co.uk/

Modern Teenage Bedside Cabinet

My son has recently had his bedroom re-decorated in orange and black and wanted a bedside cabinet to match it. After looking around and not been able to find one i decided to look at what i had laying around and make one to fit. I found an old basket from a freeze and some MDF and Aluminium rods . After an hour this is what I came up with. A lick of orange paint and some matt black spray co-ordinating the colour scheme. A good use of found items I think.

Kitchen Science - Creating Fire in your Hands

Have you always wanted to hold fire in your hands like a superhero ? This video is a demonstration of how, with the use of some items from the kitchen you can hold flames in your hands, Its totally safe as long as you prescribe to the usual rules of kitchen science, Safety first, Ensure the environment is well ventilated, and that you wear your safety glasses at all time. Enjoy !!!

bottle tornado guided tour of the device

Here is a quick video guided tour of the bottle tornado device

Bottle Tornado

Here is a little project im working on. I have always liked to see water vortex and tornado's and decided after looking around and seeing that the ones people mainly make are by tying two bottles together and making water tip from one to the other to get the effect, I wanted to make something a little more interesting and something could switch on and off at will, something a bit more geeky.

After a bit of work i came upon something used in labs to mix liquids using a magnet and  stiring rod.
I decided to make my own magnetic stirrer.

I have rather a large box of computer bits and i retrieved a 12v fan to use as the motor and a Neodymium magnet extracted from an old computer hard.  after mounting this in a quick wooden box i made and wiring up to a switch the following video shows the results.




the  Neodymium magnet is glued to the centre of the motor or fan and when switched on it spins a small iron rod placed inside the bottle of water. this spinning causes the vortex to appear.

Its still a work in progress and as soon as i have it how i want it i will load a tutorial onto my instructables channel.

HOW TO: Party popper match rocket

Here is a short video instructable showing you how to make as quick and easy match launcher out of a party popper and a small aluminum pipe.

The project is same and no more dangerous than pulling a party popper, as usual with  party poppers just make sure they are at arms length and are always pointing away from you and NOT at someone!!!

To make the match launcher you will need:

• an un-burnt match
• paper clip
• party popper
• small aluminum tube with a slightly larger bore than the party popper explosive ,  a pen barrel is too wide.

tools:

• Pliers
• craft knife

Full instructions are in the video

What I did on My Birthday

Its always nice when your birthday falls on a weekend.It not only means you don't have to take a day off so you can get some quality time it also means that you get to spend the whole day doing things with the ones you love

I have never been one to lay in bed, wasting my life on excessive sleep.I woke up brights and early and did take a cuppa back to bed to catchup the forum posts and check my emails on my Android tablet.

I love a good scrambled egg and even though the pan is rather messy I do thing its much better prepared that way than all soggy in the Microwave. I was just about to begin making my breakfast to be told by my wife she was going to take me out for breakfast. We have a really nice garden centre about 10 miles down the road from where I live, attached to this is an awesome cafe that does amazing hot chocolate and bacon sandwiches to die for, nice proper dry cured bacon.
I always try to do atleast 1 thing I have never done. This year I got the urge to try the old mentos and coke thing,  results below.

The rest of the day was filled by visits from family members and friends.

As for presents I'm not a big material person but do love the simple things in life. I have for years wanted to re-live my childhood and my wife bought me a catapult and ammo,  awesome, i got a nice book on robots and some money which topped up my component drawers from Maplins. All in all a perfect day.