Folks liked this last graph, so I updated it with the latest stats:

Farewell until next year — this was a blast!

I went to radio shack about a month ago and bought an utrasonic distance sensor made by parallax called a ping))).

I have been feeling cranky and anti social lately so I thought I should make something that didnt want to be bothered.

I am considering adding an air horn for people who dont respect its limits but think that the neighbors might not appreciate it much.

Two weekends ago Aidan and I went to radio shack and he was looking at these $9 bug bots which have a sound sensor, two touch sensors (antennae) and 6 legs. He was very interseted in both the walking mechanism and the touch sensor. We decided that we should add one of those to his arduino based mouse (A168).

After the last two days of disaster I got a new board in the mail.

It has one of the new atmel USB avrs on it which I would like to work with instead of the the ftdi chipset for programming avrs and arduinos. Rather than attempt to do another complicated and ambitious project I decided that my first project with this board should be to run the example keyboard code that atmel provides and modify it to send a “<shift><command>B” sequence followed by a “<CR>”. The sequence I use to “bounce” the 5o or so pieces of e-mail that get past my already overambitious mail filters.

I needed a button!

So I used the rem from resin for the displays to cast this one.

I thought a “Display” might not be a bad idea either.

Since I had so much trouble yesterday porting with getting the bootloader on a new processor I though I should try something easier (these are things that I have been meaning to do for some time so it seemed appropriate to try them on a timeline).

Recently someone published the code for an Stk500v2 based bootloader for the new wiring platform. I have wanted to run wiring on several of the systems I have using the mega128 and the olimex header board that sparkfun sells. Between sparkfun and Ebay my per board cost is about 11 bucks. With the ftdi ft232rl usb to serial chip at $4 that would make the wiring platform affordable

On top of the latest wiring platform not running at all on my g4 I could not get the bootloader on either the sparkfun board or the et-avr-stamp that I had on the bench.

It turns out that part of the solution to this was in the next rev of the wiring software which fixed the bootloader issue. Once I got the bootloader to work with wiring I realized that the wiring platform requires a 32khz clock crystal to be connected to tosc1 and tosc2. Once this was added to both boards things started working.

I havent made a circuit board in ages. I was thinking that if I made circular pads for the leds they might make a decent reflections for the display. I made the etch mask for this out of the holes for press on cd lables and 1/8″ engineering tape.

In the middle of this I realized that I need to get some more tinning solution.

I plan to cast this in less expensive fiberglass resin once I have finished the 4 panels.

Today I really made Space and time (The appartment was getting a bit difficult to get around in).

So this is a make up entry.

After oxydizing the first tip on my new weller I decided it was time to build a new soldering iron timer (and one for my glue gun as well). This is a bench junk project. It is mostly from scores at Wackey Willies (RIP 2007). I had a 4 channel Solid State Relay board with 3 channels populated and a small pile of outlets (I have plans for most of them :). The transformer for the digital power supply is from an old clock radio. At present the buttons turn on the Soldering Iron and Hot Glue Gun and it stays on for about 10 minutes (The arduino doesnt support the RTC crystal that all of the x8 family has attached to Timer 2).

The big button on the right turns everything off. There is a front pannel which I will program to give some status (the leds on the board are two burried to really use for on off status at a glance). Also there is a set of buttons on the panel (currently unwired) to allow for timing adjustment and other future planned functions.

I would also plan use this to adjust the temperature on the iron.

I went to the hardware store to replace the tip on my new Weller soldering iron after discovering that Radio Shack did not have a suitable one. At radio shack I picked up two 1100 mcd leds. On the way back I went to the art supply store to see if they had copper small enough to work with the led arrays. They told me about a bead supply store downtown so I went I bought some silver coated copper wire and made anouther led pannel. (it looks like I have enough resin to make 4).

Then I went to putting the leds on the front of my helmet. If they arent too police blue, I am finally legal.

Yesterday I went to Tap Plastics and bought some resin after working on the programmer (yesterday’s thing).

At dinner last night (which saved me from pulling my hair out for the entire evening trying to get virtual pc to flash the xbee modules from my mac) I was complaining that I have had a problem engaging the current zeitgeist and writing new (poly punk) music. It was suggested that perhaps it was because I was too focused on things that go blink in the night.

So today built an 8×8 panel using cat 5 wire with the insulation trimmed back. After experimenting with the resin I was able to cast this using the mold that I made wednesday.

I am relatively happy though it is a little time intensive.

I have been so happy with the programmer that I have been using that I wanted to add this capability to the xbee rf modules that I built a few months ago. I wired dio0 to both send and recieve boards and put the cap on the output side and wired up a reset.

Then I figured out that the data passing would require updating the flash on both boards and that that required a windows based PC. (LARGE PILE OF EXPLICITIVES REMOVED HERE) I moved the passthrough to the rts/cts pairs which the old firmware is supposed to support met NOOOOO!

If I built it but it doesn’t work yet did I make a thing?

UPDATE: 25feb08 I found an old ob900 (I have like 15 old omnibooks in various states of running) that was running W2k and upgraded the firmware on both radios. I will test them out after I have had some sleep.

Today I made a MESS.

Really, I made a rubber mold for casting resin .

I was given a section of a large display recently that was made up of 6 5×7 led modules. The modules were embedded in epoxy with the lenses built into the front. As most of the led drivers I have are 8×8 (and over $10 apiece) , building displays with the modules wastes a third of the driver. I thought I would try to build 8×8 arrays using the leds I got last week. I took one of the 5×7 arrays and pressed it into some DAS air dry clay and made an 8×8 pattern.

Then I attempted to make a positive using an expensive clear plastic material that I have never had much success with. After two attempts to get a decent positive I decided to try a wax positive using a large candle that was left in my apartment by the previous tenants. This was successful and so I went to make the mold.

The a part of the mold compound was so thick that it was almost impossible to work with. For a long time I wasn’t sure that it would set. But in the end I would up with a fairly decent mold. Tomorrow I will get some casting resin from tap plastics..

One of our local dorkbots put an arduino in a bucket the other day and I got inspired to put one in my head bucket.

I lined the two largest holes in the back of the helmet with foil tape (for ducts) and then built two boards with leds and mounted in the area with my head. I glued a 4 pack of rechargable AA batteries on the top and plan to mount the 5000 mcd led in the front in the next day or so. While I am testing it the arduino run time board is taped to the outside but I plan to mount a really bare bones arduino under the battery when It is done.

Aaaargh ok, so I’ve been having some issues getting pictures of anything taken (long story which I won’t bore you with) but that’s not to say I haven’t been creating. I’m gradually getting updated. Hopefully by the end of the day I’ll have a few days worth of stuff for everyone to see.

Feb 1st I made a super duper Nightmare Before Christmas Charm Bracelet

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cherrypiepunk/2260358948/

 Thanks to everyone who left comments spurring me on.

I haven’t posted but I’ve actually been really busy and been creating a lot. I’ve done all from creating ads, writing a wee booklet and shooting a family christening - which now I am going to edit the photos and turn into a photo album. Bring it on creative month. Just can’t put everything up in pics for copyright reasons, but still at it and enjoying everyone’s posts.

Best,
D

we had friends round so had to make more pizzas than usual, but they got eaten before I had a chance to snap them, so here are some earrings I made instead.

I mean the pizzas got eaten, not the friends!

I have long been annoyed with how the l293s require 3 pins per motor to drive them and traded a couple of on hand mega8s for a bag of these toshiba parts. They are 1 amp motor drivers and perfect for some of the things I am working on for thing a day.

I sold this dress on etsy a day after posting it!

french bread, half eaten

This is a painting that I’ve been working on for quite a while.  I worked on it a bit more today but I’m not sure that I’m actually completely finished with it yet.  Also this is the first time that I’ve tried to use flickr so hopefully it works!   Please visit the painting here- http://flickr.com/photos/triquetradesigns/2245966717/

I made a superhero for February 5th.

If I had a superpower, I would want it to be the ability to kill migraines!!!