Moving, forward, if not actually in.

This is an empty storage unit.  It used to contain approximately one two bedroom apartments worth of stuff. We need to thank my sister for suprvising the crew that did the moving.  Thank you!



As of today, my house actually is saving me money.  The cost of this storage unit is 1/4 of the mortgage payment.  The only thing left here is to clean it out, and sign the papers saying "we don't need this anymore."  It's all now in the garage, and I can move it in as I please.

Also on the house side of things.  The electrical work is done.  That means my garage has lights.  The switches in the house all work right.  And all the light fixtures work.  Say the least, I am pleased. 

On the not so bright side, I"m slowly discovering that the FHA 203k home inspection was massively incomplete.  In this case it's: SUPRISE, your heater will kill you. 

A Cubists Interpretation of the Blinky LED - 4x4x4 LED cube

A few weeks ago, Loclhst suggested he wanted to make a LED cube.  After a little research, I came upon this instructable: http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-4x4x4-LED-Cube/  

Localhst and I finally managed to scrounge some time up, and we met at PumpingStation:One for a bit of a hack session.  We made some jigs, and started soldering.  

This is James using my jig to make his own LED cube:

Here's a little bit of Loclhsts handywork.  He's really picking up this soldering thing.

Here are two of my LED layers.  It was about this time that I figured out that I'd need to have some method for bending over the LED legs.

And here's all the LEDs built up into a "cube".  It's more like a big parallelogram.  But who's counting.  ... and get that protractor away from my CUBE.

The legs that stick out the side are the ground pins.  Those let us address each layer seperately.

 Nothing like building a wiring harness at 12:30 at night.  And doing it neatly.  And cleanly.  There's heatshrink tubing and everything!

This was testing the first layer.  You can actually see the arduino board in this shot.  Once it's fully hooked up, there's 20 IO pins in use.

Lets play find the Duemenilove!  It's in there.. I swear!

Localhst didn't finish his.  But he did make a 12v regulated power supply for a soldering ventilation solution.  Ideapdish also gave me the parts to build a box to put my led cube in.  I'm excited to assemble it and get this into a displayable condition!  

A minty boost.

A few months back, I brought some friends to a Mitch Altman soldering class.  He brought kits, and while my friends were doing theirs, I decided I'd make something. 

Thank you ladyada.  Well, her company provided the kits.  And here's the kit I built Minty Boost. I assembled my minty boost into an altoids tin.  There's room for a spare set of cells in there too.