My wife is so wonderfu!

It’s my birthday today, and my awesome wife Diana bought me some awesome presents.

First off was the Cigweld Weldskill 170. That’s the one I knew about. It was already awesome!

What I wasn’t expecting is the iPod
Touch I was presented with when I woke up this morning! OMFGZ I wasn’t expecting that!

So here I am, writing a blog post on the touch, just to test it out!

Yeah!

I love you sweetie! You blow my mind every birthday!
Xoxox

Happy Birthday Diana!

Today I would like to take the oportunity to wish my lovely wife a Happy Birthday for yesterday!

I love you my Sweet! I hope you had a wonderful day!

Diana trying out her new Cricut

Above you can see her playing with her present, a Cricut cutter, working with Make The Cut!.

Unfortunately Make The Cut are no longer allowed to make their software work with the Cricut cutters, but with a bit of research, I managed to work around that to get the two talking again, and thus, making the Cricut a truly wonderful machine!

I’ll post more info on on what I had to do to make it work soon, but this post is to thank my wife for being so damn awesome! and to let her know how much I love her.

I love you sweetie. XOXOXOXOX

Big Trak Jr Video

Today I have a quick video of my Big Trak Jr to post.

It was just a short program to demonstrate how it works on video.

Cheers.

Big Trak Jr

So, I just got my hands on a Big Trak Jr from Thinkgeek.

The Big Trak boxed up. Let me open it already!

The Big Trak was a programmable toy robot which was released in 1979. Over 30 years on, and now we see the second coming. A smaller version, which I believe has many of the original features, and at least one extra one – the accessory port.

I never owned an original Big Trak, I don’t even know if they were sold here in Australia. I bet they were expensive too. A heck of a lot more than the $24.99 +pp I paid for the Jr. I wish I did though, these things are pretty awesome. At that price, they are not just great value, they are a viable hackable robotics platform. If you don’t want to keep the controls, scrap it all, add a PicAxe or a small arduino, and bazinga!, a fully programmable autonomous robot!

I hadn't owned it for 24 hours before I'd unscrewed the top! I've just got to see whats inside!

After less than a day of playing with it, the curiosity got the better of me, so I decided it was time to bring out the screwdrivers to see whats inside. I had 2 goals,

1) Have a look inside
2) Try to work out how the accessory port works

Here is the underside of the accessory port. The whole port comes out easily just by removing those two screws!

6 Philips head screws was all it took to get the case off, and straight away I liked what I saw. There was just 2 wires that went to the accessory port. A black one, and a red one, and they connected to a standard 3.5mm TS (mono headphone) connector. It didn’t look like there was going to be any fancy communication protocols, or proprietary connectors to deal with! They couldn’t have made this easier!

A little probing with a multimeter showed that it was outputting a bit below 4v. I Didn’t measure the battery voltage to see if it’s outputting full battery power thru to the port or not, that will be something I should test later on.

So knowing I have a simple on /off port, I hooked up a LED. First by touching the LED to the terminals on a TS jack that I had plugged into the port, then after I worked out which way to connect the LED, I soldered the LED onto the TS jack, so it stuck neatly out the top of the jack cover when it was screwed on

And here is the little LED on a plug which I made, and how it is wired.

Then it was testing time. Plugging in the LED, and turning the Big Trak on, I programmed in a trigger output, and the LED lit up just as it was supposed to.

SUCCESS!

Now I’ve gotten the LED to work, what’s next for me? some other kind of device. Maybe a motor? a DIY rocket launcher? extra machine guns? The choice is almost unlimited. I’ll have to see what I have kicking about.

Hackerspaces. In canberra?

I’ve always been intrigued by hacker spaces & similar community based workshops. In this day and age its getting harder and harder for someone to have their own workshop.

I had been under the impression that there wasn’t much around here in australia, I guess its a habbit I’ve fallen into, just assuming that there isn’t the population base availiable here in australia, and even closer to home, canberra, to support these kinds of places.I thought, at best there would be some “men’s sheds” about somewhere. If the small town my parents are from can support one of these, then surely so can canberra. The only problem with these are they generally seem to be run and populated by older men, who have retired.

I have nothing against older people, but I’m not quite ready to become one just yet.

However, I just googled hackerspaces in australia, and up popped MakeHackVoid.com. A Hackerspace, right here in Canberra.

They have a shop, tools, people. Sounds good. talking to other people can spawn ideas, and get you motivated to work. Access to tools you don’t have access to otherwise is also very handy, and a nice area to work is also a plus.

It sounded pretty cool, until I realised to become an “associate member”, it costs $50/month, with a 6 month buy in (so $300). Sure it has a fair bit to offer, but I don’t think I can justify that much cost. I’m better off injecting that money into stuff of my own. for 6 months, I’d rather own a new welder, or some other tools, or a whole pile of steel or something….

Sure, there are casual memberships available, for $5/day, but you don’t get to use the bigger tools I’d be somewhat interested in using. maybe one day I’ll drop by one of their workshops or something to check it out, who knows, maybe the people are nice, and knowledgable, and it would be worth it.

I think I’m going to keep doing things on my own for the time being. At the moment I’m more interested in working with metal instead of electronics (does anyone else have too many interests, and have to cycle thru them, or is it just me?). I think I’ve got enough tools, skills and junk to keep myself entertained for a while.

Colt Buggy, Small Upgrades

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve bought a few things for the Colt Nitro car, to upgrade it a little, making it more reliable, and easier to maintain

First thing I bought was a new air filter. The original one wasn’t so dirty it was useless, but while i was at the hobby shop, i though I might as well add a new one.

The new filter  is a nice purple chromed plastic one. It has a few improvements over the factory original.  It has a screw in the top you can remove, then the top comes off so you can clean the foam and and oil it.

I haven’t yet oiled the filter, but I will, next time

I get a chance to run the car.

The next purchase was the Fail Safe for the car:

The Idea of the failsafe is to stop the car in the event it looses radio communication. Instead of sticking with open throttle, and going until it hits something, or free reving until the engine gives way, the failsafe applies the brakes (cutting the throttle), and the car stops. I believe a failsafe is almost a necessity, and I’ve had a few times where my car has lost communication, and wigs out (usually while the car is upside down)

It was really simple to install, simply plugging in line between the throttle servo and the radio receiver. In the photo below, the lead on the failsafe plugs into the radio receiver, and the throttle servo plugs into the port marked on the unit.

The next step is to turn both the transmitter and the reciever on, set the position of the throttle you want the failsafe to apply, and press the set button on the failsafe

The final step is finding somewhere on the car for the unit to sit. thankfully, it is so small that it wasn’t much issue at all. You can see in the photo below that the failsafe fitted perfectly in my electronics box for my car. You couldn’t tell that its on there, apart from when its doing its job!

Thats all I’ve got for you all today, I hope you all have fun.
Stay tuned in for my next installments of my nitro car tweaks – the “tuned” pipe, fuel filter and the clutch bell swap, coming as soon as they get here from world of the internet.

Solar Panel Bag

Do you hate it when you are away from home, and your phone goes flat when you really need to call some one. It can be a pain in the backside. A while ago, while browsing a website Deal Extreme, which sell all kinds of chinese manufactured stuff, I came across several solar charged backup battery charger for phones and Ipods, and basically anything else which can be charged thru a USB port (Wow, that sounds too much like an ad for DS.)

I ended up buying THIS ONE, pictured below:

It seems to do the job. To be honest, I haven’t used it too much. Its more of a just in case tool

(Speaking of Deal Extreme, I warn you, their cheap chinese gadgets are addictive, and once you buy something, you won’t be able to stop buying stuff. )

Today, I came across another solution, which is similar, but to me seems to be a better design. Instead of putting a solar charger in your bag, where most of the time it can’t actually get sunlight, turn your bag INTO the charger. That way, even when you are walking around, or your bag is just sitting on the ground, it will be getting some light, and will be slowly charging its internal battery.

The people over at Talk To My Shirt came up with a DIY solar bag (Their full article here) :

Their version 1 bag doesn’t have a battery, but they mention doing a version 2 bag, with a battery integrated. From what can be seen in the picture. I really like how well they have managed to integrate the solar panel into the lid of the bag.

I feel a potential project coming on! Solar charging bag here I come….. wait for it…… still coming….. like most things, it might take a while…..

Lecci Pocket Sized DJ mixer

While browsing the pages of thinkgeek I stumbled across this little guy:

The little mixer open on my desk

Incase you hadn’t already guessed, it is a little DJ mixer that runs on 4x AAA battery’s. Branded with Lecci in embossed Letters on top of the lid.

Quick Electronics Prototyping / playing

Here on my blog, I had an idea of individual  electronic modules which can connect to a microcontroller (in my case, the picaxe microcontroller) . My little series never went too far, with switches, LEDs, A speaker, potentiometers, Temperature probes, and the picaxe 08m and the picaxe 18

Now SeeedStudio have used a similar idea in their Electronice Brick kits and  you can buy the ready made kit from Little Bird Electronics for AU$60, or straigh from the SeedStudio Store. If you go to the seedstudio store, they have many addon components for the kit

Above is what you get in the starter kit. It makes a neat way go get started, but i’m sure it won’t take long for you to want to expand your collection

And just to make things doubly clear,  I have no involvement in this product at all, they just had the same idea and ran with it, ending up with a great looking product. Check it out, its a great idea for beginners

Lego Mindstorm NXT 2

Lego, and robots combined. How can it get more awesome?

For christmas, my wonderful fiancée gave me a LEGO Mindstorm NXT 2 kit, and its awesome. I’ve always wanted a M kit, for about as long as they have been making Lego Mindstorm.