Pyroblogg

I got an Ice Tube clock from Adafruit because, well, I like clocks and electronics kits.

Photo by Adafruit (c) BY-NC-SA

The Ice Tube clock is definitely an interesting kit, made so by the use of the blue-glowing high voltage vacuum florescent display (VFD) tube.

The clock consists of an ATmega168 which runs a counter accurate to ~+/- 1 second per 24 hours. The circuit contains an input from a wallwart type power supply but also includes a back-up battery.  The display is only lit when plugged in but the battery provides enough power to keep time for months.  In order to operate the VFD tube a much higher voltage is needed.  To generate the higher voltage a boost converter is constructed with one of the outputs of the ATmega, an inductor and a few capacitors.  The pin from the ATmega controls the duty cycle of the converter, which is used to control the overall brightness of the display.

The actual control of what the pins on the display are doing is left to the MAX6921 VFD driver chip. The ATmega sends the data over SPI to the MAX which coordinates the high voltage pins of the tube to generate the clock display.  While constructing and testing the circuit it’s important to remember that the part of the circuit nearest the drive chip operates at a high voltage and that it can take minutes for the capacitor to dissipate. Just be mindful of it while testing things before you put the case on.

The instructions available on Ladyada.net are pretty straightforward.  The kit comes with sockets for both the Atmega and the VFD driver chip.  They don’t increase the profile any more than the other through-hole components.  Being able to solder in a socket removes having to worry about burning out a chips pin by soldering too long.  The most tricky part is making sure the tube is aligned and getting all of the leads started.  After that it just takes some patience to wiggle the board down evenly.

The clear acrylic case, designed by Amanda Wozniak is a perfect fit for the style of the rest of the clock.  The clever way that the bolts and nuts are used to make the joints is really interesting. I look like it could almost slip right into pieces but each bolt puts just enough tension on the rest that it stays snugly in place.

I would recommend this kit to anyone fond of clocks or unconventional electronics bits. Just follow the instructions and the high voltage isn’t anything to be worried about.

This post belongs to a category of posts about different projects that i’m building.  Some projects are things that i’m creating and some are kits designed by other folks that I’ve purchased and put together.  For other project posts see the projects category.

Share/Save

I recently built a Bulbdial clock from Evil Mad Science. It was a blast to put together. EMS puts so much thought into the process of building a kit, not just the end result.

The kit consists mainly of three different PCBs that hold each of the different colored LEDs at different heights away from the back clock face. This creates shadow casts of differing lengths, giving the hands of the clock.  While constructing the kit it is very important that you get the LEDs consistently aligned on each board. Instead of asking you to insert, align, hold in place and solder all 72 of them individually, they used the PCBs themselves to make a handy jig.

As shown above you insert all of the LEDs for the ring and then sandwich them in place with another ring. Once you check over that they’re aligned you go around and solder one leg of each LED.  Check once more that they all seem to be pointing to center and then solder the remaining leg of the LED.  Remove the screws and board holding them down and you’ve got an entire ring of well aligned LEDS without having to worry about taping anything down or something slipping while you’re holding the solder and iron.  This detail, and the included jig for bending the LED leads to 90 degrees make this kit something that anyone with a little proficiency with an iron can accomplish.

The only part of the build that seemed a  little iffy was bending all of the LEDS so that they pointed down at the center spike. When you solder the LEDs in you’re already making sure that they are pointed to the center of the circle. After you get the board in place and wired up you need to make sure they’re pointing down, outside the plane of the board, and straight at the spike on the clock face.  It takes a little getting used to but they really do bend just fine.  Just mark sure you’re making good solder joints when you put them in.

After you get all the LEDs straightened out it’s time to put it into it’s case and voila! An awesome timepiece that you can show off to your friends.  I would definitely recommend this kit to anyone who likes clocks and is looking for a good intermediate kit build.  It’s very easy to follow the instructions and get it put together right.

This post belongs to a category of posts about different projects that i’m building.  Some projects are things that i’m creating and some are kits designed by other folks that I’ve purchased and put together.  For other project posts see the projects category.

Share/Save

Pyroblogg has made a slight change in address. Instead of being located at http://blog.pyrodogg.com the blog is now located at http://www.pyrodogg.com/blog

Please update your bookmarks and/or links to this site.

There should be no change in the RSS feed address as that is hosted externally.

Share/Save

This is the first in a category of posts about different projects that i’m building.  Some projects are things that i’m creating and some are kits designed by other folks that I’ve purchased and put together.  For other project posts see the projects category.

The Meggy Jr. is a handheld, LED pixel-based game development kit made by Evil Mad Science.

After finding out about the Meggy Jr. from a member of my hackerspace, TC Maker, I purchased one as soon as I got home.  The 8×8 LED matrix just seemed so old school and amazing that I  had to have one to play with.  I finally received it and then it sat, on my bookshelf, for over a year.

Even after having built a workbench in my living room for soldering projects, the Meggy languished under a pile of electronics parts.  Finally, after moving back to Minneapolis, MN and re-joining up with TC Maker I finally got to putting my Meggy together.  Hacker mojo is something that requires some diligence to maintain; if you don’t use it you lose it.  Recently, Paul Sobczak and I started an Electronics Hacking Night (eHack Night) at TC Maker.  It’s been a great motivator and platform for getting back into electronics hacking.  Kits like the Meggy Jr. are perfect for sharpening up soldering skills and getting the creative juices flowing again.

Building the Meggy was a fun experience which I managed to complete in one evening.  Evil Mad Science puts a lot of thought into the end result of their kits as well as the build experience.  I wasn’t planning on this post when building so I’m lacking some build photos.

The Meggy comes with a game pre-flashed on the Atmega 328, “Attack of the Cherry Tomatoes”. This makes it fun to play straight out of the box build process.  I’ve also uploaded a  game of snake to my Meggy which can be found on the Evil Mad Science website.

Coworkers, family and friends have all been wowed with the Meggy.  After I tell them that I built it they get even more curious, even those that know I like to tinker with and build things.  I look forward to trying out some other games people have already made and trying something new myself.

Share/Save

Last week Brit and I planned a short quick trip to get the heck out of the city and enjoy what fall color is left.

Yesterday, we drove up to the Brainerd area to ride a section of the 110-mile Paul Bunyan Trail. We started at the Southern trailhead in Baxter and did a 10 mile down-and-back for a 20 mile ride. We did it in about 3 hours for a nice steady biking pace.

While we were taking a break at the 10 mile marker a small pheasant/grouse (I don’t know my birds, meh) came out of the brush and walked right up to us. We guessed that it was looking for food, which it wouldn’t get (especially since we didn’t have anything on us). It kept circling around our feet while we stood there. When Brit tried walking around it would run and try to nip at her sneakers. Eventually we got back on our bikes to turn around and it even tried following for a little bit. That was one strange/confused bird.

The ride back probably took a little longer, deciding to turn around at the 10 mi. mark was a good choice.  We stopped at the Culver’s in town to satisfy our worked up appetites before heading home in the evening.

It was a really nice trip to get out of the normal routine and do something in a different place. We’re already thinking about going back for snowshoeing in the winter

Share/Save

In my last few days in Bismarck I’ve been observing the flooding of the Missouri River in town.

Due to unexpectedly heavy spring rains in eastern Montana and above average snow pack in the Rockies, the Missouri river has been running higher than it has in over 50 years.  Lake Sakakawea, the reservoir behind the Garrison Dam got so high that the Arm Corps of Engineers had to open the spillway gates for the first time ever.  In Bismarck, the river is flowing over 5 times faster than what it usually is this time of year.  At my last check the river level was near 17.7 ft. and projected to crest over 19.5 ft.

What makes this a little different from your normal spring flooding is that this isn’t a week-long affair.  The water could stay as high as 17ft well into August.  Already the high level and flow have begun to scour away at the banks of the river.  If it lasts for months, some bends could be completely different from before.

In Bismarck, the southern third of town sits on the flood plane. Everyone has been sandbagging and diking for about two and a half weeks.  Some of the people outside of the city limits and protection zone also went straight to moving all of their things out of the house.  There still haven’t been any mandatory evacuations, but it’s getting close.  Water has been up on sandbag levies for a week now, and rising daily.

Even with the sandbag levies in place, not everyone is safe. The ground under that part of town is all river sediments from being built up on a flood plane.  The groundwater has been creeping up right along with the river.  Some houses are sitting in a perfect sandbag levy which isn’t even touching the river water and yet, the basement is full-up with water.  The water table is within 5 feet of the surface for much of that part of town.

Some people still remain optimistic but with such an extended forecast of high water, others aren’t holding out much home.  All we can do now is wait and see.

You can see more photos of the flooding here: Missouri River Flood 2011 on Flickr

Meggy Jr.

Bulbdial Clock

Bulbdial pieces

Bulbdial construction

_MG_8875

_MG_8872

_MG_8870

_MG_8869

_MG_8868

_MG_8865

_MG_8864

_MG_8862

_MG_8860

_MG_8858

_MG_8949

_MG_8948

_MG_8947

_MG_8946

_MG_8945

_MG_8944

Share/Save

On October 16th I attended “Cut, Turn, and Burn” an event at the Twin Cities Maker Hack Factory.  The class was hosted by Pete McKenna who covered the basics of 2D and 3D product modeling, and turning those models into physical products.  He also demonstrated his homemade CNC Router.

If you live in the Twin Cites area you too can get access to Pete’s CNC Router and many other cool shop tools, all for $50 a month. Join up at TCMaker.org, get trained in and you’ll be cutting, turning, and burning things out in no time.

Here are some photos from the event, enjoy:

The photos in this slideshow are copyright 2010 Skyler Kehren and released under the BY-SA Creative Commons license.

Share/Save

Over Labor Day weekend Brit and I decided to try making a super bubble wand.

This idea came from this video of Sterling “The Bubblesmith” Johnson.

We went to the Chief Lookings’ Village park in Bismarck which overlooks the Missouri river.  The park is very open and has a large hill that slopes down to the river.  There was a nice breeze, perfect for making super bubbles.

We started off with a clothesline rope that seemed more absorbent, which I thought would help.  It didn’t work very well.  Next, we tried simple cotton string.  After running the twists out, it worked perfectly.

It took a few minutes to get used to opening and closing the wand, but after we got the hang of it we were in business.

We did at times have a 12 foot “bubble tube” running from tip to wand.  We also got some watermelon sized bubbles to float a good 20 yards or so over the edge of the hill, and smaller ones well over 100 yards.  The wind got a little bit too strong and uneven to get some of those really large bubble tubes to actually release and stay in one piece for very long.

While we were blowing the bubbles we had a few vehicles pull up and just hang out for a few minutes watching the show.   I said we were just so popular it was because everyone was calling their friends. lol.

Here’s some other photos of our adventure!

Here are the links to everything I found to make the wand and bubble solution. Enjoy trying this out for yourself.

Wand: http://www.instructables.com/id/GIANT-bubble-blower/

Bubbles: http://www.soapbubble.dk/en/bubbles/bubblemixture.php

Share/Save

Yesterday, February 8th was my 23rd birthday.  I received ‘The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes‘ , a Bliptronic 5000 and a fantastic dinner from my girlfriend, Brit.   I know of a few other gifts that should be arriving in the mail any day now…   As a ‘gift’ to myself, I’m putting another $25 into Kiva.org for a cycle or two of lending.  Check it out for yourself, Kiva is a great way to help people accomplish their goals without making them charity cases.

Finally, to celebrate; here is a wonderful performance of the birthday song by my dad.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

PS Prepare yourselves, all ye who leave me phone messages.

PPS My blog was taken down for a few days due to a snafu in a configuration file and the fact that I was celebrating my birthday over the weekend.

I was worried for a bit that I’d lost everything.  Thankfully fixing one line of code make everything work just fine again.  Also, I recently signed up for an account with Backupify to backup my social media endeavors in case the worst happens.  Things like this are also nice* wakeup calls for better routine db backups and maintenance.

Share/Save

I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Happy Holidays by zachschwoebel

I hope that you are enjoying the holiday with your family or other close loved ones.

If you faced travel I hope it went smoothly and you arrived safely at your destination.  If you were snowed in by inclement weather or otherwise unable to celebrate I hope that you will still make the best of it.

Now get off your computer and go have some fun!

Share/Save