So, quite a while ago, I told you all that I’d post a video of the matrix showing the current temperature. Well, here it is. Also I’ve recently added some fun patterns that happen randomly between the temperature readout. In this video, you see only one of each random pattern/sprite/whatever you want to call it, but in reality they are chosen randomly, so it’s likely that you’d see repeats of the same pattern.
So, here I am, minding my own business, and all of a sudden, this thing grabs me by the short hairs and says, “BUY ME GOD DAMN IT!” So I did. It was even half off! Once you see the pictures you will understand it’s brilliance. See look!
Also, please take time to notice that the front of this thing says the word “Portable.” It also appears that the machine is made almost entirely of steel, which it is. STEEL + MORE STEEL = FREAKING HEAVY. This is in the same way “Portable” as the original laptops. You don’t really want to port ’em around much.
The best part is, IT WORKS! At first I couldn’t figure out how to make it add, but I’ve got that down now. So the next question is how to make it subtract, as I’m fairly sure it has that functionality. Anyway, thought I’d share my find.
Well, as you may or may not know, I have a somewhat modified car audio system in my truck. However, recently my amplifier died. What a jerk!
Anyway, I pulled the amp out of my truck to see if I could figure out why it wouldn’t turn on, and possibly fix it. This is the tale of that saga. (Mostly in pictures.)
To start with, here’s my amp. Just an old one that my step-dad gave me. It’s an oldie, but a goodie, and has served me well in the past. Also, free is better than having to pay for a new one. YAY FIXING STUFF!
Here’s the amp with the cover off so you can see the circuit board. This was taken after I fixed it, but I’ll show you the broken part (that I found) in a minute.
As you can see, it contains many electrical components. Shiny…
Here’s the blown resistor I found and subsequently replaced.
That resistor was the only visibly broken part, unfortunately, electrically it wasn’t. I believe that there is a transistor in there that is still broken, but using my “mad skillz” (Yes, thats skills with a z), I worked around that. The amp uses a line from the stereo that says, when there is power on this line, turn on. Unfortunately, it wasn’t reading that. So I bypassed that whole process and disconnected the shutdown circuitry that keeps the amp off when the remote line is off. So now, if there’s power to the amp, it’s on. I’ll just have to install a switch.
Perhaps the manufacturer should have added a little bit of this dietary supplement to help out that poor little resistor.
Well, as you may or may not have heard, It’s been snowing a little bit off and on here in Seattle over the past day or two. Unfortunately not enough for a snow day, but I enjoy what I can from the snow none-the-less.
It also gave me a chance to test out the camera on my new phone I got for my birthday over winter break. (Yes, I know, that was like… forever ago. Big deal.) So, I took a picture of the snow out the window. Please forgive the glare.
So that is fun.
I’ve also been highly enjoying my Minerals and Gems class. We’ve been talking about all sorts of cool rocks, and have had the chance to play with some absolutely stunning samples. Unfortunately, the camera doesn’t do so well close up I’ve found, and the pictures don’t do any justice to these samples, but here they are anyway.
This is a chunk of Pyrite (Fool’s Gold). You can see that the larger chunk is in a cube form. This is caused by the fact that the crystal structure of Pyrite also happens to be cubic. (Cubes can only be formed by cubic structures, however, cubic structures can form other shapes.) You can also see that a second cube of Pyrite is growing inside the first one, and has begun to protrude! This is something that someone dug out of the ground somewhere! To have it in a perfect cube shape, and then have another cube growing out of it! It’s extraordinarily hard to believe that this is naturally occurring!
This is another sample of Pyrite, but this has two smaller cubes growing out of each other. Again, this is a natural sample dug up somewhere!
As labeled, this is a chunk of rock containing some Azurite (the blue stuff), and some Malachite (the green stuff). It’s kinda hard to tell in the fuzzy picture, but all those little bits are all tiny crystals of each color. Another natural sample, but I assume this one was on the inside of something and it was busted open.
Here’s another picture of the same stuff just in a different environment. Malachite and Azurite like to grow inwards to fill voids. You can see here where the surrounding rock had cracks and open space in it, and the two grew inwards from the walls to fill the space. This one is a natural sample, however it was cut, and polished. So you wouldn’t see it in the wild like this, but it does give us a better look at it’s growing habits.
Anyways, that’s it that’s actually relating to my post title. In other news, I finally got those relays ordered for my Binary Addition Machine. Hopefully they should be here by the end of the week. I suppose we’ll have to see. I’m planning on taking my time with this project and making it nice, so it will take a while. However, I will be photo-documenting the whole process, so it should come out to be a nice progression of pictures when I’m done.
That’s all. Nigel Out.
So I finally got my Arduino and a few parts from SparkFun and I have to say that I am very excited about it. I’ve been playing with it a good deal already, and have accomplished quite a few little projects so far.
The first one I did was I hooked up a little dual color led matrix to it, and made it display random patterns of Red, Green, and Orange (Turning both red and green LEDs on at once). Here’s a little video of it doing so!
Here’s a pic of it in the light, and not on.
The next thing I did was to hook up this little character lcd screen, like the one I have my general system stats printing out on. Unfortunately I don’t have it working quite right yet, but we’ll get there. Here’s a picture of it anyway!
The next thing I did was take some DS1621+ temperature sensors I had laying around and hooked them up to it. Then had it feed the data back over the serial line to my computer. Temperatures are shown in Fahrenheit in this picture:
Apparently, my refrigerator isn’t cold enough…
Here’s a picture of the Arduino board itself:
And here’s a shot showing the wires running from it to the temp sensor in the fridge which is too warm.
