Working on improving the lighting for Jacki’s Slide Lamp. I got some PCBs a while back from here. They are made to run LED arrays. If you don’t want to run a ton of LEDs you can cut the board in half and use jumpers to fill empty holes. At least that’s what I did. We’ll see how it works in the long term.

Here is a board I did with half bright white and half soft white….

Not asleep yet? More after the jump….
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I made a solar system for the camper. I started this really not knowing what I was doing. I got it all done and still probably don’t know much :) It’s kinda ugly, but works great. Ran the first big test yesterday and came no where near killing the battery. We ran stuff on it all day and the battery only dropped to 12.5 volts (dead is 10.5). Stuff we ran all day: stereo, mp3 player, RF transmitter, and LED christmas lights. For part of the day it was charging my phone and then I put on a table lamp with a CFL in it. I’ll post the full test at the bottom of the post. The battery is an Optima D34 deep cycle battery. That damn thing cost as much as the rest of the system put together, but it looks like it was worth it. The only thing Amongst the things that we wont be able to run are the electric space heaters, toaster oven and electric skillet. They just draw too much juice. Most of them use from 1000 to 1500 watts and I don’t have an inverter large enough to handle it. Anyway on the the pictures….

This is the battery, charge controller, inverter, and LED lights from before I installed it in the camper.

If your still interested more after the jump….
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I saw this basic idea a while ago on a homebrew site or forum or something. I can’t remember where. Anyway we have had this stuck up in the attic for a while. I think we used to grow plants in it. It’s not the prettiest job of cutting the holes, but it works great. Check it out….

I cut three holes in the side and that seems to be enough airflow.

This was an idea that came about when I brought home several glass insulators from work. I was bored and picked them up out of ditches. So today I actually pulled the parts together and went for it. The one thing I didn’t have was a power supply. So a quick stop at Goodwill produced one for $1. You can’t beat that. Here are a couple pictures of the finished project. A complete rundown of the build under the fold.

:)

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Last night I finally got out my vacuum tubes and looked them up by their numbers. I have: 1 3B25 Half-Wave Gas Rectifier, 2 5U4-G Full-Wave Vacuum Rectifiers, 1 5U4-GB Full-Wave Vacuum Rectifier, 1 6850 Twin Power Beam Tube. Then I hooked up one of the 5U4-G to some power. I didn’t push the voltage hard on it, but take a look at it lighting up! :)

Then I finally mowed the yard for the first time today. What fun. While I was doing that Jacki painted the Toby step for the bedroom. After I got done mowing we cleaned up the garage some more and dug out to the lumber pile in the back of the garage. Cut the top to the Toby step so that Jacki can upholster it whenever she gets the fabric woven.

While digging to the lumber pile we had to drag out the half made bench that I have had shoved back there for probably a couple of years now. Jacki suggested that we finish up the bench today. So we drug out every say saw and drill I own and had at it. The only things left are to Polyurethane it and For Jacki to upholster the top/seat. It’s made out of old barnwood that I’ve had for a while now.

I managed to crank this out today. Jacki helped me get the loom warped and get the tension right. Then off to weaving! It turned out to be 46 inches by 24.5 inches. Pretty darn happy with it for number 2 weaving project. The warp is superwash yarn and the weft is handspun that I’ve been stockpiling for a rug. The handspun is from junk fiber that was then combed up on the hackle and made into yarn. So ya for getting a rug out of throw away fiber. :)

Not much else to report at the moment. Just an all done scarf. I’m pretty happy with it. The edges towards the beginning aren’t very pretty. They got much better as I progressed. So check it out….

The close up and gallery of all the yarn pictures….

Oh and it’s 7.5 inches by 64 inches :)

I made a Byzantine chain for the orifice hook on the Babe spinning wheel. You know it needed more bling. I totally ripped the idea off from Lilith Parker you can see her wheel here. So here are the pics…

Kicking it off with a good beer buy. Ommegang 10th Anniversary Belgian style Chocolate Stout. I’ve been want to pick up some of this for a while. So I got 3 bottles. I’ve even still got 2 left. :) I also got my yearly 6 Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot.

A really nice picture that Jacki took…

Some yarn that I finished up today. I’m calling it Forest Moss. 83 yds 4 3/8oz.

Moving on. Got the old computer out in the garage. It’s working as a music server and hanging out in the garage out of the way.

Also had an idea a while back about getting the humidifier to work better. The thing basically works by wicking water UP a wick a pulling air up from the wick to get water into the air. The wick is always dry half way up. So why not run water down the wick? Keeping the whole wick wet should get more water into the air.

So I got an old fountain pump that was in the attic. This was powered by a solar panel. That wasn’t going to work very well in the house. So I found an old cell phone charger and hacked that into it for the power supply. Seems to be working alright. I need to make a more efficient water delivery system, but it has to be better than it was before.

Here is the overall view.

The pump tucked in the water….

I finally got around to cutting and etching my PCBs (printed circuit boards) today. Fun in a scary as hell chemicals kinda way. I had one board that I had totally screwed up the resists on and sanded it back down. I had Jacki draw a resist on it using a sharpie. She chose to draw the cute guy from the video game Fallout. The best computer game evah.

Fallout intro movie…

The finished product. The Fallout Guy and three circuit boards.

Under the fold for more pics or the process….
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