One gift that geeks undeniably love are tools. The tricky thing is finding ones that not only they don't have, but also need. I can't imagine anyone interested in electronics NOT owning a soldering iron, but almost all beginners start out with a really useless $8 radioshack iron. That thing usually has a very blunt tip, is uncomfortable, and is almost never the right temperature. It really is amazing anyone can learn how to solder on one of those. Last year I became the proud owner of a Weller WLC100, and I suggest you do the same.
I'm sure you are wondering what makes this is soldering iron better.
-It's MUCH more comfortable in your hand
-It has a variable temperature dial so that you can gently heat components.
-It is much more stable on the desk, and it has an orange light on it that lights up whenever the unit is powered (and therefore much less likely to light your shop on fire!)
-And lastly, when you work with it you feel like you are using the proper tool for the job. We have all been in a situation where you are stripping wires with a kitchen knife, or cutting a hole in a box with a plastic fork. Sometimes you need to use the wrong tool for the job, but when you have the perfect tool for the job it really makes the process much more enjoyable.
I am going to do a series of posts on things that geeks might need for Christmas / the holiday season. It will be a learning process, as I am going to rely on the collective wisdom of the internet to pick between a few similar products. Some might be big and some might be small, but I can guarantee that more than a few people are lusting over these...
One important disclaimer is that you need to know the kind of geek you are shopping for
. If you buy a unix geek some anime, they might not be too excited. These gifts are for the kind of geek who is interested in hardware, robotics, DIY electronics, and microcontrollers (particularly Arduino!) If that describes the person on your wish list - you are in luck!
The first gift idea is a desktop mini vice. This is useful for soldering and working on small(ish) tabletop projects. These can not be used for holding a 2x4 while you cut it, but they are perfect for holding a circuit board while you solder in the components.
I saw this the other day while wandering around home depot. It looks like something I need. I've been lusting over this panavise for a bit, and there is a strong pull for the dremel one at half the price!
The dremel one looks like it would be easier to set up on a benchtop (i think you have to bolt the panavice down, the dremel has a clamp) and it looks like you could use either one for light machining, soldering, and dis/assembly.
The only contender to those two might be this cheapie panavice, but it doesn't look like it could stand up to some dremelling, and I like my tools to be multi-taskers!
So I'll put the question out there; has anyone used any of the three? I'd love to hear thoughts, or suggestions if you have something better!
Ever since I have fallen in love with the Canon 7d dslr, I have been fantasizing about making a legit follow focus for a dslr. It allows you to have more control over the focusing, and a smoother camera because your rotation is in a different axis as the lens. (You may hear more of my traditional FF plans in a few) In the meantime I saw a vimeo clip that had this little gem of an idea in it. For quick focus pulls a lever like this can't be beat, and it's dirt cheap as well! Here are all of the parts from the old home depot. Simple stuff. It totaled around $6, and it's enough to make 2 and have parts left over.
The first step is to cut out a few teeth in order to make room for the bolt.
This will be a simple post.
I want to put my love for dropbox into words. For those out of the know, dropbox is a simple online storage solution. They give you 2 gigs of storage for free. Some of the space can be web-accessible (should you choose) so you can post zip files or pictures for grandma, or even html and simple web sites. If you choose you can also not have the storage be web accessible. Simple as that.
The even cooler thing about dropbox is the way they handle the file transfer. On a mac dropbox installs as a menubarlet (tiny lil guy up by your battery monitor / wifi icon) and it syncs with a folder on your hard drive. You can put the dropbox folder wherever you choose. From now on, whenever you put something into the folder, or move it out, the same thing will happen with your 'online' version of it.
This is a super easy way to share files between the home and office computer, between office mates, quickly post quicktimes for review, or even share application settings. There are a TON of useful things you could use this for, simply because it shows up as an actual folder on your drive, not some only-web-accessible data ghetto like so many of the other services.
I have always wanted to do this kind of photography, but with most digital cameras there is simply no way you can leave the shutter open and the sensor on for a few hours. My D40 starts to get some serious noise after a few minutes, and there clearly must be an upper limit due to the sensor overheating. Luckily for me there is a relatively simple way to compose LOTS of shots into one image and achieve the same effect.
For those who only want to mile high review of it, here it is. Take a ton of pictures with a long-ish shutter speed. (for this one I used 10 seconds) and then layer them all in photoshop on top of each other and use the
"screen" blending mode to get them all visible.
The actual application of this can be difficult, because it is either REALLY time consuming, or it requires some thought and scripting. I decided to go for the latter and use my noggin a bit.
I have been looking for a way to add external power to my camera for a while. I have had some good ideas and even hacked together a workable prototype a while back. The problem was it wasn't very 'tight' and I was always afraid I was going to reverse polarity, or short it out, and it took a lot of time to set it up every time I wanted to use it.
This is one of those projects I've been working on for quite a while now, but never well enough to actually put it in a box! Well.. it still has no box, but it's much closer to a boxable form.
It is a RBBB arduino clone (but anyarduinowillwork) with an ir led, a potentiometer, a resistor, and some perfboard. The perfboard is as much there to help provide a little bit of wire strain relief as it is to provide a place to mount the pot. The code simply reads the pot input and converts it into a delay() function. Then it fires the IR led with the nikon-specific magic to tell my d40 to shoot.
Here is an example of one of the timelapses I have shot.
My newest project involves reincarnating a very old (1998) cd duplicating robot. It is a DTP-1000 that was originally SCSI only. Due to the fates smiling down upon me I was able to pick it up on ebay for $11. I bought it intending to put an arduino in the place of the control board and probably have to do a lot of reverse engineering. The next day I happened upon this site where, amazingly someone has already opened one of these up and has instructions on how to enable serial control! I still am in awe of how lucky I got and really happy that DarkBane dropped all of that knowledge on the world.
There are a lot of pics below, since that was the one thing I could do to add to the fine directions DarkBane has already provided. Another thing is that in his command set he has two typos. I will quote his post after the pix and note the command set in bold.
I just moved to Colorado, and being new to the area I was really excited to find out that there is a Denver maker's meetup. For those of you who don't know, a makers meetup is where inventors and fans of Make magazine get together and talk about their inventions, ideas, and plans. It is held at a hacker space called Club Workshop on the gritty side of denver. The shop is amazing! I didn't even get a tour, but I saw a full woodworking room, a metal shop, a multi-lift automotive shop, a small textile area, and their laser cutter. This place looks like the kind of place I could definitely spend some more time.
The meetings are loosely structured, and the point is to bring and show other people what you've been working on. This particular meeting was largely filled up by Ron Kessinger. He is an artist/inventor/sculptor/prototyper and even that description doesn't even begin to properly describe him. He brought a big binder filled with photos and sketches of his previous creations. He had pictures of the giant dome house he built, really cool collimated flow water sculptures, knives, and prototypes for a variety of industries and products.
The project that really took center stage was his ping-pong ball gun. You can think of this as a variation on a potato cannon, however his is built to run on compressed air, and it runs on much tighter tolerances.
) with an ir led, a potentiometer, a resistor, and some perfboard. The perfboard is as much there to help provide a little bit of wire strain relief as it is to provide a place to mount the pot. The code simply reads the pot input and converts it into a delay() function. Then it fires the IR led with the nikon-specific magic to tell my d40 to shoot.
