TINYenormous – Build it up to break it down again – Page 12

The heavens parted, and Craigslist shone down upon me…

I’ve been getting more and more into my camera lately. The other day I was browsing Craigslist and I saw an interesting ad… Skip a few steps and I ended up with a bunch of new lenses, an old film body, and a lot of other doodads. Just because I had fun shooting it, you will find pix of the new lenses below.

I’ve also been reading the strobist a lot lately, and I was trying to get a decent light setup going. Trying is the most important part of that sentence : )

I’ve been shooting some time lapses with this one lately. More to come on that.

Continue reading “The heavens parted, and Craigslist shone down upon me…”

Cool Idea for a DIY Jeweler

I just ran across oye modern’s site. They have a cool line of bracelets / cuffs that are made out of the exterior aluminum of camera lenses.

It’s an interesting idea, but I hardly think it is worth au$300. If I run into a lens that is trash anytime soon – It’s on. This kind of reminds me of the bottle openers made out of bike parts and the bike chain bracelets.

bike_chain_bottle_opener

008biker_chain_big

It’s a cool idea, but I’m not sure who is going to pay for it.

About to burst

So I’ve been doing an absolute TON of blogging lately.

Unfortunately it has all been in my head! I’ve got a bunch of posts queued up, I just need to put the last lil bit of spit polish on them and then they’ll be released to the world. I promise.

Arduino LCD gmail subject

Continuing on in the (Long) line of arduino+rss hacks, here is some python code that parses a gmail rss feed. This is a throwback to the post that started it all, the arduino gmail notifier. The original code was tweaked a bit to display the subjects of new mail on an lcd screen.

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Rss Parser for twitter

Continuing on the line of arduino+rss hacks, here is some python code that parses Tweets. By changing the rss feed you can either follow one person’s tweets, or you can access your “follow” feed (i.e. everyone you follow on twitter.com) In order to do the second option you will have to supply your login credentials.

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Update for arduino / python / rss reader – Weather!

I just whipped up this script that checks and displays the weather through rssweather.com. As always, it requires feedparser, an arduino, and a lcd screen. It is currently configured to read Burlington Vt’s weather, so if you don’t live there – change it in the python file. Check out the commenting for more info. Click here to download the zip file. Arduino rss reader – Weather module

For those of you just tuning in – you might want to check out the original arduino rss reader post for more details

Also check out the twitter feed reader.

Arduino based rss reader – W/Check Facebook Status Updates script.

My last project, the arduino gmail checker really opened my eyes to python/rss/arduino integration. I branched out from there to use feedparser for more conventional rss reading and I ended up with a python script that pulls in your friend updates from facebook. That was cool watching it scroll by in terminal, but I decided to geek it up a bit and make it display out through a serial lcd. Nothing is more distracting than a lcd flickering constantly at your desk!
Here’s a pic of it doing it’s thing.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypshRUC20sw[/youtube]

Here’s how I did it.

Continue reading “Arduino based rss reader – W/Check Facebook Status Updates script.”

gmail notifier project (for dummies)

I’ve been really interested in doing J4mie’s Physical Gmail Notifier ever since it came out in February. I only recently dropped into the project and got to learn a lot about python, plists, and arduino auto-reset functionality. I’m going to share what I’ve learned because I think there are lots of other people out there struggling to make it work. This page doesn’t really offer much that J4mie didn’t already say – it just says it in a different way.

I’ll post the code below – one issue with the way J4mie posted his was that it appended line numbers to everything and messed with formatting. Python is _really_ picky about formatting! All of the files are zipped HERE. It consists of three documents –

1) one python script that logs into your gmail rss feed and checks your total number of new messages. It then sends either an ‘m’ or an ‘n’ to the serial port.

2) one arduino sketch that tells the arduino to turn on or off a light based on the serial input

3) one .plist file that tells your mac (sorry pcs!) to run the python script every 60 seconds. If you run windows or linux then I’m sure there is something you can do to schedule this. You could also just set it to loop until quit. (to quit a script in terminal hit control-c)

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2008 Arduino Holiday Gift Guide

In making my list annual of goodies I usually look for other people who have compiled “gift guides” aimed specifically at geeks like me. Usually they are written for the wrong kind of geek, and are full of things like star trek stuff, D&D, LEGO, or model airplane parts. All of those things are definitely geeky, but are not what I am looking for. Last year I bought and Arduino largely due to the 2007 arduino gift guide put out by MAKE mag

This year they have a $20 and under guide (no doubt influenced by the recession!) but no arduino-specific guide. I decided to put the things I have been pining over, as well as the things I have been really enjoying into a list. I will put a few of the tastier options below, but I decided to create an amazon list so that anyone interested can go to one spot and buy within a few clicks!

There are some tools in there, some shields, as well as some arduinos for newb and seasoned professionals.

The coolest thing I am excited about is Ladyada’s electronic toolbox. It is a TON of tools that she put together into one beginner kit. This is seriously everything that you would need to go very far with an arduino. It certainly is enough to get you well on your way!

From her site, the kit contains:
30W adjustable temperature soldering iron (Model XY258)
Soldering stand
Solder, rosin-core, 0.031″ diameter, 1/4 lb (100g) spool
Solder sucker<
Solder wick/braid 5ft spool
Panavise Jr
Basic multimeter (model MAS830)
Diagonal cutters
Wire strippers
Micro needle-nose pliers
Solid-core wire, 22AWG, 25ft spools
Half size solderless breadboard
5V power supply kit –
ALL FOR $100 Bucks!!

If your geek guy/gal has been in ‘the game’ for a while then they have probably grabbed most of these items already. It might be a good idea to look and purchase items separately to ‘fill in the gaps’ though. If you are shopping for a newbie, then you are in luck. With this tool kit and a few things to solder together they will be very happy come christmas!

As I reviewed previously, the book Making Things Talk
is a great book for figuring out communication into and out of an arduino. It has a lot of different examples in it from entry level to advanced.

Sometimes it’s the simple things that make things easier. When a mechanic has the right tool it can turn a 3 hour knucklebuster into a 5 minute breeze. Continue reading “2008 Arduino Holiday Gift Guide”

DIY CNC router build update

It’s been quite a while since my router arrived in the mail. It came in mid winter and essentially stopped all cnc progress. It was much heavier than I had expected, and the gantry I had built wasn’t up to the task. The x and y axes were finished, but needed to be rebuilt stronger. The last few weeks has seen the end of summer weather and the return of my tinkering productivity. I have put in a ton of time thinking, cutting and swearing in my garage.

Continue reading “DIY CNC router build update”