Jan Lategahn (Germany) has put together a series of articles and links describing simple ways to calibrate amateur electronic instruments with a fair degree of accuracy without having to spend a bundle on a professional calibration lab. Methods and devices include DC and AC voltages, resistance, current, RF level, and frequency. Above are Jan’s homemade […]
Every week it’s my job to create a tutorial for How-To Tuesdays. The projects themselves are fun, crafty and creative, but making a tutorial while crafting presents a unique challenge. I try to write careful and thoughtful instructions for each project, but my goal is for any reader to be able to follow a project […]
Jared Bouck is the driving force behind Sprout Board, an Arduino breakout board that lets you plug in a Duemilanove and a shield and provides a panel-mount set of screw terminals, all in a rack-mountable form factor. The prototype application for the SproutBoard is a DIY server room monitor that can be configured to provide remote temperature and humidity, motion, liquid water, smoke, room entry, and mains power monitoring. Local monitoring options include an LCD display and an audio alarm module. They’ll sell you the Sprout Board itself, in kit form, for $50, or a complete bare-bones server monitor with a fully assembled and tested Spout Board, an Arduino, an Ethernet Shield, a serial LCD display, a wall mount chassis, and a temperature/humidity sensor board for $250, which is about 1/5th the price of a comparable commercial system.
Since I don’t have a facebook account, I sometimes existentially ponder if I’ve ever “liked” anything, ever. But, I do seem to “like” these Like/Dislike stamps! If you “like” them, and use facebook, avoid inking up your monitor! Just click the “like” button at the bottom of this post! [via betterlivingthroughdesign]
Designer Craighton Berman makes these cool lamps that are mostly formed from their own extension cords. Plus a laser-cut acrylic frame and a basic lamp kit. He’ll see you just the frame and the lamp, so you can roll your own, or a complete lamp pre-wound with a 100′ cord.
Laura Cesari, aka Chain of Being, makes beaded models of the solar system that, by the way, can also be worn as necklaces. Her work was recently featured on the blog of Carl Sagan’s Planetary Society:
Blow-molding (Wikipedia) is an thermoplastic forming process in which a hot polymer pre-form is injected with gas to press it against the inside of a hollow mold. It’s how most plastic bottles are made. Designer George Fereday got annoyed that the primarily-industrial process was so inaccessible and decided to build his own DIY version, which extrudes pre-melted polymorph plastic through a custom die attached to a normal caulking gun to create the hollow pre-form. There’s more detail over at Core77.
