Portfolio
Just a collection of things that I have made over the years. In some cases there are links to more complete post. Its a simple way to document my work.
Home Made Solar Panels
It doesn’t get much better then harvesting your own power. I spent some time living on rural land learning and blossoming. While there I made my first PCB and programmed my first microcontroller. It was a DIY kind of adventure. Also I put together these solar panels and spent a lot of time playing with batteries. The cells were broken when purchased, seconds, but cheap!
Echinodermata Wall Sconce
The Echinodermata ceramic wall sconce, LED module, and capacitive touch sensor board. A collaborative art project with ceramic artist Bridget Fox.
For more detailed information, Check out the full post here…
Ups and Downs: Graphic Home Equalizer
Collaborative interactive art piece with Dr. Craig Coleman. I was responsible for the electronics. There are two electret mics, an amplifier, a PIC, and a MAX7219 that control the LEDs. Its basically a big VU meter, however it does periodically run through some Morse code that spells out the word “HOUSE”.
This is a large tube development board. The tube modules can be bolted down to the plastic peg board and wired up for experimentation. Here I have assembled a working amplifier that drives an old Klipschorn speaker. The idea for the pegboard is not my own, but for the life of me I can’t find the post that I read about it in.
PyroLogger
This is a kiln datalogger I built for my potter friends. It uses the One Wire Bus and a Lithium Ion battery monitor chip as the sensor conditioner. Its a neat solution because the chip can see +-58mV perfect for a type K thermocouple and its 12 bit. You don’t have to amplify the signal first, and it has an on chip thermometer so its easy to do cold junction compensation. All of the polynomial math is handled by Python on the main computer. I wrote a nice GUI in wxWidgets that shows the graph in real time. Everything gets logged to a file and later I produce daily graphs of the firing. All of the collected graphs and more information about the electronics can be found on my Mercer page.
For detailed information, check out the full post here…
Fake Thermocouple
This is a precision mV source. It is basically a fake thermocouple. You do course adjustments with the big pot, and fine adjustments with the multi-turn pot. Very handy for pretending to be a thermocouple without having to use a type K and blowtorch. Aaahhhh, but where is the fun in that.
For detailed information and schematic, check out the full post here…
CNC Machine
This is an old circuit board plotter that I have reconditioned and converted to use Linux EMC as the control software. It was a pretty large undertaking to get it all functioning again. Now I can cut wood and metal and hopefully soon circuit boards. There is an extensive write up, with lots of finished projects, code, and machine documentation see more at Souly Solar Rebuilds.
Night Light
A collaborative art piece with Bridget Fox, ceramic artist. Custom electronics in the base sense light and turn on a high brightness blue LED. Its a night light and puts out enough light that you can navigate a small room in the dark.
Home Made Headlamp
A head lamp I made several years ago. It uses a Luxeon star emitter and custom electronics as a driver. I turned the head piece on a lathe and all of the metal work is done with saws and files. It still works decently now and has gone through many iterations. Its affectionately referred to as “The Sun”
Vica Kiosk
A VICA Kiosk I worked on while at Central Georgia Technical College. I wired up the bottom. Mostly relays and a PLC. There was an interesting umbilical Mercury switch that allowed the top to spin without winding up the wiring. The top portion and pole lit up and displayed things on the monitors. It was really a showcase for the school and many different departments, automotive did the cool paint job, woodworking made the frame, welding did some brackets, drafting did the overall design, and electronics did the wiring. I made a few boards that sequenced LED’s around the edges. It took first in the annual competition.
Early Circuit Boards
Just a couple of shots of circuit boards. One is a controller for our back step lights. The other is a group of PIC12F629 development boards. Early etched toner boards.
Port Checker
PIC16F74 Port Checker. Built to test microcontrollers after an embedded systems class to see if they have any blown pins. Wire wrapped, like they do it in the class.
More details including code, check out the full post here…
AstraLED
A new driver board for a Lumex’s AstraLED™ RGB LED. Integrated capacitive touch sensor using a qprox chip. Constant current FET drivers. CNC machined case made out of mahogany. Pogo pin programming port.
Eyeball Subwoofer
Giant EyeBall SubWoofer made out of an old pool sand filter ball. All the veins are raised up with wire and caulk and painted to look “Real” It was fun to build, and shakes the house.
LightBox
Work in progress BoxLight design. CNC milled birch plywood box slides together. Reverse engineered SureElectronics LED module. A slider dials in the color. Its for a friend that does macro photography of small creatures.
Random Number Generators
True random number generators. They use current going through a transistor the wrong way to create white noise. The noise is sampled and highs are 1s and lows are 0s. The circuit on the left sends the data to a computer through the FTDI serial chip. The one on the right collects the data in bins and displays it on the Nokia cell phone screen. I experimented with different construction techniques for both. Inspired by the Princeton Global Consciousness Project.
The Devil
Large outdoor sculpture. This is “The Devil”. I wanted to animate his limbs and head. He is positionable, but as of yet doesn’t move on his own.
The Bench
The pallet bench at home for perspective…
Looking forward to seeing ‘the devil’ move!!! Ha!
[…] Homemade subwoofer – from a pool filter! […]