Projects galore
There is no shortage of projects I’m working on. It’s too bad they’re not related to our adopted children…..
I received all four of the lighting controller boards. Now, I’m waiting for the electronic components needed for populating the boards. If I don’t watch it, these could end up consuming a small fortune. The boards and components aren’t going to be outrageously expensive. There are also wood, wire, metal, plastic and other parts to build displays for over 100 strings of Christmas lights that will be controlled by these boards. If I do it right, the supplies needed will be scrounged up from the twincitiesfreemarket org or craigslist.com websites. This project is going to be fun to do, and hopefully worth it in the end. For an example of what it ‘may’ look like:
Amazing Grace Techno – Computer Controlled Christmas Lights from Richard Holdman on Vimeo.
Click on the link above to go Richard Holdman’s other videos. You’ll be impressed. I like the 2007 videos, when the lights were on his house better than the 2008, when he put them up at a vacant lot in town.
OK, so this guy has 80 more channels of lights than I will have, his house is nicer and he is obviously more experienced at this than I am – but you get the idea. I’m also going to try to build an FM transmitter to get the music out in the airwaves around our house. The FM transmitter may be the tricky part. I’ve heard that they can be finicky when it comes to staying locked exactly on a frequency, without drifting. I may have to buy one if I can’t build a satisfactory home-made version.
Other projects include building guitar effects pedals. So far, finished is a digital delay and a mild distortion. I’m currently working on a chorus pedal. After the chorus, I’ll work on a tremolo and a couple more. I’ve been trying to get a depth of field adaptor made for my video camera for some time. There hasn’t been a lot of work done on it because I’m waiting for a friend to get a CNC machine finished so I can get a part milled for the adaptor. I’ve also been building remote controllers (LANC on a pro video camera) for the Canon HV20 video camera and selling them. I’m trying to get Mitch to help out building them, but I’ve still been in the designing and tweaking stage. The design should be fixed now, so he can help build them and make some money. We’ve sold a few so far.
