Category: making things

Impromptu Cheese Spread

June 13, 2009

This is what happens when I’m cleaning the fridge and decide to turn the leftover (and rather old) stubs of high quality cheese into cheese spread. Taking the general idea from this Good Eats recipe I took about six ounces of cheese, 1.5 Tbsp of butter, one clove of garlic, and a pinch of (inadvertantly) refrigerator dried parsley and processed it all together. The resulting spread is very good, but quite salty. I think it’ll work best as a potato or corn topping, or maybe a sandwich spread to compliment something else.

The cheeses used were very dried pieces of Montgomery Cheddar, Stitchelton, Raw Milk Clothbound Cheddar, and Caerphilly which were grated on a Microplane to near the rind. These grated cheeses were then padded out to roughly six ounces with about two ounces of Tillamook Vintage White Extra Sharp Cheddar which is waiting around for me to use in more macaroni and cheese.

food making things

iPod Dock Line Out to 3.5mm / 1/8″ TRS Jack

June 11, 2009

Once the parts arrive I’ll be building an AMB Mini³ headphone amplifier. As I intend to use it with my iPod, I needed an iPod dock to 3.5mm / 1.8″ TRS jack. Using parts laying around the house I made this cable, and it should work just fine. I wish I had some Techflex to jacket the cable, but I guess it looks good enough without it.

electronics making things

USPS Click-N-Ship

May 11, 2009

After hearing from icis_machine I decided to give USPS Click-N-Ship a try for both domestic and international packages. In short, it worked great, and didn’t require me to hand-fill any customs forms. Additionally, the postage costs a good bit cheaper than visiting the Post Office in person.

Now I just have to figure out the best way to handle adhering the labels / address forms to the packages. For today’s shipment (as shown above) I just printed the labels on plain paper and stuck them on with rubber cement. In the future I may consider self-adhesive full sheet labels, but that’s also a bit wasteful if I’m not printing at least two labels with each go.

making things

SDrive NUXX CAD Data Under Creative Commons License

May 10, 2009

The SDrive NUXX CAD data (schematic and PCB layout) have been released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. Hopefully this will allow others to freely build upon this design, taking it to all manner of new / interesting places.

Please see the Design Documents portion of the SDrive NUXX page to download these files.

electronics making things

Customs Declarations

May 4, 2009

Filling out customs declarations is a real big hassle. Because of their odd size they must all be hand-written. Additionally, when I dropped all of these international SDrive NUXX orders off at the Post Office, the person working at the counter admonished me for sticking the declarations to the back of the packages. This bothers me because there isn’t enough room to fit them on the front of most small packages, the directions do not indicate that one should apply them to any particular area of the package, and I’ve historically had no problem with them stuck to the back.

Ah well, at least all the international shipments are set. Now I just need to sell a few more so that I break even on the project and everything will be set. Oh, and prep the CAD and artwork files for release…

electronics making things

Functional / Safe Rear Wheel

May 2, 2009

After getting home from Danielle’s house (and listening to one episode of This American Life each direction) I spent some time finishing off my rear wheel. Once it was dished to my satisfaction, trued, and reassembled I fitted it to my bike and went for a series of test rides. The tire was the Continental TravelContact at 55psi, which is what was on the bike when the last two nipples broke.

The first was a rather uneventful jaunt around the neighborhood using the Winwood Decksters, so then I decided to go for a bit longer ride. After donning a headlight I took off on the ~15 mile local loop, up to (and through) River Bends, back down 21 Mile, through a neighborhood, then over to my house. Along this entire route I made a point of keeping my weight over the rear wheel as much as possible, especially when going up sidewalk aprons, over large cracks in the pavement, roots, sticks, etc. Basically, I was trying to put a bit more than normal (for me) force on the wheels.

Half-way through the ride, in River Bends, a quick check showed that the wheel was just as true as when I’d left the house. Even better, I wasn’t hearing any of the occasional spoke-twang sounds from that wheel. They were still occasionally there from the front (especially when cornering hard), but the rear was spot-on.

I’ll definitely be rebuilding the front wheel in the same way quite soon. Hopefully that will be the last time I touch them.

cycling making things

Nipples: Replaced

May 2, 2009

After four and a half hours (or so) of work, all of the alloy nipples in my geared bike’s rear wheel have been replaced. While the wheel is pretty true (maybe 0.5mm out at the largest spot) the dishing is still about 5mm off, so I’ll have to do more playing another day.

Also, that image above shows one of the feeler gauges recommended in the Wheelpro Book. It seems to work pretty well, although I do need to get better at using it. I imagine that will take quite some time.

(I also must fix the damned Park SW-40 spoke wrench. Its got a nice head on it, but the curved handle part bends too far over the head, so when the spoke comes off of the nipple at a slight angle the tool gets stuck in place.)

cycling making things

Plastic Bottles from Sally Beauty Supply

May 1, 2009

At lunch today I purchased these two plastic bottles from Sally Beauty Supply to be used in applying boiled linseed oil to the spokes and nipples when rebuilding my bicycle wheels. I think I’ll give this a go after work today, as I’ve got a bit of time this evening and I could use a nice, focused, new project like this.

I’m just hoping that the hole on the tip of the larger bottle is small enough to allow for one drop at a time. It’s about 1mm, so I think it should be sufficient. If not, I guess I’ll just go to a dollar store, buy some cheap eye drops, empty the bottle, then use it. I think this will be all right, though.

acquired things cycling making things

Sixteen Assembled SDrive NUXXs

April 28, 2009

Here’s one more SDrive NUXX photo for tonight: sixteen fully assembled devices with 2GB SD cards in the slots, awaiting final testing. Here’s a few more photos, which I’ll just link directly to:

· 16 front and rear end panels snapped into 32 bezels, ready for final assembly to begin.
· Rear panels fitted to the cases. Note that the plastic is left on the panels to protect them.
· PCB slid into an enclosure with the rear panel fitted, showing the front edge components.
· Front panel fitted on an SDrive NUXX showing the nice alignment of the tactile switches, LEDs, toggle switch, etc.
· Rear panel of an assembled SDrive NUXX showing how the DIP switches, reset button, and SIO connector align with the panel.
· SDrive NUXXs with panels and PCBs fitted, waiting for the installation of rubber feet and switch caps.
· Detail of the SDrive NUXX end panels, shown with the protective plastic film still in place.

I hope to have these, and all the other related orders (PCBs, uCs, kits, etc) ready to ship by the end of the weekend so that I can get them out on Monday.

electronics making things

First Complete SDrive NUXX

April 28, 2009

There it is, the first completely assembled SDrive NUXX. Here’s the back, showing the SIO connector, reset button, and DIP switches.

I’m really, really happy with the MetalPhoto material used for the end panels. The manufacturer also did an outstanding job with the panels themselves. They snap nicely into the bezels, fit perfectly with the PCB, and just work.

After I finish eating this giant leftover portion of biyrani I think I’ll get to work assembling the rest of them.

electronics making things