making things – Page 59

food July 14, 2003

:)

Okay, so I see everyone is curious about the waffles… Well, here’s some more pictures for you. There are lots more waffles than one might imagine:

< -- In Freezer / On Counter -- >

Click for more!

Here’s the deal… Costco has large boxes of Eggo waffles for somewhere around $6. This isn’t much more than the price of a normal small box of waffles, so I got the large one. I figure they’ll make good breakfast and snack foods for the next while.

Tonight I got the cube back together for what is hopefully the last time. First off, I managed to pop the heatsinks off of the GeForce 2 MX after it’s time in the freezer. This went smoothly, and with the help of a razor blade and some starter fluid (mmm…ether) I got most of the epoxy residue off of the chips and heatsinks. Next came the mixing of the Arctic Silver epoxy. This was applied to the chips, and the heatsinks were clamped tightly in place. After a bit of time during which my friend Eric and I putzed around with a message board at thefest.org, I removed the clamps and happily, the heatsinks are now properly in place. Woo! The cube is back up and running, being happy as ever. I’m really happy to have it back. Also, I returned the crappy Kensington keyboard I had purchased and picked up one of the new Apple keyboards to go with the cube. Wow, what a difference… It’s so tiny, too. The board is literally only the size of the keys themselves. It fits very nicely right in front of my monitor. Woo! Finally a (completely) working Apple. I hope. ;)

computers July 14, 2003

:)

Ahh… The video card has been removed from the G4 Cube and placed in the freezer. Why, you ask? Well, it seems I dorked in epoxying the heatsink on and I need to remove it*. I think I screwed up the application of epoxy and didn’t get an even layer on the GPU. So, I’m borrowing a tube of Arctic Silver Silver Thermal Adhesive from a friend and I’m going to reapply the heatsink. Hopefully it will all go smoothly. The only problem I can see running into is if I crack the GPU when removing the heatsink, if I can’t get the epoxy off of the heatsink, or of I fail to apply the adheasive properly. Again. We’ll see… Click on this for a picture of the card in the freezer…

* Removal is accomplished by chilling the card inside a baggie then popping the heatsink off with a screwdriver. I’ve done it before, we’ll see if it works this time.

computers July 13, 2003

:)

Well, after a bit of hacking around I got a GeForce 2 MX to fit nicely inside of a PowerMac G4 Cube. See?

Click for more…

Just for reference, this is a Dell OEM Nvidia GeForce 2 MX combined with cutdown pieces of the original heatsink from a Netpliance I-Opener.

acquired things May 30, 2003

:D

Amazingly styled packaging,
down to the last detail!
(Click image for more…)

Yep, I actually did it… I got one. While the iPod is charging I’m going to tear my dashboard apart so that I can build a shelf for the iPod in place of the OEM cassette deck. We’ll see how that goes… I’m all excited, though.

automotive May 29, 2003

:\

Hmm. Does anyone know where to get custom car parts made? What I’m looking for specifically is a replacement center console cover for a 2000 Grand Am. There’s lots of room in the center console, and I want to move the fan controls down a bunch and have room for an 8″ or so touch screen LCD. There would be plenty of room behind the console to add a PC/104-based computer, which would be booted from CompactFlash, and the music could be stored on a FireWire or USB 2.0 hard drive in the trunk. I think the whole thing could be put together for under $500, and it’d be really nice to have a completely custom system like this. It might even be possible to add a radio tuner.

Or, I could just rerip all my music to MP3 and get either an mp3-enabled stereo or an iPod. I think the iPod might be cheaper at this point, as my stereo already has line level ins.

computers January 20, 2003

Hurray!

Yay! I *FINALLY* have a functioning laser printer at home. See, in 1995 my parents got me a LaserJet 5L for Christmas. The thing always worked fine. It prints great, everything, but after a while it developed the typical LaserJet 5L/6L feed problem, much like they all did. It turns out that there is a place called fixyourownprinter.com which sells kits and instructions for fixing common printer problems. So, $30 and about half an hour’s worth of work later, my printer works fine. Woo! I also threw in a spare toner cartridge I’d had since 1996/1997 and physically cleaned the printer up a bit, and now it’s like new.

electronics January 8, 2003

Nixie Tube Clock

Well, I just pretty much let the auction evaporate at $125 for the clock. I think what I’m going to end up doing is building this clock right here. There’s a couple of reasons for this… A) I’d really like to actually build my own clock, I just hope I do a good job soldering and such. I’ll probably have to practice beforehand on some old motherboards or kits or something. B) I’d like a clock where you can see at least some of the circuitry. C) This clock listed here is built to sync off of the WWVB transmissions, much like a few of the other clocks in my house. This is a GREAT feature. D) This clock uses huge Z5680M 100mm high tubes (50mm numbers) which will be nice from reading across the bedroom. I’d also be able to finish the base in a color which would better match my bedroom, where the clock will live.

So… Yeah. No clock for me tonight. It’s probably better for my pocketbook, anyway. Oh, I just checked and the auction jumped to $154.25 at the last minute. So, it’s good that I didn’t bid. Oh well, I’ll build one eventually. Maybe after this current computer job that I’m working on for my dentist. That job is paying about $500 and is for upgrading three computers. That extra $500 should pay off my CC. Maybe with whatever is left over I’ll get the necessary stuff for the nixie clock. While I want to work on the bed, I need to wait for it to get a little warmer out. This would be a good winter project.

electronics January 8, 2003

Nixie

So I want a Nixie tube clock… Here’s the problem. There are some really nice clocks up on eBay, likely to go for the same price as it would cost me to build a clock. The question is, how soon would I be able to build a clock? I’d love the warmth of a nixie clock in my bedroom, but should I wait and build one and hope I do it right, or spend the same amount for a nice looking, finished, functional clock?

acquired things October 15, 2002

Homey Stuff II

Well, today I went and got the moulding for putting around the ceiling of my bedroom. I also got a router. A router is the one thing I’ve been needing in order to finish working on building my new bed. The best part of getting the router, though… I’ll start from the beginning. When I was at Home Depot earlier today getting the moulding, I saw this $59.99 Ryobi router that seemed to be just about everything I needed. It locks so bit changes are easy, pistol grip handles with a locking on/off switch on the handle, 1 1/2 HP, easily adjustable, and cheap. So, that all works out. I go home, get the $25 Home Depot Gift Certificate that I got from my sister and brother-in-law for my birthday, then head over there. Well, when I was grabbing the gift certificate, I found another one gift cert that I thought had maybe $1 or $2 left on it. I took it along, figuring I’d use it up. When I got to the cash register it turns out that this gift card somehow had $50 on it. So there we go. Free router! Woo!

I’m going to borrow my dad’s Black And Decker Workmate and his chop saw. Then I’ll be able to cut the moulding, route out the mortises on the bed, and generally keep progressing towards a nice looking, comfortable bedroom, complete with a big, soft, comfy bed. Yay!

But now, it’s time for bed. I’m Mr. Sleepyhead and tomorrow night is the Underworld show. Woo! I took Wednesday off, that will be a good day of rest. Maybe I’ll get started on the bedroom then. I need to pull everything away from the walls, wash the walls, patch the little nail holes, clean up calk overflow from when the place was build, then start tacking up the moulding. After that comes the hardest part. Picking out colors. Then painting, then I’ll move all the furnature out, clean the carpet with my parents steam cleaner, then it’ll be all good to go.

Somewhere in there needs to be time to clean the bathrooms, eat, do laundry, and just generally live. Gah! heh.

around the house June 26, 2002

What a wonderful storm we had today. I arrived home from work just in time to see the deep purple, grey, and blue clouds boiling up above my house. I wandered around outside a little, came in, then the downpour started.

It was just so wonderful… The lightning, the rain, the wind, everything just right.

Tonight I started work on two projects. Well, one of them is actually a continuation of something I was doing about a year ago. Tonight I put the first coat of paint on the door leading from my laundry room into the garage. It was half painted the original builder’s tan, and the other half was the aweful flat gray my uncle painted most of this place when my grandparents lived here. Now both sides have an initial coat of the green smokish color that my kitchen and laundry room both are.

The other thing I started back on was building a bed. About a year ago I decided that I wanted a nice solid wood bed. Since nice solid wood beds are prohibitively expensive, I decided to build one. It’s a solid oak mission style bed. I think it will be finished in a fairly standard darker oak color to match the furnature that is already in my bedroom. Some new hardware on the furnature, a new ceiling fan, lamps, and some other accessories and the bedroom should look good. It’ll also be nice to have a queen sized bed instead of the twin that I’ve had my whole life. If you’re interested in seeing pictures, they are in the newest catagory at the standard place.