Pinewood Derby Mars Rover

Hey Pinewood Derby Race Fans!

Need an idea for this coming Pinewood season? Have a look at our Mars Rover from the 2012 race season. I’m proud to announce we won first place for the “People’s Choice” award. Good thing too, this car design is not the fastest car on the track.

The three blinky LED lights are all hacked from other sources. The big dish on top came from K Mart. The dish was a sphere before we broke it open. It was originally designed to float in a fruit punch bowl. K Mart sold them as a pair for $5 bucks.

The two tail lamps were tea LED lights. Bought these in the grocery – these can be had for around 30 cents each. We hacked them down and be smaller then the originals. The on/off switch also got reworked so that it now accessible along the back edge. Otherwise, the switch points out of the bottom of the lamp.

The top deck is covered in aluminum foil. The bottom chassis is covered in copper tape. The copper tape was some 1″ sticky tape I’ve had forever, and a day. The two covering gave the car a nice two tone look. Note, the middle wheel is non-functional and is mounted a full 1/4″ above the track.

Well, hope this give you some more ideas for you next car. If so, post some comments below.

Holiday Living LED Tealight

Just goofing around today with all my Xmas stuff. Thought this might be interesting to someone.

Have you ever wondered what makes one of these LED lamps flicker? I did too. So, one of the lamps had to volunteer to be opened up for a little closer inspection.

I was shocked at the simplicity of the lamp. One CR2032 coin cell battery keeps the lamp flickering for hours. Saying the lamp is flickering is a stretch. Seems more likely the lamp is randomly jumping between half a dozen set PWM values. Still, how do they do that? There is just the battery, a switch, and an amber LED. How does the LED flicker at all?

Well, turns out, the LED has a tiny ASIC built right into the plastic of the LED. The tiny ASIC is “encapsulated” into the LED itself.

Below are a some more closeup pictures of the LED. I took these pictures by holding my little camera up to the eye piece of my microscope. Continue reading »

Wood Gas Camp Stove - G4

Yet another tin can wood stove, I know, I know. Still, I’ve discovered a few things that may make your next stove build a little easier. What follows below are my trials and tribulations at build a really good working camp stove. Note, I’m still experimenting with certain aspects of the design. Always more experimenting to do.

My inspiration came from an article in Make Magazine which described building a tin can wood gas camp stove. Here is a link to the Make magazine article. The Make article inspired me to build my own stove. My primary goal was to be able to boil water (for instant coffee) while on Boy Scout camp-outs. Oh I know, it would much easier to build an alcohol stove (much cleaner and all – and easier to build too). However, there is something cool about being able to cook using wood. Plus, wood is in endless supply while on Boy Scout camp-outs. Will be nice to have a little stove heater on cold winter camp-out nights. A stove heater that I don’t have to worry about in terms of running out of fuel! Oh, I know what your thinking, “What about the battery for the muffin fan? Won’t that go flat in a hurry?” Well, using 2500 mA/hr batteries we’re looking at over 30 hours of run time. Continue reading »

Making the Switch

I’m making the switch from Drupal to WordPress today! Now, it’s just a mater of porting all my old junk over with me.

Thanks,

Jim

Quickly little post concerning my recent messing around with my new TI Evalbot.

At $150 bucks this is not an inexpensive kit to buy. Below are a couple of pictures and my first impressions.

The kit is rather easy to assemble. However, the wheels are tough to assemble. The PCB wheel plates press onto the shaft of the motor. Three plates then must be aligned so that two set screws can be screwed through the three plates. It takes a lot of force on the poor motor to get all the plates and set screws mounted.
Continue reading »

Pinewood Derby Mars Rover

Hacking “Holiday Living” Tea Lights

Muffin Fan Based Tin Can Wood Gas Camp Stove

Hello WordPress!

Making the Switch

TI Evalbot Review

Categories

Archives

Links

Meta

Most Recent Comments

Subscribe to Powerhouse Electronics: