Monthly Archives: January 2008

Here is a simple Jacob’s Ladder design that uses the transformer from a florescent tube. I fed it with 25V by putting a 20V supply in series with a 5V supply (its too bad the 40V one is out of … Continue reading →

I converted the blinky circuit we are doing at the workshop into a little Theremin-esque analog synth. There is an on/off switch (the photoresistors dont turn ‘off’ enough to modulate the volume directly, unfortunately), a frequency doubler switch (adds more … Continue reading →

Minicom is an old-school serial terminal emulator, and is indispensable for developing serial projects with Linux. It turns out that most of the things I need to do involve repeating a few commands over and over, and it would be … Continue reading →

This time around, we are having a workshop on the venerable 555 timer. If you’ve never soldered before or perhaps need a bit more hands-on experience to kickstart your geek career, come check it out! But be right quick and … Continue reading →

Just for fun, I picked up an older tape deck and a VCR to see what interesting stuff was in them. Among the spoils were a number of motors, some nice switches, a nifty looking solenoid and a VU meter. … Continue reading →