This weekend I am attending the European hacker conference Hacking at Random. HAR takes place every four years at a former socialist youth-camp about an hour away from Amsterdam in the beautiful Netherlands.
Rather than fly directly to HAR, my wife and I decided to make a larger vacation out of our trip, and we have been busy touring Europe for over a week now. We still have over a week left, so expect slow updates until I return and have a chance to catch up!
Wow! I can’t believe it’s been a year!
Based on the date of my first post, last Wednesday marked the one year anniversary of my blog.
While I pour a toast, here are a few highlights of the past year:
The first project I documented on the site, my solder paste fridge was the end result of a weekend effort to turn an old beer chest into a PID-controlled Peltier cooler for storing tubes of solder paste. A year later, the cooler has a permanent home under my workbench and is still going strong, keeping its contents at a chilly 36 degrees F. Besides solder paste, I keep my POR-15 rust proofing epoxy paint
I needed an excuse to learn assembly language programming on the PIC, and this project fit the bill perfectly. Instead of slogging through yet another PIC tutorial I decided to “just do it” and the video above shows the result. One of my favorite projects of last year, I have plans to build more of these and make some electronic artwork for the lab.
One aging bluetooth headset plus one obsolete telephone handset equals one retro-fabulous hack that I still use today. The best part: Look for this one in Make: volume 20!
I’m a big fan of the hotplate (aka reflow skillet) method of surface mount soldering. Over the course of a few months I designed, machined, and assembled this PID-controlled soldering hotplate to help build the first few prototypes of my AVR HV Rescue Shield kit. Hacking around in the garage is always fun, but creating a new tool is one of the most rewarding things I have can think of.
Here’s a video of the hotplate in action, reflowing the step-up converter on the Rescue Shield:
What started as a simple hack to save a crippled AVR microcontroller eventually became a kit that I’ve sold to AVR enthusiasts around the world. The AVR HV Rescue Shield includes a cool custom PCB, integrated 5V-12V step-up power supply, and is completely open source. I only made one batch of these, and when they’re gone, they’re gone, so head over to the AVR HV Rescue Shield product page to order one today!
Certainly the most famous project on the site, my Wifi Radio project has inspired many readers to start playing with cheap wireless routers and embedded Linux. If you haven’t seen it before, the finished project sounds something like this:
I brought the Wifi Radio to the Maker Faire in San Mateo in May. Everyone loved it, including some of the Make: staff, which got me a blue ribbon for the project. Awesome!
Well, that’s it for year one… If I missed one of your favorite posts from the past year, leave a comment! If you’re new to the blog, happy reading, you have some catching up to do. 🙂
Here’s to another fantastic year of hacks, projects, kits, tools, and resources at mightyohm.com!
Sadly, the Maker Faire is over – but it was totally awesome! Kylie, Tony and I gave out hundreds of moo cards and stickers, met lots of Makers, and spread the word about my DIY wireless streaming internet radio project.
Here’s a pic of me and Tony during the second day of the Faire. Tony built the awesome wooden enclosure for the project. Last week, he decided to come up from Los Angeles at the last minute to see what the Maker Faire is all about. Based on the grin he had all weekend, I’m pretty sure he’ll be back next year.
My project won an Editor’s Choice ribbon! Here’s a very happy me with Phil Torrone and Limor Fried of Make/Adafruit Industries:
I took lots of photos! Check em out.
While I’m busy working on part ten of my series on building a wireless router-based DIY streaming internet radio, I couldn’t resist sharing a few photos of the finished project.
If you want to see the radio in person, stop by Expo Hall Booth 166 at the Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA this weekend. I’ll be there to demonstrate the radio and answer questions!
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Psst… Today is the last day to buy discount Maker Faire tickets. Buy them by midnight PDT or pay full price!
