A friend of mine is trying to find ways of turning e-waste into education devices, one source of e-waste that is ridiculously common while also yielding heaps of parts are desktop printer/scanner combos. You see them thrown out virtually everywhere. The neat thing about them is that they use optical encoders to drive DC servo…
Just a tiny post about how fun it can be burning wood with electricity!!! This is however ridiculously dangerous as the transformer outputs about 2800 VAC and is mains isolated… which means that your household safety switches will not trip if you touch the wires! Now that all of that boring safety stuff is out…
I had some spare industrial lamp shades which were in rough shape and missing their insulators… they were practically begging to be turned into chicken food shelters! This should all be very self-explanatory! Obviously we need a groove in the bottom eye so that we can hook the feeder into something. Then just tighten the…
I decided to print myself a unique Halloween costume this year after being inspired by pictures of deep sea angler fish. I wanted to make something quirky yet still a little bit terrifying in a good way. What I ended up with was an angler fish helmet painted in fluro UV paints with very scary…
I was gifted with four old bantam chickens when I moved into my house, they were about 7 years old, so a little dusty and wobbly, but still great egg layers. But some weeks ago my gold pekin hen and bantam rhode island red went broody, so obviously it seemed a good time to contact…
A few months ago I spotted a very interesting and attractive looking valve amplifier on gumtree that I couldn’t resist. The amplifier was being sold for repair or parts as one of the valves was red-plating leaving one channel dead. This really didn’t phase me as troubleshooting valve gear is pretty straight forward, and red…
A few months ago I had the idea to drag my old aquarium out of storage, it had been stored away after my original fish died from old age (6 years is not bad for a goldfish). The aquarium base had been a quick job that I had made out of scrap timber from an…
One afternoon while sitting in a park a friend of mine drew an adorable picture of the Polaroid camera that I had with me. I thought the drawing was gorgeous and unique so really wanted to frame and hang it. She is an amazingly talented artist and I highly recommend that you take a look…
Some years a go I went searching for a small caravan that I could tow behind my Land Rover but also my little Subaru sedan and any other medium sized car that I happened to be driving at the time. I was after something small with plenty of head room which was wide enough to…
I used to work part time as a car audio fitter and auto electrician back when I was studying and needed a part time job. Somehow I ended up with a whole heap of warranty returns and ex demo gear given to me for free or at very low cost which I just couldn’t say…