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General Geekiness

1st December 2014

Advent Calendar of Circuits 2014

Another year, another circuit project per day for 24 days!

Contains 3 sub-articles.

10th May 2013

Maker Faire Bay Area 2013

A quick teaser video about my exhibit for Maker Faire 2013 in San Mateo.

7 comments.

1st December 2011

Advent Calendar of Circuits 2011

A circuit project per day for 24 days.

7 comments.

27th November 2011

The Curious C-Beeper

I finally build Charles Wenzel's Curious C-Beeper capacitance probing tool.

4 comments.

10th July 2011

Photodiode Gamma Ray Detector

BPW34 photodiode based gamma radiation detector.

33 comments.

3rd July 2011

Ion Chamber Alpha Particle Counter

An AC ion chamber detector for alpha particles only.

2 comments.

7th May 2011

555 Contest Thank You

A quick video thanking everyone involved in the 555 contest using one of my prizes.

4 comments.

27th February 2011

Random Dialler for 555 Adding Machine

A quick random dialling hack for the adding machine to demonstrate it at the Wyong Field Day.

Parent article: 555 Adding Machine.

26th February 2011

555 Adding Machine

Decimal adding machine built using 102 LM555s and a decadic dialling mechanism from an old rotary dial telephone.

Contains 1 sub-article.

11 comments.

5th February 2011

555 Araneae Junkboxius

Junkbox electrical component blinking 555/LED spider sculpture project.

4 comments.

16th January 2011

Ring Oscillator Blinkenlights

A bit of fun with LEDs, transistors and capacitors.

8th January 2011

Alan's Crazy Ideas Episode #1: CT Scanning Khufu with Cosmic Rays

Idea of tomographic reconstruction of the internal structure of the Great Pyramid of Giza using cosmic ray muons.

9 comments.

26th December 2010

Wireless Power Experiments

Experiments in wireless power transfer for a practical application, lead to some interesting side-bar observations on plasma physics, and the cutest little Tesla coil you've ever seen.

Contains 1 sub-article.

15 comments.

18th December 2010

TRON Backpack

Electroluminescent trimmed backpack inspired by TRON.

5 comments.

23rd October 2010

Larson Scanner

Simple blinkenlight project to Cylonify my workstation PC.

5 comments.

22nd August 2010

Winterfest Ham Radio Meet

Some pictures from the recent Winterfest HAM radio meeting.

3 comments.

11th June 2010

Non-Emissive Air-Band Receiver (Implementation & Use)

A semi-finalised implementation of the passive air-band receiver and field testing while I was travelling in the US.

Parent article: Non-Emissive Airband Receiver.

18 comments.

5th June 2010

Strange Speed of Sound Result

I get oddly low results when attempting to measure the speed of sound in Water and Aluminium.

6 comments.

22nd May 2010

Helicopter Rescue at Queenscliff Headland

A short video of the daring helicopter rescue I awoken to this morning.

5 comments.

20th May 2010

Estimating The Size Of The ISS And STS

My quick go at estimating the size of the International Space Station and Space Shuttle Orbiter from the wonderful Thierry Legault solar transit photograph.

13th February 2010

Half-life Of Technetium-99m

Measurement of the half-life of Technetium-99m.

6 comments.

23rd January 2010

MCU Controlled Super-regeneration with Quartz Oscillators

A low-speed data link implemented using Pierce quartz crystal oscillators controlled by a microcontroller.

Contains 1 sub-article.

10 comments.

28th December 2009

4-channel PWM Tree Emulator

A web-based emulator for the 240 LED Christmas Tree project.

Parent article: 240 LED Animated Christmas Tree.

2 comments.

27th December 2009

USBtinyISP Programmer

I put together a USB ISP programmer for use with my Win32 laptop.

1 comment.

25th December 2009

240 LED Animated Christmas Tree

A simple 4 channel, PMW-controlled, 240 LED Christmas Tree.

Contains 1 sub-article.

23rd December 2009

Rope Light Christmas Star

A large Christmas Star for my balcony made using a length of rope light and some timber dowelling.

Contains 1 sub-article.

20th December 2009

19 LED Animated Christmas Star

A charlieplexed 19 LED animated Christmas star for my Christmas tree.

4 comments.

13th December 2009

Charlieplexed 16 LED Animated Christmas Tree

A proof-of-concept test bed for a range of animated electronic Christmas decorations.

2 comments.

8th December 2009

LOL Can Christmas Tree

Some technical Yahoos assemble an office Christmas tree from over 430 soft drink cans.

1 comment.

7th June 2009

Pancake Geiger Müller Tubes and a new Power Supply

New pancake Geiger Müller tubes and a fairly small power supply for them.

12 comments.

2nd June 2009

June 2009 ARNSW Homebrew Group Meeting

Some photos from the June 2009 ARNSW Homebrew Group Meeting.

31st May 2009

May 2009 Trash and Treasure

Pictures from the May 2009 ARNSW Trash and Treasure meeting.

3 comments.

24th May 2009

Soft X-ray Output from a Vacuum Rectifier

Abuse of an old 2X2 vacuum tube with a HT power supply to create a soft x-ray source.

5 comments.

16th May 2009

Alpha Decay Rate Modulation with 30 Metre EM Radiation?

No, of course not! No new physics here, just another lesson in electromagnetic compatibility and subtly of experimental physics.

2 comments.

18th April 2009

Ionisation Chamber Radiation Detector

A quick hack based on Charles Wenzel's nuclear war detector.

5 comments.

23rd March 2009

Homebrew Photoplethysmography

The beginnings of a photoplethysmographic cardiotachometer.

18 comments.

16th February 2009

Solderability of Enamelled Copper Wire

Tests of tinning various types of enamelled copper wire both from cut ends and through unbroken enamel.

Parent article: Wiring Pencil.

4 comments.

25th January 2009

January Trash and Treasure

The Jan 2008 ARNSW Trash and Treasure, plus the Homebrew Group meeting.

3 comments.

13th January 2009

Antenna and Weather Station Work

I finally put up my discone antenna after many years of kicking it around the balcony and also install the weather station my parents gave me for my birthday.

5th January 2009

Dekatron Emulator

A solid-state emulation of the infamous "dekatron spinner" implemented using a 10-stage discrete ring counter.

18th October 2008

Website Changes

New "clean" URLs for the website and a new calculator engine.

4 comments.

27th July 2008

ARNSW Trash and Treasure

Lots of pictures from the ARNSW Trash and Treasure and Homebrew Group meeting.

3 comments.

27th July 2008

Killarney Heights Space Program

I attend a Killarney Heights Space Program launch.

4th July 2008

Measuring Your Hair Diameter

How to quickly measure the diameter of human hair...

29th June 2008

More Beacon Work

I put the 80 metre beacon in a box and do some more work towards an antenna for it.

Parent article: 80 Metre CW Beacon.

14 comments.

1st June 2008

Rotifers in my Rain Gauge

Images of various microscopic life from my rain gauge.

4 comments.

24th May 2008

Neon Bulbs in a Microwave

A quickie showing what 400 NE-2 Neon glow lamps do if you put them in a microwave.

4 comments.

29th March 2008

RF Remote Control Experiments

A prototype tone-coded multi-channel remote control system.

3 comments.

26th January 2008

Australia Day 2008

Some images and words from this Australia Day.

2 comments.

20th January 2008

HAARP/LWA EME Listening

The HF Active Auroral Research Program conducted Luna bounce experiments on the 19th and 20th. I listened in.

2 comments.

30th December 2007

Cellular Automata Applet

A fairly trivial Cellular Automata implementation as a Java Applet.

24th December 2007

Cellular Automata Hardware Ideas

Thoughts about building cellular automata in hardware.

17th December 2007

MathML Support Added

I add MathML support to this site using ASCIIMathML.

2 comments.

12th December 2007

The Agony of the About Me page

I try to write an "about me" page.

8 comments.

9th December 2007

Another Site Rewrite

The website has been rewritten to support categorisation and given a much needed face-lift.

3rd June 2007

Plumbing MacGyver Style

How I fixed my toilet cistern inlet valve with a Coke bottle cap.

20th January 2007

Parts Cabinet (Mark II)

Another rotating multi-draw cabinet.

Parent article: Parts Cabinet.

5th March 2005

Hydrometer

An incredibly crude soda straw hydrometer.

18th February 2005

Ferro-Gallotannic Ink

Iron gall ink and a bamboo pen of sorts.

2 comments.

27th January 2004

PyroSim

A simple particle system simulation for making fireworks-like animations.

3 comments.

29th August 2003

Take-tonbo

An ancient Chinese invention, the Bamboo Dragonfly.

2 comments.

13th August 2003

Plasma Cup Inverter

Just what is inside those neat Neon plasma drinking cup things.

3 comments.

2nd August 2003

Ball Mill

A small ball mill for crushing and mixing.

45 comments.

10th June 2003

Cabbage Indicator

Using red cabbage juice as a cheap homebrew pH indicator.

2 comments.

8th June 2003

Pinhole Projector

A cardboard box pinhole camera that operates without film. The image is projected onto a screen for human observation. A quick and simple project to demonstrate pinhole optics.

24th March 2003

The Piņata From Hell

A Piņata the girlfriend and I built for her birthday party.

1 comment.

14th December 2002

Structural Integrity of CDs

Just how fast can you make a CD-ROM or DVD drive before the CD media fails?

2 comments.

14th December 2002

Optical Tachometer

A simple reflection-pair optical tachometer head for my CD structural integrity tests.

10th November 2002

Electrostatic Motor

My small implementation of Bill Beaty's soda bottle electrostatic motor.

10th November 2002

Bill Meara N2CQR writes

My first meeting with Bill of SolderSmoke fame.

Parent article: Trivial Electric Motor.

3rd November 2002

Projectile Motion Pictures

Fooling around with a strobe light in the dark with long exposures.

27th October 2002

Van de Graaff Generator

My small, and quite ugly, prototype built using house hold materials.

4 comments.

17th October 2002

Trivial Electric Motor

A simple demonstration DC motor you can build in 10 minutes with your children.

Contains 1 sub-article.

2 comments.

23rd June 2002

SQLGraph

A simple SQL relationship graph generator.

31st August 2001

Parts Cabinet

How I built my parts cabinet for all my electronic components.

Contains 1 sub-article.

2 comments.

24th March 2000

IR Remote Control Modem

My simple IR modem to let my computer talk to various consumer devices.

1 comment.