Iowa machinery auction
We did ok...
We stumbled into a machinery/estate auction while we in Iowa. We did ok, we had a pretty decent stash of stuff by the end of the day. --Oh yeah, it needs to fit i the van + kids + dog... hmmm.
An arduino road trip
The ATmega 328 hits the road
We were headed to Iowa for a long weekend. Since my wife was driving the minivan I decided to be a passenger and play with my Arduino to kill some time during the 5 hour trip.
EFHWA testing
A little bit of prep work
A quick tune-up + trimming some EFHWAs. I also made a 3D printed winder for the antennas and counterpoise.
Test fixture
A follow-up on the project
Arduino + Si5351 + I2C LCD + rotary encoder = the beginning of radio
Attack of the Si5351
Another project to dig into...
I ordered several of these from Jason NT7S
Here is the first one that I built and I used my new reflow heat station for the project
Ben (N2BEN 14) is using the reflow station for the first time after watching me
With the reflow station the SMT project go pretty quickly
Ben's finished project
Ozarkcon 2015
This has become an annual trip for me the last couple of years
Enjoy the images from the trip. I had a good time and enjoyed the bonding with others in the builder community.
Visiting a makerspace
On my way to Ozarkcon in Missouri I decided to stop in and checkout a maker space in the Kansas City area called "Hammerspace"
This is a nice for-profit location. It is interesting to see what opportunities exist in different communities.
You always need more filament
You can never have too much....
Since I am becoming fairly active with my printing I am using a lot of filament. I am experimenting with HIPS since it is quite a bit less expensive than ABS. (HIPS is $25 per 2.2lbs and ABS is $42 per 2.2lbs) ABS is nice because I can use commercial glue/solvent for combining pieces. After quite a bit of looking I have found some ABS filament that is a bit lower in price ($32 per 2.2lbs) but still has decent quality.
I also try to have quite a few different colors on hand for different projects. Grey and Black are my initial goto colors.
When I am actively working on projects I use up a spool every 1-2 weeks.
Prototype for a club meeting
Cranking out a prototype for a ham radio meeting for MN ARTS
The amazing Lulzbot Taz 5
Printing out three pieces in grey HIPS
The assembled MN ARTS club for a Saturday afternoon
My show & tell item
One of my first projects on the Taz 5 was to put together a prototyping fixture for working on one of my next radio projects. This will hold various components like arduinos, SI5351, bandpass filters, etc for prototyping a home brew radio.
Testing & prototyping
Using yellow HIPS