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Installing a Light Kit
This is a guide for installing the light kit sold in my store. Click more info for the full guide Connecting the battery Wire the board to the existing battery in your project. The red wire from the battery holder is the positive wire, connect it to the + battery terminal on the AR_Light board. The black wire from the battery holder is the negative wire, connect it to the – terminal on the AR_Light board. Wiring the LEDs Note: There are two ways to connect each LED, but only one is correct. You cannot break anything by connecting an LED backwards. If it doesn’t light up, simply flip it…
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LED Rail Blade Assembly
This guide will walk you through assembling LED strips to place inside an electronic sword prop. TOOLS AND MATERIALS Spool of unshielded bare wire Few feet of shielded wire Solder Iron Solder (0.5 oz is plenty) Wire Snips Needle Nose Pliers (optional) Hot Glue or Clear Packing Tape Safety Glasses You can use any bare wire you like, but I found that steel craft wire works best (pictured). It is strong, thin, and does not need to be stripped. Take a close look at one of the LEDs. You will notice that at the base of the plastic there is a flat edge. This identifies the red wire. The hardest…
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Animated Light Controller
Using a spare attiny2313 to control some solid state relays. Four channels total, two outlets are always on. Here is the schematic. The LEDs are mis-routed to the same path as the relay control wires. Turns out the LEDs sap current and don’t allow the relays to trigger properly. Leave the LEDs disconnected and all is well.
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CSS, DB, and HTML changes
Blogger.com was a great solution for doing all the backend work of writing articles to the site. They will no longer be supporting me and my ftp using friends. I have migrated to WordPress. Want more? How about a site flashback? Hit more info for a fun look at my index pages throughout the years. 2021: WordPress re-themed for dark mode compatibility2010: WordPress Installed2009: Blogger.com FTP Publishing2008: CSS Design2007-2006: Flash menu and ugly frames2005-1998: No archive pre 2005, but was java based toward the end
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Installing an Ammo Counter
This is a small walk through of installing one of my ammo counters available in the store. I am need of pictures, please send me pictures of your install, thanks! :) Tools Required Solder Iron (I bought mine for $5 at menards) Solder (I use 60/40, 0.032″ diameter) Wire Cutter / Stripper Tape Pregame: For quick start and demonstration of the counter. Connect the battery to the circuit. Use the red and black wires labeled BATT or BATTERY. Connect black to black, red to red. No need to solder at this point, just twist the wires together and maybe use some tape so the red bare wire doesn’t touch the…
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Rockband Stage & Light Kit Mod
Sorry, I do not have full writeup for this project. Here is a photostream of the mod. Rock Band Mod on Flickr Pretty much what I did was take an off the shelf strobe light and swap it for the one built into the fog machine. Re-wired a ps/2 keyboard cable connecting it to the liberated rock band strobe light. Now I can use the strobe light with the game without dragging out the fog machine. Also added override switches on the fog machine so I could activate both the strobe and fog machine outside the game.
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Hosting Fees
I thought it would be interesting to figure out my hosting fees for the last few years. My awesome host is NFSN. Hit More Info to see the cost table. 2007 was a seven month year. Year Deposit Fee Registration & Renewal Bandwidth Charge Storage Charge MySQL Charge 2007 $1.00 $7.50 $1.18 $1.02 2008 $1.30 $15.98 $2.73 $4.68 $1.47 2009 $2.15 $5.26 $15.17 $3.65 Looking at the data, I notice that my storage fees have taken a sharp increase. In two years the physical size has more than tripled to 225MB. Then if I plot my storage fees divided by my physical size, I find the prices have…
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Avatar Sequel Scripts
I had some ideas for the avatar sequel and wanted to write it down. Turns out, I guess it was a fully developed idea because it turned into 5 pages. Click ‘More Info’ to enjoy! Movie #2[Due to science reasons the 2nd movie must take place ten years after the first.] The camera opens on pandora and Jake giving us a montage recap of the past ten years. He took his place as the leader omaticaya and replanted hometree. With Eywa’s help, hometree has now grown almost a hundred feet. It will still take many generations before they can live there. In the mean time they have created themselves a…
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Items Now Available in Store
After a long period of testing the store site is now open. The site can be accessed here: http://store.westaby.net The main kit right now is an ammo counter. More to come, promise! :D
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Presenting the Halo Energy Sword~!
I knew what I wanted to do was design a circuit that would be similar in function to the star wars sabers that fans build. That meant animated lights running the length of the twin blades, an accelerometer to gather motion data, and sound playback for startup and swing sounds. What I ended up doing was designing a circuit around an ATMEGA32 controller chip. Hit more info for details. This is a summary page, additional notes are on the forum. Original Project Page Design I knew what I wanted to do was design a circuit that would be similar in function to the star wars sabers that fans build. That…