Author Archives: Jim

Simple W88 sign

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Jim

The objective is a “shingle” sign for the sign post outside the W88 space. The plan is to print the words and logo on 4 sheets of 8.5″x11″ waterproof paper (portrait orientation), glue those to a piece of white 4mm … Continue reading →

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First post for Lauren – embroidery!

Posted on December 25, 2010 by Jim

We just got a new BabyLock Ellure Plus embroidery (as well as straight) sewing machine. It’s pretty slick. Lauren decided to make some dish towels with seasonal designs as gifts as a first project (to be delivered 2 days after … Continue reading →

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Phone backup

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Jim

Our cordless phone/answering machine is great – 5.8GHz so it doesn’t mess with wi-fi, multiple handsets, white so it fits into the kitchen decor (a MUST).  But when the power goes out it forgets the time and date.  (It does … Continue reading →

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Hacking into the charger

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Jim

The fact that my attempts to fool the charger into pushing more energy into the battery resulted in no significant gain in capacity is a fair indication that the charger isn’t at fault, but I wanted to make sure. After … Continue reading →

Posted in Li-ion camera battery | Leave a comment

Camera battery/charger? problems

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Jim

I bought an extra battery for my good old Canon SD600 camera when I went to MakerFaire a couple of years ago.  The real ones were expensive, so I found a knock-off on Ebay.  Seemed to work, and I used … Continue reading →

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LED emergency lights

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Jim

We lost power for a couple of hours the other day.  Every time that happens, various projects bubble up several notches on the priority list.  This time I remembered that the muffler mount is broken on the generator and needs … Continue reading →

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Arduino code for discharger updated

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Jim

I tweaked the Arduino code a little more.  Deleted some debug leftovers, added some comments and restructured a subroutine.  I did a couple of several-minute tests with 1 and 15 cells to compute some timing fudge factors so the time … Continue reading →

Posted in Discharge tester - Arduino and perl code | Leave a comment

Salt spreader

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Jim

Here are a couple of ideas for a cheap, green, effective method of reducing the danger of ice on your sidewalks. First, the “salt”.  A great material is good old “10-10-10” generic garden fertilizer.  You should be able to find … Continue reading →

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Defeating child-proof caps

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Jim

I never met a child-proof cap I didn’t despise until I made a dispenser for salting sidewalks to avoid winter falls.  But let’s start with defeating the @#$%&! child-proof caps. (Note: If you actually have kids, you probably don’t want … Continue reading →

Posted in Child proof caps | 5 Comments

Discharger pictures

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Jim

I found my camera 🙂 . It hurt, but I clipped off the daughterboard (and removed the cut off pins).  There were a LOT of modifications to the board before it was done, but it seems to all work and … Continue reading →

Posted in Discharge tester - PCB build | Leave a comment