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Between rigging up a small LED matrix to my member storage and returning my 3D printer + webcam to the shop, the idea of measuring ambient light has come up several times. Finding a photoresistor to do this turned out to be beyond simple: a member gave me one to use. But once the thought had crossed my mind, I wanted to follow through with this LED sensor thing and see if it’s really up to snuff.

First, gotta find out how it all works. Easy: another shop member wrote a library for it. And the library references an Arduino page which describes the operation: Light Emitting Diodes are typically wired to produce light. But, if you attempt to apply reversed voltage, then the LED will reject current (it is a diode after all) and will do something I find pretty cool: it acts as a tiny capacitor. And even cooler: the capacitor’s characteristics will change based on how much light is reaching the LED’s substrate. So this library will “charge” the LED by applying VCC->VSS backwards on the device, and then measure the length of time it takes for the capacitor to discharge (which is dependent on the ambient light). Neat!

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steamboxflyer

 

Facebook Event:  https://www.facebook.com/events/437126759827103/

All Box materials are to be provided.

Class Cost: $50
For those of you with a Rocket Republic Coupon: -$5 off!

We would ask that if you plan to attend the class, please sqarecash a $10 deposit with your name/Steampunk Box Class, using cashtag $MakersLocal. If you do not have the Squarecash app, you may download it on your phone or from https://cash.me/.

We want to customize this experience for those who will attend. I have set up a survey for colors of felt and paint to have on hand for those that will take the class. Please follow the link below:

http://surveynuts.com/surveys/take?id=56493&c=688084757HJVJ

Note: Default colors will be red for the felt and front inset, then copper for the gears, feet, and front face as shown in the photo.

 

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ctag and I made an appearance at the Charger Union for the UAH Makers‘ Make-a-thon event. We gave a brief talk/tutorial about Arduino basics to an audience of a couple dozen attendees, including both UAH students and non-UAH affiliates. We also discussed how to integrate Arduino and Raspberry Pi-based trinkets into larger projects, such as for robotics or automation – as well as just for fun. Here are some shots of the event, as well as our example trinkets and projects.

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Way back during the summer we hanged insulation in the fab-lab, making it a more consistent temperature and opening up the way to eventually creating another properly air conditioned space at the shop. Once finished, there was still a pretty large amount of insulation strip left over; it was subsequently buried under a table upstairs.

This past weekend it snowed in Alabama, and I more or less intentionally got snowed in at the shop. During the resulting impromptu movie night, I had a chance to discuss just how damn cold it was with other shop members. We eventually landed on a concern that the shop water heater was left running in near-outdoor temperatures 24/7. Recalling the leftover insulation, we shuffled out of the warm office and began wrapping the magic hot water provider in fiberglass insulation.

First up was to apply a few feet of regular pipe insulation to the copper piping. This is mostly a for-the-hell-of-it measure, since we can’t insulate the hot water pipe already installed in the walls.

Installing pipe insulation on the water heater.
Installing pipe insulation on the water heater.

Next we cut squares from the insulation and placed them around the heater core. The system is located poorly in a too-small alcove, so insulation only fit around four of the six sides of the heater.

Ta-Da!
Ta-Da!

Ideally we’d want to create a large blanket around the heater and secure it with twine, but this will hopefully provide us with somewhat better temperature retention anyway.

Next up on the list is installing an electronic timer so that the heater doesn’t spend half of the week creating hot water that no one is around to use.