Dabbler » diy

Update: Migratory Internet Junk

sethjust — Thu, 27 May 2010 16:54:26 +0000

I know it’s taken me a long time to post this, but I received my box of migratory junk on May 10! I got box INTJ-7 which had been shipped out by a nice guy from San Diego. I don’t have a lot to say now (and no pictures) but I’d like to share some of what I got out of it. Perhaps my biggest find was right on top: a Hand Held Products IT4410 2D barcode scanner. On the product page I found the manual (pdf link) which explains all of its features.

It turns out that the scanner emulates a PS/2 keyboard and will read almost any 1D or 2D barcode symbology. After a few hijinks with a loose ribbon cable and flaky PS/2 support on my computer I got the scanner working perfectly. I was even able to change its configuration by scanning barcodes from the manual displayed on my LCD (though I don’t know if it will work with glossy screens — mine is matte).

I’m planning on putting up a more complete summary of what I’ve found, but here are a few other things that caught my eye:

A solenoid-controlled proportional valve for small pneumatics or hydraulics.
A bag of large rubber grommets, one of which I cut up to replace the feet on a table lamp.
Three matched stepper motors.
A worm-gearbox connected to a large motor with integrated optical encoder.
A wide variety of IR LED/phototransistor gates.
A pile of 1.8V, 2.5V and 3.3V voltage regulators.

Stay tuned for pictures and more details on what I’m taking and what I’m going to do with it.

Heads Up: Migratory Internet Junk

sethjust — Tue, 04 May 2010 04:08:18 +0000

If you haven’t heard of TGIMBOEJ (The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronics Junk), you should definitely check it out. The basic idea is that a box of random electronic junk gets shipped between makers and tinkerers, each of whom take something and contribute something to the box, and document what they end up doing.

To make a long story short, I was recently offered a chance to receive one of these migratory lending libraries, so expect to see something in this space about it soon.

Make a Money/Card Clip

sethjust — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:44:45 +0000

So the other day I finally got tired with my (awesome) wallet and decided to make something new. I ended up choosing a money clip. Not only would it be a nice, high quality, metal object living in my pocket, instead of a crummy, dirty wallet, but a money clip is good looking, classy and minimalistic way of keeping a hold of my money and cards. Looking around my room I didn’t really get any inspiration, until I saw an old metal fork lying in a box. I cut the head off with my dremel and a fiberglass cutting wheel. A little bit of sanding and bending resulted in a, super-useful money clip. I’ve been using it for the past few days and it’s been serving me really well, looking good, and altogether holding up like a quality product.

If there’s interest, I’ll put up more information / pictures and maybe put some of these bad boys up for sale.