art and gadgets and other junk
This post on BoingBoing is fantastic. I need to start doing this. I have all the tools and space I need, and it looks like SO MUCH FUN.
From the comments on that post, another person who makes furniture from salvage:
http://www.thesalvager.com/site/furniture-gallery/
All of my attention has been on a new project, but I did just order PCBs for the second round of LED taillight prototypes. This one has been cut down a bit and has a second set of mounting holes so that it can fit either series 2 or series 3 taillight housings. At least, that’s the plan!
The first prototype had six red LEDs and four white LEDs for the running light and twelve red LEDs for the brake light. This new design has four red LEDs and five white LEDs for the running light and sixteen red LEDs for the brake light. This should light up the license plate a little better, increase contrast between the running and brake lights, and make the brake light even brighter.
Getting Eagle PCB registered was such an ordeal. Good software, absolute shit customer service.
My other Lambretta project:
(A bit fogged from letting wet superglue cure in an enclosed space. Oops.)
The prototype is good enough to use but needs to be revised. It’s bright, it doesn’t flicker, and it uses about 3-5W max so the headlight doesn’t dim when you step on the brake at idle. The problem is that the running light (”low”) is a little too bright compared to the brake light (”high”). Both are quite visible, but there’s not enough contrast between the two. I will definitely add more LEDs on the brake light circuit. I haven’t decided if I want to remove any from the running light.
| Running light | Brake light | |
|---|---|---|
| 25W 1157 bulb |  |
 |
| LED Array |  |
 |
(All photos taken at F2.8, 1/10 sec exposure.)
Unlike the speedometer, these lights would be really easy to build in quantity, and the parts are pretty cheap. I’m going to work as quickly as I can to get production-ready prototypes made for 6V and 12V systems.
I’ve been done with the first speedometer prototype for a few weeks now, so it’s time for a tiny follow-up post. Short version: it rocks! Clear, readable, accurate, useful, gets comments. So far, it hasn’t skipped a beat even with all the vibration from the TS1.
The thing on the left is a bar that grows with RPM. The right hand readout and bar graph is for EGT or CHT, but I don’t have a sender hooked up to it yet.
On the other hand, I’m compiling a list of improvements that I’d like to make. The speed and RPM update in real time, which is great for the speed and terrible for the RPM. RPM needs to have bigger leading digits and update maybe once every quarter second. The backlight needs to turn on sooner than it does; it doesn’t impact readability at all in bright light like I worried it might. I need to be more careful about startup and power-down so that the display never blinks or gets stuck in weird states when the power is going on and off.
My biggest irritation is that I really want to have a button for function selection, but I can’t think of a sufficiently rugged and unintrusive way to add one. I don’t think it’s going to happen. This makes a trip odometer pretty much impossible.
I’m also starting to think about production issues. The faceplate needs to be prettied up a little, there are some light-blocking and anti-vibration bits inside that I made by hand, and the cabling and connectors are going to be labor-intensive. Everyone will have slightly different needs depending on their stator voltage, number of coils, and whether they’re running a temperature gauge. Then there’s the question of faceplate color and backlight color. It’s going to be interesting getting all of this stuff worked out in a practical manner.
…and I am seriously thinking about adding a USB port somehow to download speed and RPM data so you can use this thing like a mini-dynamometer. We’ll see.
I spent almost the entire weekend plus Monday in the garage. I think I knocked out most of the projects that have been lurking on the to-do list for a while now:
In the garage:
On the Lambretta:
So, yay. Now I need to take some pictures. Oh, and get back to real work.
There were a few snags, but no show-stoppers. Damn, those 0603 parts are tiny.
The backlight turned out better than I had ever dared to hope, and the warning light is BLINDINGLY RED. Which is good, considering the things it will be warning you about.
I have no idea if the inputs (EGT, hall effect sensor, RPM counter, ambient temp, ambient light) work. I need to go pack for vacation now.
Hee hee. This is so fun. 
My day is shot. The boards came in the mail today. I ordered two, and they sent SIX. The LCD fits, everything lines up… so far, so good. Incredible service from SparkFun/BatchPCB!
Ohhhh, so happy.
Fortune smiles upon me! I got an email from SparkFun today saying my PCBs are done and in the mail. That’s 9 business day turnaround from BatchPCB! I don’t know what happened to the poor bastards on the forum, but it sure didn’t happen to me.
Of course, now that I’m no longer fretting about when they’ll be delivered, I’ve started worrying about whether they figured out the outline and routed the boards to the correct shape. Oh, well. Nothing to do but wait and see.
I got a box in the mail from Pololu this afternoon! These laser-cut faceplates look pretty nice. They’re thicker in person than they were in my head, but they fit perfectly.
All of the electronic components and screws and stuff have been here since last week, so the only things I’m waiting on now are the printed circuit boards. I ordered them from BatchPCB, and based on some forum posts on their site, I’m getting worried that they’re going to take months to get here. I think I’m going to give them 20 business days from the day I ordered and then decide whether to cancel and go with another service at that point.
No, not that game of Life. Make’s game of life kits were all over the blogs yesterday, which gave me an idea (and wasted an hour or so of my life).
Go go Nokia 3310 LCD. Framerate on this “game” is about 3fps because it is optimized for ease of coding, not speed. Writing a cellular automata sim for an AVR is one thing, but hand-tuning it in assembly just crosses the line.