The afternoon projects thread

[Mario]

IKEA's cool. I got two cabinets, a birch countertop, and some non-slip mat and made a workbench for my apartment (about time, too). It's eventually gonna have a bunch of incomplete projects all over it, as well as various scorch marks, solder drips, hot glue globs, etc, etc. But right now it looks nice and pretty!

 

[ShockSlayer]

Made this video this morning, I consider it a project.

SS

 

[SNEAKxxATTACK]

Sonic r, can you feel the sunshine
Excellent progress with that sword tho

 

[sonictimm]

You almost topped Shockslayer the Movie with that one

 

[gman]

I thought 11pm would be a good time to finally wire up my 64drive after I watched it collect dust on my desk for a few weeks. I chose now because I'm under suspicion that my sister stole my starswars and zelda n64 cartridge but she wont admit it. Those are her favorite games of mine so I know she did it. I cant live without those games so my 64drive will show her!

It only took me about 30 minutes to wire it up, but it took another 30 minutes to figure out how to wire up a normal sd card to the microsd slot. Little did I know that all I had to do was just skip the 2nd ground pin on the sd slot and it would work. I stole an n64 from an n64p that I was making with my best friend . I'm going to wire up the normal av port and use it as a home console for the summer. This thing is super awesome. I've always dreamed of the 64drive, but its even cooler in real life!

 

[public-pervert]

Made a mood light for my working desk. It's basicly acrylic sheets laser cutted and 2 RGB leds with a custom cnc'd pcb. I'm happy with the results! Here it is

And a little vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X-GmlpA ... e=youtu.be

 

[Monstercrunch]

Pretty nice (for both the N64drive and the cube !!)

 

[Aux]

*** As seen in background of July 1 livestream! ***

My project work area had gotten a little cluttered, and I love cube storage. However it was stupid to put cubes under the table... I wanted them flush with the table for ease of access, plus I wanted to store my extra kegs and carboys under (I homebrew beer, as well as software!). What's a girl to do?

Well, essentially... build a stand for a cube storage unit out of matching MDF shelves so it looks like they're supposed to be like that.

Materials:

1 3x3 Cubeicals, espresso

3 12" x 36" Rubbermaid wooden decorative shelves, espresso
1 8" x 36" Rubbermaid wooden decorative shelf, espresso (for stability)

4 big ol' corner braces
Some screws

Step 1: cut two of your shelves down to the height you'd like. Personally I wanted to match my table, so I went with its height- 28".

Step 2: Assemble shelf into U shape using shorter shelves as legs, stock 36" as top, and brackets for support. (The lip on one side is because I have a radiator over there, and I wanted that edge of the cubes flush with the wall. You'll see.)

Step 3: Secure thinner shelf flat across back to stabilize, then place stand in corner and top with assembled cubeical. I highly recommend drilling a hole in your stand and using the existing cubiecal-joining locator pegs that come with it.

Step 4: Fill with your crap.

 

[T2Steve]

Didn't take any pics, but the pics aren't really needed.

Had a dead 450w PSU with 120 mm fan. Had a working 550w PSU with an 80 mm fan that was in bad need of replacing.

Took both apart, and discovered that the power plug on both is not only screwed into the case, but is soldered to the board after inserted. Heated up the ol' 25w iron and pulled apart the small circuit board on the good case (didn't want to chance that it was what killed the last board) and pulled it all completely out. De-soldered the wires for + and - on the good PSU board and took the power plug/on-off switch out. Placed into new case and then re-soldered. Since I moved recently I didn't have any solder (that I could find anyways) so I just took some wire, heated up the solder from the dead board and moved it onto the wire, then moved it off the wire onto the wires that needed. For future reference - just get solder. Considerably less frustrating.

Only had to leave the house once the entire project (am I the only one that gets a million interruptions as soon as the iron is finally hot?) and didn't burn the house down. Powered it on and everything works like gravy.

Things to note:

1) it looks like most stock PSUs have stock screw locations, but the screws themselves are threaded differently, so keep the screws from the donor case when transplanting.

2) you can pretty much rip the pin header right off the donor board if it had a header and the other was hard wired. For a considerably nicer job I recommend putting on a standard three pin header on the +/- line from the board, and a female header on the fan itself if it uses a two pin. Future fan replacement is considerably simpler if you only have to unscrew it and put a new one on.

3) if you want to make a poor-man's modular PSU, you can clip the various wires right after the PSU and place female pin headers onto them. You can then make custom cables out of extension cables for molex/sata etc and disconnect them when not needed. Not as nice as a modular, but close. If you really wanted to I supposed you could cut holes into the back of the psu and mount the headers with hot glue or whatever, but I think that would be way more trouble that it's worth.

4) I have not yet found an easy/clean way to remove the existing PSU sticker and transplant the sticker that corresponds to the actual PSU.

5) this obviously violates your warranty.

FWIW this is a practice run on PSU swapping. Not only did I want a quieter working PSU that I can throw around, but I have an 80 mm mATX psu that I am swapping into the case of a weirdly shaped custom psu for a mATX case. I may take pics of that as it will be considerably more difficult IMO.

Let me know if you have any thoughts. Timeframe for completing this was about an hour and a half, but would have been half an hour if I had all my tools ready, didn't get interrupted, had solder and plugged the iron in while I was stripping the two PSUs apart.

 

[ttsgeb]

I made a knife block this afternoon instead of working on my laptop.

 

[Fluxedo]

Have you tried that creole seasoning on steak? That specific brand goes great on fish too.

 

[ttsgeb]

Steak and Fish are two things that I don't eat much. Even more so now that I'm vegetarian.
I've tried it on several things. I can't ever decide if I actually like the stuff or not. It makes for pretty interesting popcorn, though.

 

[Fluxedo]

It makes for pretty interesting popcorn, though.

I'll try it.

 

[gman]

I spray painted an anarchy symbol on my t shirt. I've done this on a bunch of tshirts but i out grew them and they get ripped.

If you dont appreciate the symbol, atleast appreciate my stenciling skills

 

[ttsgeb]

I needed a mic stand and a pop filter...

One sheet of toilet paper, 4 paper clips, 4 walmart inventory stickers, one steel bar, 3 feet of duct tape, and a pair of vice grips later, my Guitar Hero mic is all pimped out.

 

[ttsgeb]

I cleaned my room/desk and grabbed parts from a few xboxen to get a couple more working.

I now have 5 known working xboxen:
1 half-built laptop
1 softmodded with 120gb drive
1 dev kit
2 softmodded with stock drives a 1.1 and a 1.6

I still need to come across a working 1.2-1.5 psu so I can test a couple more of these boards I have laying about.

I also plan to RAM swap the 1.1 and build it up into sexy, but I need to get a few thing setup right and checked before I try that.

 

[davenunez]

Ok, so here are three - each one was done in a single day (strictly longer than an afternoon, but what are we, clock Nazis?). For some reason I got it into my head to make little two-inch retro machines on my 3D printer. It started off as a way to teach myself OpenSCAD, now it's just a thing to do between bigger projects.

Strictly speaking, these are "portable" but probably not so much "functional" - unless you count their function as "being cute" in which case they are hella functional

Nintendo NES (source files: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:121114)

Atari VCS "Heavy Sixer" (source files: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:144007)

Commodore 64 - this is the first one, needs a re-work (source files: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:113687)

 

[ttsgeb]

IDK, I think those are awesome enough to deserve their own thread...
You shoulda put a little hoop in em to use for a keychain, though.

 

[zaxxon]

IDK, I think those are awesome enough to deserve their own thread...
You shoulda put a little hoop in em to use for a keychain, though.

If you ended up doing this I would definitely buy a commodore 64 one or a gameboy one if you decided to make and sell.
Also what kind of 3d printer do you use? Did you make it yourself or did you just buy one?

 

[davenunez]

Gameboy is a good idea. I was also thinking of doing an Amiga.

I use a replicator2. It was a bit expensive, but it is very well constructed and aligned (except for the build plate, which I replaced with an aluminum plate).