I Just Noticed...

My roughly 6 year old Macbook Pro battery is charging at the same rate as my mid-2011 iPhone 4 battery. I realize that the screenshots don't prove what I'm observing, I just thought it was an interesting coincidence.  I checked twice an hour apart and the percentage was the same both times.  Since that time the phone has leapt ahead, but that was expected.

New Equipment

          I have some new equipment to play with now!  From bottom to top: Isolation transformer, Oscillator, Fluke DMMx2, Waveform Synthesizer and HP voltmeter.  I'm planning on getting an oscilloscope in the near future and a rack mount PC chassis so I can use GPIB ports, USB etc. for data collection.

Custom iPod Dock

           A couple months ago I decided I wanted an iPod dock for mounting on the wall.  The plan was to use it as a wall mounted (and portable) iTunes remote.  I couldn't find anything on the market that had the 'aesthetic' I was looking for and so I set to work building one.  Behind the screen is a sheet of polycarbonate that I sandblasted; it serves as a diffuser for red LED lights.  When it is set up the screen behind the iPod glows red and lights the wall around it in a red glow.  My goal was to give it an industrial look and I think it turned out pretty well.

Java Calculator

Recently I wrote a program in Java that provides basic calculator functionality with a few more advanced features such as a recent history pane, square roots, reciprocal, powers and percentages.  It does not have the problems associated with floating-point math because I have used the BigDecimal class.  The backspace feature, decimals and negatives work properly.  Problems I have not dealt with are screen overflow, and the ability to enter numbers and operators with the numpad.  Currently number entry is strictly done by clicking the buttons.  Program is available hosted on Windows Live SkyDrive. Please do not distribute, thank you.

New Case

This picture shows my HAF 932 case on my desk. You can also see my other desktop and laptop. The HTPC is in another room. Above the main computer is a lamp I built over the most recent Christmas break with some glass blocks and a lamp. The eventual goal is to light them individually with LEDs a different color for each block.

Budget Case Mod

The economy has made it tough for people to justify modding their computer cases. If you're going to spend money, it's easier to do it if it's actually going to be improving performance. With this low cost solution you will never have a wife/girlfriend/loan department/collection agency nagging you about spending money on unnecessary upgrades. The materials that you will need are black construction paper, a white plastic bag, tape, pencil, ruler, CD, penny, exacto knife, some LEDs and a computer case with three empty 5.5" bays. I didn't get pictures of the process so you'll have to have to bear with a verbal description.

Step 1. Cut the construction paper to the size of the empty drive bays without the covers on them.
Step 2. Center the CD on the paper and trace the outside and inside circumfrence.
Step 3. Center the penny and trace it. It should make a circle slightly larger than the inside of the CD.
Step 4. Draw a line horizontally across the center of the circle, then two more lines that should be about 60° from eachother.
Step 5. Using an exacto knife cut along the lines that you just made and punch out the parts you don't want.
Step 6. Cut the white plastic bag and tape it over the back of the the cut out.

If you want to backlight the logo, figure out some math and put a proper amount of LEDs and resistors and hook it up to your power supply. Make sure you insulate non-ground wires since if they touch the case they short and will shut off your computer. Please remember that you are building a mod out of tape, construction paper and a plastic bag. It looks good from a distance, just don't let anyone get too close if they are the picky type. Here are the pictures that I took of it, click on them to see them bigger.
-Quentin Swager
(guest writer)

M8 Progress

I haven't worked on the coilgun for so long I felt almost guilty. I decided to get a little done, so I cut the new barrel to length, and wound a small coil for it. I haven't tested it yet, and the barrel isn't slotted so there will be eddy current losses or worse.