Austin Antics

Remove Before Flight

Ron — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:53:53 +0000

When building doors for our Chicken Coops, we use a biscuit joiner. Now 99% of the time we use #20 biscuits for our work. But while building the models for our Monster Mayhem display I had to switch to small #0 biscuits. And when I put the tool back, I left it at that position [...]

Shop Cat

Ron — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:13:01 +0000

He needs a home. Old neighbors left him (a year ago). Then someone was taking care of him, but over the past week he’s been very needy. So I think that whomever was taking care of him moved away. An outdoor cat, but craves to go inside. I’ll have to build him a condo.

Halloween 2011 : Garage TV : Part 1

Ron — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:10:41 +0000

Here’s how you turn your garage into a TV. A SONY, of course.

Korean Spicy Pepper Bean Paste

Ron — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:55:33 +0000

This product is great, but it can be hard to track down, mostly because of the different spellings and packages. Here’s a photo of a couple of versions: We’re fortunate to have a couple of Korean markets very close to us. (Not to mention the huge Asian market up on north Lamar. Austin’s mini Chinatown.) [...]

Better Chicken Nuggets

Ron — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:38:00 +0000

I know that some of you might not want to deal with the bones / bother of using Chicken Wings in the Korean Fried Chicken recipe. That’s okay, I understand. They can be messy and very caveman like (though, that’s why I love wings). But sometimes you want something easier. So here’s a simple nugget [...]

Korean Fried Chicken

Ron — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:15:50 +0000

(AUGH! WP ate my post. I’ll work on this more later.) For a while now, there has been a recipe for Korean Fried Chicken floating around the internet. I think it was first published in Saveur, then made its way to many a blog (check out a good write-up on this one: The Bitten Word). [...]

Halloween 2011 : Monster Mayhem

Ron — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 14:44:14 +0000

The theme this year is Monster Mayhem. Think: 1950s Japanese Godzilla movies. Here are some early shots of work in progress: Above we see Evelyn working on our version of Godzilla and Gamera. Godzilla is about 4 feet tall and over 4 feet wide (including his long tail). The “core” of his body is about [...]

WP Needs A Social Media Plug-In

Ron — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 14:23:17 +0000

Most of my daily conversations and projects have been happening less on this blog and more on places like Google+ and Facebook. (Though, to be honest, much less on FB recently.) For the benefit of those not found within those walled gardens, I wish there was some sort of social media aggregation software. Heck, I just want [...]

Making Time Lapse Videos – Initial Fumbling

Ron — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 19:47:36 +0000

You can create your own Time Lapse videos using all open source stuff. Well, almost all. On Windows I’m using ffmpeg (command line program) and InfranView(for bulk image processing). Photos were shot with a Canon DSLR (Rebel XTi) in “medium” resolution. Used my 555/556 based timer to trigger the shutter. Ttake the photos. The more [...]

Macro Sled – The Beginnings

Ron — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 19:23:25 +0000

Evelyn recently hacked apart an old CD-ROM drive (to get motors). The remaining tray / laser assembly was left without a purpose. But not for long. While poking around on the DIY photography sites I found things called macro sleds. These devices move small objects very small distances. You take a photo of the object [...]

What? No Woodworking?

Ron — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 19:06:03 +0000

Sorry, no woodworking projects recently. It’s summer in Austin and my shop/garage does not have air conditioning. It’s been a brutal summer, with weeks on end with temps 100+. So, no fun to be in the shop, even the night is still too hot — 90 at 11 PM. Even if the heat wasn’t so [...]

Time Lapse – The Basic Model (555/556)

Ron — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 19:00:17 +0000

You’ve figured out how to manually trigger your camera’s shutter, maybe using an old mouse. Now you want to start doing something more interesting, like time lapse. To do this you need either (a) a camera that has the feature built in — a lot of point and shoots do or (b) and external interferometer. [...]

Low Lux Illuminator

Ron — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:28:47 +0000

After messing a bit with light painting I thought it would be useful to build a RGB-like illuminator. Something I could use to highlight a person or object — like a fill light — while the painting is being done. At first I was going to do this with just potentiometers — something like a [...]

Light Painting

Ron — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:58:58 +0000

If you have a camera which will hold the shutter open as long as you press it, and some LEDs, you can light paint. Painting with light is simple: Go in a dark room, put camera on tripod. Open shutter. “Draw” in space with your LED. Close shutter. (Most SLRs have a “bulb” mode — [...]

Photography and Electronics

Ron — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:44:25 +0000

One of my favorite things about electronics is how nicely the hobby can cross pollinate into other hobbies. Play the guitar? Make your own effects pedals. Cooking? A custom timer. A remote thermometer. Photography? Time lapse circuits, lighting, motion control. We’ve been getting into more serious photography recently, thanks to the motivation of a friend. It’s prompted [...]

Saw Till and Small Shop Storage

Ron — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:59:03 +0000

We have a small (1 small car) garage which houses our shop. In total square feet, our shop is fine. The trouble is that we also build chicken coops — and they take up a 3′ x 6′ footprint — therefore, we have to keep the front 1/4 of the shop clear as a work [...]

Digital Piano Stand & Bench

Ron — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:03:36 +0000

I’ve been looking at digital pianos for a while now. Since I wanted something I can learn piano on, a couple of things were important. First, it had to be full-sized (88 keys). Second, it had to have “real” piano action (with full-sized keys). Third, it had to fit into my budget. I ended up [...]

Halloween 2010 : Area 51 : Tough Alien

Ron — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:10:09 +0000

Not all aliens are docile. This guy put up a heck of a fight. Some of you will be able to tell where he’s from: He was starting to get out of hand, so we had to put him behind bars. Unfortunately, the bars weren’t quite strong enough to hold him. Pretty soon he’ll be [...]

Halloween 2010 : Area 51 : Props In Place

Ron — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 15:43:23 +0000

We have aliens in our bushes, signs in our windows, and a road closed. The big Devils Tower mural will be mounted in front of the garage door, behind the “Road Closed” signs. At night, the four green aliens are spotlighted by some flickering 10mm white LEDs.

Halloween 2010 : Area 51 : Our Sick Alien

Ron — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 15:41:04 +0000

We based this off the rumors of alien autopsies occurring at Area 51. For the younger kids, this is a sick alien that the doctor is helping.