the aj blog

The Weller Portasol is a piezo-ignition, butane powered, portable soldering iron.

Why Butane?

The main choice of a butane soldering iron over a standard electric one would probably be somehow related to portability. A bottle/internal container of butane is portable, your house’s electrical system is not. I also noticed it has a much greater range of heat than my ~$20 Radioshack model, and they’re almost the same price. The butane iron claims it can go “from 25 watts to 75 watts!” which is adjusted with a discrete knob controlling the amount of butane that flows. It can get very hot. The ignition system is piezo based, much like a spark plug in my opinion.

Exhaust

The “exhaust” from this thing is also very hot. The combustion is very complete, with very little smoke from the butane its self. What I mean is the very hot stream of air that comes out of the side of the tip. You truly need to be careful with it, when I was working on the hacked amplifier, I burnt and deformed the plastic case with it. Then, intentionally, I used the heat on part of Project SteaDIY to melt a skate bearing into some PVC (coming soon). It hurts. It will char paper.

Summary

This is great if you’re travelling (although not permitted on air), and is very easily refillable with a standard butane lighter refill. It heats up to temperature in about 10 seconds, and I sometimes even just use it for convenience when I could have access to a corded iron. Just plain awesome, and about $30 after discounts on Amazon.

My pizza box laptop case with vacuum formed shell.

Not My Idea

This has been commercially done and covered. I merely made my own DIY version. Please don’t sue me. Glad that’s over.

Why?

Very few thieves are willing to break into a car to steal a pizza. But who knows whether there’s actually pizza in that box? Who knows it isn’t a laptop, say? The answer is, “if done right, there is no way to tell.” I often take trips to NYC with my laptop, and as with any big city, I have to hide it. Beneath a seat, coat, blanket, anything. I will no longer have said problem! This very quick design would look a lot nicer with some paint, but I’m worried about dissolving the awesome urethane foam I used.

Authentic Pizza Box

To increase realism, and the chances it will be accepted as nothing more than pizza, I went to a local pizza shop. I asked the guy for two slices of pizza, and a separate box for a project, to which he happily obliged.

Vaccum Formed Shell

To make my laptop fit perfectly, I turned to vacuum forming. Unwilling to spend mucho money on a professional former, I settled for a “kitchen floor” version, as can be found in MAKE. It’s called “kitchen floor” as you basically are stuck there, using the oven as a heat source. My first attempt catastrophically failed, sticking to the oven rack. Messy. The second try, I successfully got it out in time, then right on top of my laptop. Vacuum on. Wait 10 seconds. Done. As a precaution I had put greased foil on top of any stickers just to be safe. I trimmed this mold down until it fit the box in the way I wanted. I also drilled out a hole so I can discretely put a power jack in and charge without giving anything away. This got affixed to the box where I wanted it with lots and lots of Great Stuff (expanding sticky urethane spray foam).

Cord Portholes

To permit simple and secretive cords to leave the box, I cut a few three-sided rectangles out of the bottom (basically leaving them hinged). I extended the already existent ventilation slots for the same purpose.

Padding

I looked around for the quickest soft thing I had. It was a strange pile fuzzy fabric, an unattractive greenish. Almost half a bottle of contact cement later, bottom of box lid and fuzz were one. This pads the laptop in case the strap is not used or fails. It also probably makes it hotter (not good).

Strap

Reuse is the first of the 3 R’s. I had a laptop bag that after years of service was covered in holes. It had a nice laptop strap. Best of all, it was free. A seam ripper made short work of the binding stitches, and the strap was free. I dug two little holes in the foam where I wanted to mount the strap and squirted some Gorilla Glue in. Put the strap in, duct tape temporarily in place, and more foam. I don’t know whether it was the glue or the foam which holds it in, but it’s stuck in there for good.

Conclusion

On the inside, it looks like junk. It’s screaming for black paint. Regardless, it actually ended up costing me nothing, having all the materials on hand. There is room in back of the laptop for any other small gadgets and a modern power brick. Finally, the real goal has been achieved, to build a case which no one will want to steal while containing something they would.

A vaccum forming disaster, now considered "art" and hanging from my bedroom ceiling.

The new foam waterbottle handle combined with a skate bearing and bolted to the plate.

The Handle

On the weekend, I made a much easier to hold handle out of one of the most commonly found household items: a water bottle. Combine (more specifically, inject) that with the slightly less common Great Stuff expanding foam and you’ve got a handle. The foam is very light, extremely sticky, expands, and makes the handle firm without adding much weight. Originally intended for sealing gaps, it’s wonderful for many other projects where a carvable, lightweight plastic foam is needed. Since it’s sticky, you can also use it for a kind of flexible glue at the same time. Best of all, one can runs at only about $5.

Skate Bearing Stabilization

After being inspired by both the concept, content, and music of this awesome YouTube video, I went out and bought a box of skate bearings from a specialty skateboard shop in town. I got 8 “precision, high quality, china-manufactured to our specifications, ultra-performance” skate bearings for $16. Not bad considering ordering just one online at $.60 each would incur $10 shipping. I went about looking for something the bearing would fit into, which is when I noticed it nearly fit the water bottle. But it didn’t. What do you do when something doesn’t fit? Make it fit. A couple seconds with a lighter warped the plastic enough to jam the bearing in, already attached to a bolt. In this configuration, the bearing now provides rotational stability. What it needs now is the gimbal configuration to give it full three dimensional (rotation, x, and y) stability. Also from the same video I learned one method was to use Traxxas replacement part #1951. Off to Google I go. A quick Shopping search for “traxxas 1951″ proved it to be around $5. Five seems to be rather magical today. Then I got obsessive, comparing retailers not against product price but against total price after tax/shipping. I settled with A Main Hobbies, saving a buck or two and wasting 10 minutes. Based in California, it’ll probably arrive by Friday. How is a modal car part going to solve anything? There are two plastic and two aluminum shafts (I think) that come in the package, along with four “metal universal joints”. The joints look almost like jacks. Pop one into the two holes on the shaft, and connect it to another shaft. Then, they’ll turn on both x and y axis. Gimbal! Hack into submission and enjoy!

A plain copper board toner transferred, touched up with marker and labeled.

Toner Transfer

As part of the process for home printed circuit board etching, you need to somehow get a resist where you want there to be copper. After the transfer, you can then apply any of many different etching chemicals which then dissolve the unprotected metal. In my opinion, this step, good toner transfer, is the hardest and biggest roadblock to anyone trying to make a quick board. The concept is relatively simple, iron a laser printed piece of paper onto the copper, fusing the plastic toner to the copper. Commercial products are sold that achieve this much easier, but who wants to have to spend money, pay shipping, then wait for it to arrive? So, trying as many different tutorials I could find on the Internet, I set out to meld plastic to metal. I used a cheap old LaserJet 5P for this purpose, and printed a schematic out on magazine paper first. I ironed it on, and it partially held, as visible in the lower left corner of the photo. I then used Office Depot Presentation Paper to try and get a better stick. It was a bit better, as seen in the upper right. I also tried different combinations of scrubbing preparations and such on the back. None fully worked. I got a bubble tank ready, a bubbler, all the chemicals, and even a glove box, and the only conclusion I can come to is this: toner transfer is no fun!

The chair, rigged and ready for a tree and pulley.

What??

A bosun’s chair is a type of seat often used when someone has to be lifted up somewhere, like a high up mast on a boat. What I made is also effectively a bosun’s chair. It’s effectively a lawn chair turned bosun’s. Using climbing rope, some thinner rope, a bunch of webbing, 3 carabiners, a metal chair, and a ~$15 oscillante pulley from EMS, I managed to develop a device enabling you to hoist yourself into a tree. I specifically like my version because of the suspended lawn chair effect. It’s hard work, lifting your own weight, due to there only being the one pulley. I have to add more knots to actually make it practical too. But it sure was fun, dangling in the air, sitting in a chair (rhyme unintentional).

Warning

Test your chair with 1.5x your weight in sandbags before sitting in it. I am not responsible for any damage or injury caused by performing anything in this article. I wore a ski helmet/goggles for extra protection/coolness factor.

Setting it Up

First of all, you need to rig the chair. Using a knot who’s name I can’t remember, the one that tightens with force like all good knots and has a loop, get it so that each leg is on the rope. Tie them all together. You should now be able to lift the chair with one hand, holding it by the long rope extending upwards. Then, make a kind of seat belt with some different rope, tied to one end of the chair with loops to hook into a carabiner on the other side. To finish it off, tie a separate piece of rope to the main one closest to the chair, so it can be carabiner’d to a loop on the other side of the pulley to lock you in place. Then, get the pulley into the tree. The particular one I used I believe had a safe working load of ~2 kn (~500 lbs.) and a breaking load of 16 kn (~4 tons). I’d only be putting 200-something pounds up so that wasn’t a problem. Using the webbing, get the pulley on a carabiner on to an extending branch. Loop the rope through, then make lots of loop knots to climb up and clip into. There you have it! Hoist yourself up, enjoy the view, and don’t fall down.

Creative Xmod - poor lighting, extremely grainy. Sorry...

The Xmod

This is yet another great example of a device with no proof if it works other than to try it. The Xmod is a USB sound card from Creative, which has two sound “restoration” features: the Crystallizer and CMSS-3D. The Crystallizer, in the marketing department’s words, “intelligently restores the highs and lows for rich, crystal clear music playback.” I didn’t believe it. Nor did I believe that it “features smart technology that turns your plain stereo sound into rich virtual surround sound by centering vocals and moving ambient sounds all around you.” Whatever. The real reason I bought it was because the internal microphone jack had a weird hum I couldn’t get rid of. Also, I could get it for $25, $55 dollars off, direct.

Microphone Sound

It worked great with my lavaliere and unidirectional microphone. No hum! Already worth it. The Crystallizer and 3D effects thankfully do not apply here.

Headphone Sound

The Xmod comes with a dandy pair of earbuds which I immediately started using over my iPod ones. They’re better and don’t hurt my ears, fit-wise. They do look quite a bit like the iPod ones, also. With the Xmod, however, they make a killer combination. While Crystallizer and 3D can make some things sound really distorted, they can be disabled independently with two switches. Most music will sound great with it, though, and you’ll want to know how to increase the intensity. By tapping the whole upper plastic section twice, with the LEDs, you can control the Crystallizer intensity with the built-in volume knob. Tap again to change the 3D setting. It will then either time out or you can tap again to get out of the adjustment mode.

Other Things Worth Noting

The Xmod requires USB power to run, so, independent from a USB port it’s useless. Get around this with either a mini-USB AC adapter, or something similar to a MintyBoost. It works as a USB sound card, but, should you wish to use an iPod or other non-USB-sound-card-compliant device, connect the headphone jack on your device to the line-in on the Xmod. Like I already said, you still need power though. The volume knob works via USB, so it won’t work without a computer. That said, this device is a wonderful addition to anybody’s toolbox!

By attaching a strong magnet to both sides of a finger, you can then feel electromagnetic radiation.

About a “6th Sense”

This has been done for quite a while now actually. With today’s technology, it can be simple to give yourself unnatural and really cool new senses. One of the extra senses commonly added is magnetism. This can be acheived usually by implanting a small neodymium (rare earth) magnet capsule in one’s finger. If you followed implanted people’s descriptions, like that from iatrogenic.cx, you would know how some implants end up, sooner or later, in an infection, or another problem ensues. It’s invasive. There’s no anesthesia, as it’s done by a body modification specialist. When you encounter a magnetic field, the implant would pull slightly outwards, triggering nerves that you can feel as a slight tugging on the finger. By using this method I discovered, you can less accurately but completely noninvasively feel magnetic fields. It’s very simple and costs less than $5.

Let’s Start!

First of all, we need small button magnets. The easiest place I’ve found to get them is at Michaels, strangely. The closest online listing I was able to find wasn’t the ones you need, but it’s close, ProMAG brand. The actual ones are smaller, come 6 to a package, and are probably available in store. Just take two out of the package, and put one on each side of the desired finger. It’s really that simple.

Good Magnetic Fields

You can find magnetic fields in many places. Power supplies are especially good. Their transformers work as large antennas and can be felt. What’s the best are, occasionally, security systems, and always, electric motors. Putting your new magnetic finger near a fan, pencil sharpener, or other motor and feel the vibration, without contact. Too cool!

My iPod goes to the amplifier, then is transmitted through a radio.

What’s Happening?

So, the way it’s working in the photograph is that music is going from my iPod, to the hacked amplifier, to the handsfree jack, which then transmits on FRS/GMRS frequencies. It can be heard with another two-way radio. Now, you may be thinking, “Why’d you just re-invent the FM transmitter!” Well, this doesn’t transmit on any traditional FM/AM radio frequencies. By utilizing two-way radios for communication, other people with radios you’re already using can hear! Or, play really weird music and annoy them! I prefer the latter.

How is This Done?

The particular gift card was the one that Best Buy sells, which features an iPod speaker on the back. The card comes off easily, with some clips. Take a bunch of screws out, and you expose the circuit board. All I did was desolder the speaker leads and solder on a mini-audio jack, like the ones found on cellphones and handsfree systems. I soldered the positive speaker lead to the microphone section, as visible from pinouts.ru, and then soldered the negative lead to ground. Holding down “talk” with everything on blares music on the selected channel. A tad quiet and finicky, but better than without amplification. Awesome!

Salt Dough Landforms

Who Needs CAD?

Who does need CAD for simple projects? Who can afford those things? Answer is not many beginning hobbyists. Especially when you’ve got the power of one of the best tangible prototyping interfaces on your hands available today! It is…salt dough!

What’s Salt Dough?

Salt dough is an edible but nasty-tasting dough usable for all sorts of applications. For example, in the case seen above, you can prototype imaginary land forms. It dries in a matter of hours for small pieces, and a matter of a couple days for thicker things. It’s simple, and can be made with off-the-shelf kitchen supplies easily. Just form it into whatever you wish to make it look like, be it anything from a project enclosure to a prototype of a new type of jewelry. Let it dry on a cookie sheet. When it’s done, you could vacuum form it into something usable, carefully hollow it out and make something, or just let it be as is. Choosing the last step, you can proceed to painting. Most general purpose paints should work, probably not oil paints or whatever. Let it dry. Finally, if you really feel it needs a protective coat, dunk it into a little puddle of Elmer’s glue and put it onto a piece of paper or something. After about 10 minute, take a brush and even out the coat, making sure it doesn’t collect into low parts. The best quick, cheap, “slow prototyping” method!

Recipe

Quite simple, here it is:

- 1 cup of salt
- 2 cups of flour
- 3/4 to 1 cup of lukewarm water, depending on humidity. Trial and error.

Add the salt to the flour in a bowl and mix with your hands. Just try not to get it into cuts, as it stings from the salt. Add water until the whole mixture is mixed up. Knead on something easy to clean. Can be stored for about a month in a sealed container. Then it starts to rot and get stinky. Not wanted. Throw away upon rotting, please.

"Project SteaDIY"

Yay!

I actually had some time and got around to building the Merlin clone. I think I might nickname the project “Project SteaDIY”. My first and foremost problem was the pipe I had ordered. I had had no idea what wall size to order, so I just went with 1/8″. Big mistake. That stuff is like, the type goons carry around to whack people with. Not the kind I can bend in a wooden form. So, I downgraded. Going out to the local hardware store, for about $2 I purchased somthing like 8 feet of thin wall steel conduit. It’s steel, so it’s heavier. But it was bendable. I used a 4.5 inch radius plywood form to bend the semicircle, with a lever type mechanism as described here. It worked, with no kinks either! I crimped something like the last 2 inches in a vice, making it flat.

Attaching Everything

Although I certainly did goof quite a bit when it came to the drilling measurements, resulting in off holes, it all worked out in the end. At Wal-Mart I found some Stanley Line Levels which, after beating into submission, I was able to bolt on. I had the balance bolts ready for a while, also making it easy to bolt. As for the handle, I don’t have anything special that works yet. I tried a kind of gimbal that I had made, more a piece of art than anything else, which broke under the strain of the rig. So, sacrificing stability for simplicity, I merely chopped up something that would work for a handle and bolted it on too. I really need to get a better handle-rig mount that will allow more handle jiggles and less footage jiggles.

The Price?

Amazingly, I think it was under $50 for everything. The most expensive was the plate, which was special order 6061 alloy 1/8″ aluminum, at about $10 including shipping or something like that. This is, of course, not including a camera.

The Synopsis?

I’m not done yet. On my to-do list: better weight balancing, and a better handle mount. The rest works fine, all good.