Hacked Wall Clock (after Lord Vetinari)

This clock ticks erratically but still keeps accurate time. Its mechanism has been replaced by a programmable chip that emits 64 randomly spaced ticks every 64 seconds.

Lo Fi Blinky Card

Snow day project with 4 year old Rachel: a greetings card with flashing illuminated LEDs.

Daisy Chainable I2C Splitter PCB

One of a series of modular expansion boards for the I2C bus: a 1-3 splitter for branching I2C signals.

Valentine LED Chaser

The object of your desire will not be able to resist this heart shaped kitsch-o-tron, lovingly hand-crafted on perfboard with a CD4017B decade counter and 555 astable. But you probably can't go wrong with flowers and chocolates as well. Just to be on the safe side. Kits now available from Tindie!

$1 Lithium Coin Cell Charger

Got a buck? Make a charger for LiR2032 coin cells. It could hardly be cheaper or easier.

12mm Rotary Encoder Breakout

0.925" x 0.925" breakout board for 12mm rotary encoder with switch. The PCB has enlarged holes to fit generic encoders.

Stirplate Hot Fix

A digital stirring hotplate in decent used condition will set you back about $250. I paid a fraction of that for one with a broken heating function. The problem turned out to be nothing more than a duff switch.

Homemade MSP430 Launchpads

When I ordered some NRF24L01+ boosterpacks from the 43oh store, I asked for a couple of MSP430 Launchpad v1.4 PCBs. These are legacy boards kindly provided by TI (thanks LariSan!) It was fiddly soldering to the tiny 0402 pads since my components were all 0805. The LEDs were especially tricky. But they both turned out OK as you can see. Here they are (alongside a genuine Launchpad on the left) running the breathing LED demo from the OSX Launchpad toolchain.

Bike Handlebar Hack

Now here is a real hack. As in, something that can be accomplished by hacking, with a hacksaw. Although in fact it was an angle grinder that I used to streamline my handlebars, lopping off 13 cm (5" or so).

Bike Rack From Scrap Fence

Something had to be done with the heap of bikes in the garage. Fence panels welded along the edges made for a quick and cheap solution.

Stripboard PID Arduino Shield, Part 4: Thermocouple Interface

The diagram shows how to connect an Adafruit MAX31855 breakout board to the stripboard Arduino PID shield. Vin should connect to the 5V pin and DO, CS, and CLK to A0, A1, and A2 respectively. Connect a K thermocouple in the screw terminals. If the temperature reading goes down when it should go up, switch the thermocouple wires around.

LED Dimmer PWM Hack

This cheap dimmer is designed to blink LEDs with a variable duty cycle. The default frequency can be altered by swapping out a single capacitor. 20 kHz makes a whine-free speed control for a DC motor, 1 Hz gives slow PWM for high power resistive heating loads.

Stripboard I2C Logic Level Converter

A very easy logic level converter to translate I2C signals from, say, a 5 V Arduino to a 3.3 V slave device.

PID Controlled Egg Incubator

While on vacation I impulsively bought fertile chicken eggs from a farm stall. Needing to incubate them immediately, I cobbled together a rudimentary incubator from a styrofoam cooler and a few bits and pieces. A PID controller was the perfect device to govern the temperature.

Jumbo Bristlebot

With a bit more power this might make an autonomous floor scrubber. Maybe. OK, a lot more power. :)

Easy Benchtop Power Supply

Converting an ATX power supply is a great way to get juice to your electronics projects. With the ATX breakout board from Dangerous Prototypes you can do it while waiting for your toast to pop up, and it looks pretty good too.

Welder Rehab & Foot Switch

In which I buy an old school welder off the friendly neighbourhood chopper freak, fix it up, make an illuminated foot switch for it (which works although I have no idea how), and start gluing things together with hot metal, badly. Like warty Oscar here.

Lightweight Chicken Tractor

To shelter my chickens I needed a cage that was easy to build, light enough to be moved around the lawn, and that provided a cosy roost and nest box.

Cool and Curly Counterflow Chiller

The Magic Smoke Brewhouse is a fine place to chill. Especially since we put together this heat exchange coil for cooling wort.

Converted Cooler Mash Lauter Tun

It's long past time to start making beer again at the Magic Smoke Brewhouse and Grill. The best place to start is at the heart of the brewery: the mash lauter tun, or MLT.