Maniacal Labs
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Stay tuned...
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Fun with the MSGEQ7 Graphic Equalizer Chip
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Neon Lamp Logic Nixie Clock
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FG085 MiniDDS Function Generator Build Pics
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24x24 LED Matrix Build
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NeoPixel Glass Skull Lighting Effect (A.K.A Mr. BlinkySkull)
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Finally, A Windows Package Manager - With Chocolate!
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NC Maker Faire 2014: A Huge Success
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NC Maker Faire Teaser
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Dial-A-Song: Part 1
We’ve been a little quiet lately. But have no fear, it’s only so that we could focus 100% on our next great endeavor. 1 year of work. 7 prototypes. But oh, so many pixels. Something awesome coming on November 9th. Stay tuned.
Not much today. Just a pair of videos from some testing I’ve been doing with the MSGEQ7 Graphic Equalizer Display Filter chip. The first one shows the waveform of the analog output of the chip. The second video shows what happens when you take that output and parse it out to a bunch of LPD8806 lights. If these experiments go any further, I’ll do a more in-depth post with code and schematics and stuff.
Read more…Now this is just plain cool. And insane. Every once in a while I see a project that really makes me question how much I know about electronics design and this is certainly one of them. Instead of a microprocessor, or even plain-old discrete transistors, all of the logic of this clock is accomplished with nothing more than neon lamps. Whaaaat? I won’t even try to explain, but let the designer explain over on his site.
Read more…Not much for today, just a few pics from my build of this nifty kit from Sparkfun: FG085 MiniDDS Function Generator. I figure an inexpensive function generator would be a good idea to buy first and see how much I actually use it before sinking bigger bucks into a piece of full-on test gear. Overall, I’m happy with this kit, aside from a few minor quirks here and there. No show-stoppers though.
Read more…This project was briefly teased before, but it seemed like a good time for more details. Originally conceived as a coffee table build,it quickly morphed into what will eventually become a wall hanging and has been a test-bed for a lot of my LED work. Having worked a great deal with a variety of these digital LED strips, I noticed that in most cases they were manufactured in 0.
Read more…Awesome skull-shaped vodka bottle plus Arduino Pro Mini plus NeoPixels equals: I’ve had this (empty) bottle of Crystal Head vodka for a while. Admittedly I mostly bought it because the bottle was really neat and I wanted to make it light up. Up until this point, I was using a small version of the RGB clock to illuminate it. It was a neat effect, but not very bright. It was time for an upgrade.
Read more…To the chagrin of the open source community, I’m a Windows guy. I do really like Linux based systems, but much of my professional career has remained at least partly in the Windows world. 15 years of using Visual Studio (the only Microsoft product I truly like) have brought me to prefer it greatly over any IDE out there. I even use it for all my Arduino/AVR work, but that’s another post.
Read more…Dan and I just got back from NC Maker Faire 2014 here in Raleigh and our brains are still buzzing with all of the awesomeness of the day. Many, many thanks to the great staff and volunteers of this years Faire for creating an awesome experience for all, both maker and attendee. For those that we had wonderful conversations with and are now just checking out our website, you can find more details about all of the projects we were showing off today at our NC Maker Faire 2014 page.
Read more…Just a quick teaser for the upcoming NC Maker Faire on June 7th. These are just some animation tests for my new LED display. It’s a 24 x 24 pixel LED matrix built from LPD8806 LED strips and mounted on a 24” x 24” sheet of acrylic. The animations are generated by some python code running on a Raspberry Pi. LPD8806 Matrix
Read more…Earlier this week, we got the great news that we have been accepted to the North Carolina Maker Faire. We’re absolutely ecstatic to get to share some of our projects with the public but it’s also been a great push to get some other projects done. I’ve had this particular project bouncing around my head for a couple of years now. I call it Dial-A-Song. Much of the inspiration came from They Might Be Giants, who used to leave recordings of their songs on their answering machine, which could be listened to by calling (718) 387-6962.
Read more…