Category: project

  • New House – new workshop

    I’ve been a little quiet on the blog for a little while, because we’ve been in the process of moving house. Lots of packing and worrying about logistics etc. Of course the biggest question mark was the moving of the workshop!

  • Pan and tilt webcam – Face tracking

    Pan and tilt webcam – Face tracking

    Last week I wrote about building a pan and tilt webcam, and at the end of that I mentioned that the next thing was to come up with some kind of software control on the PC to allow it to be easily moved around.

  • Pan and Tilt webcam mount – Arduino powered

    A long time ago I built a little pan and tilt mount from some scavenged electronics (a stepper motor from a printer and a worm drive from a cd player) I connected it via a parallel port and used darlington arrays and direct pin out of the parallel port to control the whole thing from…

  • Improvised tripod and light box

    Recently I was taking pictures of a little wooden watch stand I made for my bedside cabinet, and only noticed after posting that a couple of the images were a little blurry and generally the images are a bit meh.

  • Making Christmas presents – personal gifts

    Every year in the run up to Christmas, I go quiet on the blog, and other places where I would normally share the projects I’m working on. Because the projects I’m spending my time on are gift for Christmas, and I don’t want the recepients seeing details before they get the present. This year I…

  • Custom Nexus 4 Dock

    I have a Nexus 4, which I think is a great phone. I have it in a fairly reasonable hard aluminium case to protect it. Using a case is normally a good idea; however, the thing about most cases is that they are incompatible with a dock.

  • Customised Nerf Alpha Trooper Elite cs-12 inc. OrangeModWorks massacre kit

    This is the last one. My addiction has to end before I wind up with a full armoury of nerf guns. However, I decided to take this last one as far as I could go.

  • Custom paint job for a Nerf sharpshot

    Custom paint job for a Nerf sharpshot

    This weekend I spent some time reading about the amazing world of nerf gun modding and general prop painting. Turns out that people not only paint them with amazing designs, but there is also a healthy selection of improvements that can be made to the mechanical workings. to improve the range of the gun.

  • DIY CNC Router – engraving metal

    One of the things I wanted to try with my CNC router from the start was cutting metal. I’ve been building up to it as I learned the limits of my machine and got a sense for what it can do. 

  • DIY CNC Router – successful sign cutting test.

    Woo hoo! Today I had what I’m categorising as my first full on successful run though a whole sign engrave program.