I've had my Drobo since February 2011. It's been almost 7 years. Yesterday I got home and went into the computer room and heard a horrible noise coming from the Drobo. It sounded like the fan was on the way out. It made a horrible rattling sound. The bearings were definitly shot. Time for a fan upgrade! Read More...

I had one of those crappy spirit levels with a LASER in it. It was a piece of junk. It was falling apart. It’s been sitting in the tool box for over a decade. I was cleaning some stuff out and was about to throw it out, but I can’t just throw away a LASER. What to do with it? Read More...

The other night I noticed that Time Machine failed to complete a backup to my Drobo. There was some weird error about the Drobo being set to read-only. I fixed it, but it reminded me that I had an old 640 and 750 Gig drive in there that needed to be upgraded.
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I did it! I finally finished upgrading the clock internals and the enclosure. I think it came out amazing. I just can’t believe after all these years that this clock finally looks like something I can be proud to display. I’m really happy with the results. Read More...

The last prototype Arduino board I made for the 7490 clock rework didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped. The board did what it was supposed to do, but the implementation wasn’t that great. The more I thought about it, the more it became clear that the Bare Bones Arduino boards I designed months ago were the perfect solution. After all, it’s projects like these that inspired me to create the Barebones Arduino in the first place. Read More...

Since I wasn’t happy with the engraving on the first spin, as well as totally forgetting to make a cut out for the display, I revised my SVG file and resubmitted it to Ponoko. As far as the color, I think it’s going to look pretty good. I might lower the value of the resistors in order to brighten up the digits. I’ll have to see what it looks like when it’s all put together. Read More...

While the PCBs for the new daughterboard were being fabbed, I took the time to design a new laser-cut acrylic enclosure. It needs a few tweaks, but overall it came out awesome... and the PCB fits like a glove! Read More...

Despite looking like a prototype, as well as a total piece of junk, I’m still very proud of the first clock I built in 2001. The 7490 clock was the first “big thing” that I ever designed and made from scratch. It’s a shame to leave it just sitting in the closet. After 13 years, I think it’s time to finally get it up and running the way it should, give it some upgrades, and a new enclosure.
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Back in 2010, I scored a clock from the maintenance guys at work. They replaced all the clocks around the building and put the old ones in the break room for people to take home. I refinished it and used a 1977 Star Wars LP as the face. I was very happy with the way that my Darth Vader clock came out. It hangs in my 7-year old son's room. However, he tells me that he has a hard time seeing what time it is without numbers on the clock. Understandable.

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I added an LED and a USB breakout board to my breadboard. Now I can just plug the board in using any 5V USB adapter. The LED will flicker (or go out) if I’m shorting something out. It’s good to have some visual feedback that the board is powered up. Read More...

Why, yes... that is a matched pair of 2TB drives. What ever should I do with them? Read More...

Looks like one of the hard drives in my Drobo just gave up the ghost. Read More...

I bought my Mom a new Series 2 Tivo for Christmas 2007. I’ve been paying $10 a month for the past year to find out that she’s never actually used it. That’s too bad. It’s a better Tivo than my one and it’s a shame to see it go to waste. Hers records two shows at once.

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I remember a few years ago when blue LEDs became all the rage. Back in my day it was amber and green; red was just old school. Listen to me, I sound like my old man.

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