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[Unosuke]

I got this beginner's soldering kit a while back, and finally got around to putting it together, so here ya go.



I also put a little pin on the back to I can put it on my bag



Here's another one, sorry for the blurriness
 

[celticgeek]

Of course, electronics counts as a craft.

And that is pretty cool.

[oblivion]

Nice!  Do you get dugg often? 

You've got to love AdaFruit Industries and MakeZine.  My first kit was the miniPOV kit which I hacked into a 'Brain Machine' thanks to MakeZine/Mitch Altman.

MiniPOV in action:


The "Brain Machine":

[Unosuke]

I kind of want to make one of those brain machines. Do they really work?

Also, I want to get that POV kit for your bicycle wheels

[oblivion]

If by 'work' you mean 'make funky tones and blinky lights,' yes, they work quite well.  The effect is trippy to varying degrees.  I have some tinnitus, so the base frequencies used in Mitch Altman's instructions were, quite honestly, obnoxious.  I figured out (with his help) how to program lower base freqs which are easier on my ears.  I've also tweaked the order/timing of the brain wave patterns more to my liking.  The default pattern is designed to get you to meditate then bring you back to alertness.  I want something that's going to help me get to sleep since sometimes I just can't turn my brain off.  The beauty of open source hackery is that I can experiment with different patterns to my heart/brain's content.  I haven't settled on the perfect pattern yet, but it works pretty well.

I say order the kit and follow the MakeZine instructions.  Total cost is less than $20 depending on what you have laying around and if nothing else you could put the blinking LEDs in a skeleton cutout and have a funky Halloween decoration   Or if the brain machine doesn't work for you, you could always hack it back into the miniPOV kit.

The bicycle POVs look cool, but honestly, I don't ride my bike anymore.  If I thought it could live up to the rigors of being on a motorcycle, I just might try it.

What I REALLY want to build is AdaFruit's MIDIsense kit.  Then, of course, there's the x0xb0x. http://www.ladyada.net/make/x0xb0x/ 

[valley_parade]

I still want to build a stompbox or two.

[carrotosaurus]

I've built 4 stompboxes. I'll post pics afte they are painted.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

what the fuck are you guys talking about? it sounds fascinating.

also, what does that thing do, unosuke?

[Unosuke]

its quite simple, you push the button, and that little lcd flashes "dug" and then the number goes up. it can only go to 999.

[oblivion]

I've built 4 stompboxes. I'll post pics afte they are painted.

Badass.   What do they do?  Did you design them yourself, or go from schematics?

[carrotosaurus]

They're all built from kits. I'm thinking about designing my own/pulling some schematics off the web and soldering a blank board, but I'm in the process of moving and need to setup a desk for such projects. My friend and I are thinking about designing some of our own pedals and going into the boutique guitar FX pedal business. It's very lucrative, from what I hear...

I grabbed a couple different kits off http://www.buildyourownclone.com/ and built them. Very good sounding boxes. What I have currently is:
Compressor
Digital Delay
Tremelo
MK II Tonebender

And I'm working on a Lazy Sprocket right now. All of the pedals sound FANTASTIC. I highly recommend them, especially because you'll be able to get some pretty amazing tones on the cheap.

[roulettescars]

Damn, I'm deffinatly going to check into some of those pedals. Are they very difficult for a first time electronics constructor? Or can you recomend anything to practice with that i could probably find lying around the house gathering dust?

[valley_parade]

http://www.buildyourownclone.com/fuzz.html

Holy crap man I want to build a fuzz pedal.

[Ballard]

I've known about that site for a while and they have some cool shit but I haven't really had access to a soldering iron.

There's one at the guitar shop I recently started working at. It might be a cool project.

So far I've just been learning to wire guitars though. Amps and pedals are much more difficult.

[ledhendrix]

I built a compressor, it is really fun making thinks. Also having a soldering iron is so handy if you are prone to breaking leads, i havn't had to buy a lead in ages, you can just buy the lead wire and get some of the jacks and then make up your own leads any length you want.

[roulettescars]

you can get a soldering iron for like 10 bucks at wal mart or radio shack. I've recently developed an interest in circuit bending, which is fun, cause you don't really have to know what you're doing, its all about experimenting.

[MarkTBSc]

When I bought a guitar, rather than shell out for an amp and risk making everyone very very upset at the 'Natasha-like' noise I decided to build my own headphone amp. This was after falling in love with all the gadgets people have put in altoids tins. You can guess what happened next.





Of course I do have the unfair advantage that I do this for a job so have all the tools and parts to hand.

[Social Bacon]

That is the most awesome amp I have ever seen. Just wow.

[MarkTBSc]

Thanks, but it's a bit of a mess really. It works but someday I'll have to rebuild it with a tidier circuit-board. The trouble is that etching PCBs requires caustic chemicals I'm not fond of and a UV setup I don't have.

It's on the back burner - next come the Plasma Speakers!!