New toy!

The tech blog has a new toy to mess with!

Today i received a high-powered Helium-Neon laser. Wait for some upcoming projects.

Broken Projector Mod/Fix

The other day i got a Proxima Ultralight LS1 projector with a broken bulb for 20 dollars. After tearing it apart i found the bulb check control lines coming out of the ballast board. These lines check to see if there is a bulb in the projector. After bridging the +3.5v pin and the Return pin on the corresponding plug on the main control board, the projector thought there was a bulb in the unit. After Buying a 50w Mr16 halogen bulb (6 dollars) here from walmart, i built a custom bracket(see pic two).The bulb bracket was built out of a old cd drive case. The bulb runs of twelve volts. Using a old computer power supply (picture 4), i bridged the green wire and ground on the 20 pin atx connector(on the Power supply). This tricks the power supply into thinking a motherboard is connected to the power supply.  After connecting the bulb to the yellow and black pins on the standard 4-pin hard drive connector (picture 5)  on the power supply, it lit up the bulb. 50 watts isnt a lot, but it was still very bright.  The bracket connects to the cover of the Light Bulb port, which is a perfect spot to connect. The replacement bulb runs about 5 times cooler than the original, so no extra cooling is required. The only problem is brightness. Although this bulb was sufficient, seeing small details were difficult. I am eventually going to buy another bulb that is 100 watts. If anyone is going to follow this idea, i would strongly recommend a 100 watt bulb.

No images of it working, but i’ll try to post some tomorrow when i clean the dust of the internal lenses.

Working image at bottom!!!!!!

The Cable shown in this picture is the one i bridged. The cable goes between the Bulb PSU and the control board.

Talk to you all later.

jjdogg (Josh)

No, I’m not dead

jjdogg hasnt died, he just has been busy with school and other stuff. I have built a new studio, with a HD camera, a boom mic on a crane, a sweet audio processing system, and warm lighting. This studio room is actully where i hold my server. In some of my videos, you will see that. So, there is more coming. Once i get some more supplies, i will post my journey building an arduino based, remote controlled robot. Thanks, and stay tuned!

Quick Smart Test

Are You a smart person or a chemistry savvy person?

here is a quick test to find out!

What is this word?    Unionized

If you said Union-ized then you are not chemisty savvy.

If you said Un-ion-ized then you think like a chemist.

Awsome Programs Pt.2

Today i am going to review a game software called trackmania.

Trackmania is a free and paid computer game, created by NADEO. The current free version of the game is called TMnations forever. TM Nations, is the free version of Trackmania. The paid version is called Trackmania United. I downloaded the free version a few years ago when it was a new game. Trackmania nations is a racing game, you can play it online, race premade maps, or race ones created by yourself. Tm nations utilizes nvidia graphics. I have to say, these graphics are AMAZING!!!!  It is close to quality produced in ps2 racing games.  The track creator is super simple, yet capable of creating amazing tracks, in a short amount of time.  TmNations even supports 3d graphics, with any red\blue glasses. My only complaint is that there is no choice of cars in the free version, you can still customize a f1 racer, with paint and labels. It is still possible to add cars into it.

Download here

Out of 11 stars i give this game a 10 out of 11

Awsome Programs Pt.1

The next few days, into next week i am going to post free programs, and review them.

The first program i am going to review is a program by the name of InkScape

InkScape is a SVG graphics editor, and is the equivalence of a scaled down illustrator. It is a vector based image editor/creator. If you dont know what svg is, it stands for Scaleable Vector Graphics. Vector, is a way to make images using simple geometric shapes, including polygons, lines, and circles. Which is opposed to a raster graphics image software like photoshop. Photoshop uses raster graphics, which are composed of sqare shaped pixels.

InkScape has a simple layout that can be used by anybody that has used any program like ms paint. Even though it is simple, this program has vast capabilities drawing anything. There is also lots of documentation which hepls you get started. I followed a awsome tutorial, and had created the sweedish flag in 5 minutes. Then i created the US flag, in under 7 minutes.

To finish off this review, InkScape is availible for OSX, Windows, and linux. It is also availible in source files.

Out of 11 stars i give this a

8 out of 11

download it here:

http://www.inkscape.org/

By the way, the star thing was made in InkScape in about 5 minutes

Messing Around with photoshop

I was messing around with photoshop for my “Adverstisemnet Communication class” and made an iphone spinoff.  The xPhone