Search Results for: electronics

Lightsaber Hilts from Utah

Last week, I ordered a lightsaber hilt from Salt Lake Saber Company on Etsy.

For cosplay and display, these hilts do not have blades or electronics, but they are made out of steel, vinyl and plastic, and come in either a chrome or satin nickel finish. These hilts can be made to order with custom specifications for only $30 each, but Blaire Maynes also sells pre-made hilts (which is what I ordered), which are only $25 each. Blaire sells high quality (and heavy) lightsaber hilts. Blaire even has a couple of blasters available.

There are other companies that sell all the parts needed to make a hilt, either with or without electronics (but you still have to put them together yourself), or you can go online to get a tutorial on how to get all the parts locally and make your own hilt. I tried making my own hilt earlier this year, and it was not a pretty finished sight!

If you have a future Jedi Knight on your Christmas list and you can’t find the right gift for him/her, check out Salt Lake Saber Company’s Etsy shop. You won’t be disappointed. Blaire’s lightsaber hilts look movie set quality.

Category: Craft, Geek, Movies, Sci-Fi | Comments Off

October 8

Cross-stitching smileys; inspiring minds

About one million years ago I cross-stitched a whole bunch of forum smileys/emoticons and attached them to note cards for a massive Internet forum-based snail mail exchange. At the time I was pretty sure that what I was doing was ridiculous, but I was having fun, and these were only people on the Internet anyway, so who cared, right?!

Today I received the nicest letter from one of the recipients that I’ve actually kept in touch with after all these years. In it, he explained that crafting had never occurred to him before he received my card, but that he loved it so much he tried out cross-stitch for himself (he actually sent me his first attempt – a Half-Life lambda icon), and that led to him trying out other crafts and projects from knitting, to papercraft, to electronics, and beyond!

So really what I wanted to share with you today was the thought that even though I was sure my little cross-stitch pixel-art cards were daft, they actually inspired someone out there to explore their own creativity, and that is AWESOME.

So keep crafting, folks – inspire away! And you know, looking back I reckon those emoticon cards were actually a pretty cool idea. If I do say so myself :)

Category: Computers, Craft, Geek, Internet Memes | 1 Comment

September 3

DIY Ambilight: Because your TV isn’t big enough already

You’d think that a 55-inch, full-HD LCD television with surround sound system connected to an enormous media pc, XBox 360 and a PS3 would be enough for a man who actually mostly plays PC games in a different room and watches TV on his phone on the train trip to work. But you’d be wrong.

Dave of DaveNewson.com is the latest of major nerdy tinkerers to take on the DIY challenge of Ambilight – a TV enhancement where the colours from your TV are projected onto the wall behind it. There are some sane reasons for doing this – improved immersion and less eye-strain when watching in the dark being the main ones. But mostly, Dave did it because it looks “cool as hell”. Click here to see it in action.

Want your own Ambilight system? There are a few different ways of setting this up apparently, but essentially you will need a strip of colour-changing LEDs, a micro controller, a PC to play media from, a 5 volt power supply, a TV, and a way better understanding of electronics than me. Click here to read the really quite detailed How-To on DaveNewson.com.

Category: Computers, Craft, Gadgets, Games, Tutorial, TV | Comments Off

July 30

PixelBrite: Programmable Pixel Light Panels

I’m getting used to being in total awe of some of the creativity, innovation, and pure genius displayed by people all over the Internet. The Geek collective especially seems to be amply blessed in all three departments, and this Instructable inspired by the wonderful Close Encounters of the Third Kind, posted by LeoneLabs, is no exception.

Admittedly, this isn’t your easy-to-recreate kind of geekcraft. You’ll need to get your head around electronics, microcontrollers, a bit of code, and it looks like you’d need a fair bit of patience to do all of the optimising and stuff that LeoneLabs goes into in the later steps. The components and materials also cost in the region of $550, but when you look at the results (and there are more awesome images to drool over if you follow the link), it looks like $550 well spent!

Personally, I have nothing further than GCSE (10th grade) electronics knowledge, and probably even less experience wth microcontrollers. So I will just sit back and marvel at the greatness that is PixelBrite, and wish I had one. Or four.

Category: Computers, Craft, Gadgets, Geek, Toys, Tutorial | 3 Comments

May 14

Tutorial: Stargate Glyph Recycled Foam Stamp

Wasn’t Stargate fantastic?! I watched a couple of old SG:1 episodes recently, and suddenly got the urge to do something crafty involving the gate glyphs. I had a rummage in my drawer of hoarded crap, and found some of that really smooth protective foam that comes with some electronics. You know the stuff that has a really fine grain and is probably not recyclable?! Well that’s the kind of stuff I keep hold of just for occasions like this!

How-to: Continue reading

Category: Craft, Geek, Sci-Fi, Tutorial, TV | 1 Comment

September 26

Reader Submission: Morse Code “Epic Win” Necklace

Here‘s a submission from Megan “Captain Girl Geek” at the Girl Geek Boutique.

“Gunmetal silver beads (as dots) and silver, gold, and copper striped electronic components (choke coils, as dashes) spell out the phrase “EPIC WIN” in morse code: “. .–. .. -.-. .– .. -.”.”

If your first thought was WEWT!… hey… she’s got the earrings for you!

I’m kind of thinking of this as a princess-and-the-pea kind of deal. A girl geek walks around with this around her neck and the day a suave geeky male points and shouts “EPIC WIN” with a smug smile on his face is the day she’s found a geek worthy of being her Prince Charming…. or something…

Category: Craft, Geek, Girly | Comments Off

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