Audio Projects

My last post had to do with making a robot that made parts for itself. It's time to shift gears and talk about making audio components. I've always wanted to put together a guitar amplifier from scratch but I've never been able to find a really good explanation on how to do it until I found this website. It's a fairly comprehensive look at how to build a JCM800 head. If you've ever been interested in putting together your own tube amplifier it's a great place to start. He has a lot of great ideas and insightful things to say about building tube amps.

What about effects? I found a really nice website online with a bunch of information on building your own effect pedals. It's called Super-Freq. He has a bunch of schematics and circuit board layouts on there. Check it out for yourself. I'm sure there are other websites out there with effect pedal layouts. Let me know if you find any!

While I was writing this post I also stumbled across Geofex website. They also have a bunch of information and links for good places to start looking for information on building tube amplifiers and effects.

That's it for now. I'm out.

Reprap part 2

I'm back... with the second post about the Reprap robot. I did warn you that this blog would be full of geeky things didn't I? They actually renamed the Reprap robot to Repstrap. You can check out part 2 here.

It truly is an amazing idea. The mechanics and electronics that go behind these robots have always baffled me. Even now when you watch the video it looks really complicated. At work I take care of and administer something very similar to this robot called a tape silo (IBM 3584). It operates on the same principle as the Repstrap robot does. There is a robot arm that moves along an X and Y axis to move tapes around. The difference is the Repstrap robot is a 3 axis robot. When you look at the tape silo the mechanics behind it are actually quite simple. A rail for the X axis and a screw for the Y axis.

The more research I do on these type of robots the more I realize what a simple concept they really are. Whats really cool is you can use the same concept as the Repstrap robot to make a 3 axis milling machine or CNC Router. I might in fact build one of these things one day. I just need to somehow find some more time. Right now I have too many other projects on the go. Don't worry, I'll talk about them in my blog sometime in the future.

That's enough for now. I'm out.

Standard boring post... with a twist!

I've been waiting for something interesting to post but have found out that I don't really have anything interesting to really say. I've been reading Ali's blog and I have to say that I'm rolling on the floor laughing every time he posts something new. Ali's blog is great for people who know the guy. I'm not sure how people who don't know him would react to reading it. But, I'm digressing. My point is that Ali always has something to say. I on the other hand do not. Judging by this post I have probably bored all one of you to tears sooo from now on I'm going to post cool things.

Cool things (and probably geeky) things like Making a Reprap Robot. What is a Reprap robot you ask? Simply put it is a self-replicating rapid-prototyping robot! Okay maybe not so self-replicating but the whole point of the robot is able to make it's own parts. Cool huh? Go check it out. I'm really thinking about building one. Oh so many projects... so little time.

I dont know

Yeah, I dont know what to say. This is my first post..... SO yeah.. take that.

Peace to your hommies.