Make0907: DIY - Circuits

Make0907: DIY - Circuits
Pdf | 6 pgs | 2 mb

DIGITAL CLOCK
Programming PIC microcontrollers, part 3. By Sparkle Labs
TV SET SALVAGE
Nothing good on TV? Well, there's plenty of good stuff in a TV. By Thomas Arey

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Working with Carbon Fiber

Working with Carbon Fiber
John Wanberg | Make Vol. 09- 2007 | Pdf | 7 pgs | 3 mb

It seems as though nearly everything high performance these days boasts some amount of carbon fiber in its construction. Originally used in aerospace, carbon fiber has moved into the mainstream and can be found in luxury automobiles, mountain bikes, and sports equipment.

Some laptops and cellphones even use printed decals to simulate this lightweight material's cutting-edge look. The good news is that you don't need a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility to work with carbon fiber composites. In fact, you can do it at home.

This article discusses some of the basics of carbon fiber construction and explains how to create a carbon fiber iPod case. All you need are some basic woodworking tools and skills, and the right materials. And because the same process also applies to fiberglass and Kevlar composites, these skills give you multiple ways of boosting your future projects to a new, level!

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Windup Car

Windup Car
Paul LeDuc | Make Vol. 09- 2007 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

When my pickup truck broke down, a friend lent me her Geo Metro convertible for 2 weeks. Well, I'm a good-sized guy, and at first I felt a bit silly driving this tiny car, but quickly tell in love with it. It's easy to park, great on gas, and o blast to drive. I decided to buy my own, and I though that if I'm willing to be seen driving this toy sized car, why not go all the way and put a big windup key on the back?

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Strung Out

Strung Out
Tom Zimmerman | Make Vol. 09- 2007 | Pdf | 5 pgs | 3 mb

This project will show you how to build an amazingly inexpensive and rad-looking one-string electric guitar out of pine wood and PVC pipe. A single string purposely keeps the design simple. (For a 3-string cigar box model, see MAKE, Volume 04.)

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Pinhole Panoramic Camera

Pinhole Panoramic Camera
Ross Orr | Make Vol. 09- 2007 | Pdf | 12 pgs | 5 mb

PIN-O-RAMA
Lensless and low-tech, pinhole cameras have always been maker-friendly. But forget the Quaker Oats carton, and go wide with this roll-film, panorama design.

I bought a new scanner recently, and soon found myself spelunking through drawers of old photos from my many misspent years in photography. Some of the most interesting shots were the pinhole camera experiments I had done as a teenager. With ghostly outlines from multi-minute exposures, and shapes warped into boomerangs by curved film, these otherworldly images got me dreaming about pinhole cameras again.

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The $5 Cracker Box Amplifier

The $5 Cracker Box Amplifier
Ed Vogel & Blind L Pete | Make Vol. 09- 2007 | Pdf | 8 pgs | 3 mb

BIG SOUNDS FROM A SMALL PACKAGE
In MAKE, Volume 04,1 presented my version of the venerable cigar box guitar. The instructions for the project included adding an electric pickup so you could play the guitar through an amplifier.

People from around the world emaiIed me to tell me they'd built cigar box guitars based on my instructions. I struck up a conversation with one gentleman from Europe who goes by the moniker Blind Lightnin' Pete. He made a couple of beautiful cigar box guitars, including one he calls the Vintage Blues Texas Rattlesnake Special model. He then went one step further, and built a cracker box guitar amplifier. This outstanding little amp cost all of $5 to build (depending on where you get the parts). Pete kindly allowed me to modify his design and present it as a project for you to build. (See page 111 for a word from Pete about the origins of the cracker box amp.)

My amp differs a little from Pete's because I wanted to make a workable little practice amp with parts and tools that could be purchased "one-stop shop" at RadioShack and built in an hour.

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