Glacial Communications

Sort of vaguely radio-themed, but not entirely.

Arduino Sequencer (version > 1.0) : Coming along nicely. Need to do a quick test or two, wire up the MIDI connection, and it should be usable.

Cigarbox modular: Moved my CD4093 oscillators made at playshop from the breadboard onto a PCB. Mounted it up in the cigarbox, so one module’s down on this one:

A look at the economy, specifically with the housing boom and bust. Features plenty of "House" music in the background. Widget ruled most of the second hour by combining explosions, zoning regulations, and Mickey House. Seriously. I was afraid to add anything from fear that I'd ruin what was going on.

Sound Lab: Not too much progress. I need to get the front panel stuff squared away before I can do much more on it.

Arduino Sequencer V2 (or 1.5, or whatever): Did make some good progress here, as I got my little PCBs. I got the 4051 onto the board, and made the interconnections between it and the Arduino. Next step is to get the panel connected into the boards, and get the MIDI output connected as well.

Here’s a little bit of the CD4093 oscillators (mixed with a couple of CD40106 oscillators) made at Electronoize Playshop this week:

Building something for Recycled Rainbow this year?

Looking to spend a weekend with energetic, creative RR participants as they test and build their project for September?

Looking to spend more quality time this summer with freaks?

Join us for RR PRIMER! July 19 and 20 in nearby North Ridgeville, OH.

visit: http://www.recycledrainbow.org/primer/ for more details.

A look at UFOs (sightings, in particular).

No major Sound Lab progress this week – I’ll have to make a Kinko’s run to get a front panel laminated.

Decent Arduino Sequencer progress- Front panel for what I’ll call “Arduino Sequencer V1.5″ is basically done. 1.5 will be a better version of the original that I attempted to debut at Notacon, but with fewer of the hardware bugs that kept it from working during the presentation (it even worked during setup! I swear!). The “2.0″ additions (start/stop switch, LEDs, external clock out, etc.) will be done a little later. I also tossed together the RBBB that will be the brains of the sequencer last night (note to anyone reading – the two resistors in an RBBB rev B are different. Place them carefully or suffer my fate – I mixed them up and it turned into a minor fiasco.

At Electronoize Playshop this week we worked on 40106-based oscillators. Here’s some video of that:

In the post from this weeks playshop, bbob was looking for supplier suggestions. Here are a few of the lesser-known ones I’ve bought from:

• Electronic Goldmine – They’ve got all sorts of odd things, like the giant photocells I had this week. Shipping takes about a week usually, though if something is temporarily out of stock, they won’t actually tell you. When I hadn’t received a tracking number after a week or so, I called the company and was told that a part was out of stock but that more would be available in a day or two, and that they regretted the wording on the web site, but there wasn’t much they could do about it.
• ESI – obviously I’ll toss in a mention of our (semi-)local store. Prices are hit-or-miss, but the fact that they’re a short drive away in Mentor is great. They’re still in the process of unpacking after their move last year, so it may help to call ahead if you’re looking for something on the esoteric side.
• Electronix Express – On some items they’re good. Others not so much. If you like the little Radio shack 276-159 prototype boards, they have an equivalent for about 1/3 the cost (Note that I haven’t tested these yet. I am about to order some, though.)
• Futurlec – 55 cents for pots, and as little as a quarter for knobs. Generally good prices on everything, though it takes about two or more weeks to receive your order (their warehouse is in Thailand). My one order did have an item missing, and when I wrote the company they promptly sent it out, and it arrived (another) two weeks later. They do seem to have a number of rare parts that I can’t seem to find anywhere else (like LF444 quad op-amps).
• MECI/Mendelsons – I’ve used them for years (though mostly through their sprawling tent at the Dayton Hamvention). Selection is limited, but the prices are pretty good on the items they have (apparently they have 100k pots for 35 cents right now!)

A look at the Tunguska event, 100 years (and 9 days) after it happened. Meteor? Comet? UFO? Evenki thunder god? Nikola Tesla's death ray? To a lesser extent, the show also covered some other Soviet/Russian UFO events. A large chunk of the backing music was 833-45's Tunguska, which may be my favorite netlabel release so far this year. There were also some various other Tunguska-named netlabel songs played as well. Tossed in some Tuvan throat singing as well. Why not? Tuva's not horrifically far from the blast site, and Tuvans and Evenks are both Altaic peoples. Came off pretty well for getting the idea for it about two hours before showtime. And then, while driving home, I learned about the aliens that Richard Nixon took Jackie Gleason to see on Coast to Coast.

I was poking around at some of N5ESE’s DIY ham radio projects, looking for potential things for my  bizarre Recycled Rainbow theme camp, when I stumbled upon The Club Sandwich Project – a methodology for team construction of a piece of gear (such as a transceiver) out of smaller modular blocks each contributed by a team member.

I instantly saw this as a fun potential Synth-DIY activity. Perhaps this is something we can do at Electronoize Playshop in a few weeks/months -  we’re still at kind of an early stage right now, seeing as how we’ll be doing oscillators this week.