Hyperbacon

Oh my!

GoT season 5 was awesome. Was glad to finally see Cersei get her comeuppin’s, but near the end of the season I began to feel bad for her. I’m sure that’ll change next season.

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Working on a few projects at once, nothing really at any key moment to post about.

Also got the go ahead to start planning in implementing the 5S system (a cleaning/sorting system) at my work in a few weeks.

Also, I was surprised by my boyfriend with season 5 of Game of Thrones.

So yeah… not much has been done. Tune in next week. I may be done with GoT by then.

I love the townhouse that I live in, but it has one strong downside: It has an open plan floorspace, I have an electronics workbench, and I have two cats. The only room that we can fully shut off from the cats is the bedroom and, unfortunately, there is not enough space for my workbench in there (bedrooms are for other things than soldering.. you’ll understand when you’re older).

My little terrorists.

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We have a bathroom that is directly connected to our bedroom. The ease of access is great, but with my boyfriend’s sleeping schedule being quite different from my own (yay insomnia), we come across a problem: the bathroom light wakes up the other person that is still in bed. Even if we wait until we shut the door, after turning on the main light, by the time we are done, our eyes are so adjusted for the bright light, we are both fully awake and completely blind when we turn off the light to go back to bed.

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So yeah.

Haven’t really done much with this webspace since I dropped $$$ down to start a portfolio. Not that I’m lazy, or too busy. It’s just not good enough.

Hitting that wall in my development in my career and hobbies where I burn out because as I near the end of a project I keep thinking of ways to make it better and then the current “product” that I have created suddenly does not feel like it deserves any recognition as it is no longer as good as the product I have improved upon in my head. I have multiple posts queuing up with many words and images describing all of the things I have been up to, but as I see others out there with what they have built, I suddenly feel inferior and scared to showcase what I have done, because it just does not feel good enough.

This past week I had an allergic reaction to a medication that was severe enough to keep me out of work for a week and pretty much in an antihistamine coma. Completely covered in hives, being told the itching wouldn’t go fully away for a while I kept getting frustrated. If I was going to be better, why wasn’t I better now? Why wasn’t the slight improvement each day I felt not good enough?

Then it hit me: How good is “good enough” for right now?

I have so many projects that are right near the end of development that I have not finished because, in my head, once I declare them finished, they must be perfect, with no improvement required upon them. I realize now that this is a terrible way of thinking, but it takes something to force you into a perspective (and itchiness, apparently) to realize that it is ok to not be perfect, to just be good enough, right now.

So here’s my plan: One post a week. I can’t promise that it will always be on a project, but any goings-on that has to do with my love of electronics will be posted. My writing isn’t the greatest, and my code may have bugs, but at that point in time of posting it is good enough.

I have a few projects in the wings at the moment. Over on my YouTube channel you will find a bunch of new videos showcasing steps forward I have made in my main project, the neopixel dash. I’m not quite ready to post a whole lot of information on it as yet, but playing with LEDs (and BLE control!) are involved. It has stretched my mind into new territory.

I also have my first 120VAC mains project going as well. Can’t talk much more about it as it is going to be a Mother’s Day present. Post on that project will be up following the US observance of Mother’s Day.

If I make mistakes, it’s ok. My website isn’t perfect.

But it’s good enough.

Over the few years I’ve worked at my current position, I’ve been labeled as “that chick that rescues old electronics stuff.” It has gotten me things as old monitors, projectors, testing equipment, game consoles, more computers than I could use, and pieces of vintage equipment and resources. I have a small “museum” set up in my work space at home in which I keep a lot of the vintage equipment that is small enough to keep on display.

I just got this today from a co-worker. Behold! The Resist-o-Guide!

This particular version has a date of 1951. Some of the colors are a bit faded, so this card will be added to my growing collection for safe keeping.

To the museum with you!

Really wish I had one of these when I first started out.

Wanting one of your very own, only more up-to-date? Adafruit has a great tutorial on making a papercraft resistor helper.

Note: This is my final project whilst I was in tech school back in 2008. I haven’t worked on it much since because of life and whatnot, but was (and still am) pretty proud of it.

What this machine does started out quite simple: To make the perfect cup of tea. The machine will heat the water using the heating element in a coffee machine, hold the water in the brewing basket to steep the tea, then pour into a cup, add sugar, stir, and monitor the temperature until it is safe to drink.

I’ve also added some safties to it as well. If the cup or basket is removed during operation, the element turns off and a light will blink letting you know there is an error. Also, if the user puts too much water into the reservoir, the element will not turn on and yes, another LED will blink.

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Note: This was all programmed using an old Picaxe28x back in 2008, but I thought the information was helpful regardless.

First I started with a really basic setup: 16 LEDs controlled by 16 pins. This is great, but leaves no pins left for output! Being limited makes me antsy, so I sat down and figured out how to get more.

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Alright… again…. this time with more enthusiasm!

I now have an official host for this site instead of administering it myself, so I’m hopeful that those bugs and kinks are now removed.

Still not a whole lot here (well as of this writing, only this post), but soon I’ll start showcasing my work and what I’ve been building.

Stay tuned!!!