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Projects, hacks and Tinkering

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1 05, 2017

MAX7219 LED Name Plate – Weekend Project

By |2017-05-01T16:04:09+00:00May 1st, 2017|Projects, Uncategorized, Weekend|0 Comments

Like most electronic geeks, at some point, you'll build a project displaying something on a matrix of LEDs! I remember how proud I was many years back displaying things on an 8x8 LED matrix multiplexed using only shift registers and a basic PIC micro-controller! Although all of your "normal" friends will definitely give you the, "oh cool, is that all that huge pile of messy wires does" face. Now, you can buy ready to go LED matrix modules, [...]

1 04, 2017

Changing Rear Bearings – Honda Accord MK7 Saloon (2005)

By |2017-04-01T23:38:33+00:00April 1st, 2017|Car, Practical Pa|0 Comments

I count myself lucky, I've grown up looking over the shoulders of a father who will turn his hand to anything. He also worked in a garage for years as a kid so knows his way around car (or recently van!) mechanics and is full of those priceless tips.  Given how much the internet has helped me over the years I wanted to start posting logs of the projects, repairs, maintenance etc we get up to too, no [...]

28 06, 2016

Placing text along a path using Geomerative and Processing

By |2016-11-05T11:17:47+00:00June 28th, 2016|Kinetic Storyteller, Programming, Projects, Uncategorized|1 Comment

Introduction In the last post here we explored placing points along an a wave path we had created all using the built in functionality of the Geomerative library. This was ultimately to allow text to be placed along the path, which is what today's post will cover. If you have not read the previous posts, you will require a great library for processing named "Geomerative"  (Website) by Ricard Marxer.  I have struggled to find many similar sketches online [...]

25 06, 2016

Placing points along an Arc using Geomerative Polygonizer and Processing

By |2016-11-05T11:17:47+00:00June 25th, 2016|Kinetic Storyteller, Programming, Projects, Uncategorized|1 Comment

This is a follow on from this post on drawing arcs with Geomerative, a great library for processing (Website) by Ricard Marxer.  I have struggled to find many similar sketches online other than those included in the examples, so i figured I would share my progress. This post whilst keeping a log for my own future use, I hope may serve as a reference for others out there with the same aims as me. Here we will begin to [...]

23 06, 2016

Drawing Arcs and Text with the Geomerative Processing Library

By |2016-11-05T11:17:47+00:00June 23rd, 2016|Kinetic Storyteller, Projects, Tinkering|1 Comment

Download Code for Mr Wavy Dude below. Fist introduced in this post (, I am currently working on a project titled the "Kinetic Story Teller" with friend and artist Tine Bech.  This is a visual arts interaction piece and as such I am  learning Processing. This is another post sharing logging and sharing my learning journey. The new visual design will re-focus the piece on a concept which was part of the original plan; the idea of flow [...]

19 06, 2016

Tinkering in Processing – Drawing a Hexagonal Grid

By |2016-11-05T11:17:47+00:00June 19th, 2016|Kinetic Storyteller, Projects, Tinkering|6 Comments

My friend Tine (Her cool Artwork here) has a new gig; an interactive swing set for display in the art exhibition at SIGGRAPH 2016, probably the largest computer graphics and interactive techniques conference. One of the reasons I feel Tine and I work so well together is we both appreciate the benefits of an iterative design process when molding technology to artistic ideas. Mess with ideas in the prototype stage, keep things as modular and flexible as possible and [...]

22 01, 2015

Inside a 3D LCD TV – Details and Laser Cutting Pt.2

By |2016-11-05T11:17:47+00:00January 22nd, 2015|Hanging 3DTV, Projects|0 Comments

Raspberry pi & Arduino The next step was to design the perspex board which will mount the raspberry pi, which will be our media player, and the arduino which will control the back light, power and sensors (more on this at a later date). As with all of these boards, we began with a vector design: Vector Graphics for the Raspberry Pi and Arduino perspex. The different colours represent different depths of raster engraving. Quick [...]

18 12, 2014

Inside a 3D LCD TV – Details and Laser Cutting Pt.1

By |2016-11-05T11:17:47+00:00December 18th, 2014|Hanging 3DTV, Projects|1 Comment

With the screen temporarily hung, it was time to decide how to lay out the acrylic sheets on which the 3DTV's processing, driver and control boards would go. These would be mounted above the LCD layer of the TV and had to be laid out in a way which allowed for the signal bearing pre-made (rather intricate looking) cables and connectors would still reach each other. The Main Board First up was the mainboard, this has all [...]

15 12, 2014

Inside a 3D LCD TV – 3DTV Hanging The Panels (In Pictures)

By |2016-11-05T11:17:47+00:00December 15th, 2014|Hanging 3DTV, Projects|0 Comments

With each layer in its own frame, we decided to begin hanging the components from the brackets (now drilled and mounted on the wall) to begin to establish how to lay out connections between the boards. Story line of pictures below tells most of the story, each is also captioned have a read if you're interested!

1 10, 2014

Inside a 3D LCD TV – 3DTV Frame Construction

By |2016-06-25T23:09:22+00:00October 1st, 2014|Featured, Hanging 3DTV, Projects|0 Comments

The next step was to house and mount each of the separate layers in their own frame. These frames will then be hung from the brackets as shown in the concept diagram: Each layer was different and therefore required a custom made frame. Each frame was made from aluminium to keep weight down. This will just be a picture post, each photo is captioned explaining the process: