Arduino And Crystalfontz CFA835 Display

I’m fortunate enough to live right down the street from Crystalfontz America (Crystalfontz.com),  a supplier of high-quality LCD, OLED and other types of display modules. It is entirely thanks to their sponsorship of the current engineering project I’m apart of, that I now have the opportunity to work with their CFA835 graphical LED displays with […]

Arduino Reset Function Using Only Software

Here is a simple, clean and proper solution for doing a full Arduino reset via a simple software function. The general solution was found here and was implemented as follows: Include the proper library: #include <avr/wdt.h> Place this within your “Setup” function: MCUSR = 0;  // clear out any flags of prior resets (used for […]

Building A Ring Roller

A project I wanted to do required me to roll some steel rings from round rod of varying thicknesses and diameters. I looked at commercial rolling tools and even the cheapest ones, such as the offerings of Harbor Freight, were $80. But they didn’t have exceptional reviews and they would mar 1/4″ rod, something that […]

Schlieren Flow Visualization

A really neat technique for visualizing the flow of fluids is called Schlieren flow visualization (pronounced: sh-lear-in). By using either special mirrors or lenses, the density gradients of a fluid can be seen. Examples would be the heat rising from a candle, or the aerodynamics effects of a bullet traveling through the air. This technique […]

Anamorphic 3D Image With Photoshop

I had seen this done in the past and wanted to give it a try myself. This is essentially a 2D printed image that is manipulated in such a way that when viewed an a specific angle, it looks “3D”, or simply like actual object. I started with a picture I took of a large […]

Nalgene aspirator vacuum pump

Wanting to do some experimenting in a vacuum, I sought out a low-cost vacuum pump. I found all kinds, but by far the least expensive, and best-bang-for-the-buck, was an aspirator pump. These can be run on either air or water. The one I chose will use water. I got a Thermo Scientific Nalgene water aspirator […]

Cryogenics: The Cryogenic Treatment of Materials

Cryogenics is the science that deals with the study of very low temperatures. This is not to be confused with cryonics, or the preservation of humans by freezing them. Need your brake rotor to last 3 times as long? Perhaps you’re a machinist and you’d like to get several hundred more holes out of your […]

Setting up a freshwater aquarium

I’m working on setting up a new 29 gallon freshwater aquarium. Right now I’m cycling the tank, or more specifically, I’m performing a fishless nitrogen cycle. I’ve added about 4.4ml of a 10% ammonium solution to reach a concentration of 4ppm in the tank. This should be adequate to start building of the good bacteria […]