ArtHive

Runs and Embedded Linux Media Server.

Working Wifi Painting. Embedded Router.

For something going on 40 years this cabinet looked like some variation on the ratty image pictured next and not the shiny bauble above. It was capable of playing one record at a time and storing a dozen or so albums. This is an illustrated tale of how it came to reunite me with my music collection and frustrate audiophiles.

Like many of my favorite things, this was discarded in someone’s trash. The smart money might have been on leaving it there, but my wife Lori wanted it immediately, else I was going to be the item the trash.Getting it home, we soon realized that most of the components did not in fact work. Also, the box is not squared anymore, and furthermore there’s not a wal-mart in the land that sells glass for tube amplifiers. Not one!

So I quickly took it’s NF guts out, and tossed in some spare PC parts( of the back of my closet variety). Suddenly it’d play any lossy-compressed song we’d feed it, but our hunger was left wanting.This could be functional, cooler, far superior to the original version, but suiting the same purposes. With itunes and the “remote” app, volume, tracklists, and so on could even be controlled from our cell-phones…

It was starting to tie the room together, man!

My wife has become the voice of refinement in my house, which is to say, when we’re ready to burn the bridges, she’s there making sure we have enough matches and gasoline. Here she’s measuring to make sure a VESA mount will work out, but at this point Lori had already cleaned the wood and replaced the speaker grille fabric on the front. This took a near-total teardown of the original box, short of replacing the veneer, but allowed some much needed repairs.

Big gaping hole of potential. You could fit a dead body or 50,000 songs in there. We went with songs…this time… The goal being to keep everything looking mostly normal, but to have a machine that would play out a music mix anywhere we plugged it in, with no setup beyond that. This way we can take it to parties and it will DJ for the evening.

So, like any case-mod-esque project, we have a PC. You see it In the rightmost void we fit the whole PC (RAID 2×36GB, 500GB filestore, bluetooth, wifi, PSU and,fans, bliky lights and the two high-frequency speakers. The woofer and it’s case/volume control are mounted in the leftmost void. The speakers have been replaced with a 3-piece component system for a PC with a standard 3.5mm Jack as line-in. It’s not anything worth writing to Audiophile magazine about, but it’s heads and shoulders above the NF tube amp and paper-cones I’m replacing and was probably 35$ brand new.  Not fancy, but for our lossy mp3’s we’re fine with it… we came to party, not pick out nuances.

Once the main bits are all in place, it really needed something befitting of its new life as a ‘moddern’ digital device. My wife drew up and ordered two Plexiglas panels which stack to create a nice steeped effect. It also allowed us the freedom to incorporate a USB port (for phones/usb keys) and on/off power switch into the top panel.  For 30$ or so we can order other colors, etc.  Her panels were designed to make use of an apple keyboard and track-pad, both blue-tooth. There is a non-existent driver to run Apple Bluetooth devices on windows vista located deep in a compressed file on an OSX disk. We used that file to make them work on vista.

another view

This machine is now in its second major revision: I got a deal on some lithium cells from Barefoot Motors (Jamie from Mythbusters’ ATV company) Lucky day, they also came with a balance charger.

Lithium Batteries, Tail-section and Lighting, better cooling and so on.It has a new gear ratio as well. Top speed and acceleration have actually both increased. The previous gearing was simply too tall.

Lower tray expanded by David Davidian of Ironman Fabrication, who also welded the original lead acid tray. Tail section is my first attempt at fiberglass.

Show and tell. This is everything at a glance. The new cells are so strong that when fully charged they actually hit V+ cutoff on the controller. I’m skipping a cell for the time being and considering using it to run accessory cooling. You can still see the tank tabs from the previous iteration’s plexiglass side covers.

This is my favorite touch. My wife Lori made all of the wooden pieces on the V.1 design and this is how she’s treated the tank’s fill-up door. Wood panel with control switches and 48v voltmeter.

Fill ‘er Up!

here is a test fit using Jon Panichella’s Collada frame (slightly modified) and the finalized layout for the lithium cells.

testing variations and determining whether to chop the frame up or build it out

early tests just rendered on top of v1.0 bike from a photo and loosely scaled based on specifications found online for wheel diameters, etc

Fun for all, old and new! This one’s easy, so get HACKING(or send me your helmets)!!!

Fully Functional Helmet on Mostly functional Human

This is a military helicopter helmet that i found for 22$ at a thrift shop. I like it so much I bought two.

It has re-purposed electronics so that it works with a Playstation3 or Cell phone via bluetooth, and has a complete second circuit integrated to output to a an RF-wireless headset that is also routed through the original system’s speakers. The combination allows for  a unique helmet that allows me to both have the ambient video-game sounds as well as chat-communications integrated into a single helmet for gaming, but also allows me to use it as a regular bluetooth, radio, or wireless headset form the TV when the wife isn’t awake yet. This project is straightforward, but to look GREAT it takes some time. One major advantage is that you’re updating very old technology with very new. New stuff is smaller so you have decent working space to hide it all.

The Helmet:

It’s speakers were made Sept 11, 1984 (reusing them because they’re cool and work), Other pieces say 1993. It’s has a U-174/U input connector wired. The original Electret Microphone from the Gub’ment was an amazing piece of noise-cancelling wizardry, but I decided against using it, opting to extend the wiring the the bluetooth headsets original pickup and wiring the sound to the right speaker(arbitrary).This is mostly because i would have had to create a phantom-power circuit for it..and i was lazy that day.

The original wiring of this is for MONO mic and MONO headphones from a theatrically large 4-pin analog u174 connector. I split the loom to the speakers to allow stereo (’cause gaming takes advantage and it’s better, dammit!)

New wires run to speaker cup and to stock headphone wires. RED/BLK to SPKR+-, YEL/GRN to mic +-

Supplies+rundown:

1 ) Helmet with integrated Analog headset (tear it down, locate speaker wires, dissect electret microphone plastic and solder in the mini-microphone from the bluetooth headset on short (pre-attach these) wire leads to the electret’s stock +- pins ).

Bluetooth with wire extensions, U174 Mic connector, Original Electret Microphone being glued back together with new (from bluetooth headset) condenser mic in it. This gives you perspective on the tiny-ness of the Bluetooth. Pity it just wouldn't fit IN the original electret mic.

2) bluettooth wireless headset (you’re extending the reach by running leads from the mic+- and speakr+-. Mine is a Jwin branded unit which are about 10$ on a good day. Good thing too these things are TINY and ROBOTS did the soldering the first time so I messed one up easily.  Short of abducting a child I was able to solder the tiny connections by leaving an exacto blade between the terminals to curb solder flow between the “please-bring-a-microscope” terminals. The speaker terminals have wire leads already and if you’re gentle you can solder to THOSE for the speaker leads. extra care with the mic/spkr soldering regardless, and I suggest reinforcing with hot glue.

Tiny bugger. silver rectangle is the battery, black bit is the stock speaker(I've snipped it off), and the reddish blur area at the top right of the board is the bluetooth's microphone, wee bastard. that's a real human thumbnail for caparison.

3)spare wire. i suggest using different colors of wire. My wire is from some retired CAT5 or telephone cable. plenty of color options in there.

4)soldering kit- solder new leads to the speakers and run them through the stock wiring pass-though on the headphone cups.

5) hot glue kit- used this to both melt a spot fin the polystyrene for, and to glue in place the bluetooth dongle. Use hot glue liberally. I reinforced all of my micro-tiny solder points with hot-glue to keep their fragile connections intact under a little bit of wiggle pressure.

Hotglued in place, i'll use the tape to keep the hot glue formed correctly, and keep the Bluetooth from moving as glue cools. This location lines up with a small hole in the helmet so i can activate the on/off button it while weaing the helmet.

6) For BONUS POINTS you should also acquire a RF-wireless headset and wire it in as well. I found a set that allowed the battery and board to fit in the stock cups behind the stock speakers for 14.99 that ALSo has an AM/FM RADIO!! FANCY PANTS!!! This step wasn’t really that bad. or even much different from the other steps above. Just add a new lead to each speaker, but directionally isolate signals to them by adding an inline commercial headphone splitter or some diodes to keep them from back-feeding into each others output electronics. If there is much interest in that portion of the build, I’ll get something posted, though it’s mostly a matter of hot-gluing the RF board and battery into each speaker cups, runing thee wire and drilling a hole to access the on/off switch. . .

[View with PicLens]

Hello Dr. Mills! This is OUR squirrel!