TGIMBOEJ!

An exciting event for my small electronics history happened a few days ago. I got to participate in the phenomenon known as The Great Internet Migratory Box of Electronic Junk! For those of you unfamiliar with TGIMBOEJ, you take a box, fill it with electronic junk, and send it to someone who wants it. They take out stuff, put other stuff in, and send it along. Of course, as this is the internet box of electronics, it needs to be documented on teh interwebs! So here you are.

Allen in Boulder sent me the Gray-K box. I got it last Wednesday. Totally made my day.

Instructions!
















The insides of the box in all their glory! Look at all those goodies just waiting to be let out!

Everything all spread out. Who knew so much could fit in one small box?

What I took out:

Two mice
A cell phone (I know my dad had one like this)
Most of a music player
A fuel-less lighter
Giant chip of some sort
A Cybiko
Resistors
A ToolLogic. I've wanted one for ages
















What I put in:

Some RAM
An answering machine
A dart game
A CD drive
A rabbit-ears antenna
A Turbo-Twist math game

I must say, I have big plans for my acquisitions... well, at least plans.

If you have too much electronic junk and are looking for different junk, one man's trash is another man's treasure. Look no further than The Great Internet Migratory Box of Electronic Junk!

Long Time No Post

Yes, I haven't posted in a while. In my defense, I have been very busy failing most of my classes and haven't had time for blogging. I promise, more interesting things will be arriving at some point.

My MakerBot CupCake CNC is assembled, but not quite working yet. I will be showing my many pictures of the process soon. The reason I am writing a post today is that this blog had a viewer! I got a message today that started, "Hi there! I am a completely random person from the internet..." Turns out another local wants feedback from someone printing with a low-resolution, non-support material 3-D printer like the CupCake. I said I'd be quite willing to print his designs and give feedback. Of course, this requires that the CupCake be able to print. So now I have the dual goals of updating this blog and getting the CupCake a little closer to actually printing things.

USBtinyISP

Hello again! It's been a little while, but I'm back and ready to start updating this thing. This week's project is the USBtinyISP from LadyAda. It's a great little programmer for under $25 that connects with AVR connectors, both the six- and ten-pin varieties. I bought it specifically to burn the bootloader for my MakerBot Cupcake CNC (post to come!). It's a fairly simple project if you have some soldering experience, all through-hole components and nothing too small to see.

All the components, fresh out of the bag and laid out for all to see. A few resistors, a couple chips, a couple LEDs, a board, a couple cables, and a case. Nothing too complicated, I don't think.

All assembled (minus the case)! Sorry for the lack of pictures and poor quality. My camera was not cooperating at the time.
Overall building time: ~1hr
Difficulty rating: Slightly more than beginner

If you want to look at the full set of photos, just check out the Flickr set.

Just As a Beginning

Seeing as this is my first post, I thought I'd give you a little background. Well, ok, I like electronics, and I like to see how things work, and I like to play "mad scientist" and build things. This will be my little home-on-the-web where you can share in my electronics madness.

If you have any ideas for things I can build or take apart (or something you'd like to donate to be dismantled!), please drop me a line via comment or email.