iPhone desk stand

Don’t know what to do with your iPhone box after you have opened it? Re-use your iPhone box and Makedo's reusable pins and clips available at mymakedo.com to make this simple iphone stand for your desk. If not an iPhone be creative and find any unwanted phone box.

If you’re a real techie, create other stands and give everything else it’s place too - never lose any of your gadgets again. Try one for your iPad, tablet, remote controls or Wii console.

Step 1Find

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Find the lid of your iPhone box, alternative boxes of a similar size can be used for this project.

Step 2Cut

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Begin by cutting down the corners of the box.

Step 3Cut

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Cut along the lines as shown in the image.

Step 4Score

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Using the Makedo safe-saw score as shown in the image. Fold the scored lines and bring the side flaps of the box together.

Step 5Punch

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Use the Makedo safe-saw and punch 3 holes on the center of either side of the side flaps. Punch a hole on the two triangular folds on the bottom.

Step 6Connect

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Connect the side of the box using a Makedo hinge and Makedo pins and clips shown in the image.

Step 7Complete

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Trim off the excess cardboard on the bottom to follow the direction of the triangle.

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Potato Battery Driven LED

So, if you looked at my profile you would see that I like physics.  When the challenge for “Potatoes” I just knew that I need to do a project that highlighted the lowly “Potato Battery”.  So here is how to make a Potato Battery and have it light an LED light.

Step 1

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Supplies:
Potatoes
Galvanized nails
Shinny copper pennies
Wires with alligator clips on each end (2+ per battery)
LED bulb
Multi meter
Knife
Cutting board

Step 2

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A battery is a way to store electrical energy.  For a battery to work it needs to have 3 things, two electrodes (metals, one + and one -) and electrolytes (minerals).  The batteries we are going to make today uses the electrodes of copper (pennies, anodes, +) and zinc (galvanized nails, cathode, -) and the electrolyte of K (Potassium) that is found in potatoes.

Step 3

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Take a potato

Step 4

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and cut it in half. This will make 2 batteries.  Potatoes are juicy, which is part of the reason they can be made into batteries.

Step 5

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Take a knife and put a slit in the potato and slip the penny into the slit.  Push as much of the penny into the slit as possible, you want just a little bit sticking out of the potato.  Push the nail most of the way into the potato,(at this point I cut the nails in half, so that they weren't so tall).  Do not let the electrodes touch, keeping them about 1 inch apart.

Step 6

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Turn on the Multimeter and put it at the lowest voltage reading.  Make sure the red probe is in the + slot and the black probe is in the – slot.

Step 7

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Use the red line to touch the penny in the potato and the black line to touch the nail.  You can read how much voltage you have available in this potato battery.  It reads .85 volts, not bad but not enough to do anything fun.

Step 8

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To increase the voltage, you will need to create more potato batteries and wire them in a series (that means to connect the + electrode of one battery to the – electrode of the next battery).  So I created 3 more batteries from 3 more potato halves. 

Step 9

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Then I used the alligator clips connected to wires and wired first 2 potatoes together,

Step 10

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this time the voltage read 1.69 volts.

Step 11

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Let's take a minute and look at the LED light.   It has one long leg and one shorter leg.  The longer leg is the anode (+)  and the shorter leg is the cathode (-).  I clipped the batteries to the LED light (+ to+ and - to-), no light, therefore, not enough voltage.

Step 12

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I wired all four batteries together in series, and found what the total voltage is of the 4 batteries was 2.38 volts and I again wired in the LED light, again no light.

Step 13

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Finally I wired six batteries in series and it had a 4.08 volt reading. 

Step 14

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This time the light lit up!  Hurray!   Potatoes can be used as batteries.

Step 15

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Have fun playing with your new batteries, maybe you would like to experiment with increasing current by wiring the potato batteries in parallel as well as series.  Good luck and Enjoy!

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How to See in The Dark

If you want to be able to see in the dark you can pick up a maglite and shine it every where you want. But if you don't want other people to know you are there you have to figure out an other way to be able to see using a lightbeam others can't see. in otherwords build your own night vision scope.

what do you need:
- a viewfinder from an old camera.
- an old 380 line black and white camera
- six Infrared LED's
- three 15 ohm resistors

Step 1The viewfinder

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The viewfinder I used for this night vision scope. Was taken from a CANON UC4000 V8 Camcorder. The Camera was broke but the viewfinder is stil very usefull.

The viewfinder used to be connected to the camera with 5 cables.
When I started measuring them I noticed that I just needed the first three cables those where.
- +5 volt
- Ground
- video-in

ATTENTION:
The viewfinder contains a 0.7 inch picture tube, a high voltage power supply and some calibration pots. The size of this module is only 2,5 x 5 cm.
Therefore the  high voltage power supply could for the picture tube could cause serious injury if you touched it.

This is why in attached new cables to those connection points en put the viewfinder back together.

Now our output device is ready.

Step 2The camera

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After some searching I found a 380 line black/white camera in my garage which was solderd on a piece of stripboard and used a 5 volt power supply (thats nice the same votage as my view finder). This camera cannot see in the dark but it can see IR light (which is invisible for the human’s eye). So fore the record this night vision scope is not an image intensifier this scope needs an Infrared light source.

(Sometimes manufactors put a filter in the lens which blocks the infrared light when you work carefull jou can remove it as described in my Instructable Turning an old webcam into a Night vision cam

Step 3The illuminator

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For the illuminator I used 6 High Power Infrared Emitter, type SFH4550.

Some specifics on these IR LED's:
- Current: 100 mA
- Wavelength: 860 nm
- Radiant Intensity: 700 mW/sr
- viewing angle: 3 degrees
- voltage: 1,5 Volt
- Diode Case t-1 3/4 (5 mm)

I used the stripboard that was attached to the camera as a base for my illuminator which i made by connecting 2 times 3 LED's in series (3 * 1.5 volts = 4,5 volts) to make it work in my system that has to run on 5 volts becaus of the viewfinder and the camera, I had to place a 5 ohm resistor before the LED's to make the powerdrop I placed 3 resistors of 15 omh in parallel.

Step 4Connect and enjoy

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After connecting the viewfinder to the camera en connected all the power and ground cables I could see in the dark using the light of the Infrared LED's.

I am stil searching for a case to put it in and when i do I will deside what kind of battery i will use en design a circuit for battery power to the 5 volt working power of the electronics in my scope.

Images of the completed Night vision scope will be added after i have found a nice case to put it in.

Unforunatly i can't let you see what the image looks like when you look trough the night vision scope, But i can gaurantee that it works great.

Happy spying.

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Panelizing PCBs for Seeed Using Eagle Free / Light

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Some PCB fab houses (like SeeedStudio, with their Fusion PCB service) will allow you to panelize smaller PCBs.  For example, if you have a 2.5cm x 5cm board, you could panelize two of them on to a single 5mm x 5mm PCB.  Or, put a 7cm x 7cm board and a bunch of 3cm x 3cm boards onto a 10cm x 10cm panel.  Seeed will allow up to 5 sub-boards on a panel.

The freeware and light versions of Cadsoft Eagle limit the design area of the PCB to 10cm x 8cm.  This is enough to do many projects, but when you want to try and panelize to fill a 10cm x 10 cm board, it won't work.  Plus, maintaining separate projects and updating them on the panel, and maintaining consistency of labels and reference designators can be a pain.

In this Instructable, I will show you an easy way to merge Gerber files generated from Eagle (or any other EDA tool) in a way that Seeed Studio will accept them for panelizing with their Fusion PCB service.  I will be using the SARduino644 v1.0 board shown below as an example.

Step 1Design Board and Render Gerbers

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This has been covered elsewhere.  Sparkfun has a set of particularly good tutorials.  Note that Seeed requests that you put your order number on the silkscreen layer somewhere, so you might want to consider placing your order before going through the render/check cycle.

When you're happy with your board, and it passes Seeed's design rules, use the Seeed CAM processor to generate the Gerbers for your PCB.

When you're done, you should end up with the following files:
<board>.GTO - top silkscreen
<board>.GTS - top soldermask
<board>.GTL - top copper
<board>.GBO - bottom silkscreen
<board>.GBS - bottom soldermask
<board>.GBL - bottom copper
<board>.TXT - Excellon drill file.


Before you proceed, you should check the Gerbers carefully to make sure everything looks right *before* combining them into a panel, this will save time later if you find a problem.  I like to use the online gerber viewer provided by CircuitPeople.  You can make a zip of all the files and upload them in one go, and they will all be rendered to image files.

Step 2Install Gerbmerge and Patch for Seeed

Rugged Circuits has created an excellent program for merging gerber files, called, not unexpectedly, gerbmerge.  This program will merge gerber files onto a panel with a layout you can specify.

Go download the latest version (currently 1.8) and install it.

In order to accept panelized PCBs, Seeed requires an outline for the entire panel to be present on all layers, otherwise, they will offer to change your order for multiple, separate boards, which defeats the entire purpose.  Out of the box, v1.8 of gerbmerge does not support rendering the outline of the entire panel to all layers.  However, I have successfully patched it to include this support.  I have submitted this patch to the folks at Rugged Circuits, and they are considering including it in the next release.  Until then, you'll have to apply it manually.  But it isn't hard...

The latest patched version is in this gerberge-patched github repo.  To patch your installation, find the installed files (for example, look for a gerbmerge folder in C:\Python<version>\Lib\site-packages\ on Windows, or in /usr/lib/python<version>/site-packages on Linux).  Then apply these patches: https://github.com/space-age-robotics/gerbmerge-patched/commit/5078c7b33439912c465fb33fc0082b82cfac3687#diff-0 to the config.py and gerbmerge.py files.

If you're worried about messing up your installation, feel free to make a backup copy of the gerbmerge folder before you proceed.  You might also consider setting up your merge configuration and layout first, and then adding the patch once you have it producing the output you want, so you have more confidence in the output.

Step 3Define your panel configuration

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The panel configuration file defines the source gerber files for each PCB, and specifies the details of the merged gerber output.  Here is an explanation of some values you may want, from the SARduino644 panel configuration, which you can find in full here: https://github.com/space-age-robotics/SARduino/blob/master/panel.cfg

# I always use the local directory to contain all input gerbers, config files, and output files
projdir = .
# MergeOut is the prefix of the output files.
MergeOut = merge2

# CutlineLayers will determine where the subboard markings are, which will help in separating them.  These are the accentuated lines between the two instances of the board in the image below.
CutLineLayers = *topsilkscreen,*bottomsilkscreen

# OutlineLayers is used by the patched gerbmerge, it defines which layers the entire panel outline will be drawn on.  Seeed requires this on all layers.
OutlineLayers = *toplayer,*bottomlayer,*topsilkscreen,*bottomsilkscreen,*topsoldermask,*bottomsoldermask

# here you can specify the maximum dimensions allowed by the Seeed PCB service you ordered (in inches).
# gerbmerge will warn you if your final panel (based on your layout) exceeds these dimensions.
PanelWidth = 3.93
PanelHeight = 3.93

# comment out the margins or set them to zero if you want the maximum amount of useable area on your panel.
#LeftMargin   = 0.1
#RightMargin  = 0.1
#TopMargin    = 0.1
#BottomMargin = 0.1

# spacing determines how much space between the panels.  I found 0.0625 to be plenty of space for a band-saw blade, I may reduce it a hair in the next run.
XSpacing = 0.0625
YSpacing = 0.0625

# if you define the merge output files to be in the filename scheme that Seeed requires, you won't have to rename them by hand later.
[MergeOutputFiles]
Prefix = %(mergeout)s
*TopLayer=%(prefix)s.GTL
*BottomLayer=%(prefix)s.GBL
*TopSilkscreen=%(prefix)s.GTO
*BottomSilkscreen=%(prefix)s.GBO
*TopSoldermask=%(prefix)s.GTS
*BottomSoldermask=%(prefix)s.GBS
Drills=%(prefix)s.TXT
BoardOutline=%(prefix)s.bor
ToolList = toollist.%(prefix)s.drl
Placement = placement.%(prefix)s.txt

# Job configuration - for each different sub-board, define a section like follows with the subboard name (used in the layout file) and the gerbers comprising that job.
[SARduino_644]

Prefix=%(projdir)s/SARduino_644

# List all the layers that participate in this job. Required layers are Drills
# and BoardOutline and have no '*' at the beginning.  Optional layers have
# names chosen by you and begin with '*'. You should choose consistent layer
# names across all jobs.
*TopLayer=%(prefix)s.GTL
*BottomLayer=%(prefix)s.GBL
*TopSilkscreen=%(prefix)s.GTO
*BottomSilkscreen=%(prefix)s.GBO
*TopSoldermask=%(prefix)s.GTS
*BottomSoldermask=%(prefix)s.GBS
Drills=%(prefix)s.TXT
BoardOutline=%(prefix)s.BOR

Step 4Define your panel layout

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This is a layout file that defines a panel of one row, one column, with two SARduino_644 jobs (matching the job name in the config file).  The result is that there are two instances of the board in the panel, one above the other.

Here is the file in the repo:  https://github.com/space-age-robotics/SARduino/blob/master/panel.layout

Row {
    Col {
        SARduino_644
        SARduino_644
    }
}

Defining layouts is very simple, and the instructions are excellent.  Gerbmerge also has basic auto-layout capability, see the fine documentation for more details.

panel.layout52 bytes

Step 5Generate Panel Gerbers and Check

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To generate the panel, invoke gerbmerge as follows, with the panel configuration file first, and the layout file second, for example:

path/to/python path/to/gerbmerge.py panel.cfg panel.layout

You will first be presented with a warning about the lack of warranty, as in the first image below.  Enter 'Y' to continue.
You should then shortly see output like in the second image below.

Have a look at the output in your favorite gerber viewer, to make sure the results are as you expected.

Repeat from step 1 until you are happy with the results.

Step 6Order PCBs

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Follow all of Seeed's instructions for faster processing.  As mentioned earlier, you may want to place your order before you go through the panelizing process, so that you can add your order number to the silk layer as required.

Step 7Separate PCBs from Panel

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Once you have your boards, you need to cut them apart.  I found that a bandsaw worked well, there was plenty of room for the blade between the boards, and I had a good guide that made a perfect edge.  After cutting them, I cleaned up the cut edges by running them by hand over a (powered off!) belt sander.

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