RedBeard – MickRed

DIY Princess Mononoke Costume

Last year my wife and I made this Princess Mononoke Costume for our daughter barely in time for Halloween. I just recently noticed I posted to social media but never posted here.

The mask was made with paper mache and paper clay, coated with plasti dip and then painted by MrsRedBeard. The ears, knife and spear were made with foam matting, coated with plasti dip then painted. The fur was a bath mat that MrsRedBeard found, on Amazon I think, which was way cheaper than buying it from a fabric store. The knife handle was made from a ping pong paddle and the spear handle was made from a paint roller handle.

The dress was found at a discount clothing store for very cheap. MrsRedbeard modified the dress, sculpted the necklace with polymer clay and made the fur into something wearable.

The Mask

The Weapons

The finished costume

Wismec Reuleaux RX200S Blank Screen Fix

If you want help fixing your device or want me to do it please contact me.

Wismec Reuleaux RX200S Blank Screen Fix

A reader sent his RX200S, after reading the rx2/3 fix, hoping I could fix a blank screen issue.

Hooked up to PC where the firmware tool successfully detected the device. Went ahead and updated the firmware to V4.13. This let me know there wasn’t a processor issue.

I disassembled and checked connections. The ribbon cable seemed loose.

Used a heat gun to reflow the ribbon solderings. Got info on the display but it was very dim. The issue still persisted but the ribbon cable definitely needed this because it was separating from the solder.

After poking around at the surface mounted resistors near the ribbon traces I found that bridging two of the resistors the screen came to life. My untested assumption is that one of the resistors went bad and bridging them brought the screen back to life.

Reassembled and tested again. The resistance of the coil reads the same on 2 devices and the wattage to run the coil is equal between the 2 devices. Good to go.

Try this at you’re own risk and understand I’m not responsible for anything that goes wrong.

The Bronzeville Numbers Unbreakable? Part 2 Music

Josh Olson says his numbers code is unbreakable. Do you like puzzles? If so have fun and contact us to tell us what you find. Maybe in sheer numbers we can brute force the answer.

Could it be a music reference?

Attempts at translating numbers to musical notes failed? Maybe you hear something I don’t. My hearing has gone down hill….. guns & explosions will do that.

6 42 63 42 52 72 2 11 75 27 7 37 4 48 58 7 27 8 45 51 2 12 22 7 18

How it was done

I took the numbers and using c# output them into 2 different ways to generate frequencies to output as tones. First method was simply multiplying each number by 100 to get the frequency in playable range. The second method was converting each number to binary then getting the sum of the ones within each binary number, a method found to be used for storing music information.

Part 1 of The Numbers

Be sure to check out the Bronzeville FAQ

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Wismec Reuleaux rX2/3 Check Battery Fix

If you want help fixing your device or want me to do it please contact me.

With no drops, no overheating, 2 batteries in use and a lower power user the Wismec rX2/3 started throwing a Check Battery error. I did not have the proper hex bit to do the existing standard fixes so I came up with a new fix.

To test if this is the fix for you connect a piece of wire to the 2 points below with batteries in and attempt to fire the device. If the Check Battery error does not appear then this fix should work for you.

The new fix bypasses the cover connections. With that said the note that this fix has not been checked against using 3 batteries so use at your own risk. I apologize for not taking pictures during the repair so I have illustrated over pictures posted on the net by others. Credit for original images at end of post.

Solder a wire between the 2 points circled in yellow and shown connected in red. Beauty of this fix is that you can test without the back cover. Once the new wire was is in place I reassembled with everything working.

If you use this fix contact me and let me know how it turned out.

Reuleaux RX2/3 Fix — Reuleaux RX2/3 Check Battery Fix

Try this at you’re own risk and understand I’m not responsible for anything that goes wrong.

Image adapted from

DIY Geiger Counter – Planning

I’ve always wanted to have and build a Geiger Counter. This doesn’t mean I want to start experimenting with radioactive materials, I just have a general interest. At most I might collect items from thrift stores that measure higher than normal amounts of radiation. At most I wouldn’t mind sputtering the radioactive metal onto glass slides.

Found some tutorials but the most appealing to me was one built by tanner_tech featured on HackADay.com recently that utilized a 555 timer and a step up transformer to get the 400V. 400V across the tube allows gamma rays or beta particles to start the ionization completing the circuit.

After settling on a design I purchased 3 Russian Geiger tubes CI-3BG / SI-3BG from ebay link here. They sent me 4…. Win!

I want to take this one step further and have the data output to a screen and log that data rather than just make noise. So the end result will be an Arduino or Raspberry Pi to control the Geiger Counter. I just need to learn the best way to take the 400v pulses and turn that into something a microcontroller can safely read. If you know the best way to do this please contact me.

After a few corrections to the circuit to level the voltage to a consistent 400V I believe I’m ready to begin building the initial geiger counter. That is after I get a few other projects out of the way. Being able to simulate the circuit, as shown below, was a huge help.

Parts List

1x 555 timer
2x 47k resistors
1x 22nF capacitor
1x 2.2nF capacitor
1x 1k resistor
1x 8:800 ohm transformer
1x Any N-channel MOSFET
2x 1n4007 diode (on regulator)
2x 100nF 500 volt capacitor (on regulator)
4x 100 volt zener diode
1x Geiger tube (in simulation I’m using a lamp)

If built from scratch, buying parts in small quantities each unit is estimated to cost around $12-$15 so not bad at all.

Recreation of the circuit with simulation on EveryCircuit

Friggin loving Every Circuit! Visually seeing the results and being able to tweak values during live simulation is beautiful.

Links to original design

Tanner_tech’s Instructables

[instructablesUP username=”tanner_tech” num=”6″ thumb=”true” tileview=”true”]

Microwave Plasma Chamber – Part 3 – What is Plasma? Experiments planned

Photos of plasma being created in a microwave oven from 2 experiments I conducted in the past

Most people are familiar with 3 states of matter being solid, liquid, and gas but a lot of people are not familiar with the 4th. The fourth state of matter is plasma defined as an ionized gaseous mixture consisting of highly charged positive ions and free electrons (negative charge) that result in little or no electric charge. The amount of energy in each state of matter increases as you progress. Plasma is typically created at low pressures or at very high temperatures. Believe it or not plasma is the most common form of matter in the universe. [taken from definition, wiki, and general knowledge]

Examples of plasma are neon signs, CFL bulbs, lightning strikes and probably what I’m most interested in Fusion (the sun). Uses of plasma can be found in the manufacturing of electronic components such as semiconductors, metal plating of glass/silicon/etc, mineral extraction, ion propulsion and one day a very clean and efficient energy source.

Plasma conducts electricity and can be manipulated with a magnetic field. These properties are at the core of what I want to accomplish with the plasma chamber.

Experiments for the chamber

Small scale plasma accelerator
Plasma sputter plating of metals on to glass
Ion drive simulation
Magnetic containment fields
Effect of plasma being pushed through a coil
Plasma being formed with various gases and/or particle filled gases
Custom waveguide antennas to concentrate energy for various applications
Effect of electricity being applied across plasma
Effect of shooting electrons through plasma
Find a way to manipulate power and frequency of RF signal

Microwave Plasma Chamber Part 1 & Part 2

Click here to browse through posts written about my interests in Microwave Projects

Microwave Plasma Chamber – Part 2 – RF Energy Shielding Primer

There’s a lot of ~~in-depth overview~~ random basic RF information. With that said I don’t mind getting into the details because this information will help keep me safe while I perform experiments in the future.

A magnetron generates large amounts of RF energy and emits that energy as an antenna pumped through a wave guide. Most microwaves transmit/operate at 2.45GHz. Unless something is wrong with your microwave or you have taken it apart like I will be doing the RF energy, 2.45GHz, transmission is contained within your microwave using a Faraday cage. On your right is an example of a crude Faraday cage. While crude this mesh size would probably be safe to use for 2.4GHz.

Photo from www.physics.montana.edu — Radio in a Faraday Cage photo from http://www.physics.montana.edu/demonstrations/video/5_electricityandmagnetism/demos/radioinfaradaycage.html

A microwave oven works by pumping a lot of RF energy into an enclosure where it bombards the molecules of food or whatever you have put in your microwave. This RF energy is not in a straight line but is guided through a wave guide then and then bounced off the metal walls of the inside of the microwave. The RF energy then vibrates the molecules which creates heat. This is like when you rub your hands together (friction) and they get warm but on a molecular level. What I don’t want is my molecules to get vibrated.

The Faraday cage is made up of the mesh in the window as well as the metal case which share a chassis ground. The mesh in the window blocks the the RF because the mesh size is smaller than the wavelength of 2.45GHz/2450MHz/2450000000Hz. If the mesh size is lower than the nominal wavelength the mesh should be effective. Look at the list below to see what the wavelengths in size is. For this project I plan on using the RF blocking glass that I obtained samples of from Viracon which is way different than a Faraday cage but same principle. You can see the article I linked to but I also included an image here.

Full Wavelength = 12.23643cm/122.3643mm = 0.1223643m
Half Wavelength = 6.118215cm/61.18215mm
Quarter Wavelength = 3.0591cm/30.591075mm

You can calculate the wavelength using the formula ? = c/? or 0.1223640816326531 = 299792000/2450000000

? = frequency in hz, c = speed of light in mps 299792000, ? = Wavelength in meters

N5JLC is my math right?

So basically if my mesh is smaller than 30mm, if I’m right, I should be protected. I plan to use the glass but if needed I will use hardware cloth.

RF Meters

In order to protect myself and nearby electronics I want to monitor external and internal RF to ensure there is not leakage. RF Meters in general are not that difficult to build but ones that cover the 2.4GHz range require a bit more than a germanium diode and multimeter. In short you’ll probably see a 2.4GHz RF Meter project coming soon. Below are some RF Meter projects but if you know of any please let me know.

Frequency Spectrum Chart

Symbols and Values

? = frequency in hz
c = speed of light in meters per second (mps) 299792000
? = Wavelength in meters

Microwave Plasma Chamber – Part 1 – The Plan

Normally I throw together a project with rough notes, research along the way, then after half attempts/failures I get around to cooking that down to a post on here. This time you will get everything. With this project I will be posting my ideas, planning, results of research and the project in stages. Here’s my initial idea written out and some really rough ideas thrown on paper. This has been a project I’ve been wanting to do for some time now and have been talking about it forever.

Roughed together a drawing of my ideas and what I think will work for this project. No measurements in mind while throwing ideas on paper.

What I want is a chamber with viewing windows to see the plasma when it’s created. In addition to the view windows and enclosure I will need a power supply to drive this thing.

Took my drawing and opened SketchUp with considerations for what measurements I do have. As I type this staring at my digital drawing already considering separating the power supply making it usable for other projects in the future. It would be cool to have a high voltage isolation transformer for things like a Jacobs Ladder or an arc furnace.

Regardless of the power supply what I have in mind here is the plasma chamber with viewing windows which are 12 inches square. I plan to have a microcontroller monitor and remotely turn on or more importantly off the chamber.

The main chamber will have the magnetron from a microwave mounted inside of it with a metal housing around it and it’s electronics to protect them. The antenna portion of the magnetron will rest inside a waveguide (horn) that points at the center of the chamber. This directed energy will excite particles creating plasma. I probably need to consider a way to draw a vacuum inside the chamber for later experiments.

I plan to use parts of the original microwave casing and sheet metal for the housing. If I need more material I might scrap old PC cases. To help minimize RF leakage I am considering using aluminum duct tape and angled aluminum.

Need to look at the manufacturer specifications and double check my work but I think this how the magnetron wiring is done minus the existing controls.

PreRelease Late Night Edit – Remember how I said I’d share everything? Well do you see where on the capacitor I have an element leading to an X? I think I already screwed up and that is supposed to be a diode going to chassis ground.

I also have this crazy idea in the back of my head thinking of using pulse width modulation to have greater control of the RF output. That may be total non-sense but the implications could maybe be cool.

RF meters will be needed to monitor interior and exterior RF levels. I plan to build at least 2 of them and will post that project soon. I will post more about the RF energy in my next post of this project.

Click here to browse through posts written about my interests in Microwave Projects

SainSmart L293D Fail!!

This is a project in the works but what the hey here’s sort of a preview. The plan is to use 2x 400MHz transceivers via 2x arduinos to control the motors on this RC car. I’ve already taken the original controller board out of the car and made room for the new components.

So I was sitting here setting up a SainSmart L293D Motor Driver using specs and guidance from Adafruit and either I missed something or the information is wrong. At 3.5vdc it works but could be pushed so I grabbed an 18vdc drill battery thinking it would be fine because the circuit as quoted from Adafruit below states that it is rated to 25vdc.

25vdc my foot cause as soon as I set it up smoke popped and I smell burning on both the arduino and motor controller. It still seems to work but surely problems will rear their head.

Just ordered better motor controllers (same as the one used in my R2D2) and 18650 battery holders. Wouldn’t be so bad but I think the arduino board is fried.

Just so anyone else is aware this is the link I purchased my L293D from on Amazon. I already complained but I’m not the first to do so.

4 H-Bridges: L293D chipset provides 0.6A per bridge (1.2A peak) with thermal shutdown protection, 4.5V to 25V

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-motor-shield/overview

Arduino and UV Lights for Glow in the Dark Decorations

My wife, MrsRedBeard, made some glow in the dark heads for Halloween decorations. They glowed but very dim and not for very long so why not kick it it up with UV lights. But why stop there when there’s an Arduino laying around?

Using the Arduino I made it so that the lights fade in to brightness, blink, hold for a few seconds then turn off for a while and loop. The code for this can be found on GitHub.

I’m not getting real in-depth on how to do this because most of it is really basic. If you want additional information just Contact us.