Hobby or project

[Tycho?]

I am looking for a hobby. I will soon have a fair amount of free time during weekdays, and I would like to fill this time in a productive manner.

A couple notes:

I dont want to be sitting infront of a screen, I'd like to use my hands to build some sort of contraption of the electric sort. Something like a simple radio, simple electric motor, simple rail/gauss gun, something like that. Basically i'd like to make something that I could show to my friends that they would find neat (not that I'm doing this to impress friends, but its a good criteria).

While I'd perfer to build something totally from scratch out of components that I scavange from other devices, I realize this may not be feasible, but I would like to keep price down.

So does anyone have experience with making something like this? Any other general hobby or project suggestions? I'm looking for something electrical, but who knows what will catch my fancy.

Grundlterror

After this past week I've really wanted to make some LED throwies.

[Tycho?]

Grundlterror wrote:

After this past week I've really wanted to make some LED throwies.

...throwie? What is this?

mrcheesypants

http://www.makezine.com/ might be a good place to start. Never had the time to get into hobbyist electronics though.

redx

[quote=[Tycho?]]

Grundlterror wrote:

After this past week I've really wanted to make some LED throwies.

...throwie? What is this?[/quote]


these

led throwies II has a neat method of putting them up less randomly. Like, you could stick up a pattern or image.


the magnets almost double the price, and I've been trying to think up a way of doing it with an adhisvie.


using these on public property you don't own is illegal.

Hlubocky

I recommend guitar if you are into music. I picked up a moderately priced ($500) acoustic guitar about 6 months ago and have been having a blast. I'm not really in it to learn theory and whatnot; just to play the songs I love to sing anyway. I find when I come home from a long day at work, I head for the guitar instead of the video games as it provides a better release, being able to belt out and play a few songs. I guess if you aren't in to rock and roll, then this might not sound too appealing.

EDIT: Oops, should have read the initial post all the way through. I guess guitar isn't that electrical or constructive, so this might not be what you are into

[Tycho?]

redx wrote:

[quote=[Tycho?]]

Grundlterror wrote:

After this past week I've really wanted to make some LED throwies.

...throwie? What is this?

these

led throwies II has a neat method of putting them up less randomly. Like, you could stick up a pattern or image.


the magnets almost double the price, and I've been trying to think up a way of doing it with an adhisvie.


using these on public property you don't own, is illegal.[/quote]

Ha, thats cute. Although I bet to make these in any quantity would be fairly expensive.

Grundlterror

[quote=[Tycho?]]

Grundlterror wrote:

After this past week I've really wanted to make some LED throwies.

...throwie? What is this?[/quote]

http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=6

Looks like fun Might not be enough for a full time hobby though and it's probably enough to get you into some trouble if you throw em around town so I guess that really wasn't the best suggestion.

Edit: Beated and bettered

[Tycho?]

Hlubocky wrote:

I recommend guitar if you are into music. I picked up a moderately priced ($500) acoustic guitar about 6 months ago and have been having a blast. I'm not really in it to learn theory and whatnot; just to play the songs I love to sing anyway. I find when I come home from a long day at work, I head for the guitar instead of the video games as it provides a better release, being able to belt out and play a few songs. I guess if you aren't in to rock and roll, then this might not sound too appealing.

EDIT: Oops, should have read the initial post all the way through. I guess guitar isn't that electrical or constructive, so this might not be what you are into

I can understand the appeal of music, but I myself have no musical talent and even less actual interest in music. So thats not for me.

Reckless

Look into building Ham Radios, I think you'll find the hobby pretty interesting and enjoyable. I did it for a little while as a kid and I loved it.

Sarcastro

I built a railgun once based on a design i found in an old '50's Reader's Digest for Young Adventurer's. All it took was a couple of railroad spikes, a spool of copper wire, some plywood, a mousetrap, and a big battery. It was awesome. What a great way to spend a summer.

TrippyDK

Looks like fun Smile Might not be enough for a full time hobby though and it's probably enough to get you into some trouble if you throw em around town so I guess that really wasn't the best suggestion.

Hah, apparently you havent seen the ATHF fallout from them doing a ad campaign with those. The city (cant remember which) thought they were bombs, and shut down certain places. They called the bomb squad in, and black boxed em.

Omnicron9999

TrippyDK wrote:

Looks like fun Smile Might not be enough for a full time hobby though and it's probably enough to get you into some trouble if you throw em around town so I guess that really wasn't the best suggestion.

Hah, apparently you havent seen the ATHF fallout from them doing a ad campaign with those. The city (cant remember which) thought they were bombs, and shut down certain places. They called the bomb squad in, and black boxed em.

Boston.


Stupid, stupid Boston...

contraband

led throwies and a litebright mooninite flipping the bird are different things, though.

does anyone have a how-to for the throwies? or where to acquire the products as cheaply as possible? If I wanted to make, say, 100, how much would that cost?

JWFokker

Try your hand at building audio amplifiers. PCB boards and instructions are available for many different headphone and speaker amplifiers, and they're not particularly difficult to build (assuming they use thru-hole rather than surface mount parts). The best thing is, if you do a clean job and put it in a nice case, you can sell it and make a fair bit of cash on top of the parts cost, assuming you don't want to keep it. You don't have to be particularly skilled to solder parts onto PCB boards (SMDs aside), it's just time consuming, but I've always enjoyed it.