Your Gadgets?

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Postby Don_HH2K » Sun 24 May, 2009 12:24 am

I built a 12-LED flashlight today out of an old Union Carbide flashlight and a failed LED light bulb. It turns out that the 18 LEDs in the bulb were all wired in series and only one had shot out, so I removed the other 17 and tried to do something else with them.

Image

(No, that's not backwards - I broke the switch.)

Image

The LEDs are mounted on two pieces of PVC, with wires soldered in place on the backside. Each one dissipates 20mA of current at 3 volts, and they're all in parallel, so technically the "bulb" is rated for 0.72 watts. A typical flashlight bulb runs between two and four watts, so this is pretty cool - and it's powered by two D-cells, so it'll last awhile.

Image

That's the best image I could get that adequately showed the brightness of the beam; sorry that I don't have a tripod to keep the camera steady for slow exposures.
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Postby Antony » Sun 24 May, 2009 1:21 am

Nice.

I wouldn't build an LED torch myself. (Just get one from the shop.)

Just a minor recommendation: You need a proper labels. (Perhaps a label machine would help.)
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Postby Don_HH2K » Sun 24 May, 2009 8:50 am

Antony wrote:Just a minor recommendation: You need a proper labels. (Perhaps a label machine would help.)


What's wrong with those?
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Postby Antony » Mon 25 May, 2009 4:40 am

Don_HH2K wrote:What's wrong with those?
Well, to give a more professional finishing look.
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Postby Happy Dude » Mon 08 Jun, 2009 1:06 am

New phone again, hiptop (sidekick) slide.

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The phones pretty crap but the plans awesome. $30 gets unlimited SMS, MMS, push email and data. Sadly no tethering and only 2G with EDGE. (See http://www.telstra.com.au/hiptop)

I, however, don't see myself making it thru a 24 month contract (gotta get it first, have the phone though)
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Postby iJohnE » Mon 08 Jun, 2009 10:32 am

Happy Dude wrote:New phone again, hiptop (sidekick) slide.

Image

The phones pretty crap but the plans awesome. $30 gets unlimited SMS, MMS, push email and data. Sadly no tethering and only 2G with EDGE. (See http://www.telstra.com.au/hiptop)

I, however, don't see myself making it thru a 24 month contract (gotta get it first, have the phone though)


Nice phone, I have a Motorola w385, because it was free, and its crap, but, hey it works right?
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Postby iJohnE » Mon 08 Jun, 2009 10:40 am

My new baby:
Image

I love my new iPod Mini, it's so, cool!
6GB 1500 songs in my pocket. Yay me!

Image thanks to Amazon.
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Postby Happy Dude » Tue 09 Jun, 2009 1:12 am

@iJohne: Hardly a decent phone. 3 New hiptop/sidekicks have been released in America since the slide /shrugs

ie, the LX 09 http://www.sidekick.com/

And replace the HDD in your mini with flash memory :P
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Postby Antony » Tue 09 Jun, 2009 1:22 am

Happy Dude wrote:The phones pretty crap but the plans awesome. $30 gets unlimited SMS, MMS, push email and data. Sadly no tethering and only 2G with EDGE. (See http://www.telstra.com.au/hiptop)

I, however, don't see myself making it thru a 24 month contract (gotta get it first, have the phone though)
So you were signing for the plan not the phone?
A quick look at the included Telstra page, how much call credit included? and what is the call rate?

You can call me old fashioned, I don't use SMS, MMS much. I mainly talk.
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Postby Happy Dude » Tue 09 Jun, 2009 7:00 am

Antony wrote:
Happy Dude wrote:The phones pretty crap but the plans awesome. $30 gets unlimited SMS, MMS, push email and data. Sadly no tethering and only 2G with EDGE. (See http://www.telstra.com.au/hiptop)

I, however, don't see myself making it thru a 24 month contract (gotta get it first, have the phone though)
So you were signing for the plan not the phone?
A quick look at the included Telstra page, how much call credit included? and what is the call rate?

You can call me old fashioned, I don't use SMS, MMS much. I mainly talk.


No call credit included. :P Calls are on top, 30 cents for 30 seconds + 27 seconds flagfall. If you don't send alot of SMS or go on the internet, then the hiptop plan is definetly not for you (plus it only works in the hiptop phone)

Edit; you do get free 3 minute calls to landlines and Telstra mobiles (a $3 charge for normal Telstra plans each time you change the number for this "free call" but no such charge exisits on the hiptop plan)

I'm not a heavy talker - I really only talk to my family. Even then, my grandmother texts me...
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Last edited by Happy Dude on Tue 09 Jun, 2009 7:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Antony » Tue 09 Jun, 2009 9:38 am

Well, I usually talk on the phone for hours...
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Postby iJohnE » Tue 09 Jun, 2009 1:57 pm

The iPod mini is already flash memory.....err, it's no matter, is really for collection purposes, I have a 32GB Sansa View on the way.
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Postby Happy Dude » Thu 11 Jun, 2009 4:12 am

iJohnE wrote:The iPod mini is already flash memory.....err, it's no matter, is really for collection purposes, I have a 32GB Sansa View on the way.


Actually, an iPod Mini has a microdrive. :P
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Postby iJohnE » Thu 11 Jun, 2009 2:19 pm

Happy Dude wrote:
iJohnE wrote:The iPod mini is already flash memory.....err, it's no matter, is really for collection purposes, I have a 32GB Sansa View on the way.


Actually, an iPod Mini has a microdrive. :P


Ooh, interesting. iPods have such and interesting history.
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Postby iJohnE » Tue 16 Jun, 2009 9:47 pm

iJohnE wrote:My new baby:
Image

I love my new iPod Mini, it's so, cool!
6GB 1500 songs in my pocket. Yay me!

Image thanks to Amazon.


Replaced the battery, and the HDD today in my Mini. I decided to stick with the 4GB card, because it was cheap. LOL, and I don't need more than 1,000 songs.
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