A Party to the World » projects

Halloween

Dan — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:29:06 +0000

I don’t think I’m alone in not having “done” Halloween since the 6th grade, but I find myself wondering if I’m too old to get candy from strangers.

Either way, I’ve decided to party up this October 31st nerdy-style. Gonna find / make myself some steampunk goggles and pick up a lab coat. I’ve been carving up LEGO mans and ordered a couple of bags of LEDs for them. If I feel particularly festive, I might try to carve a Dalek.

Walmart Avoidance

Dan — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:23:08 +0000

I set out on Sunday to fix a speaker in my car that had been buzzing. I expected that I would find a wire that wasn’t well-attached or that I’d have to solder a weak point, but first I had to get to it.

When I installed a 3.5mm jack in my stereo, I was angered to find that to get to it, I had to remove most of the dash. While I’m sure they didn’t have end-user customization in mind when they designed the 1992 Toyota Corolla, it would be nice to have these things accessible. When we did the same on my friend’s car, we were able to pop a piece off and access the stereo there and then. The same with the truck we used to have. Why does it have to be so buried?

The speaker was a similar, if worse, story. Bolts that were almost impossible to access, large pieces that must be removed in unison. Parts to unscrew that, in order to access them, you’d have to remove the piece they attach. Who makes a car like that?

I appreciate the durability, though. This particular car has just under 240,000 miles on it, and if you need further evidence, check out the Top Gear episode where they try to destroy an old Toyota truck.

Two hours and countless f-bombs after starting to try to get to this speaker, I find it and bring in half my dashboard into the house. Break out the speaker to find that it’s completely eviscerated. Four inches, and all of 15 Watts RMS. Nice.

Browsed around online, but found mostly expensive and powerful speakers, so I head to Checker. Nothing. Target – nope, and Sears doesn’t do car audio anymore. They suggest RadioShack. Nada.

Someone at Checker said he got his (essentially the same speaker) at Walmart. I had been avoiding this, but lacking any other alternative… They’ve got only one pair of speakers that will work, and I’m going to have to do some time with the tin-snips. I get back, get it installed, and I have to admit, they sound a lot better than the old ones.

On a last note, it turns out that parts that are hard to get out are even harder to put back in.

ColdHeat

Dan — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:40:26 +0000

I recently put in a 3.5 mm jack in my car stereo that I might listen to my iPod without an FM transmitter (with which I’ve had no luck) or one of those cassette tapes (my tape deck does not work). In using my bulky soldering iron which I am certain came from the 50′s, I soldered two pins together, and I’m sure I came close to breaking something on several occasions. Frankly, I’m surprised the whole thing worked in the end.

I had seen the ColdHeat soldering iron on ThinkGeek (my nerd toys site of choice), but found out that RadioShack sells them, too. (And at RadioShack, it was even the same price!) Being one who hates to wait for / pay for shipping, and seeing as Kevin and I are going to do the same little experiment on his car stereo this weekend, I hopped on down to RadioShack to get it. I had some other things on my RS shopping list for other projects that this store didn’t have, but so be it.

I got it home, turned it on, and overly-trustingly touched the tip. Nothing. I touched the tip to the solder, and it melted and a blob fell to the counter. As soon as I could, I touch the tip again. Room temperature. It’s pretty neat. Check out some of the videos of it out and about on YouTube and Google Video.

For those interested, I got the car-stereo jack idea from Lifehacker, who apparently found it on Make.