Juke – Custom Paddle Shifters – Phase 1

Not satisfied leaving well enough alone, I decided to add custom paddle shifters to my 2012 Nissan Juke.  For those that aren't in the know, the Juke has a sport shift mode where you can 'bump' the auto shift unit up or down to up/down shift.  ..but that's no   I wanted paddle shifters, and since there is no stock option, I decided to go the custom route.  Before jumping into the project, the main…
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Arduino Temperature / Humidity Sensor

The projects I do tend to fall in one of two buckets - either proof-of-concept (so I can learn new stuff) or items that have some sort of functional use.   The need for this project came about when my wife was prodding me about the humidity in the house and whether our humidifier was doing it's job correctly.  Most people would just go out and buy a temp / humidity sensor and be done…
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Adafruit Monochrome 128×32 OLED graphic display

I recently got my hands on the Adafruit Monochrome 128x32 OLED graphic display for my next project.  This is a 128x32 OLED B+W graphics chip and it's tiny!  Don't let its size fool you however. Being an OLED display,  text/graphics contrasts well against the black background.  My initial intent for this display was to use it to provide information to you GPS Red Light Camera project.  It's job would be to provide key information such…
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Review – Optek LED Strip

After completing my Juke footwell / glove box LED mod, I decided that the footwell LEDs just were not bright enough.   I came across these Optek 3 LED white lights from Newark that have just the right white light and luminosity.  These LED bars are built tough.  The LEDs appear to be set in a hardened liquid plastic.  Wires run in one end and out the other - it seems that these strips were…
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Nissan Juke – Footwell & Glove Box LED Lightning

Next on the block - adding LEDs to the foot wells and glove box.   (Prev mods: LED Tails and Rear Passenger LED mods) This mod can be especially useful this time of year up here on the 49th parallel since we are pretty much in darkness @ 5PM during November. All to often I drop something down near my feet and have to go looking for it.  The light that casts from the map lights…
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Nissan Juke – Interior LED Illumination – Rear Passenger Light

I just finished adding LEDs to the tail lights, and now its time to move on to the interior. For those of you who have a Juke, you can sympathize with me on this - the Juke is a great vehicle, but it is lacking in some very basic necessities ( armrest, removable cup holders, a rear passenger light!). This has been further compounded by the fact that I have 2 children in child seats…
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Pulito – Beacon (Version 1) Internals

OLD Version Details:  (see new version here): The following is a picture of the charging beacon.  Although it looks quite plain from the outside, it is what is inside that resulted in this being a 5 month build (well that and things like kids! :-)  )  From the top there is a cutout for the LCD.  The purpose of the LCD is to display the change from 1200 to 600 Hz. The gray axle on…
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Fun with PHP, MySQL on Windows 2000 Advanced Server

I recently decided that it is about time to replace my old P4 server in the interest of speed, space and power reductions. Even with a P4, this sever is heavily underused.  My choice was a mini-ITX form factor system running the Intel Atom N330 Dual Core processor.  Although there is little improvement over CPU speed, I also migrated to an OCZ Indilinx SSD.  That's a little background for you.  Now, my existing machine is…
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Sumovore Sumo Bot & Accessories – For Sale

A very slightly used, never competed Solarbotics Mini Sumovore Kit. When I bought this, I purchased the sumovore kit, the stamp stack microcontroller as well as the brainboard as I thought I needed all of them. I assembled the Sumovore, programmed and tested it and it works fine, but it has been sitting on a shelf for months not getting any use. So, it's time for it to go. I am selling all three items…
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Welcome to my place…

Welcome to my new blog.  I was beginning to tire of my old site and found that I needed a better way to manage the content of my projects as I diversify my portfolio of LEGO robotics,  electronics work, mods, instructables and other hacks. Over the years I have had many great comments and questions primarily related to my LEGO robots.  When I did my Apple MightyMouse mod to my Asus EEE 901 (which I…
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