In case you haven’t checked out what we’ve been digging up lately, you can click on the pictures
below and check them out!

If you are trying to make any one of our Christmas DIYs including the ones below, you
will need to learn to solder. Soldering is not really complicated, you just stick a little
bit of Lead to the soldering tool and that’s pretty much it but here are some pictures
to do it the “text-book” way.

EPE Magazine has a good gallery and text on the basics of soldering… “These photos illustrate the basic steps in making a perfect solder joint on a p.c.b. If you’re a beginner, our advice is that it’s best to practice your soldering technique using some clean, new parts with perhaps some new stripboard (protoboard). Be sure to avoid using old, dirty parts; these can be difficult if not impossible to solder.

Christmas DIYs:
Voice Activated Christmas Controller

LED Christmas Wreath

LED Christmas Tree

Christmas Controller in 5 Minutes!

Build Golf Club Training Aid Gift for 5 bucks!

Don Stratton at Atomic Fireballs has improved on our Christmas tree with structural designs!
Although his tree does not do a POV like ours We gives him two thumbs up for the nice pine tree
structure.

About 2 weeks later MAKE Magazine’s RSS feed had a headline about some guys who made a POV Christmas tree! Oh well, this happens to me all the time; come up with a trivial geeky concept and somewhere between two days and two months someone posts video to YouTube of it working away. Hey, million geeks with a millon microcontrollers and all that. Quite often the person who actually developed the idea does a nicer job than I would have and I feel like a hole in the space-time continuum has been sealed, but this time… well, not only do I have some free time on my hands but the fine gentlemen who beat me to the punch on this missed only ONE absolutely critical detail, and the difference between what they did versus what I did virtually defines the whole look of what you can now call a tree. At the end of this article I will sum up the only significant change to the concept those gentlemen used in their project, and you can be the judge of how important it really is to your own efforts to build a POVTree.

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It’s getting near Christmas time and I needed to prepare some Christmas gifts for my parents.
Since my Dad does not get much time on the golf course these days, I figured I could make
a training aid he could use at home to keep his swing on path.

Since I didn’t want to spend 50 bucks on the golf training aid, so I decided to make one real quick.

To see complete HOWTO, click HERE

To see more pics, click HERE

To see printable wiki version, click HERE

Also check out our other Christmas DIYs:

LED Christmas Tree

Voice Activated Christmas Controller

LED Christmas Wreath

Christmas Controller in 5 Minutes!

We were thinking that we could make another last minute DIY for that uses a Ryobi FAN from
Home Depot, high output LEDs, and an embedded computer. Although we have been spending
way too much time making DIYs and not working, we are glad we did make a cool Christmas
LED Wreath we are proud of. The video by the way did not capture the real effect because of
the frame rate of the camera but the pictures can be seen… Merry Leddy Christmas!

For HOWTO, click here. You can also check out our wiki version for printing to your printer.
For Pictures of the Christmas LED Wreath, click here.

Also check out our other Christmas DIYs:

LED Christmas Tree

Voice Activated Christmas Controller

Build Golf Club Training Aid Gift for 5 bucks!

Christmas Controller in 5 Minutes!

This guy looks like he’s kinda crazy on Christmas, maybe too much. But I can understand,
since I am crazy about it too. Here’s some cool DIYs for Christmas:

• Holidazzle Lights Flasher CircuitAdd some real flash to your holidays this year. This circuit allows you to create exciting flash patterns and sequences for the many light strings we know you’ll be planning to put up this year - Link.
• Simple tester checks Christmas-tree lightsWhy is it that you always test 48 bulbs before you find the bad one in a 50-light string? This simple circuit allows you to divide and conquer, greatly reducing the time it takes to find the bad bulb - Link.
• Flickering LED CircuitReproduce that warm glow this winter with this electronic flame flicker device that can be customized to achieve the realistic effect of a flicker candle, oil lamp, or campfire. Your local fire department will be buying your presents - Link.
• Automatic Tree Watering SystemSleep peacefully this holiday season knowing that your tree won’t go up in flames like so much kindling. This electronic watering system includes a 1-gal reservoir and dc-powered pump assembly to ensure your tree stays moist and fresh - Link.
• Blinking LED Holiday StickpinBe the center of attention at your next holiday party with this nifty holiday stickpin that features a low-voltage blinking LED. No lampshades required for assembly - Link.
• Simple scheme saves string-light situationAs you enter the holiday season with strings of ac-line-powered lights hanging everywhere, do you ever wonder how bulb vendors overcame the frustrating problem of having an entire string go dark when just one of the series-wired bulbs failed? - Link.
• Nonfailing light-bulb-string storyThe preceding article on how series-wired Christmas lights self-heal prompted some interesting reader responses suggesting alternative ways that a failing bulb does not cause an entire string of bulbs to fail. Apparently, some light strings use another mechanism, and we have some hands-on evidence to confirm this fact. This approach involves no software, no microprocessors, no logic gates, no nanosecond timing –just some passive light bulbs and clever materials engineering - Link.

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Here’s a cool DIY on making your own LED ornaments for your Christmas tree or your
boring desk. (Well, mine is not boring, just very messy…)

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