A New Direction

So, I just looked at this thing and realized that I've had an active-but-mostly-unused blog for about four years.

Holy shit.

The past couple years have just not been conducive to blogging on my usual topics; it's not that my opinions have changed, it's just that one can only repeat one's self so often before writing becomes a chore. So while I wasn't typing up long screeds on why the republican party is just evil, or why PHP is a poorly implemented programming language here, I was (probably) doing so somewhere else on teh interwebz.

In a similar vein, I recently discovered Reddit and have been doing a lot of reading and commenting there (mostly in the atheism, science, advice, and DIY-oriented subreddits).

As I approach graduation, however, I've been acquiring more and more toys tools with which to do my own science experiments and begin (or finish) various projects I've been thinking about for a long time. These tools include a LabJack U3 data acquisition device, which is probably the single most useful piece of electronic equipment (other than my computer) that I've ever owned. It's got a neat little Python API and has drivers available for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, so it's easy to work with from a software perspective. It also has support for interfacing with I²C and SPI ICs, so if it doesn't have a certain functionality that I want, I can find the IC that does and just talk to it through the labjack. Infinite Power!

Other important tools that I've acquired include the following:

• Tektronix 2-channel analog oscilloscope: Needs some TLC, but a good scope is invaluable for electronic testing and debugging.


• Protoboard: What you find in every electronics lab in every university, used for rapidly prototyping circuits in an easily-modifiable way.


• 12-volt low-ripple power supply: I scored this beauty as surplus from MSU's Facilities Services. It gives off high-quality DC power and can source something like 11 amps.


• Sensors: These are cool. I've managed to get my hands on an ethanol sensor, some LM335 temperature sensors, and a phototransistor for fairly cheap. I got my current batch from Sparkfun, and will hopefully be branching out to other vendors for different kinds of sensors sometime soon.


• Commodity electronic components: These are things like resistor, capacitors, wires, and various kinds of LEDS (from the standard low-power green/yellow/red to a high-intensity green Luxeon, as well as some high-intensity RGB packages).

I still need some other tools, most importantly a good bench power supply (I'll probably end up using a computer power supply until I can afford a better one) and a temperature-controlled soldering iron that I can use for high-precision work. Once I've acquired those, here's a (non-exhaustive) list of projects that I want to do in the near future:

• Learn to do surface-mount soldering


• Microcontroller programming; I'll probably start with the Atmel Atmega328, since it seems easy enough to program and it's powerful enough for beginner projects


• Breathalyzer/ethanol concentration sensor. I've actually already started this one, I have the ethanol sensor I got from sparkfun wired up and I've interfaced it with the labjack; I just need to calibrate it and write an interface application to make it easy to use.


• O₂ production/CO₂ uptake measurement for various plants. This is actually a science experiment my sister wants to do for her school's science fair, and I thought I could help her out with getting some good data and building a good experimental setup. I'll write more on this soon.


• Aluminum-air or zinc-air fuel cell. I want to try building one of these bad boys (I'd really like to get a zinc cell working) because they have a ridiculous energy density, and could very well be used in an EV conversion project later on. Zinc cells have the benefit of being "rechargable" by me using a zinc-plating technique.


• Home power monitoring. This mostly involves reading currents and voltages, and calculating their real vs. apparent power consumption and integrating against time. Still, it could be really useful for calculating an energy-saving strategy once I live somewhere that is more conducive to me expressing my inner energy-Nazi


• Automated beer brewing: basically using a combination of the ethanol and CO₂ sensors mentioned previously to get some data on alcohol fermentation. Maybe throw a pH sensor in there somewhere, I think it could be pretty cool.


• Synthesis gas fermentation. I want to see how difficult it is to get acetogenic bacteria to metabolize CO and H₂ into ethanol. Supposedly it's possible and it's actually fairly efficient, I just need to figure out how to generate the CO and H₂ via gasification first. The gasifier itself is probably deserving of its own project.

So, those are my desired projects. I'm sure I forgot one or two. My plan is to write detailed blog entries on the progress of each one, so that other people can learn from my experience and/or give any helpful suggestions that come to mind.