INDISPENSABLE SITES

Hello everyone,
I'd like to share some sites that I find to be great resources and DIY inspiration. 
Hopefully they will be useful to you while making your ideas come to life.




Instructables
This site is incredible. It is a user-created site with shared step-by-step DIY projects. You need a Pro Account for downloading and uploading projects. But the costs are reasonable and the resources pay for themselves over and over again. You can find anything from making camping fire pistons to making your very own air-powered Star Trek style door. (and sounds exactly like the real ones)

Instructables: James Hildebrandt Fire Piston Tutorial

Makezine
This site is a little more on the electronics side. It has kits you can purchase and articles on how to hack different equipment. They are better known for their magazine's on electronics, hacks, and DIYing. I'm a big fan of their Arduino, an open-source electronic prototyping platform.

Makezine's Arduino

Art of Manliness
This blog is pretty new to me. It's a men's interest and lifestyle site dedicated to reviving the lost art of manliness. It has a little bit of everything from how to throw a tomahawk like a mountain man to how to make your own canoe paddle. 

Art of Manliness: How to make canoe paddle

MY ONGOING PROJECT.

I have always wanted my own 5.1 surround sound system for home entertainment, but mainly for gaming. So I started researching online to see what was out there. Anything I was interested in that had good sound was way too expensive, and I knew I didn't want a box system.

I eventually ended up talking with a good friend of mine and he told me about creativesound.ca. It's a Canadian site that sells drivers and crossover components. You can order kits or individual parts to create your own speaker setup, and they have a great selection of speaker plans.

I decided to start looking for some design ideas, and finally placed my order. I presently have 5 out of my 5.1 system.

I've been taking my time with the design and build, but I am very happy with what has been completed so far.

Materials:
In this project I am using 3/4" MDF, wood glue, screws, caulking, bondo, speaker dampening fill (another cool product from creative sound) Monster band speaker wire and crimp-on end connectors to attach my speakers to the binding posts.

Here are some pictures of the progress. This build is based off the EL70/mMar-Ke/70 1v0 plans I found on the Creative Sound web site.

NES USB HUB

Two too many acronyms.
This is a nice project to start with. I did this little guy about 3 years ago, maybe more. I love vintage video games. I have a huge collection that I have been putting together for a number of years. Mostly consists of North American region consoles. So I thought it was appropriate to turn one of my broken NES controllers into a USB hub for my Netbook.

How it was done:
Basically, I just took the sucker appart. Milled out the grooves inside. Drilled appropriate sized holes for the USB and power supply plug ins. Cut out the front for the LED's and USB ports. I then hot glued the hub's bread board to the bottom part of the the controller shell. Then screwed the thing together, with the original screws from the controller.

And there you have it! A wicked awesome use for your old and broken NES controllers.

FIRST POST EVER!!

Well.... This is my first ever post on my blog. Not only that it's my first ever blog.
I'm a 30 year old male from Nova Scotia, Canada with more hobbies than time. I'm interested in a little bit of everything. From fishing and camping to knife making, jewelery, paintball, electronics, tools. You name it. In this blog I'm hoping to give everyone a little glimpse into my life plus a one-stop-shop blog for tutorials, cool sites, plans and instructions, and other things I find damn cool. I hope it keeps your interests.