Miscellaneous Projects Page A place for all my geeky projects, hacks and pastimes that aren't easily categorized
Public Speaking. Here you will find some of the Powerpoint presentations I have used during the lectures I have given at
The St. Petersburg Astronomy Club meetings and the Pinellas Science Center. Due to popular demand, I am making them available to anyone interested.
My Home-Built Biomass Gasifier. A biomass gasifier is a chemical reactor that converts wood, or other biomass substances,
into a combustible gas that can be burned for heating, cooking, or for running an internal combustion engine.
My Improvised Generator. an improvised DC generator
built from an old lawn edger and a permanent magnet DC motor. The inspiration behind this generator was to have a cheap way to charge up my battery
banks on days when the weather is cloudy and calm, and my solar panels and
wind turbine aren't providing much energy.
A New and Improved Charge Controller Design. This is a project I have been working on for a while. I wanted to re-design
The charge controller I use with my wind turbine and
solar panels because of the huge volume of emails I get from people who
are having problems trying to build a copy of the controller. I wanted to simplify the charge controller circuit, lower the part count, and use
easier to find parts. I think I succeeded on all counts. Check it out.
My Quick and Easy Car Laptop Tray. How I built an inexpensive laptop / notebook computer tray
for my Toyota Tacoma Pickup. It was easy. You can do it too. This project ought to be adaptable to any vehicle with a center console
cup holder.
Cutting Circles out of Glass. I needed to learn how to cut circles out of glass to make
my laminated telescope mirror blanks.
I actually had to learn how to do it twice, because the technique is different for thin and thick glass. Once I figured it out,
I made some videos to show others how to do it. They can be found a short way down the blank making page.
My Home-Built Pen Plotter. I built this pen plotter using slides and motors from old, junked printers. My plan was to add a third
axis to it and make it a 3D printer, but I never got that far. It is still sitting on a corner of my workbench, gathering dust. Someday I may complete
the third axes and build a plastic extruder for it. Other projects and priorities keep intervening though.
