Author: gary

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Vintage Electronics 2

bikeFollowing the build of our 1978 Metal Detector, next up in our Vintage Electronics series will be a Digital Bicycle Speedometer.  In the March 1977 issue of Popular Electronics, they published an article for a digital speedometer complete with red LED displays. This will be a build from the original magazine which we have in TOG.

 
You can get an LCD digital bike speedometer nowadays for as little as 5 euro. These multi function devices can do much more than speed. Back in 1977 however, this thing must have been space age…..  red LED displays and all!

We think it will look suitably retro on a modern carbon fibre road bike 🙂 We will be building the speedometer over the next few weeks. Come in and join in the build, or keep in touch with the build online.

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July Open Social

party2It’s the middle of the month, it’s Saturday and its 7PM. That can only mean one thing. It’s TOG Open Social again. This Open Social will see us just one week away from Dublin Maker. You’ll get to see a sneak preview of some of the things that we’ll be bringing to our stand.

Apart from that, it will be the usual relaxed hang out. It’s a great way to see the space and to meet other members & visitors. If you’ve never been to the social, you’ll find it a great alternative Saturday evening in town.

 

Hopefully there’ll be pizza, music and much more. The space stays open until the last member is left……usually the small hours of Sunday morning. The open social is free to attend for members and visitors alike. Our doors will be open from 7pm.

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It’s Alive!

scopeMore progress with our vintage metal detector today. Fired up the oscillator section of the PCB and its working away at 126kHz…. very close to design frequency.

 

We’re going to continue to work on it, with the intention of having it ready for Dublin Maker in less than 2 weeks time. Pics of the ongoing build here.

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Pizza Oven 1.1

oven2Our pizza oven was built as a bit of a hack over Christmas and New Year. After 5 months of operation, a bit of maintenance and a few minor mods were in order. A better flue, some re-jigging of insulation and foil and some re-pointing of bricks were done.

On Saturday 20th June, we fired it up for our regular open social event. It all worked as good as usual and everyone got fed! We had plenty of first time visitors to TOG too, who got the grand tour of the space. They’ve been keeping in touch with us on meetup and twitter. Pics of the maintenance here.

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Open Social Saturday

balloonsHey all, just a quick post to let you know about our regular Open Social tomorrow June 20th. The open social is a great way to see the space, hang out, and meet other members & visitors. If you’ve never been to the social, you’ll find it a great alternative Saturday evening in town. If you have some project or idea in mind, its a great opportunity to talk to other makers, hackers and do’ers. Or you can simply just hang out and chat 🙂

Hopefully, there’ll be all the usual madness of an open social. Weather permitting, there’ll be pizza. There may also be beer samples, courtesy of Capital Brewers at TOG. You might even get to pick some locks if our friendly lock pickers will show you some tricks. The space stays open until the last member is left…. usually the small hours of Sunday morning. The open social is free to attend. Our doors will be open from 7pm.

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Vintage Electronics 1

pcbETI Electronics, February 1978, IB Metal detector Mk2. This is the first in a series of ‘vintage’ electronics projects that we hope to build at TOG. We have the original magazine, so why not get building. There are some amazing projects in the electronics magazines from the 70’s and 80’s.

Update…. The build is in progress. Pics here.

We hope to be doing the PCB assembly for this project on 6th July, as this date is the 6th anniversary of TOG’s first electronics night. In the run up to 6th July, we’ll be preparing and gathering all the parts. As well as everything we need to do the electronics build, we have our workshop to do all the mechanical assembly and search head too.

We’re talking pure analog electronics here….. there won’t be an Arduino or line of code in sight 🙂 Although this project was first published in 1978, all of the components are still readily available. Come in if you’d like to see the build. Visitors are welcome and there’s no charge to attend. Even if you don’t know much about these kind of projects, you can still learn a lot by keeping in touch with the build. Should be great fun.