I finished my speakers finally. Took 3-4 rounds of sanding, bondo, priming, to get a super smooth finish hiding all of the seams. They came out pretty amazing and sound even better than they look. Check out the final photos and build log here

I've been working on a number of projects recently. Work has finally resumed on my Apple speaker project. More info and pictures will be posted as soon as some new parts arrive. My main focus lately has been finishing the new automated brewing system. I have etched a number of PCB's for them and I am working with arduino's, digital temp sensors, and a few other fun things to control burners, valves, and pumps to brew with.

Check it out over at Black Heart Brewery

I finished up my RFID door lock project after etching the final PCB boards myself. It was an interesting process that turned out to be much less difficult than I thought it would be. I used positive etch light sensitive boards, some black light bulbs and a few chemicals and I had boards ready for soldering in about an hour. I'm not going to go into too much detail here on etching circuit boards as there are plenty of resources on it already. Here is the basic overview of what I did.

I used 2 cheap shop light fixtures and 2 CF black light bulbs (about $20 total) to expose my boards. They had a transparency sheet of the circuit layout sitting on top while they sat in the UV light for 15 minutes. All of the areas that were transparent, the UV light weakened the plastic coating on top of the copper board. Here is the results.



After that a quick dip into some developer removes all of the weakened plastic leaving plastic covering only the areas you want to keep. Then it was on to the etching solution which removed all the copper not covered with plastic, leaving only the circuit design. 2 readers and 1 rfid controller board ready to be cut and drilled.



After that it was the tedious process of drilling all of the component holes. I bought a new dremel for about $60 and a drill press stand for about $50. This turned out to be a great investment as it made quick work of drilling all of the holes accurately. Dremel also sells a mini drill bit kit that contains all of the bits needed for most electronics. Here it is in action drilling holes for another PCB I was working on.



After that it was a simple matter of soldering everything together and testing. The design turned out to work great. I then installed the RFID reader in the wall and everything is now fully functional. Check out my instructable for more info on the circuit and code. Here is a quick video showing some more details and the system installed.

I have completed the front bumper upgrades I talked about in the previous post. Here are the results.



I replaced the front bumper with a brand new one. Cut out the fog light holes before it was painted. I also had the fog light covers painted the same black as the rest of the car so they blend in more instead of the dark gray color they were. The front grill, chrome trim, and chrome Honda logo are all new as well. The plastic looks nice and black instead of sun faded. I also bought a slightly different style spoiler for the front bumper, had that painted and attached to the front bumper. It adds a little style to the bumper without making it look too much like a body kit or getting destroyed by the snow when winter comes.

Next I will be working on the interior. With the car computer upgraded and reinstalled their is very little left to do to get the car fully finished inside and out.

My civic was hit a few months back and I finally have the time and money to repair it. They luckly only damaged the front bumper cover, which is plastic, so I ordered a new one along with some other new parts to create a nice new front end. This picture will help explain



The front All of the parts pictured are the current parts on my car, all of which are going to be replaced. The bumper cover and fog light covers will remain the same with the exception that the foglight covers will be paint matched black instead of silver. These are OEM honda covers but I am not a huge fan of the contrast. The front scoop, or skirt at the bottom of the bumper will be replaced with a new one with a slightly slimmer profile that is a clone of the Si scoop. The grill will have the largest change, currently it is an aftermarket chrome and black mesh grill which is starting to show its cheap e-bay quality after a year now. It will be replaced with an OEM style grill with chrome trim and a new H logo in the center to match. The reason I replaced it in the first place was the faded black plastic looked bad, now with new plastic and chrome it should look new and stock.

Just as soon as all of the e-bay parts come in I will send them out to be painted locally and then snap them all on the car.

I finished designing the Apple themed desktop speakers. They will be made from 3/4 MDF and plexiglass. I have already started working on the crossovers and specific design details. Here is a rendering of the speakers themselves.



And here is a rendering of them on a desk with a Apple 27" iMac for size reference. This is fairly close to my intended desktop setup.