Recently a friend of mine asked if I would build him a stir plate from a video he saw on Youtube.  He’s a home brewer and wanted an inexpensive way to stir yeast. Having never made on of these, I decided to make it into an experiment to see if we had all of the parts conveniently available in the store. I was confident that we would, but you know, trust but verify.  I went on a little easter egg hunt for a cool cigar box, luckily several shops I know of make sure and sell their empties.  The circuit is straightforward, and in an afternoon, I was able to make a powerful robust speed stir plate for less than $20 in parts. These would be great in a variety of applications and the aesthetic of putting the circuit in whatever case you want certainly makes a great touch. I’ve talked to a few home brewers about this and have made kits of the pieces here at the store, and if anyone expresses interest we’ll have a workshop.

We are posting new products onto our fledgling online store, and hope that we might give the tinkers of the world a bit more resource to play with.  We’ve added a fun new product called the Mystery Box, in it you will find any and many of the great gadgets, components, relics and cool swag available at our humble little house of curiosities.

In the hopes of developing some interesting hardware with the DIY community, we’ve also listed some great mini PCI wireless radios that might be fun to hack.  They might also fit in many other common applications.

We have a few great prototyping boards from Cypress Semiconductor. If you’ve ever wanted a platform for experimenting with microcontrollers or touch technology, these might be your way in. They are up for sale in our online store, and we have but a few.

Cypress Eval1 Experimentation Board

Cypress CapSense Trainer Board

Join the members of the circuit-bent rock band CMKT4 for a workshop on
building your very own EconoMIC Bottle Cap Contact Microphone (from
Creme DeMentia).  CMKT4 will show you how to solder up a
piezo-electric pickup and house it sturdily in a recycled bottle-cap
housing of their own design!  Stick around for a set from the band as
the tool-handle dip on your freshly built contact microphone dries.
Additional take-home kits and other surprises will be available, come
build a mic and see and hear some of the circuit-bent instruments
you’ve read about on www.GetLofi.com up close.  Bring your own instruments and objects to amplify!

Our evening of DIY handmade music starts at 7pm. The workshop is $15, additional kits will be on sale for $10, and we’ll have fully assembled mics in several varieties for sale as well.  We’ll have some other fun goodies also.  Interested onlookers are encouraged to donate if they don’t want to build a kit.

CMKT 4 are Austin Cliffe, Zach Adams, and Jeff Cox. The circuit-bent /
rock trio has made it their mission to leave no hackerspace behind on
their way to their next Maker Faire;  they want to bring new devices,
sounds, and ideas to your town.  They are constantly working to make
new and interesting devices and music.

We are excited to bring these warriors of DIY to our locale, anyone interested in craft, music, and things that are handmade should find any excuse they can to come down and participate in this awesome workshop.

We brought in some of the coolest stuff that’s been waiting to surface in our treasure trove of technology.  For the Swap Meet tomorrow, we’ve brought in lots of great radio equipment, oddball items like, um, bowling pins, and have larked a bunch of our existing inventory for the going rate of electronics scrap recycling. We don’t even know what the courageous community sellers are going to bring out of the woodwork.  The Swap Meet begins tomorrow at 9am and goes until 6pm, we hope to  to see you there!

Server stuff, APC's, and a...gamer tower?

Bowling Pins!

Comparator Bridge

Motorized Examination Chair *miracle-like glow sold separately*

As an extra bonus of all the fun that we’ll be having this weekend, we’ve decided to bring down a bunch of extra cool stuff from our back inventory and mark down a bunch of our existing inventory to its value as scrap material (by the pound) so if you’ve been eyeing that big motor, parts repair scope, or raw materials, this might be the time to pounce.  It’ll be this weekend only, Saturday the 14th from 9am to 6pm and Sunday the 15th from 12pm to 5pm, so be advised that you might want to get down here and check out the cool obscure goodies that our community sellers are bringing too!