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Posts from the ‘Hardware’ Category

7
Dec

Santa in the window

The biggest hit this year has been the Santa Claus in the upstairs window. A number of people have asked, “how do you do that?!”

Part of me hates to give it away because then it loses some of the magic, but a bigger part of me likes to share how all of this works.

First, I have a DVD player setup with a 3-d like video of Santa that loops. It’s called “Virtual Santa”.  There are other types of these videos as well, such as ghosts or vampires for Halloween.

Next, I have a fairly inexpensive projector that the DVD plays through. The projector is inside the house and projects onto the window.

Projector

Finally, I have a translucent material hanging in the window to catch the projected image.

Window material

All of this combines to make the cool effect that you see.

 

Window Santa

19
Dec

FM Station

Some people have asked me how I can make the music play over a radio station. It’s easier than you would think. All it takes is a piece of hardware, called an FM Transmitter, hooked up to the headphone jack of the computer. I use an EDM branded radio, but there are plenty of them to choose from. It works at a low power so that it only broadcasts over a few blocks. This helps keep me out of trouble with the FCC!

  On the left, the antenna is plugged in. On the right side, going from the top, the first two connections are RCA audio for left and right.  The power connects on the bottom right, and I have it on a timer so that the radio isn’t powered during the day when it is not being used.

This particular model also has the ability to set RDS information (that’s the information that shows on a car radio about a song/station), but I don’t have everything ready to implement this feature until next year.