Sunday, February 15, 2009

A new project

I thought I would try building a circuit board. I found out about a microchip called a Picaxe. These chips act like mini computers that can be programmed to do different things. The system was designed for high school students to be able to learn and experiment with electronics so it isn't as hard as it looks. (otherwise I wouldn't be able to figure this out!) I spent all day Saturday soldering this thing together:













The plan is to have this one control a camera so that it will take time lapse photos. The idea is to be able to set the time interval to one of several settings: 1 minute, 3 min, 10 min, 30 min, 1 hr or 1 day.



The camera would take pictures during two time periods each day (unless set to only take 1 picture per day). The times for these periods could also be adjusted.





There are a lot of trail cameras around that are activated when a deer walks by. This will be a "field" camera that will take multiple pictures of a large area.
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Terry is down South for a couple of weeks. Said she was wearing shorts outside. Wonder what that is like?

For February, it hasn't really been too cold. High today was bout 38.















Monday, February 9, 2009

Work never ends

We got some snow Friday night so I had to cancel my helper for Saturday. Saturday and Sunday were nice and the roofs eventually all dried up. Terry helped me with the roofing on the porch.


Also put the metal roofing on the little roof across the front of the garage:

The big things left to do:
roofing on garage
finish the rest of the siding on the house and garage
garage windows
gable siding
garage doors
landscaping
some electrical in the garage


Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Warmer

The weather has been getting nice lately. Supposed to be in the 50s some this week.

We are still waiting for Curtis to finish the garage but there is still plenty to do on the house.

I found some inexpensive cedar fence boards at home depot that make pretty nice siding:

Not sure if it will be stained, painted or left to weather.