USB-Powered LED Lamp

While walking in my neighborhood, I found a section of 1 inch diameter wire. It had a thick layer of plastic insulation and then a 3/8 inch bundle of aluminum wires inside. I don't really have a reason to use this large size of wire, so what could I do with it besides just recycling it?

I was inspired to make a desk lamp that would take advantage of the structure of the wire. I used an old gearbox as the base. I used a piece of oak with three LEDs for the top. I added a single-pole double-throw center-off switch. It selects which current limiting resistor is used in the circuit. It uses a 100 ohm resistor for the high brightness, a 2500 ohm resistor for the low brightness, and a capacitor to smooth the transition between brightness levels. I haven't moved the capacitor inside the base yet. The thin positive wire is outside the insulation of the large wire.

 

 Last night, I wanted to take a photo of the lamp in action. In order to take a photo, I set up a tripod outside (where it was completely dark) and turned off the flash on the Nikon camera. It chose the correct settings automatically- exposure time 4s. The daytime photo had exposure time 1/500s. Both had ISO speed 100 and f stop 4.5 in aperture priority mode.

Laundry Basket Upgrade #2

 

After the successful upgrade of my rolling laundry basket to replace the plastic axles and wheels with better ones, I decided to upgrade my second laundry basket too. That way I can have one for clean laundry and one for dirty laundry. First I tried using a round plant stand. It was made of wood with 4 swivel wheels. I didn't need many tools to attach it and it did slide smoothly, but it was hard to steer.

I decided to upgrade again. This time, I used large plastic wheels from an old grill. They are designed to roll a heavy grill, so they work well for a laundry basket. With two wheels, the basket needs to be tilted to roll. So I needed to add a handle. This basket didn't have a handle like the other one did, but I based the design on the other basket's handle. I used two strips of oak flooring and a piece of PVC pipe. 

Drill Press- Replaced Feed Handles with Golf Balls

When I used my drill press for a recent project, I found that the feed handles made my hands hurt. I decided to replace them with bigger knobs. I happened to have extra golf balls. These are old golf balls that I had lost in the backyard but found again recently when we were cleaning up after a tornado. 

Drilling through golf balls was messy and created colorful swarf. Golf balls are slippery and round so it was important to clamp them well. First I drilled a small hole 1/4 inch from the bottom then a larger hole 1/2 inch from the bottom. 

Cross section of hole in golf ball (not to scale)

All I had to do was unscrew the old handles and screw on the golf balls. If I get tired of the golf ball handles, it will only take a moment to put the stock handles back on.

Comparing old handle with a golf ball

Drillbit Sharpening #2- Drill Doctor 750X

Three years ago, I tried sharpening drill bits with a cheap sharpener. I got frustrated because it was hard to use and I didn't get very good results most of the time. The old sharpener would make the bits worse instead of better.

This summer, I finally bought the expensive Drill Doctor 750X. It is much easier to use, and actually works! It's faster and more precise. So far I've been getting great results with it.

Before

After sharpening

I bought a Drill Doctor at Northern Tools with a coupon. It's also available through Amazon, so here's my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3FKJugS