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A local (to me) group, Dorkbot DC, had a meeting this last weekend that I wish I had know about - They built a LED CUBE project. How come I always find out about this after the fact.
A simple 3x3 LED needs 27 LEDs - there are lots of sources for LEDs on eBay, but I needed a Local source - not in the orient - with the long shipping times. I looked at Buy Leds Online. I found them listed as a distributor from one of the China Manufactures.
But the one that I actually bought from is FCB Electronics on eBay. 100 LEDs - 25 each red, green, blue and white, and they let me order 2 packs at once for $4.50 each. Shipping wasn't bad either ~$8.00
What did the trick was that they were in the USA and shipping times would be reasonable. Plus they had a Lot of other stuff that I wanted - like 20x4 Blue LCD for under 10$ and lots of other things - this will be a test order. Their spiel is that they are in the USA and shipping times are fast. We will see. If it pans out - I'll try getting some other stuff. In the mean time I will be swimming in LEDs - hopefully soon.
Wiznet currently makes a $12 module that is designed to interface with micro controllers. This blog entry has a ton of information about it and the Arduino, like daughter board for its non standard connector and such...
A friend wanted a source to print out the pages for a Daytimer. I couldn't find my Calendar creator CD so I went looking online for something he could use. I was astonished to find DIYplanner.com - and open source solution to print those expensive pages for the books.
They have a lot of prebuilt sets as PDFs and they even have an application for mac and PC that you can customize a bit. Check it out.
I am going to open up calc and figure out if it is better to buy the pages or print them. Calculating on the cost of going to my local staples and using their copiers.
Figuring 7 cents a page * 365 pages = $25.55
My printing cost /page for my inkjet runs about $.05 - about half that for the laser printer.
Googling daytimer loose leaf pages I got http://www.officeworld.com/Worlds-Biggest-Selection/10887/07Q3/ Were they are selling a set for about $27. Seems they know how to match a price point....Printing a booklet - I remember a little program I used YEARS ago - it still exists - ClickBookit prints a booklet, installs as a printer driver - says that it is vista compatible. - i bet if you combined the printing software above and this you might get something useful (and it would save LOTS of paper)
