Weeks 6-8: Extensive Testing and Fully Working

These last couple of weeks have been maddeningly busy, but this project has finally come to an end, and everything is in perfect working order.  I've kept my email notifier running for a few days now, making sure it wouldn't fail after some time and things would run well.  Nothing has failed, and everything is going swimmingly with it.  So, without further ado, I present you with the final project, fully-working and explained!

Enjoy, and feel free to leave any comments or questions for me that you'd like!

Link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-KWQtCN7sM

Week 5: In All it's Glory

So, this week has been monumental in the amount of things I've been busying myself with.  However, this has been a top-priority project for me, and I'm finding it quite relaxing to work on it!

As you may or may not remember, last week I wound up kind of jumping ahead and getting my entire server working.  Hooray!  Therefore; this week I was also a week ahead, which meant I was able to actually build the product!

Here's a still-image montage of what went down:

Here is the gathering of the tools and materials I assumed I'd be using.  Turned out, I didn't need a screwdriver or either of the resistors.  I'll explain in a bit.  Doesn't look like much yet, does it?

This is just a close-up of one of the RGB LED's I used.  They look a little funky, but they are really cool!!!

Then, I built the box!  The acrylic was already put together, I just had to cut some squares out of my plastic paper (to diffuse the light), then hot-glue them onto all the walls.  Now came the fun part.

Here is the completed circuit.  Yes, it looks messy.  That's because it is messy!  I never claimed to be an expert at this, but I got it all connected and condensed into a very small space.  I didn't have to use resistors, because both LED's use up almost the entire 5V that is coming from a pin at any given time.  No need to eat up any extra!

Here is the board glued in place in the bottom of my cube.  I used this to mark slots to be cut on the other panel!

Here, you can see the squares I cut out using a dremel tool.  No, they may not be factory-pretty, but they're functional.  This is moving along pretty quickly!

Here is the cube fully-assembled!  The two sides just slide right into place, and the board's connectors help to hold it all together.

Here is a close-up of the connectors.  As you can see, the box requires an Ethernet connection, along with either a USB cable or a 9V DC converter for power.  Since I'll have it in the corner of my room or office, I want it to feel as wireless as possible, so I've acquired a DC converter.

And there you have it!  Look a little silly?  Good!  It's already making my roommates jealous, and I haven't even turned it on yet.










In essence, this project is at a very high point in the completion cycle.  I have a lot of testing and tweaking to do, and I'll eventually upload a video of the product working to show for the final completion stage.  However, for now, I'll throw in a few images of it lighting up!

Of course, it's hard to capture this in a still image.  It slowly flows through the entire color spectrum, and it does this very smoothly!  Again, there should be a video available of this within the next week or two, as I get things finalized.