Chris Rybitski has made a creative LED tree using some new parts and some well placed recycled items.

“All of the LEDs have a common ground (the 14 bare copper wires that are all soldered together to form a bouquet of wires). An insulated wire is then solderet to the anode of the leds and wrapped around the bare copper wire.

Parts:
* 14 ultrabright blue LED’s
* xbox 360 power supply case (probably alot of dead ones around)
* floppy drive coil and board (decoration)
* switch (rated for 120 vac)
* 10k ohm pot
* 3.6 volt transformer (take apart a wall wart)
* LM317″

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This is a go anywhere/store anywhere bike. The Strida is sure to turn some heads!

“Features a rear pulley drive train kevlar belt drive rated up to 50,000 miles is greaseless and ultra durable. Strida is designed to need only a single speed. the gearing is 56 gear inches, roughly equivalent to 4th gear on a ten speed bike. Injection molded 16″ wheels are rustproof and never need truing. the tires can be changed without removing the wheels”

Via: TechEBlog

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Sparkfun has put together a good guide on how to solder surface mount components.

“More and more ICs come in surface mount packages only these days. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say ‘Well I can’t solder that because it’s SMD’. They’re wrong! You can solder anything. That’s right, anything from your own dorm-cell-room.

This tutorial will show you just how to solder crazy things like this connector, leadless ICs, etc. There are a very few tools that are required and a handful that are recommended but you’ll be able to solder:”