Eventually one of your projects will cause you to move from DIY PCB manufacturing to getting a PCB Fab company to make them for you. There are lots of them to choose from, Digital DIY has gone through a ton of PCB Fabrication House Options and provided some information to allow a good A B comparison.

“Even in small quantity, having circuit boards made can be inexpensive, if you know where to go. Making circuit boards in large quantities will further lessen the price of the board – in my experience with production boards, making ten times more boards increases the price only be a factor of two!”

The winners of all the previous contests have been announced and the items have all been added to the old contest pages. The contest this week will be a bit different, you still need to name the thing but the winner will be the first one to correctly identify the item above in the comments. Images of the item will be added above from time to time until someone guesses it. Each new image will provide a bit more information about what it could be.  The prize this week is a cable tester which will make sure your home made cables are working correctly. This contest will run for one week (July 2 – 8, 2011). Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above.

Please read the contest instructions below since this contest is a new trial format.

Enter your guess below in the comments consisting of:

• The name of the item in the above picture
• An example of what the item pictured above can be used for

You can have one guess per new image that is added, if you have more than one guess per image revealed the additional guesses will not be considered. The first person to guess the item is the winner. Please note that there are multiple comment validation systems attempting to prevent spam comments. After you leave a comment it may need to be manually approved before it is shown. If the winning comment is in moderation it will still be considered the winner even if there is one that is displayed first on the site (but entered after the winning one).

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Added July 8, 2011

The item to guess was HDMI Right angle adapter

The winner is Jeremy C.

Thanks for participating in this new contest format.

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Below are two pictures of the prize.

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I first heard about Field Day on Ham Nation which is a new show on the TWIT network. Field Day is a day where ham radio operators run emergency preparedness exercises. If there is a large event that causes major communication channels to be disrupted many of us will rely on the transmissions of these ham radio operators to spread information. Watch the video below to see how the guys from Amateur Logic can transform a section of bush into an emergency radio communications center. Of course there aren’t any convenient transmission towers in the middle of nowhere that can be tapped into so the guys made due with some simple techniques. A spud gun and a fishing pole is used to shoot some cables into the tree tops to be used as antennas. A picnic tent is used as the equipment room and a portable generator powers the entire site. Sure looks like a fun event!

If you want to read more about Amature Radio in general visit the main Amateur Logic site.

SeamusTheTinker built this Time Lapse System using a Parallax microcontroller, VEX Robotic Design System pieces and a bunch of other various bits and pieces. In the end the rig is capable of taking some great growing plant pictures.

“The camera is a Casio QV8000-SX, using the built-in time-lapse mode.  The motor controller is based on a Parallax BASIC Stamp 2 OEM module that I had left over from a previous project. It uses a Scott Edwards Electronics 2×16 serial character LCD module with four button keypad for feedback and input.”

Brian Grabski built this DIY Curved Track Time-lapse Dolly which has a main structure made out of wood but since Brian is a woodworker the system is built very well. Watch the video below to get a peak of what is possible with this system.

“The time-lapse video dolly is electronically controlled, allowing the user to adjust both the speed and direction of which the dolly travels.  The dolly moves down pipe tracks at a rate of about 2′/hr.  It is equipped with an electronic kill switch that cuts the power to the 1 RPM gear motor when the dolly reaches the end of the elevated tracks.  This allows the user to set up the shot and leave without risking damage to the dolly and his equipment in the event the dolly overruns the length of the track.”

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