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[Reply #210 on:]

Took the plunge, I have been saving for quite some time.. I have upgraded the weapon.  I now am the excited owner of a Canon T2i.   For pros, they'll still chuckle a little, but I don't care.  Max ISO increase from 1600 to 12800.  Eighteen megapixel, versus my Rebel XT, which is an iffy 8 megapixel.  Fifteen years of product design and engineering better.  Also paired it with the pro version of my favorite lens, the nifty fifty, in an even larger and better built f/1.4.

The manager of the store asked what my goals were, which led to giving the guy the nickel version of my situation.  He cut me some awesome deals by the end, I have essentially replaced the key portions of my camera system, a professional backdrop (needed badly), reflectors and diffusers, remote trigger, and a desperately needed media drive for the computer, USB  Seagate 1.5TB (a hundred bucks!) media drive for my photos.. ALL of that totalling under two thousand.  This is however an investment.  I know two grand may not sound like an earthshaking amount, but on the budget we live, it's no small feat to sock away even a hundred dollars a month.. Something always breaking, etc. 

I have booked a couple of engagement photos and head shots, which will bring (with the savings of two years of these types of gigs!) enough to cover the cost of this.  If photography is an art, I just got my first real set of brushes.  Just plain excited, my old camera was beginning to fail.  I get small shoots, but usually they are aware that I am unreliable at best.  However, slow and steady wins the race, and after two years of ferreting away.. I've made enough doing headshots, puppies, and engagement announcement photos to pull off this upgrade.  Feed the disease.  Now I need to figure out what to start saving soda cans and snapshot money for.  Actually I know already.. A quality telephoto for my nature shots.  Almost as much for that one lens as it was to replace all that hardware!

Not really Arduino related I know.. Photography is my other passion other than Arduino.  When I am sick, sometimes I can get my mind into a project or a shot, and shake the tendency to perseverate on the bad stuff.  Gimped up again at the moment, so I'm gonna find something to do some macro shots of I think.   My white moth orchid is in full glory, maybe that'll be the target of my distraction... If I can pull my crap together, the low light capabilities of this new kit will complement my LED photo strobe awesomely....

[Reply #211 on:]

Does it have an external (like, TTL level) shutter? You might be able to do some high-speed shots of stuff like glass breaking, water drops, etc.

[Reply #212 on:]

Both wired (like my XT) as well as infrared (which I suspect is slower).   

One of my first projects was an intervalometer trigger to run a series of bracketing shots for HDR rendering... 2.5mm plug and a optoisolator, you are in business!

[Reply #213 on:]

Just received another batch of stuff. I tend to just toss on a few extra things in whenever I have a few specific things to buy. So I got:
  some 16Mhz crystals and caps to go with them
  L386 op-amps, and some trim pots and resistors to use with them
  a handful of JFETs, also to be used with the L386
  a 1-sided PCB -- yes, I'm going to try my hand at etching
  a couple rotary encoders
  a few hall sensors -- I have the magnets coming from Amazon, because it's way cheaper to buy 40 of them that way than a dozen from any electronics shop

Hoping the low-price ATMega chips are still a deal at Mouser, because I still need to get stuff to drive a little DC motor (got another thread going for that).

[Reply #214 on:]

Buying a Dremel 300 and a drill press mount for it. Also, I'm getting some etching solution and some blank copper boards for etching.

[Reply #215 on:]

Buying a Dremel 300 and a drill press mount for it. Also, I'm getting some etching solution and some blank copper boards for etching.

Do you know that you can make cheap etchant using muriatic acid and hydrogen peroxide?

[Reply #216 on:]

Hoping the low-price ATMega chips are still a deal at Mouser, because I still need to get stuff to drive a little DC motor (got another thread going for that).

Get a quote from with your desired amount and the price should be good for 30 days for you to decide whether to buy or not.

[Reply #217 on:]

the mouser list

2* SMD ceramic resonators
2* Atmega328p dip
2* Atmega328p tqfp (looks huge compared to what I have been hand soldering at work)
1* Atmega644p dip
10* 7805 TO22

from ebay, crash's arduino mega clone suggestion

and some burgers

[Reply #218 on:]

A Bought a Loads of stuff   op-amps to ATmega8's to headers to connectors to GLCD 128x64 to Micro bump switches to optical distance measurer's and a TONNE of other stuff.

but recently just today i bought a NETDUINO that is of no comparison to our Arduino but still sports that design along with a ATmega328 TQFP package and 1 three RGB LED BAR and a FIO good healthy amount of bill.

[Reply #219 on:]

Raspberry Pi :-)

http://zuzebox.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/at-last-a-raspberry-pi-to-play-with/

[Reply #220 on:]

Hoping the low-price ATMega chips are still a deal at Mouser, because I still need to get stuff to drive a little DC motor (got another thread going for that).

Get a quote from with your desired amount and the price should be good for 30 days for you to decide whether to buy or not.

I pulled the trigger on that last night. Of course, I later remembered that I could use some 1/4" phone jacks and plugs, but those I can find at RS, I'm pretty sure.

My neodymium magnets arrived today, so of course I had to use them to make it look like I'd gotten a lip piercing and wander around the office a bit.

[Reply #221 on:]

from ebay, crash's arduino mega clone suggestion

and some burgers

With absence of capitalized letter I am very tempted to read the whole thing as one sentence. The "ebay" berger reminds me the presidential chicken nugget sold on ebay. 

[Reply #222 on:]

from ebay, crash's arduino mega clone suggestion

and some burgers

With absence of capitalized letter I am very tempted to read the whole thing as one sentence. The "ebay" berger reminds me the presidential chicken nugget sold on ebay. 

Well, apparently, you can get a cheeseburger in a can on ebay. I couldn't find one, but there's a screenshot.

[Reply #223 on:]

Vending machine food, now packaged and delivered to your door in ALL its goodness! (yuck!)

[Reply #224 on:]

Would you believe that I write test plan / result documentation during the day, and for a website at night? So, when I don't get monies I get lazy on the typing. <There I added a period and capped my sentences