Invention Lab — Powered by RadioShack®

I’ve made the ultimate technology, the Cool-O- Matic.  It has a very fast spinning motor at the left side and a multi led light on a small circuit board attached to a small button on the right. A medium sized normal red/black switch on the right and the white cardboard is metal encased,  which I just newly designed so it’s shock proof.  I added a resistor and a black thingy that was deepened in on the middle that was on a circuitboard connected to a large sized radio.  I used a 9V snap connector at the bottom and get a small plastic fan out of the normal little fans that take the double AA or the triple AAA.  Take that fan or any other fan you can find and use that on the top of the motor then put the name of the thing, please don’t take my name its awesome. On the the top of the the front of the cardboard then encase that with see through plastic you can do the same thing with the led light.  Just make sure the led light isn’t poking out of the card board you can add some metal or something on the back of it so it reflects forward then you can make the battary pack that has one end glued onto the card on the left and put a screw in on the right.  Then you can add anything else you want on it theres a little extra room.

Here’s my first attempt at building a flashlight. I “can” tell you my son is very happy with the outcome. I used 2 high CRI Nichias LED’s mounted on the bottom of the spice can with two part epoxy . the LED’s are wired in series powered by a common 9 volt battery. The switch is from Radio Shack that controls either the Nichias or a pair of Blue Osram BLO2x that run on 10 volt. these blue LED’s are mounted in the lid of the can
. This is a very primitive light but it provides great flood light
without any type of optics and nice low light from the blue.

Photos below:

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http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb139/griffm5/CIMG3081.jpg
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http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb139/griffm5/CIMG3077.jpg

I am now 40 years old, working as on optical and electrical engineer but I started with electronics when I was 10 years old. It began with a Radio Shack 150-in-1 kit from a garage sale. I was so enthralled by it that the woman selling it gave it to me for free.

I first studied electronics formally in high school. I was in my sophmore year and I was building a 12V power supply from parts I bought at RadioShack. I was nearly done with the project when it was “bath time”. I took my shower, put on my pajamas and ran back down to the garage to finish the power supply.

I wanted to make sure the ripple was low so I hooked the output up to my grandfather’s old oscilloscope. Now this was in the mid-80s so I am talking REALLY old here. My grandfather was one of the first TV repairmen in southern Connecticut and this was his oscilloscope from the early part of the 20th century. Back in those days plugs were NOT polarized. Also, one of the prongs on the power plug was hard wired to the case. Well, when I plugged it in I must have oriented the plug so that the case was tied to the hot part of the 120V outlet. Of course, our garage had a nice, grounded, cement floor and my feet were still wet from my shower. When I grabbed the oscilloscope I immediately started hopping up and down from the current flowing through my wet feet to the garage floor. From that day forward I was always very careful to be aware of what was wired to hot and what was wired to neutral!