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Web development is...</p></div></article><articleclass="post-list__item"><divclass="post-list__item__col-1"><aclass="post-list__item__link"href="/posts/the-plasma-speaker-saga-pt-iii/"><divclass="post-list__item__link__background"style="background-image:url('/images/plasmaHead.jpg');"></div></a></div><divclass="post-list__item__col-2"><h3class="post-list__item__title"><ahref="/posts/the-plasma-speaker-saga-pt-iii/"title="The Plasma Speaker Saga pt.III">The Plasma Speaker Saga pt.III</a></h3><divclass="post-list__item__meta"><aclass="post-list__item__meta__link"href="/categories/Other-Electronics/">Other Electronics</a></div><pclass="post-list__item__description">
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<metaname="twitter:image"content="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/images/default.jpg"><linkrel="icon"href="/images/icon.png"><linkrel="alternate"href="/atom.xml"type="application/atom+xml"title="TheBestJohn"></head><bodyitemscopeitemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage"><navclass="menu"id="menu"><divclass="menu-inner"><divclass="menu__left-area"><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link menu__item__link--brand"href="/"title="Home"rel="home"><imgclass="menu__item__link--brand__image"src="/images/icon.png"alt="TheBestJohn"><spanclass="menu__item__link--brand__label">TheBestJohn</span></a></div></div><divclass="menu__right-area"><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link"href="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/">Home</a></div><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link"href="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/about">About</a></div><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link"href="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/archives">Archives</a></div></div></div></nav><divclass="page-background"></div><divclass="content-container"><divclass="content-outer"><divclass="content-inner"itemscopeitemtype="https://schema.org/Blog"><sectionclass="post-list"><articleclass="post-list__item"><divclass="post-list__item__col-1"><aclass="post-list__item__link"href="/posts/static-site-what/"><divclass="post-list__item__link__background"style="background-image:url('/images/default.jpg');"></div></a></div><divclass="post-list__item__col-2"><h3class="post-list__item__title"><ahref="/posts/static-site-what/"title="Static Site what?!">Static Site what?!</a></h3><divclass="post-list__item__meta"><aclass="post-list__item__meta__link"href="/categories/Web-Dev/">Web Dev</a></div><pclass="post-list__item__description">Recently I’ve become disillusioned with most CMS options. They’re a pain to keep updated, plugins are constantly being abandoned, and they’re so...</p></div></article><articleclass="post-list__item"><divclass="post-list__item__col-1"><aclass="post-list__item__link"href="/posts/table-based-design/"><divclass="post-list__item__link__background"style="background-image:url('/images/default.jpg');"></div></a></div><divclass="post-list__item__col-2"><h3class="post-list__item__title"><ahref="/posts/table-based-design/"title="Table based design: Why I loathe it, and you should too!">Table based design: Why I loathe it, and you should too!</a></h3><divclass="post-list__item__meta"><aclass="post-list__item__meta__link"href="/categories/Web-Dev/">Web Dev</a></div><pclass="post-list__item__description">If there is one thing that grinds my gears it’s table based design and the “web development” companies that continue to use it.
Web development is...</p></div></article><articleclass="post-list__item"><divclass="post-list__item__col-1"><aclass="post-list__item__link"href="/posts/the-plasma-speaker-saga-pt-iii/"><divclass="post-list__item__link__background"style="background-image:url('/images/plasmaHead.jpg');"></div></a></div><divclass="post-list__item__col-2"><h3class="post-list__item__title"><ahref="/posts/the-plasma-speaker-saga-pt-iii/"title="The Plasma Speaker Saga pt.III">The Plasma Speaker Saga pt.III</a></h3><divclass="post-list__item__meta"><aclass="post-list__item__meta__link"href="/categories/Other-Electronics/">Other Electronics</a></div><pclass="post-list__item__description">
<metaproperty="og:description"content="So you want to create your own membrane keypad? Why? well making your own keypad can be useful for many reasons. It’s cheap and easy to…">
<metaname="twitter:title"content="Create Own Membrane Matrix Keypad (and Hooking It Up to the Arduino)">
<metaname="twitter:description"content="So you want to create your own membrane keypad? Why? well making your own keypad can be useful for many reasons. It’s cheap and easy to…">
<metaname="twitter:image"content="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/images/matrix/finished.jpg"><metaproperty="article:author"content="John Warren"><metaproperty="twitter:label1"content="Published at"><metaproperty="twitter:data1"content="February 16th 2010 00:00:00"><metaproperty="twitter:label2"content="Written by"><metaproperty="twitter:data2"content="John Warren"><linkrel="icon"href="/images/icon.png"><linkrel="alternate"href="/atom.xml"type="application/atom+xml"title="TheBestJohn"></head><bodyitemscopeitemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage"><navclass="menu"id="menu"><divclass="menu-inner"><divclass="menu__left-area"><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link menu__item__link--brand"href="/"title="Home"rel="home"><imgclass="menu__item__link--brand__image"src="/images/icon.png"alt="TheBestJohn"><spanclass="menu__item__link--brand__label">TheBestJohn</span></a></div></div><divclass="menu__right-area"><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link"href="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/">Home</a></div><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link"href="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/about">About</a></div><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link"href="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/archives">Archives</a></div></div></div></nav><divclass="page-background"></div><divclass="content-container"><divclass="content-outer"><divclass="content-inner"itemscopeitemtype="https://schema.org/Blog"><articleclass="article"id="article"itemscopeitemtype="https://schema.org/BlogPosting"><h1class="article__title"itemprop="headline">Create Own Membrane Matrix Keypad (and Hooking It Up to the Arduino)</h1><divclass="article__meta"><timeclass="article__meta__time"datetime="2010-02-16T05:00:00.000Z"itemprop="datePublished">February 16th 2010</time><divclass="article__meta__categories"><aclass="article__meta__categories__item"href="/categories/Other-Electronics/">Other Electronics</a></div></div><divclass="article__contents"><imgsrc="/images/matrix/finished.jpg"/><p>So you want to create your own membrane keypad? Why? well making your own keypad can be useful for many reasons. It’s cheap and easy to do, it can be placed in situations where it may be vandalized or stolen without much frustration, It can be fully customized to display whatever you like, and you can make as large a keypad as you like with as many inputs as you can handle. I created my keypad to go on the exterior of my door in residence to act as a keypad entry in much the same way as colin353 did <ahref="www.instructables.com/id/An-Electronic-Door-Opener/">here</a>. I however have some more tricks up my sleeve for this coming up in a later Instructable.</p>
<metaname="twitter:image"content="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/images/matrix/finished.jpg"><metaproperty="article:author"content="John Warren"><metaproperty="twitter:label1"content="Published at"><metaproperty="twitter:data1"content="February 16th 2010 00:00:00"><metaproperty="twitter:label2"content="Written by"><metaproperty="twitter:data2"content="John Warren"><linkrel="icon"href="/images/icon.png"><linkrel="alternate"href="/atom.xml"type="application/atom+xml"title="TheBestJohn"></head><bodyitemscopeitemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage"><navclass="menu"id="menu"><divclass="menu-inner"><divclass="menu__left-area"><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link menu__item__link--brand"href="/"title="Home"rel="home"><imgclass="menu__item__link--brand__image"src="/images/icon.png"alt="TheBestJohn"><spanclass="menu__item__link--brand__label">TheBestJohn</span></a></div></div><divclass="menu__right-area"><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link"href="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/">Home</a></div><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link"href="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/about">About</a></div><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link"href="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/archives">Archives</a></div></div></div></nav><divclass="page-background"></div><divclass="content-container"><divclass="content-outer"><divclass="content-inner"itemscopeitemtype="https://schema.org/Blog"><articleclass="article"id="article"itemscopeitemtype="https://schema.org/BlogPosting"><h1class="article__title"itemprop="headline">Create Own Membrane Matrix Keypad (and Hooking It Up to the Arduino)</h1><divclass="article__meta"><timeclass="article__meta__time"datetime="2010-02-16T05:00:00.000Z"itemprop="datePublished">February 16th 2010</time><divclass="article__meta__categories"><aclass="article__meta__categories__item"href="/categories/Other-Electronics/">Other Electronics</a></div></div><divclass="article__contents"><imgsrc="/images/matrix/finished.jpg"/><p>So you want to create your own membrane keypad? Why? well making your own keypad can be useful for many reasons. It’s cheap and easy to do, it can be placed in situations where it may be vandalized or stolen without much frustration, It can be fully customized to display whatever you like, and you can make as large a keypad as you like with as many inputs as you can handle. I created my keypad to go on the exterior of my door in residence to act as a keypad entry in much the same way as colin353 did <ahref="www.instructables.com/id/An-Electronic-Door-Opener/">here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>NOTE:</strong> This is not a complete tutorial for the time being. It goes through the construction of a keypad fully, however it does not yet fully demonstrate the means to make it useful.</p>
<h1id="Step-1-Understanding-the-Keypad"><ahref="#Step-1-Understanding-the-Keypad"class="headerlink"title="Step 1: Understanding the Keypad"></a>Step 1: Understanding the Keypad</h1><p>The first thing I want you to understand is how this keypad works. I know what you’re thinking… Matrix keypad?… “I’m not going to have to take any blue pills to get this to work am I?”. No its not that matrix.. The best way to think about a matrix style keypad is to think about battleship.</p>
<p>A matrix is pretty much a grid like in battleship consisting of rows and columns. each button corresponds to a certain row and column. See the first picture to help illustrate this better. On a 9 button keypad you would use 3 rows and 3 columns. The first button would make a link between Row 1 and Column 1 (R1C1) just like in battleship. 2 would be R1C2, 3 R1C3, and lets say 8 would be R3C2… the rest are illustrated on the image.</p>
<p>The point of this is instead of having 9 different buttons to wire up, all you would need to do is wire up 3 columns and 3 rows for significantly less wires. The real benefits come when you begin adding buttons. adding another row and column (2 wires) would add 7 buttons… see where I’m going?</p>
<p>Step 2: Collecting the Materials.</p>
<p>The really cool thing about this instructable is you probably already have all the things you need to build this in your house! Yes when I say that this is a simple, cheap, effective way of making a keypad I mean that it is simple and cheap. For this instructable you will need:</p>
<p>The really cool thing about this project is you probably already have all the things you need to build this in your house! Yes when I say that this is a simple, cheap, effective way of making a keypad I mean that it is simple and cheap. You will need:</p>
<ul>
<li>A Microcontroller (in this case an Arduino)</li>
<li>Aluminum Foil (tin foil… some sort of foil) <em>foil tape works well also</em></li>
<li>Some sort of paper or flat material (what you choose here will effect the durability. I’m using a dry erase pad for my fridge)</li>
<li>glue (unless you’re using foil tape)</li>
<li>a spacer of some sort (a few layers of paper with holes cut in them may work I’m using double sided sticky foam pads)</li>
<li>Glue (unless you’re using foil tape)</li>
<li>A spacer of some sort (a few layers of paper with holes cut in them may work I’m using double sided sticky foam pads)</li>
<p>The first step to putting your keypad together is deciding what you want it to look like/how many buttons do you want on it. For this instructable I will be using a 3X3 setup with the numbers from 1 to 9 on it. Once you have decided what it will look like draw it out and decide where you want all the wires to go. I want a lead off from my keypad so it will go around my door so see image 2 for what mine should look like. Make a mock up on your computer using whatever software you like (paint, photoshop, illustrator…) and proceed to the next step.</p>
<p>The first step to putting your keypad together is deciding what you want it to look like/how many buttons do you want on it. For this project I will be using a 3X3 setup with the numbers from 1 to 9 on it. Once you have decided what it will look like draw it out and decide where you want all the wires to go. I want a lead off from my keypad so it will go around my door so see image 2 for what mine should look like. Make a mock up on your computer using whatever software you like (paint, photoshop, illustrator…) and proceed to the next step.</p>
<h1id="Step-4-Mapping-Out-Your-Cheap-Matrix"><ahref="#Step-4-Mapping-Out-Your-Cheap-Matrix"class="headerlink"title="Step 4: Mapping Out Your Cheap Matrix"></a>Step 4: Mapping Out Your Cheap Matrix</h1><p>What we are going to be doing is gluing on foil to make a flexible, cheap, however effective circuit board. What we need to do now is on our computer mock up we need to make how our columns and rows are going to be set-up. If you are using Photoshop make 2 new layers, one called rows the other columns. if you’re just using paint make a copy of the file called rows and another columns.</p>
<p>On these new layers we will put large black lines where we want our “Circuits” to go. See image 2 for rows and image 3 columns if you are confused. Image 4 shows what both layers turned on looks like. Starting to look familiar?<br>Now you need to flip one of your images vertically… or is it horizontally… see image 5 you’ll get what I mean.</p>
<p>Go ahead and print these out for the next step.</p>
...
...
@@ -42,11 +43,11 @@
<p><strong><em>OPTIONAL STEP</em></strong><br>To help my keypad enjoy a long healthy life I laminated mine. It helps provide some structural support for the paper… constant pressing can and will create depressions (again not sad) in the paper that sooner or later will cause your keypad to become ineffectively pressing that button constantly.</p>
<p>Image 4 would show my beautiful laminated Matrix style keypad however the laminator ate my piece of art.</p>
<h1id="Step-7-Arduino-Anyone"><ahref="#Step-7-Arduino-Anyone"class="headerlink"title="Step 7: Arduino Anyone?!"></a>Step 7: Arduino Anyone?!</h1><p>Time to hook up your keypad to the Arduino for the first time… exciting no?</p>
<p>Well Exciting as it may be it’ll have to wait for now! The Laminator lovingly ate my keypad so until I can find the time to make another one then it’ll have to wait. I WILL be coming back so do not to worry this step will come. Perhaps in the near future I will explain how to set it all up and not exactly show it off. For now here is the arduino code I was using with my prototypes for those of you who know where to go from here good luck. For the others sit tight.</p>
<p>Well Exciting as it may be it’ll have to wait for now! The Laminator lovingly ate my keypad so until I can find the time to make another one then it’ll have to wait. I WILL be coming back so do not to worry this step will come. Perhaps in the near future I will explain how to set it all up and not exactly show it off. For now here is the Arduino code I was using with my prototypes for those of you who know where to go from here good luck. For the others sit tight.</p>
<p><strong>NOTE</strong> you will have to install the keypad library from arduino.cc</p>
<figureclass="highlight plain"><table><tr><tdclass="gutter"><pre><spanclass="line">1</span><br><spanclass="line">2</span><br><spanclass="line">3</span><br><spanclass="line">4</span><br><spanclass="line">5</span><br><spanclass="line">6</span><br><spanclass="line">7</span><br><spanclass="line">8</span><br><spanclass="line">9</span><br><spanclass="line">10</span><br><spanclass="line">11</span><br><spanclass="line">12</span><br><spanclass="line">13</span><br><spanclass="line">14</span><br><spanclass="line">15</span><br><spanclass="line">16</span><br><spanclass="line">17</span><br><spanclass="line">18</span><br><spanclass="line">19</span><br><spanclass="line">20</span><br><spanclass="line">21</span><br><spanclass="line">22</span><br><spanclass="line">23</span><br><spanclass="line">24</span><br><spanclass="line">25</span><br><spanclass="line">26</span><br><spanclass="line">27</span><br><spanclass="line">28</span><br><spanclass="line">29</span><br><spanclass="line">30</span><br><spanclass="line">31</span><br><spanclass="line">32</span><br><spanclass="line">33</span><br><spanclass="line">34</span><br></pre></td><tdclass="code"><pre><spanclass="line">#include <Keypad.h></span><br><spanclass="line"></span><br><spanclass="line">int beep = 13; //A buzzer is attatched to pin 13</span><br><spanclass="line"></span><br><spanclass="line">const byte ROWS = 3; //four rows</span><br><spanclass="line">const byte COLS = 3; //four columns</span><br><spanclass="line">char keys[ROWS][COLS] = {</span><br><spanclass="line">{'1','2','3'},</span><br><spanclass="line">{'4','5','6'},</span><br><spanclass="line">{'7','8','9'},</span><br><spanclass="line">};</span><br><spanclass="line"></span><br><spanclass="line"></span><br><spanclass="line">byte rowPins[ROWS] = {8, 7, 6}; //connect to the row pinouts of the keypad</span><br><spanclass="line">byte colPins[COLS] = {5 ,4, 3}; //connect to the column pinouts of the keypad</span><br><spanclass="line"></span><br><spanclass="line">Keypad keypad = Keypad( makeKeymap(keys), rowPins, colPins, ROWS, COLS );</span><br><spanclass="line"></span><br><spanclass="line">void setup(){</span><br><spanclass="line"> Serial.begin(9600);</span><br><spanclass="line"> pinMode(beep, OUTPUT); </span><br><spanclass="line">}</span><br><spanclass="line"></span><br><spanclass="line">void loop(){</span><br><spanclass="line"> char key = keypad.getKey();</span><br><spanclass="line"> if (key != NO_KEY){</span><br><spanclass="line"> Serial.println(key);</span><br><spanclass="line"> digitalWrite(beep, HIGH); // set the buzzer on</span><br><spanclass="line"> delay(100);</span><br><spanclass="line"> digitalWrite(beep, LOW); // set the buzzer off </span><br><spanclass="line"></span><br><spanclass="line">}</span><br><spanclass="line"></span><br><spanclass="line">}</span><br></pre></td></tr></table></figure></div><divclass="article__author"itemscopeitemprop="author"itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><imgclass="article__author__image"src="/images/avatar.jpg"alt="John Warren"><aclass="article__author__link"title="About John Warren"rel="author">John Warren</a><pclass="article__author__desc">Just a place to make stuff</p><divclass="article__author__socials"><aclass="article__author__socials__item"href="/atom.xml"title="rss"target="_blank"><iclass="fa fa-rss"></i></a></div><metaitemprop="name"content="John Warren"></div><divclass="sharer"id="sharer"><divclass="sharer-inner"><divclass="sharer__right"><buttonclass="sharer__item"id="sharer-facebook"><iclass="fa fa-facebook-official"></i></button><buttonclass="sharer__item"id="sharer-twitter"><iclass="fa fa-twitter"></i></button><buttonclass="sharer__item"id="sharer-pinterest"><iclass="fa fa-pinterest"></i></button><buttonclass="sharer__item"id="sharer-pocket"><iclass="fa fa-get-pocket"></i></button></div></div></div><!-- Disqus Code--><divid="disqus_thread"></div><script>(function(){
<metaproperty="og:description"content="Well today’s the day! On the eve of Canada day I have made a giant step towards a good version of the plasma speaker! After letting the…">
<metaname="twitter:description"content="Well today’s the day! On the eve of Canada day I have made a giant step towards a good version of the plasma speaker! After letting the…">
<p>Well today’s the day! On the eve of Canada day I have made a giant step towards a good version of the plasma speaker! After letting the magic smoke out of countless ICs and Diodes I have finally put together a working model of the plasma speaker. The first thing I did to guide me on my path was to find a TL494 IC in a dip format. I figured that it was going to be another month until I could make this post as I would have had to special order a TL494 chip online which would cost me shipping and a whole crap more money than the chip was worth. When out of the blue two days ago my father asked me what chip I needed for the Plasma speaker. Having studied the schematic for hours I could quote almost every component off by heart at this point, so I told him “TL494″ he looked at me, let out a little chuckle and a smirk, and pointed over to the other side of the kitchen. I walked over and saw several power tools and construction materials (we’re in the middle of a kitchen reno) and an old pc power supply. I picked it up and said “is this it?”. “Yes” he answered “I pulled it out of the pc that that my work threw out. The power supply was the only thing that was bad in it.”. So earlier on today (yesterday?) I open her up and lo and behold there is a TL494 DIP IC staring me in the face (Nestled right beside a LM339N I might add) as well as several other things I may need in the future of this speaker (toroids, heatsinks, etc…).</p>
<metaname="twitter:image"content="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/images/plasmaHead.jpg"><metaproperty="article:author"content="John Warren"><metaproperty="twitter:label1"content="Published at"><metaproperty="twitter:data1"content="May 10th 2010 00:00:00"><metaproperty="twitter:label2"content="Written by"><metaproperty="twitter:data2"content="John Warren"><linkrel="icon"href="/images/icon.png"><linkrel="alternate"href="/atom.xml"type="application/atom+xml"title="TheBestJohn"></head><bodyitemscopeitemtype="https://schema.org/WebPage"><navclass="menu"id="menu"><divclass="menu-inner"><divclass="menu__left-area"><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link menu__item__link--brand"href="/"title="Home"rel="home"><imgclass="menu__item__link--brand__image"src="/images/icon.png"alt="TheBestJohn"><spanclass="menu__item__link--brand__label">TheBestJohn</span></a></div></div><divclass="menu__right-area"><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link"href="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/">Home</a></div><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link"href="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/about">About</a></div><divclass="menu__item"><aclass="menu__item__link"href="http://blog.thebestjohn.com/archives">Archives</a></div></div></div></nav><divclass="page-background"></div><divclass="content-container"><divclass="content-outer"><divclass="content-inner"itemscopeitemtype="https://schema.org/Blog"><articleclass="article"id="article"itemscopeitemtype="https://schema.org/BlogPosting"><h1class="article__title"itemprop="headline">The Plasma Speaker Saga pt.III</h1><divclass="article__meta"><timeclass="article__meta__time"datetime="2010-05-10T04:00:00.000Z"itemprop="datePublished">May 10th 2010</time><divclass="article__meta__categories"><aclass="article__meta__categories__item"href="/categories/Other-Electronics/">Other Electronics</a></div></div><divclass="article__contents"><imgsrc="/images/plasmaHead.jpg"/><p>Well today’s the day! On the eve of Canada day I have made a giant step towards a good version of the plasma speaker! After letting the magic smoke out of countless ICs and Diodes I have finally put together a working model of the plasma speaker. The first thing I did to guide me on my path was to find a TL494 IC in a dip format. I figured that it was going to be another month until I could make this post as I would have had to special order a TL494 chip online which would cost me shipping and a whole crap more money than the chip was worth. When out of the blue two days ago my father asked me what chip I needed for the Plasma speaker. Having studied the schematic for hours I could quote almost every component off by heart at this point, so I told him “TL494″ he looked at me, let out a little chuckle and a smirk, and pointed over to the other side of the kitchen. I walked over and saw several power tools and construction materials (we’re in the middle of a kitchen reno) and an old pc power supply. I picked it up and said “is this it?”. “Yes” he answered “I pulled it out of the pc that that my work threw out. The power supply was the only thing that was bad in it.”. So earlier on today (yesterday?) I open her up and lo and behold there is a TL494 DIP IC staring me in the face (Nestled right beside a LM339N I might add) as well as several other things I may need in the future of this speaker (toroids, heatsinks, etc…).</p>
<p>After about 20 minutes of trying to get this chip out with a solder sucker and solder braid, I finally succeed. I pop it into my breadboard (which had the starting of my time fountain, but who cares PLASMA SPEAKER!) and begin wiring up the schematic. Everything looks wired up properly and I have a speaker in place of the flyback transformer (another steal from the discarded television that I got the flyback from). I attach a 9V battery and…. nothing happens…. shit ok well time to pull out the big guns… the 12V motorcycle battery. I attach the battery and…. it kinda works… except the speaker is just puffed out all the way…. it’s not making any noise at all! What should be happening is the speaker should be oscillating at some high frequency but it’s not, it’s just sitting there all puffed out…. At around this time my father gets home from work. I have a question for him. The TL494 chip has a black dot on it (which usually denotes where pin 1 is) as well as a notch in it (Another common way to denote pin 1) on the opposite side. Theres your problem. the chip is in backwards! I reverse the chip and TA-DA a squealing speaker!</p>
<p>Now it was time to attach the flyback transformer and get to the sparky sparky, singy singy. I put it all together and PFFFFFTTTT! all the magic smoke flys out of my diode. At this point I have let the magic smoke out of so many ICs and Diodes my nickname should be John the wizard. I go back to the drawing board and my dad points out to me that diodes (unlike capacitors) have a white line marking their cathode (whereas on capacitors it denotes an anode). Well shit! I must have blown this diode 20 times because that stupid quirk of electronics. I put my last diode in, turn on the power and….. LIGHTING! It verks! for the next 20 minutes I walk around the house with a big shit eating grin on my face looking for some sort of CD, Cassette, or shitty MP3 player to plug into this potential device killer to make me some audio. I finally find an old Mp3 player that I found on the bus in grade 6 and hook it up (the MP3 player needed a non-standard usb cable so I had to settle with what was on it…. Dr.Dre lol) after about 20 sec0nds of it working…. PFFFTTT! magic smoke billows from the IRF540 MOSFET. So I take a look at it… the heatsink isn’t hot!? I put some heatsink compound on the back whats the deal!? Well it turns out there was a sheet of mylar between the heatsink and the original component and it wasn’t very efficient. So I pop off the mylar sheet, clean everything up, add some new heatsink compound and a new MOSFET and there we go… it works for a longer period of time and I am able to bring you the following video.</p>
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