Mot's blog

Flux Capacitor


Everyone needs a flux capacitor in their house right? Or at least a Warp Core. I just finished up the Utility Room Project my roommate and i started back in November. The room was never really finished and looked pretty shoddy. My attempts at home networking and video did not help matters whatsoever.






Walking into the room - you were greeted by a giant mess of wires hanging from the gaping holes in the ceiling. Not Good.





phone and video wiring








I picked out a vanity cabinet from IKEA that I thought could serve as a home network panel. I figured I would route all the phone, Ethernet and video through the cabinet in some layout that did not look so bad. The ceiling was a mess from all the HVAC ducting and the likes - so i planned to put in a drop ceiling to conceal most of it and add some fluorescent lighting while i was at it.



The glass door on the network cabinet begged for something interesting inside it. I noticed that you could sorta see the indicator lights of the components inside when the lights were turned off. SO - always to make things a little more complicated... I got the idea for the Flux Capacitor. I figured that it was the most boring room in the house..




These are disposable LED blinkers we used in ballons this summer. I could not bear to throw them away.





I spent a day soldering them together with my new battery powered solder gun. It did not work well - so i ended up dragging out my 100 watt soldering iron to finish the job.




I wired two strings of the LED's up to a 3 volt bus i made from the old phone patch panel. One side of the bus is switched to the open/close of the network panel




Details of the door switch.











I strung the longer string above the translucent drop ceiling







The shorter string was placed in the back of the network panel









I eventually plan to put some rechargeable flashlights and hangers for them on the side of the cabinet along with a charger for all my rechargable batteries.



I have the final product as an AVi file [ 3.2 mb] You can download it by right clicking here The random shaking in the film is not seismic.. my Roommate had the hiccups if you listen carefully... *note to self - no Sangria before filming.