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DIY LED-Illuminated Sleep Chamber

Posted by timothy on from the good-in-bed dept.

Bulldozer2003 writes "'Finally something both nerdy AND sexy engineers can do.' It sounds like an oxymoron but this guy took a cue from The Vos Pad and decked out his own dorm room bed with Light Emitting Diodes. They're even fully adjustable 'allowing me to create every color of the rainbow.' Total cost, according to him in an email: 'Around $25, the LEDs cost me about $0.25 a piece in bulk, and the potentiometers cost about $6 a piece from digikey. I got the LM317 voltage regulators as a free sample from Texas Instruments. Lots of companies will ship you free samples, its a good deal for college students.'"

3 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. Samples by vectra14 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The fact that the writeup included the bit about samples is really kinda dumb. Moderation is key. Samples are great but if every idiot starts sampling everything (which i'm sure will be a side effect of the present article) companies will stop sampling or make it more difficult.

    in general, the state of slashdot is shameful these days. i dont have a solution (aside from simple obvious things like submission moderation, etc)... maybe i've just changed enough that it isnt the place for me anymore. which is a shame. cause from my POV slashdot aspires to be about Cool Things. the latest microsoft bug isnt a cool thing. it isnt news. (to adapt what John Stewart said about a transmission from Hussein).

    and all of this Geek Nerd etc shit. I think the US population is nuts about trying to group people (including themselves!) into groups of like scales. I havent seen anything like it anywhere else (i live in US and have lived in other places).

    anyway what was i gonna say? oh yeah:
    to anyone who reads it - if you sample, please, PLEASE sample in moderation so that people that actually build prototypes and such (like *this) continue to have this wonderful resourse availible.

    1. Re:Samples by eclectro · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I agree. It's being pretty cheap sampling LM317s when you can get them anywhere, unlike exotic new parts.

      But maybe that's why he got them. They are cheap enough to throw a couple to a college student, and TI gets good publicity from it.

      I have had mixed luck getting samples in the past telling companies I was a college student. Sometimes I got them, sometimes not. Most companies at the time wanted to know how many thousands you were going to buy. Not if you were doing a college project. My friends had similar experiences. But this was twenty years ago. Things are different now with the internets.

      Now I much rather prototype with off the shelf, because that means most likely that the part is widely available and you won't have problems getting production quantities.

      It started with PIC (and Dallas) making things easier by selling onesy twosy to anybody.

      It paid off by their chips gaining wide popularity.

      I also think that is what lead to thicker digi-key catalogs. I remember when they were pamphlets.

      --
      Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
  2. what the hell has /. become by DJCF · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ok, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna post a "what the hell is this place comming too" post. Jesus, here's some guy who has done a rather awesome thing. Can we please just admire it for what it is without all the name calling? Jesus the tagline is "news for NERDS" - basicly everyone here so can we just stop it with the cheapshots and one-liners? And please, no more smart areses talking about getting laid. With that attitude you never will.

    For those who were seriously interested in this project can I refer you to the link a fellow poster posted: it s more interesting.