Wow is it 2012 already? This site desperately needs an update on so many projects! But let me start with a “status overview” first.
Towards the end of 2011, I have been moving several websites to a new hosting provider. All have been moved, except this one. The details are technical, but that is the main reason I did not update anything here, as I was preparing the move. As it turned out moving everything to a new host, and keeping everything together was not as easy as expected. To be continued this year.
Then, on the greenhouse project: weather has been lousy for growing anything since july. Low temperatures, *lots* of rain. Winter has not given any frost, which is what the ground and some plants need in order to provide good fruits next summer (such as strawberries). This was all monitored by the greenhouse project until it stopped working. Turned out that the waterproof housing for the battery was not so water proof 
Electronics are largely ruined so I am in the process of rebuilding that. I want to replace the Xbee’s with WiFi connections though as I have a wifi network already up and running, plus it would eliminate the need for a Xbee/Internet gateway. Additionally, it frees up the internet gateway Arduino for another sensor node. I am thinking about turning it into a weather station…
Finally, I have spend quite some time on building my own arcade cabinet! I wanted to relive those games from my youth (donkey kong, zaxxon, defender, 1943, and later Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, etc). I wanted to develop my woodworking skills as I had never worked with a large saw-table or router. So, I figured this would be a great project. I have made *many many* pictures and am in the process of doing a writeup. I will share as much as I can so you can build your own machine if you want to. But, there is a lot to write, and the cabinet itself is not yet fully finished, so the writeup may take a bit before its here, but its coming!
This is what the thing looks like at this point:
Finally, the LED matrix word-clock is still in development. I have ordered a second batch of PCB’s with some slight improvements (though it did not come out perfect yet, lots to learn). I want to share all that stuff, designs, schema’s, etc as well, but I am still looking for a way to do so. Maybe put it into a sourceforge or google code account so I can keep track of versions. Please keep in mind that all this stuff (PCB design, electronics, woodworking and all) is all new stuff for me, so I am learning as I go. If you have any tips and tricks to share, please do so!
