BusBuilding

Weldwood contact cement is your friend. Trust me on this.

Premium quality, brush grade, neoprene-based contact cement that meets the stringent requirements of the professional user. High strength and initial grab make it ideal for most projects. Fast-drying formula dries in 15-20 minutes. Offers high heat and water resistance when dry.

Please note that this stuff is extremely noxious and flammable, so use in well-ventilated areas.

Available at the usual places.

All Digital Meters are not alike

I have three cheapo meters, and I can’t get a consensus amongst the three. It’s really trying to try to chase down problems when none of your meters agree!

You’ve read that for real troubleshooting, many factory ‘battery level’ indicators are all but useless, and you’ve probably also seen that the old-style analog meters with the swinging needle are equally so.
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eMachineShop is a remarkable new way to get the custom parts you need - the first true online machine shop. Download free software, draw the part, and click to order.

The part will be machined and delivered. They say that the cost is reasonable with this approach. I keep looking for an opportunity to use them!

www.emachineshop.com

Kill-A-Watt
I’ve had one of these for more than a year and for what it does, it’s great. Can’t get any simpler to install! Right now I use mine immediately after the inverter before the load center, to get an idea of battery consumption. Until I get my TriMetric or similar it is great for a quick view. I’ve found the most useful measurements to be kWh and Amps. For some reason it can’t deal with the waveform on some NSW inverters so the frequency measurement is generally not useful for me. There’s another caveat, that if you crank up something really brutal, like a circular saw, it totally freaks out and quits measuring completely until power is removed and reset. And thereby, it loses your total kWh. But alas, for $30, who can complain?

Available from Amazon,
Manufactured by P3 International.

[Cool Tools]

PC World’s official (and entirely idiosyncratic) list of the top tech gadgets of the last half century. “After a lot of Web surfing, spreadsheet wrangling, and some near fistfights, we emerged with the following list. Some items in our Top 50 are innovative devices that appeared briefly and then were quickly consigned to museums and future appearances on eBay, but whose influence spread widely. Others are products we use every day–or wish we could.”
[via MAKE Magazine]

The fine folks at MoCo Loco say it much better than I can…

Do-It-Yourself primer from the editors of ReadyMade, the DIY magazine. Not unlike Todd Oldham’s Handmade Modern, ReadyMade has lots of projects with a modern sensibility, but with two noteworthy differences; 1) focus on re-use, taking the unused detritus of life and making it attractive and practical and 2) the Readymade graphic design style. A good example of re-use (and art) is the CD Wall Mural project, where one takes jewel cases and reconstructs an image that will make all who view it do the work of finishing the piece themselves. And kudos to the book designers who have pushed the ReadyMade design esthetic with this book. The thoughtful design includes an embossed plain cardboard cover with measuring tape binding. The book has six chapters/materials, paper, plastic, wood, metal, glass and fabric, all illustrated, with all-new projects not seen in the mag. Of most value to me, for lack of time to actually make anything, is the implicit theme of consume less, live better. Consume the book at Amazon - hardcover, 208 pages, $16.50.

+ ReadyMade at Amazon