During the cryptocurrency craze, I built an Ethereum mining rig to learn more about how it works (and make a bit of money). To get an overview of cryptocurrency and the hardware/software needed for a mining rig, check out the tutorial on my Wordpress blog.

My original mining rig back in 2017 - 2 GPU's, PCI risers and a lot of zip ties!

Mining output with a single GPU. Later hooked up two GPU's and peak hash rate (speed) was right around 50 Mh/s.

One of my final rig configurations before selling all of it - more than 10x as powerful as my initial setup!

I finally moved away from overpriced GoDaddy and migrated to Azure. Monthly hosting costs dropped from $9.99 to approximately $0.10 and I'm able to take advantage of more features!

The front-end is an Angular app hosted using blob storage, the back-end is a mix of Logic & Function apps, and I'm also using a custom domain name along with a CDN & SSL certificate. Full write-up coming soon...

My Azure bill towards the end of the month - only 16 cents!

The robotic flamethrower tank is nearing completion. I redesigned quite a bit of it so it's now using more 3D printed components, and it's now controlled by a wireless Xbox 360 controller instead of with an Android app over Bluetooth.

Here's how it currently looks. If you want to see a video of the tank plus additional photos and details, check out my article.

Flamethrower tank so far, controlled by wireless Xbox 360 controller

Some of the Actobotics parts used in the tank

Some of the 3D printed parts that I designed for the tank

After thinking about it for years, I finally decided to build an arcade cabinet powered by a Raspberry Pi. The layout includes a joystick, a trackball, 6 action buttons and 2 buttons on the side for Start & Select/Insert Coin.

I've included a few pictures below, but if you want more information head over to the detailed overview on my Wordpress blog.

Internal wiring of the cabinet, including the I-PAC circuit board.

Top panel: joystick, trackball & action buttons. Side panel: Select/Insert Coin & Start buttons

Quality Control - stress testing the arcade inputs!