Basic tools

The basic tools that you'll need are as follows:

• Soldering iron or soldering station:
  
• Diagonal cutters:
  
• Needle-nose pliers:
  
• Jewelers' screwdriver set:
  
• Solder sucker or solder wick. Or both:
  
• A multimeter is capable of measuring volts, ohms, and milliamperes. The meter shown in the following image is a RadioShack/Micronta multimeter. If you have an opportunity to purchase one of these on eBay or at a Hamfest, I highly recommend you to do so. I have had this one for years. In addition to the usual meter functions, it also has a serial RS-232 output that has come in extremely handy over the years.
  

The more difficult projects will require access to either a BeagleBone Black or White, but we'll get to that later. Let's start our first project.

This project is the first in a series of projects for all you weekend warriors—paintball and Airsoft enthusiasts.

In this project, we will modify a standard LED flashlight that is available from eBay or your local variety store for a few dollars. What we are going to do is remove the visible light (white) LEDs and replace them with infrared LEDs. You might ask, Why would we want to do that? This is because many Airsoft and paintball rifles and pistols are equipped with a flashlight holder to allow the shooter to see his/her target in the dark. The downside to this is that your enemies can see you coming a mile away! So what we are going to do is make ourselves an infrared flashlight, which will allow us to see our target in the dark without it seeing us. Most inexpensive black-and-white video cameras can actually see well into the IR range, as can night-vision goggles. There are a number of inexpensive night-vision devices available from the sites that sell Airsoft gear, so I won't get into that here.

So, let's get started. This project basically involves desoldering and soldering. By the time we are done, you will be really good at both.

Dollar store flashlight

The preceding image is of the flashlight that I purchased at a local hardware store for about $2.00 Yours might not be exactly the same, but the principle of what we are about to do will work for just about any LED flashlight. All I would suggest is that you purchase one with as many LEDs as possible.