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https://hackaday.com/2012/10/01/running-into-the-form-1-printer-at-maker-faire/ | Running Into The Form 1 Printer At Maker Faire | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"form 1",
"maker faire",
"resin",
"resin printer"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxNqMg_dwJI&w=470]
The
Form 1 resin printer Kickstarter
met its funding goal in just about 8 hours, and after five days is on track to be the most successful Kickstarter to date. Being so successful meant we had to drop by the FormLabs booth at Maker Faire to see what the hubub is.
From the sample prints floating around the booth, the Form 1 printer has amazing resolution – a 3 inch tall statue of a Greek god had as many features as a life-sized statue.
In the video (both above the fold and after the break), [David Cranor] goes over the features and finishing process of objects made on the Form 1.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxNqMg_dwJI&w=470] | 20 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "802022",
"author": "maloushe",
"timestamp": "2012-10-01T11:47:25",
"content": "Nice looking machine. I think it’s highly implausible that they need Kickstarter funds to launch; I think that they’re using it as a marketing platform – Kickstarter gives it massive visibility, and rais... | 1,760,376,724.060353 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/01/test-your-projects-mettle-with-a-protected-dummy-load/ | Test Your Project’s Mettle With A Protected Dummy Load | Jesse Congdon | [
"how-to"
] | [
"power",
"test"
] | For a power hungry project the supply is sometimes a pretty big unknown. Whether stapling together a few different power supplies to meet a current requirement, or designing a system from the ground up: a big power supply can be quite a dangerous thing. It helps to have some kind of a dummy load to really shake down the electronics and get an idea of how hot things get or test stability before trusting the supply to run your stuff. [Paulo Oliveira] has constructed just such a thing, a slick looking adjustable
constant current load
.
Following the popular
LM324 circuit
from [David Jones] at EEVblog [Paulo] decided to make use of the two spare op-amps to provide both a thermal overload and a cooling fan circuit. We have seen
other tweaks
to [David]’s circuit in the past but through some resistors and MOSFETs [Paulo] can now load up to 7A (limited by resistor wattage). We would have used a really crazy server
vacuum
fan to make it genuinely frightening to push heavier loads. Thanks [Paulo]! | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "802119",
"author": "Chris C.",
"timestamp": "2012-10-01T13:19:27",
"content": "I always appreciate a project that includes a detailed “Lessons Learned”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "802215",
"author": "alex",
"timesta... | 1,760,376,724.247378 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/30/mbed-and-a-few-resistors-runs-console-vga-and-ps2/ | Mbed And A Few Resistors Runs Console, VGA, And PS/2 | Jesse Congdon | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"mbed",
"ps2"
] | [Jordan] writes in to show us a project he has been working on called
MbedConsole
. Living up its name [Jordan] has managed to run a 640×480 VGA output, PS/2 port and console all from the mbed itself. We really mean from an mbed only; no extra hardware is required aside from a few resistors and connectors, a VGA monitor and PS/2 keyboard. The code is open source and links are included in the blog. There are even instructions for including your own graphics.
There are a few things to tackle still, like SD card support. Currently the PS/2 keyboard lights for caps-lock are not functional. [Jordan] would love to know what else we’d see going on something like this, with 400k of flash and 20k RAM left there certainly is a bit of room for some interesting stuff. One of his main goals is to get rid of the C interface and port an interactive shell over that could do something like BASIC or Forth (to give it that retro environment feel). We have seen the mbed in a
handful of projects
, what do you think? | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "801613",
"author": "Zlrea",
"timestamp": "2012-09-30T22:38:39",
"content": "They really start young these days, this Jordan fellow looks like a little girl.I’d reckon he’s no more than 3 years old!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id... | 1,760,376,723.956563 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/30/cnc-jacquard-loom-will-weave-anything/ | CNC Jacquard Loom Will Weave Anything | Brian Benchoff | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"jacquard loom",
"loom",
"weaving"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osCPWMyJOj8&w=470]
The Jacquard loom, invented in the early 1800s, used punched cards to manufacture relatively complex textiles such as damask and brocade. These punched cards were eventually used by census workers, mechanical calculators, early analog computers, the earliest digital computers, and even
the humble Arduino
.
That doesn’t mean the Jacquard loom was left in the 17th century, though. This one made it to the
Open Hardware Summit in New York
last week and it was so cool the organizers of the Maker Faire graciously found space for it.
The entire loom is controlled by computer – no punched cards required – and is build out of inexpensive aluminum extrusion. It can also make
any
two color graphic into a textile (yes, even the Hackaday logo). The loom wasn’t quite operational during the one day it spent at Maker Faire, but we’ve been promised updates in the future. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "801396",
"author": "fartface",
"timestamp": "2012-09-30T17:08:31",
"content": "Someone needs to buy a video camera that is not complete junk.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "801409",
"author": "McMonster",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,376,724.207043 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/02/how-to-watch-your-own-videos-on-a-plane-barf-bag/ | How To Watch Your Own Videos On A Plane: Barf Bag | Mike Szczys | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"airline",
"barf bag",
"cradle",
"dock",
"plane",
"video"
] | Air travellers take note, [Asthmaticatom] figured out how to comfortably watch your own videos on the plane. We know you always have your phone with you,
now you just need to find a barf bag
. A little bit of papercraft turns the waste disposal device into a neat little hanging dock.
The bag in the image above is actually upside down. A rectangle the same size as your phone’s screen is ripped out of the top. The metal clasp used to seal the top of the bag is rolled up to hold the phone securely in place. The bottom of the sack has a flap which acts as a one-way catch. When it is shoved into the crevice on top of the monitor it holds the whole thing in place.
Of course we don’t remember ever having been on a plane where there was a monitor in the seat in front of us, but perhaps we’re just buying tickets on the wrong airlines.
[via
Reddit
] | 31 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "803637",
"author": "Terry",
"timestamp": "2012-10-02T20:08:32",
"content": "That would work, but I prefer to pack 3 or four squares of velcro. Stick yer phone to anything, then peel ’em off and usa an alcohol wipe to clean up any residue.http://www.amazon.com/Velcro-Sticky-Pre-Cut-... | 1,760,376,723.799828 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/02/decades-old-tv-gets-sleep-function-thanks-to-7400-family-of-chips/ | Decades Old TV Gets Sleep Function Thanks To 7400 Family Of Chips | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks",
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"7400",
"multivibrator",
"sleep",
"television",
"timer",
"tv"
] | [Viktor] dredged up a hack he pulled off years ago. His grandfather likes to end the day in front of the TV, but he falls asleep soon after sitting down. Rather than tick away the electricity meter all night, [Viktor] built
an automatic shutoff which is akin to a modern TV’s sleep feature
.
At the time microcontrollers were not as easy to source as they are now. So [Viktor] used a circuit based on the 7400 family of logic chips. It uses a multivibrator to feed some binary counter chips. These are used to divide the oscillations to establish the desired timing. He tuned the system to be about 15 minutes, but that can be adjusted using a potentiometer built into the multivibrator. When time is about the run out an LED next to the TV comes on. This way if [Viktor’s] grandfather is still awake he can press a button next to his chair to reset the counter. But if he’s already snoozing the counter will eventually switch off the television. | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "803626",
"author": "Bogdan",
"timestamp": "2012-10-02T19:57:06",
"content": "the power supply part of the eagle schematic is incorrect….(it’s right on the hand drawn schematic).It does seem like a nice piece of design. my choice in making this would have been a dual opamp + RC circu... | 1,760,376,724.297746 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/02/professional-looking-dog-robot-was-actually-martins-masters-thesis/ | Professional Looking Dog Robot Was Actually [Martin’s] Master’s Thesis | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"aluminum",
"canine",
"dog",
"mbed"
] | If you think this thing looks good you should see it move. [Martin Smith]
hit a home run on the project
, which was his Master’s Thesis. Fifteen servo motors provide a way for the bot to move around. Having been modeled after a small canine the gait is very realistic. The tail is even functional, acting as a counterweight when moving the legs.
The project was meticulously built in a 3D environment before undertaking any physical assembly. The mechanical parts are all either milled from aluminum or 3D printed. Two mBed boards mounted on its back allow it to interact with its environment. One of them handles image processing, the other drives the array of motors. And of course it doesn’t hurt that he built some
Larson Scanners
in as eyes.
Don’t miss the video after the break which shows off the entire project from planning to demonstration. We can’t help but be reminded of
the rat-thing from
Snow Crash
. | 29 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "803518",
"author": "rasz",
"timestamp": "2012-10-02T18:22:52",
"content": "looks coolbarely walks",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "803535",
"author": "XOIIO",
"timestamp": "2012-10-02T18:34:53",
"content": "Yeah alrig... | 1,760,376,723.86634 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/02/nintendo-light-gun-retrofit-lets-it-play-color-based-games/ | Nintendo Light Gun Retrofit Lets It Play Color-based Games | Mike Szczys | [
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"ATMega8U2",
"color sensor",
"light gun",
"photodiode",
"zapper"
] | This Nintendo light gun, aka Zapper, looks like a stock device. But a peek inside shows that the circuit board has been replaced. [CNLohr]
added USB functionality and a few extra sensors
that let him write his own games for that use the classic controller.
After cracking open the case he measured the shape of the circuit board so that he could recreate it exactly. This let him design his own board that would drop right into the same plastic support pieces as the original. His circuit uses an ATmega8u2 to provide a USB connection and read the attached sensors. One interesting aspect is the group of four long traces that act as an expandable i2c bus. [CNLohr] went with this so that he could use daughter boards to add in sensors later. In the demonstration seen after the video he’s using a photodiode as a color sensor. It allowed him to write the color-based game seen above where you shoot a different color of target in each round.
[via
Reddit
] | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "803500",
"author": "Stu",
"timestamp": "2012-10-02T18:08:14",
"content": "Not bad.Now go recreate the best arcade shooting game ever made –https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=point+blank+arcade+gameI think i prefer the way the WiiMote does it though, a pure IR marker pair tracking wit... | 1,760,376,723.905695 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/02/ipad-external-battery-case-forced-to-work-with-a-non-ipad-tablet/ | IPad External Battery Case Forced To Work With A Non-iPad Tablet | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"Tablet Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"case",
"ipad",
"pipo"
] | [Carnivore] uses a Pipo Max M1 tablet. It’s an Android device that is very responsive thanks t the 1.6 GHz dual-core processor and it runs Jellybean (latest version of Android OS). The one thing he wasn’t so happy with is battery life. Under heavy load it lasts about three hours. When reading an eBook that use can be stretched to 10 hours. His solution was to add an external battery. It turns out the 9.7″ screen makes the body of the device almost exactly the same size as an iPad, so he made
an iPad external battery case work with the Android tablet
.
[Carnivore] started the hack by disassembling an iP6000 case which houses a 6000 mAh battery. He removed the dock connector and fitted in a 2.5mm power jack. Luckily the buttons on the Android tablet are in nearly the exact same place as those on an iPad, with the power button hole needing just a bit of enlargement. The case charges itself and the tablet’s internal battery using a microUSB port which means he no longer needs to carry around a special power cord. The new hardware increased the battery life by about 75%. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "803532",
"author": "cde",
"timestamp": "2012-10-02T18:32:30",
"content": "There is no microusb port. He haphazardly added a usb-a female connector that he uses for both charging of the dock/tablet and charging accessories?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,724.008353 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/02/whatever-a-fear-of-fingers-is-this-is-it/ | Whatever A Phobia Of Fingers Is Called, This Is It. | Brian Benchoff | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"fingers",
"kinetic art",
"Maker Faire NYC 2012",
"touched"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LSXvhLKjCU&w=470]
Touched is a project by [Rebecca Strauss] that integrates servos, strings, and felt into a horrifying kinetic sculpture made up of a dozen mechanical fingers straight from a Boschian nightmare.
The fingers are made up of segments of wood articulated with the help of a small string. Each pair of fingers is controlled by a single servo, and the tips of each pair of fingers is controlled by a second servo.
After covering them in felt, [Rebecca] wrapped conductive thread around each of the fingers. When some of the fingers are touched, they all recoil as if controlled by a demon living just under a mountain of felt.
[Rebecca] brought in another kinetic sculpture using her servo controlled fingers; in the video up at the top and after the break, you can see the inner workings of this floor-mounted version. When the IR proximity sensor goes off, the fingers recoil but can be coaxed out again by gently stroking one of the phalanges.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LSXvhLKjCU&w=470] | 96 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "803264",
"author": "Sci",
"timestamp": "2012-10-02T15:05:01",
"content": "I hope the mods are on their toes today, because I have a terrible feeling about the comments that’ll follow.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "803305",
... | 1,760,376,724.162736 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/02/nixie-suduku-and-on-die-leds/ | Nixie Suduku And On-die LEDs | Brian Benchoff | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"nixie",
"suduku"
] | The best booths at Maker Faire draw you in with something unbelievably cool or ridiculously absurd, and bring out a state-of-the-art technology just as your curiosity for the main feature starts to wane. [John Sarik]’s booth for a class he’s TAing at Columbia –
Modern Display Science and Technology
– is one of these booths.
The main feature of the booth is a suduku board filled with 81 Nixie tubes. As shown in the video below, you control the cursor (the decimal point of the Nixies) with a pair of pots. After moving the cursor to the desired location, there’s a keypad to change the number at any one of the 81 locations on a suduku puzzle.
[John]’s presentation then continued to what he’s working on up at Columbia: he’s working on a project to put arrays of LEDs onto silicon, just like any other integrated circuit. He demoed a small LED display built in to a DIP-40 package with a glass (or maybe quartz) window. Yes, it’s a really tiny LED matrix display with a pixel pitch probably much smaller than a traditional LCD display.
Video of the suduku machine after the break, as well as a gallery of the LED matrix on a chip. The matrix was very hard to photograph, so if [John] would be so kind as to send a few more pics in, we’ll be happy to put them up. There’s also a proper video from [John]’s YouTube showing off the Nixie Suduku puzzle solving itself with a recursive algorithm.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J-uy_F3wn4&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdmOi67PPvs&w=470]
[slideshow] | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "803214",
"author": "svofski",
"timestamp": "2012-10-02T14:04:34",
"content": "I like old LEDs. What exactly is that LED matrix and what kind of cloaking tech does it use that makes all picture of it blurry?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"com... | 1,760,376,724.351149 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/02/escape-from-new-york-hackaday-edition/ | Escape From New York: Hackaday Edition | Brian Benchoff | [
"News"
] | [
"maker faire",
"Maker Faire NYC",
"New Jersey sucks"
] | Woo we’re home from Maker Faire! The Hackaday boss man [Caleb] and [Scott], [Phil], and [Andrew] from
Squidfoo
are back in Springfield, Missouri. I’m safely back in the bosom of Appalachia in Pensyltucky, and we hope every one else at Maker Faire NYC 2012 made it back home safely.
Don’t think this is the end of our coverage of Maker Faire, though. Honestly, the Internet situation was
terrible
at Maker Faire, and between tethering on my droid and a MiFi, I was lucky to post what I did. There’s more stuff coming down the pipe, and now that I have a decent connection we’ll be posting more videos to the
Hackaday YouTube channel
.
Of course this wouldn’t be a proper Hackaday post without a
hack,
therefore I will humbly submit something I discovered around the Delaware Water Gap: Every GPS unit has a setting to avoid New Jersey. All you have to do is enable the ‘avoid toll roads’ setting. Yes, it’s an easy modification to preserve your health and sanity, lest you accidentally find your way into a suburban swampland. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "803180",
"author": "Kormsbee",
"timestamp": "2012-10-02T13:28:44",
"content": "I have never heard anyone else call it Pensyltucky before lol",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "803189",
"author": "bluelip",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,376,724.88628 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/01/picking-locks-with-toool/ | Picking Locks With Toool | Brian Benchoff | [
"lockpicking hacks"
] | [
"lockpick",
"maker faire",
"toool"
] | What Maker Faire would be complete without teaching children the joys of jiggling and twisting locks until they’ve opened? Toool,
the open organisation of lockpickers
made their way to New York this weekend to show off their bumping skills and get the kids interested in manipulating small mechanical devices.
The guys from Toool had a very cool setup – just a bunch of tables and chairs with a few picks and torsion wrenches. There were a few classic Master Locks on the table, but also a series of six tumbler locks each labeled with a number 1 through 6 signifying how many pins were in the lock. The idea is to get someone started on a one-pin lock, and eventually have them work their way up to the full six pins.
In the video after the break, one of the more animated guys from Toool explains why they were there, and also shows off picking a Master Lock twice in under 30 seconds. Seriously, people: educate yourself on locks before buying one.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZGdSvt4hIk&w=470] | 35 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "802721",
"author": "Galane",
"timestamp": "2012-10-01T22:18:17",
"content": "Can they pick a Kwikset SmartKey lock? They’re neat locks because they can be re-keyed while installed.If you want to provide temporary access to a place, change the key then when you want to end that acces... | 1,760,376,724.712084 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/01/using-a-555-timer-and-adc-as-a-random-seed/ | Using A 555 Timer And ADC As A Random Seed | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"adc",
"entropy",
"prng",
"random",
"seed"
] | Most toolchains for embedded system include support for random number generation. But if you’ve read the manual you’ll know that this is really just pseudo random number generation (PRNG). When calling this function the same numbers will always return in the same order unless a different random number seed is supplied in advance. [Gardner] put together a simple and cheap solution for deriving better random number seeds. He
reads a voltage from a 555 timer using the ADC
on the microcontroller. At first glance it may not seem like a great source of randomness, but he performed some testing and the results look quite promising.
The project is aimed at Arduino-based circuits, but any chip with an ADC will work. The 555 timer is used as a free running oscillator. We know that this not be very stable when compared to even the worst of crystal oscillators, but that’s what makes it work so well as a random seed source. Add to this the low parts count and small size of the additional circuitry and you’ve got a winning combination. So keep this in mind when you need a random number but don’t necessarily need
rock solid entropy
.
[via
Reddit
and
Freetronics
] | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "802656",
"author": "LolzMcGee",
"timestamp": "2012-10-01T21:12:57",
"content": "In before all the random number elitists",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "802685",
"author": "Brian Benchoff",
"timestamp": "2012-1... | 1,760,376,724.835625 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/01/tens-of-thousands-saved-by-building-a-bam-microscope-out-of-lego/ | Tens Of Thousands Saved By Building A BAM Microscope Out Of LEGO | Mike Szczys | [
"chemistry hacks",
"Tool Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"bam",
"brewster angle",
"lego",
"microscope"
] | A Brewster Angle Microscope (BAM) can run you around $100,000. If you don’t have that lying around you could just
use some LEGO pieces to build your own
. Having been faced with no budget to buy the hardware, and needing the data to finish his PhD, [Matthew] figured out a way to build something passable on the cheap.
These microscopes bounce a light source off of a pool of water and into the lens of a camera. The thing is the angle of the sender and receiver must be just perfect at 53.1 degrees. [Matthew] was able to afford a used camera, and started experimenting with some lab equipment to mount the rig. But he just couldn’t get the adjustments right. Since he had to move the mounting hardware by hand it was impossible not to over or under shoot the corrections. But then he had a eureka moment. LEGO pieces have very accurate tolerances, and you can get geared and motorized parts. He leveraged the quality of the toy into a BAM whose alignment can be tweak with great precision.
It may not look like much, but you can see stearic acid floating through the microscope’s field of vision in the clip after the break. This is exactly the type of observations he needed to perform. Of course if you just need a microscope
you can use a laser and a drop of water
. | 35 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "802627",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2012-10-01T20:40:46",
"content": "Hell he should get a PhD just for the Microscope!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "802640",
"author": "mceep",
"timestamp": "2012-1... | 1,760,376,724.783252 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/01/fantastic-programming-makes-this-arduino-gaming-device-something-special/ | Fantastic Programming Makes This Arduino Gaming Device Something Special | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"handhelds hacks"
] | [
"accelerometer",
"arduino",
"console",
"game",
"handheld",
"snake"
] | The hardware that went into this Arduino gaming console is just fine. But
the coding that produced this game called Twisted SNAKE is beyond compare
. [Rodot] has programmed several games for the hardware, which uses an Arduino, 160×168 TFT screen, a 3 axis accelerometer, and two input buttons. If you’re interested, there is a forum thread in which he talks
a bit more about the hardware design
. But you’re not going to want to pass up either of the two videos embedded after the break.
The first clip shows off a bouncing-ball platforming game. The accelerometer moves the ball back and forth, and the top scrolling level brings more ledges into play. This in itself is a great game. But the Twisted SNAKE game shown off in the second video makes
our own ARM-based Snake game
look like a 3-year-old programmed it. [Rodot] filled up all of the program memory of the ATmega328 chip to make this happen. There’s a menu system which allows for color themes and difficulty selection. The game play itself lets the snake travel anywhere it wishes with the tail following behind in graceful curves. Wow! | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "802595",
"author": "bleullama",
"timestamp": "2012-10-01T19:41:02",
"content": "I think you probably meant 160×128 for the screen resolution…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "802943",
"author": "r0d0t",
"timesta... | 1,760,376,725.069155 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/01/brewpi-is-a-raspberry-pi-in-charge-of-beer-fermentation/ | BrewPi Is A Raspberry Pi In Charge Of Beer Fermentation | Mike Szczys | [
"Beer Hacks"
] | [
"brewpi",
"fermentation",
"RPi",
"uberfridge"
] | Take a look at BrewPi,
a fermentation controller made with a Raspberry Pi
. The project hacks control of a refrigerator and a light bulb into the pervue of a Raspberry Pi board. The RPi itself brings network connectivity to the mix. What you end up with is an already highly configurable fermentation system which is perched to receive even more features moving forward.
The man behind the system is [Elco Jacobs]. You may remember his name from
the UberFridge project
. That was a router-based fermentation controller. This keeps the same great hardware as well as online graphing and control features such as setting plot points for ramping temperature up and down. For now there’s also an Arduino being used which takes care of the hardware switching via json packets received from the RPi. But now that he’s worked out most of the bugs it should be fairly painless to dump the Arduino and build a proper RPi shield for this purpose. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "802586",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2012-10-01T19:31:16",
"content": "Fantastic use of a Raspberry Pi. Although I think this might be a bit too anal about brewing. It’s not supposed to be rocket science :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,376,724.926177 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/01/traffic-lights-tell-you-when-your-xbox-live-friends-are-gaming/ | Traffic Lights Tell You When Your Xbox Live Friends Are Gaming | Mike Szczys | [
"Xbox Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"ethernet",
"gaming",
"online",
"traffic light",
"w5100",
"wiznet",
"xbox live"
] | It sounds like [Andrew] is trying to build a Pavlovian response into his behavior when it comes to online gaming. He wants to make sure he doesn’t miss out when all his friends are online, so
he built this traffic signal to monitor Xbox Live
activity. It will illuminate the lights, and drive the meters differently based on which of his friends are currently online. When the light’s green, he drops everything a grabs a controller.
The base of the light is a black project box. Inside you’ll find the Arduino compatible chip which drives the device mounted on a piece of protoboard. A WIZnet W5100 adds network connectivity at the low price of around $25. There is one problem with the setup. The API which [Andrew] found doesn’t use any authentication. This means that he can only see the public status of his friends; anyone who has set their online status set to private will always register as ‘online’. If you know of an existing Xbox Live API that would solve this issue we’d love to hear from you in the comments. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "802411",
"author": "Eirinn",
"timestamp": "2012-10-01T17:44:59",
"content": "Nice idea+execution :)Funky that it shows status as perma online instead of offline. I wonder what the reasoning is behind that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,376,724.970932 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/30/ginormous-ultimaker-can-print-slightly-smaller-ultimakers/ | Ginormous Ultimaker Can Print Slightly Smaller Ultimakers | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"ultimaker"
] | [bwattendorf] showed off his Gigimaker, a huge version of a
Ultimaker
at the Maker Faire this weekend.
It’s got a print area 2.5 feet square and 3.5 feet high. Currently, the team is using the machine to print off parts for smaller desktop-sized 3D printers, but theoretically this printer could be used to print life-sized companion cubes or full sized [Nefertiti] busts.
If you’d like to build your own giant Ultimaker, grab a few sheets of plywood and
grab the git repo
for the Gigimaker. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "801362",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2012-09-30T16:31:13",
"content": "Can someone please build me a giant replicator please haha. I might build one the size of a small car garage if I get a free month! Great job Ultimaker guys!!!Andrewhttp://www.youtube.com/user/andrewupandab... | 1,760,376,725.020763 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/30/rideable-hexawalker-is-chibikarts-kin/ | Rideable Hexawalker Is Chibikart’s Kin | Brian Benchoff | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"hexawalker",
"maker faire"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnG96qDibo0&w=470]
The folks from MIT made their way to the NYC Maker Faire, and of course brought a
pair of Chibikarts
. [Nancy Ouyang] wouldn’t allow those portable go karts take center stage at the MIT booth though; her Hexarideablepod (yes, that’s what she calls it) saw much more action from the kids clamoring to take something for a drive.
From the video above, [Nancy] shows off her six-legged, tennis ball-footed creation. The entire machine is powered by
car batteries and is controlled via two joysticks in something resembling driving a tank
Nope, it’s powered by A123 lipos and controlled with triggers taken from an electric drill.
As per [Nancy]’s wishes, I must mention that this project was for
MITERS
, a.k.a. the people from MIT that came down to Maker Faire.
Proper video after the break. The Internet at Maker Faire is horrible, give me a break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMzwa4OR5R4&w=470] | 20 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "801327",
"author": "KG4MXV",
"timestamp": "2012-09-30T14:57:38",
"content": "oh well you need to find the orig video LOL",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "801332",
"author": "inci",
"timestamp": "2012-09-30T15:09:36",
... | 1,760,376,725.163348 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/30/putting-a-workshop-on-your-bike-rack/ | Putting A Workshop On Your Bike Rack | Brian Benchoff | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bike rack",
"work bench",
"workbench"
] | As a member of the Repair Cafe in Maastricht, [Bertoa] sometimes needs to take a few tools out into the field to repair mechanical and electronic devices. His previous solution to the problem was a toolbox in the trunk of his car, but he knew he could come up with a more environmentally friendly solution. He created a
portable workbench that fits right on his bike rack
that is able to transport all the tools needed for light repairs using only a bike.
[Bertoa]’s portable workbench is made up of two parts; each side has one small slide drawer perfect for storing screwdrivers and wrenches, as well as a second tilting drawer able to hold heavier items such as an electric drill.
The work surface joins the two sides of the workbench together and is able to fold out with the help of a piano hinge and a few brackets. The workbench is removable from the bike rack and is able to stand on its own (stowable) legs made of aluminum tubes.
Even though the portable workbench only weighs about 10kg, it’s able to support [Bertoa]’s full body weight; a wonderful addition to any maker’s bicycle and a great solution to working on projects in the field. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "801358",
"author": "Askarel",
"timestamp": "2012-09-30T16:25:32",
"content": "This is awesome !!I was thinking about building a portable electronic lab in a suitcase i can attach to the luggage rack of my bike. This goes much further with the addition of a full workshop table.Well d... | 1,760,376,725.114063 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/30/tiny-oled-o-scope-fits-on-a-breadboard/ | Tiny OLED O-scope Fits On A Breadboard | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"logic analyzer",
"oled",
"oscilloscope"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfAkdd9kXNY&w=470]
With a surplus of 3D printers at this year’s Maker Faire, it’s really surprising to see the most talked about tool among the makers is a simple oscilloscope.
[Gabriel Anzziani]’s Xprotolab
is an extremely small oscilloscope, function generator, logic analyzer, and general 128×64 OLED display is the perfect addition to your next prototyping project. With its breadboard friendly format and USB output, it will dutifully serve as a 200kbps oscilloscope, 8 channel logic analyzer, or as seen in the video above, the perfect interface for a Wii Nunchuck or just a simple digital Etch-a-sketch.
In the video above the fold [Gabriel] shows off the functions of his tiny, if somewhat limited, OLED oscilloscope. | 21 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "801219",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "2012-09-30T11:23:30",
"content": "Good thing. If this was half price I would even permanently include it in some projects.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "801225",
"author": "sdevvoodo... | 1,760,376,725.448769 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/29/giving-graphing-calculators-a-new-life/ | Giving Graphing Calculators A New Life | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"calculator",
"graphing calculator"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um0IeGGdIRY&w=470]
[Christopher] at Cemetech,
ever frequent HaD feature
for his hacked up graphing calculators, made it to the NYC Maker Faire.
He
already posted on his blog
he was making the trip up to Maker Faire, but we were lucky enough to catch up with him. Two things: the name of his blog isn’t ‘cement tech’, but ‘chem tech.’ Apparently he hates it when it’s mispronounced.
Secondly, he’s been turning in the TI-83s for a Casio Prizm graphing calculator. In the video above he tells us he’s gotten a few homebrew games running on the Prizm, a Lua interpreter, and is currently working on digging around the operating system. | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "800852",
"author": "Bob Thing",
"timestamp": "2012-09-29T20:20:19",
"content": "tbh if he want’s it to be pronounced correctly then he should learn how to spell. Hauppage anyone?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "800882",
... | 1,760,376,725.64068 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/29/new-and-improved-diwire-bender/ | New And Improved DIWire Bender | Brian Benchoff | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"makerfaire",
"wire bender"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrr4peibbNI&w=470]
The DIWire bender we saw last summer made its way to Maker Faire this year with a new and improved version that is now able to bend steel even more accurately than the previous aluminum-bending version.
I chatted up [Marco Perry] (above, obviously), and he explained a new feature of the DIWire bender that makes soldering or welding creations made out of CNC bent wire even easier. The new machine features a sharpie that precisely marks where the wire should be welded.
The folks behind the DIWire –
Pensa
– have a ton of really cool wire sculptures at their booth at Maker Faire, quite incidentally within spitting distance of Hackaday’s Red Bull booth. Be sure to check them out if you’ve got a chance. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "800828",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "2012-09-29T19:47:17",
"content": "No action video?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "801153",
"author": "rockets4kids",
"timestamp": "2012-09-30T08:05:53",
"content": "Seriously.... | 1,760,376,725.701975 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/29/fitting-a-cnc-machine-3d-printer-and-vinyl-cutter-in-a-suitcase/ | Fitting A CNC Machine, 3D Printer, And Vinyl Cutter In A Suitcase | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"cnc",
"popfab",
"router",
"xy table"
] | Maker Faire NY is awash with new and interesting computer controlled tools, but the most unusual so far appears to be Popfab, a combination router, 3D printer, and vinyl cutter able to collapse down into a suitcase.
Popfab is the brainchild of [Nadya Peek] and [Ilan Moyer] of the MIT CADLAB. With interchangeable heads for routing PCBs, 3D printing, and vinyl cutting. A conventional machine of this capabilities would have motors all over the place, but [Ilan] used a
CoreXY system
to make the stepper motors stationary relative to the frame of the machine.
The electronics are standard
Printrboard
and Pronterface fare, but it’s still a remarkable build that also fits into a suitcase.
Pictures of the machine, the XY system (good luck wrapping your head around that, but I can tell you it relies on the differential movement of the two motors) and the lovely [Nadya] holding up the plastic extrusion head. We’ll get a video up
tomorrow.
after the break
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAlJBhFkqp8&w=470] | 25 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "800704",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2012-09-29T16:42:28",
"content": "As a person who travels all the time it would be great to have this. I could even showcase 3D printing abroad while sitting in the airport! (If anyone has any other cool ideas I would love to see them poste... | 1,760,376,725.5122 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/29/janus-the-gatekeeper/ | Janus: The Gatekeeper | Jeremy Cook | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"doorbell",
"gate",
"lock"
] | [Piet] wrote in to tell us about his hack that allows for his front
gate to be opened without a key
. Unlike
this hack
that we featured in August, you don’t need a subway pass, just a good memory. As explained in his article (and the video after the break) if the proper sequence of doorbell rings is input, the gate unlocks itself.
For hardware a
[mehduino]
is used to take the doorbell input and decide whether or not the “secret knock” has been achieved. The door can be unlocked remotely via a button on the processor. Reprogramming the code is achieved by simply holding the program button while the code is entered on the “remote ringer” button.
Be sure to check out the video after the break to see this lock in action. The housing application may not be exactly what you expect. Also of interest, is that in true hacker fashion, the bare processor is hanging by a hook on his wall!
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS8TCY0PzgI%5D | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "800710",
"author": "ferdinand",
"timestamp": "2012-09-29T16:47:59",
"content": "how meny procent can you be off of the sequence to open the gate it look to me that you never can press that button exact the same way every time you alwayssome ms off the 2e time",
"parent_id": nul... | 1,760,376,725.879114 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/29/hackaday-at-the-world-makerfaire-in-ny/ | Hackaday At The World MakerFaire In NY | Caleb Kraft | [
"News"
] | [
"makerfaire"
] | For the next two days, [Caleb Kraft] and [Brian Benchoff] will be wandering around
the World MakerFaire
in NY. Primarily stationed at the booth meant to show off our
winning entry into the Redbull Creation contest
, we hope to find some interesting things for you to read about.
We’ve already scoped out the MakerFaire and met a few people so we’re eager for the gates to open today and let in the flood of enthusiastic people. Speaking of floods, its been raining quite a bit so we’ve got our fingers crossed that we’ll get some clear patches so we can enjoy the things that require a little more space, like the
“Centrifury” from North Street Labs
.
While everything is going on here, it can be hard to sit down and write a worthwhile article, so those probably won’t appear until monday. In the meantime though, we will be uploading random amusing things as we find them to
our youtube account
. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "800983",
"author": "N'yawka",
"timestamp": "2012-09-30T00:38:31",
"content": "At the Faire, lady looks at your broken sign, turns to me and declares “they could probably find someone here who could fix it.” Perhaps, it is a bullduino project and the next tent over is the Arduino Pav... | 1,760,376,725.588083 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/28/water-purification-uses-home-built-electrolysis-rig/ | Water Purification Uses Home-built Electrolysis Rig | Mike Szczys | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"chlorine",
"electrolysis",
"salt",
"water purification"
] | If you plan ahead a little bit you could have
your own system of water purification
to use in emergencies. Everyone needs clean drinking water and this gadget will let your produce your own purification drops quite easily.
The solution contains chlorine, which is created through electrolysis. The PVC cap seen near the bottom of the image has two electrodes sticking out of it. These are titanium plated mesh plates separated by a rubber ring. The cap has a small hole in it to keep the flow rate low and the fitting at the top acts as a funnel. When you pour in a salt water mixture it passes through the energized plates and a chemical reaction splits the sodium from the chlorine.
A twelve volt power source is necessary for this to work. But since the electrolytic process takes just a minute or two you could easily source the power from batteries charged with solar cells. Check out a full build walk through and demonstration video after the break.
[Thanks David] | 58 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "800121",
"author": "'Duino",
"timestamp": "2012-09-28T22:12:00",
"content": "Uhh.When you pour in a salt water mixture it passes through the energized plates and a chemical reaction splits the sodium from the chlorine.It also produces chlorine gas. Which is fairly toxic. Might want ... | 1,760,376,725.973378 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/28/fancy-beer-pong-table-cleans-your-balls/ | Fancy Beer Pong Table Cleans Your Balls | Mike Szczys | [
"Beer Hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"beer pong",
"el wire",
"ping pong",
"table"
] | Beer Pong seems to have been around for some time but it only recently exploded in to a universally known game. But one thing has always bothered us. Who wants to drink the beer into which that grimy little ball has fallen? Leave it to the frat boys at MIT to come up with a solution. Their
beer pong table automatically cleans your balls
.
Of course the table looks great. It’s outfitted with laser cut felt lettering on the apron, and the top features EL wire highlights. But the two features that really set it apart aren’t hard to spot either. First, there are rain gutters along either side to help catch the spillage. Secondly, that blue ring is actually the input nozzle for the ball cleaner. By pushing the ball through the vinyl sleeve it enters a recirculating liquid cleanser, popping out of the portal on the left a second later. That’s about all the details we have on the system, but you can get a closer look at the inner workings in the clip after the break.
The thing to remember is that these guys NEVER run out of ping-pong balls. They’ve got thousands on hand ever since
they built this launcher
. | 19 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "800064",
"author": "browniefed",
"timestamp": "2012-09-28T21:12:46",
"content": "Now it just needs a keg underneath with a tap handle up top and they’d be set.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "800067",
"author": "rasz",
"... | 1,760,376,725.754592 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/28/how-to-build-a-foam-machine-for-your-next-party/ | How To Build A Foam Machine For Your Next Party | Mike Szczys | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"bubbles",
"cannon",
"foam",
"party"
] | Your neighbors are going to love you if you
start filling up the back yard with foam at your next party
. It’s an easy enough build, but depending on your ability to source the major components it could cost a pretty penny to use it at your next rager.
[Species287] used a big fan and water pump which he already had on hand. All together that saved him about $200 (he’s pricing in Australian Dollars but they’re almost even right now with USD). The soap solution is super cheap, just a bottle of dish washing liquid mixed to the correct proportions with water, but you’ll need a way to apply it to the fan. Some irrigation supplies connected to the fan grate with zip ties did the trick. The pump is submerged in the bubble liquid, causing it to spray from the nozzles near the fan. But this won’t actually create bubbles. The last piece is a bag-shaped hunk of shade cloth from the garden store. Each pore of the cloth acts as a bubble ring. The cloth gets sprayed with soap by the sprinklers and the air from the fan then blows the bubbles.
There’s no video of this project so if you want to see it in action
this other diy foam cannon
will have to do. | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "800168",
"author": "Xeracy",
"timestamp": "2012-09-28T23:40:34",
"content": "i have yet to hear of any small scale foam parties being described as anything other than ‘dirty’ or ‘disgusting’…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8002... | 1,760,376,726.016824 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/28/how-a-quarter-shrinker-works/ | How A Quarter Shrinker Works | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"capacitor",
"coin crusher",
"induction",
"magnetic"
] | This machine is capable of shrinking coins. What you’re looking at is actually a 3D model of the Geek Groups impulse generator, which is called Project Stomper. The model is used to explain
how induction shrinks a quarter to the size of a dime
.
The grey chamber to the left is a reinforced containment device. It’s a safety feature to keep people in the same room as the Stomper safe from flying particles which may result from the forces this thing can put out. You see, it uses a mountain of magnetic energy to compress the edges of a coin in on itself.
As the video after the break illustrates, the main part of the machine on the right starts off by boosting mains voltage using a microwave oven transformer. This gets the AC to 2000V, which is then rectified and boosted further to get to 6000V DC. This charges three huge parallel capacitors which are then able to source 100,000A at 6 kV. When it comes time to fire, the charge is dumped into a coil which has the coin at its center. The result is the crushing magnetic field we mentioned earlier.
This isn’t a new concept, we featured
a different coin crusher build
in the early years of Hackaday’s existence. | 43 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "799761",
"author": "addidis",
"timestamp": "2012-09-28T18:23:55",
"content": "Nice post. I was wondering exactly how you shrink a quarter.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "802351",
"author": "dude",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,376,726.097606 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/28/never-pay-more-than-10-for-a-projector-mount/ | Never Pay More Than $10 For A Projector Mount | Mike Szczys | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"bracket",
"mount",
"projector"
] | [Lou] needed to mount his projector to finish up his home theater. But he was rather put off by the cost of commercial solutions. He ended up
building his own projector mount for about ten bucks
. The technique reuses some scrap metal and sources connectors from the hardware store. If your projector will be mounted flat to the ceiling we think this will work just as well for you as it did for him.
To the left we get a good look at the two parts which make up the mounting bracket. [Lou] is reusing a metal warning sign. One large piece is attached to the back portion of the projector and hangs over the end about a half-inch. On the front there is a tab with a slot in it made out the same sign. The slot accepts the head of a three-inch drywall screw. There are two holes in the rear piece which also receive screws. Once the projector is in place the screws can be adjusted to achieve the proper projection angle. [Lou] does a full walk through of the project in the video after the break.
This goes perfectly with
the $50 projection screen that he built
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "799718",
"author": "OverFlow636",
"timestamp": "2012-09-28T17:51:55",
"content": "are they drywall screws good enough to hold it up? I know projectors arent that heavy, but my exp with drywall screws, is as soon as you put it in and take it out a couple times, its just going to be a... | 1,760,376,726.147707 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/28/hand-cranked-electric-toy-has-no-batteries-or-power-supply/ | Hand Cranked Electric Toy Has No Batteries Or Power Supply | Mike Szczys | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"dynamo",
"robot",
"servo"
] | We think
this hand cranked robot design
is nothing short of absolute brilliance. The toy is remote-controlled through a short section of wire. It can drive forward and turn, but not at the same time. Still that’s impressive considering it uses no battery or power supply and, of the two servo motors, only one is actually in the robot itself.
The second servo, which is visible to the right, acts as a dynamo. When you crank it electricity is generated. The inputs of that servo are connected to the inputs of the one in the robot to power it. If you crank in one direction the colorful toy will drive forward. But there is a one-way catch on one of the side wheels so when the servo is cranked backward the little guy actually executes a reverse turn. The magic of building a project like this is perfect for a weekend activity with the kids. Don’t miss the demo embedded after the jump.
[via
Hacked Gadgets
] | 20 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "799575",
"author": "kl",
"timestamp": "2012-09-28T16:02:55",
"content": "Uuuuhh, isn’t the hand cranky thing technically a power supply? Well, I guess the human is the power supply, then… Let’s cut to the chase — the sun is the power supply. This is a solar powered toy.",
"paren... | 1,760,376,727.29604 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/28/wearable-raspberry-pi-turns-you-into-the-borg/ | Wearable Raspberry Pi Turns You Into The Borg | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"raspberry pi",
"Raspi",
"wearable",
"wearable computing"
] | The Hoboken hackerspace, MakerBar, recently hosted a very special guest – [Rob Bishop] from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Wanting to impress [Rob], [Zach] and a few others from MakerBar
put together a wearable computer based on the Raspberry Pi
in just a few hours.
Putting a Raspi, small Bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo, and a USB charger equipped with lithium-ion battery wasn’t that hard. The tricky part was finding a wearable display. Luckily, [Zach] had a pair of MyVu Crystal video glasses lying around and after a tricky bit of dissassembly, the folks at MakerBar had a completely wearable computer.
Apart from the RCA cable connecting the Raspi to the glasses, the project is completely wireless; with a small webcam also mounted to the display, the Pi in the Face could easily be a platform for figuring out what to do with
Google Glass
.
[Zach] said the entire setup could be reconstructed for about $100, a fair price for being turned in to [Locutus] of Borg | 42 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "799490",
"author": "André Esteves",
"timestamp": "2012-09-28T15:11:43",
"content": "Sourcing wearable displays is the most difficult part of trying to build a wearable, nowadays.Cheap video glasses are pricey with shitty resolutions. Higher resolutions unavailable from companies for... | 1,760,376,726.22914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/28/making-logic-gates-out-of-crabs/ | Making Logic Gates Out Of Crabs | Brian Benchoff | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"logic gate",
"soldier crab"
] | Building logic gates out of silicon is old hat, as is building them from discrete transistors, 555 chips, LEGO, and even gears. [Yukio-Pegio Gunji] and [Yuta Nishiyama] from Kobe University, along with [Andrew Adamatzky] from the aptly named Unconventional Computing Centre at the University of the West of England decided they needed a new way to
build logic gates using crabs
(PDF warning). Yes, the team successfully built functional logic gates using
Mictyris guinotae,
a species of soldier crab native to the South Seas.
The colonies of soldier crabs that inhabit the lagoons of Pacific atolls display a unique swarming behavior in their native habitat. When in a swarm of hundreds of individuals, the front of the swarm is driven by random turbulence in the group, while the back end of the swarm simply follows the leaders. Somehow, this is a successful evolutionary strategy, but it can also be exploited to build logic gates using only crabs.
The team constructed a Y-shaped maze for a pair of crabs to act as an OR gate. When two soldier crabs are placed at the top of the ‘Y’, they move forward until they meet and exit the maze through the output. This idea can be expanded to a slightly more complex AND gate, functionally identical to the electron-powered AND gate in a 7408 logic chip.
While the team has only made OR and AND gates – nothing functionally complete yet – there’s no reason to believe this crab-based system of computation couldn’t be expanded to a (very) basic calculator. | 37 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "799393",
"author": "Eirinn",
"timestamp": "2012-09-28T14:04:04",
"content": "I’ve got a bag of craaaabs! (music/stupidity warning):http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/crabs/Does this have any practical application?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,726.739758 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/28/massively-parallel-64-core-computer-costs-99/ | Massively Parallel Computer Costs $99 | Brian Benchoff | [
"ARM",
"Crowd Funding",
"hardware"
] | [
"Crowd Funding",
"multi core",
"parallel computing"
] | Even though dual, quad, and octo-core CPUs have been around for a while, it’s a far cry from truly massive parallel computing platforms. The chip manufacturer Adapteva is looking to put dozens of CPUs in a small package with their Parallella project. As a bonus,
they’re looking for funding on Kickstarter
, and plan to open source their 16 and 64-core CPUs after funding is complete.
The Parallella computer is based on the ARM architecture, and will be able to run Ubuntu with 1 Gig of RAM, a dual-core ARM A9 CPU, Ethernet, USB, and HDMI output. What makes the Parallella special is it’s Epiphany Multicore Accelerator – a coprocessor containing up to 64 parallel cores.
Adapteva is turning to Kickstarter for their Parallella computer to get the funding to take their Epiphany multicore daughterboard and shrink it down into a single chip. Once that’s complete, Adapteva will start shipping an ARM-powered Linux supercomputer that’s about the size of a credit card, or a Raspberry Pi under the new system of dev board measurements.
With any luck, the Parallella multicore computer will be available for $99, much less than a comparable x86 multicore computer. It’ll certainly be interesting to see what the Parallella can do in the future. | 89 | 38 | [
{
"comment_id": "799275",
"author": "xobmo",
"timestamp": "2012-09-28T13:17:32",
"content": "Wonder if they’ll call it Vapor Parallella 64…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "799619",
"author": "rasz",
"timestamp": "2012-09-28T16:... | 1,760,376,726.864711 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/28/doorbell-to-internet-bridge-also-useful-for-other-home-automation/ | Doorbell To Internet Bridge Also Useful For Other Home Automation | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"attiny84",
"doorbell",
"home automation",
"rfm12b"
] | This
wireless doorbell hack can send a text message when someone rings
. Adding the hardware to the chime unit turned out to be quite simple. It shows potential for a slew of other applications.
[Martin] started the project with a breakout board he had designed for an RFM12B wireless transceiver board.
This board is popular
because of its low-cost, small size, and ease of operation. [Martin’s] breakout is barely larger than the RFM module itself, and merely adds an ATtiny84 to the mix. In the case of this doorbell project he uses a pin interrupt to detect when the doorbell’s LED is illuminated. This wakes the chip from sleep and sends a message back to the receiver that something has happened.
The receiver can do anything it wants with that data. In this case it uses an email-to-SMS service to send [Martin] a text message. But the home automation applications are vast for this simple hardware. We have a water heater that is not near a floor drain so we use a simple leak detector to sound an alarm if there is ever a problem (the water heater sits in a shallow tray). That works if we’re home at the time. Using [Martin’s] solution could extend that alarm’s reach worldwide.
[via
Hacked Gadgets
] | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "799362",
"author": "Coda",
"timestamp": "2012-09-28T13:43:38",
"content": "I already like it because it’s not using an arduino.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "799605",
"author": "rasz",
"timestamp": "2012-09-2... | 1,760,376,726.671021 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/27/rubiks-cube-for-the-blind/ | Rubik’s Cube For The Blind | Mike Szczys | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"blind",
"rubiks cube",
"visually impaired"
] | Check out
this Rubik’s Cube for the blind
. The idea didn’t start off as an accessibility hack, but instead as a way for [Brian Doom] to figure out where the face of each cube goes when manipulating the puzzle. It gave him tactile feedback and his ability to use it in dim lighting was when it dawned on him that this could be useful to others.
Now when we first thought of a puzzle for the blind the term ‘Braille’ immediately jumped to mind. But this doesn’t use it. That’s great, because not all visually impaired people can understand Braille. Instead, this uses dimension and texture to identify each of the puzzle faces. There are mushroom-shaped knobs, Phillips screws, adhesive rubber bumpers, raised text label maker labels, and a few other items that go along with each color. This doesn’t prevent those with sight from playing either. It’s something of one Rubik’s cube for all. Well, all except for the
robots made to solve a stock cube
.
[via
Dvice
] | 18 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "798588",
"author": "jeditalian",
"timestamp": "2012-09-28T00:03:14",
"content": "would be awesome to implant some sort of high voltage shock-the-shit-out-of-you device that uses the screws for electrodes",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"commen... | 1,760,376,726.505391 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/27/how-to-make-that-old-satellite-dish-cook-all-your-meals/ | How To Make That Old Satellite Dish Cook All Your Meals | Mike Szczys | [
"cooking hacks",
"green hacks"
] | [
"satellite dish",
"solar cooker",
"solar power"
] | Grab that old satellite dish out of the dark corner of you garage and get those hot dogs ready. [Share alike license] is going to show us
how to turn the dish into a solar cooker
.
Harnessing the sun’s power requires a reflective surface. Although the image above makes it look like a mirror finish, this is really just covered in foil tape. This is what’s used to seal duct work and can be had for a few bucks at any home store. You’ll notice the dish is pointed up quite a bit more than it would have been when receiving satellite television. The mount on the back of the dish has been turned 180 degrees to allow for this. You want the rays to be focused on the bottom of the cooking area instead of the side and this will do the trick. A small grate was added just below the pinnacle of the receiver tripod. For now it has only been used to boil a pot of water. We’d like to see it grilling up some dogs but you’ll have to figure out a way to catch the drippings. We wonder if a transparent baking pan would block too much of the heat energy?
This is a great way to add purpose to neglected equipment. But if you’re serious about solar cooking you need something
more along these lines
. | 29 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "798532",
"author": "johnj",
"timestamp": "2012-09-27T22:32:32",
"content": "Make it heat the bottom of aGRILLA. It’s not really huge, so it shouldn’t block too much light, esp if you can hit it at a slight angle.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,376,726.922094 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/26/roll-your-own-parabolic-microphone/ | Roll Your Own Parabolic Microphone | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"microphone",
"parabola",
"parabolic",
"spy"
] | Parabolic microphones are used to listen in from a distance. You see them on the sidelines of NFL football games, but they’re part of the standard issue in detective and spy novels. Now you can
build your own parabolic microphone
by following this example.
The one component that may be hard to find is the parabolic reflector. You cannot simply use a bowl or other curved object as the precise parabolic shape ensures that sound waves are reflected onto one finite focal point. For this build the reflector was obtained from an eBay seller. But the other parts are scavenged from easy to find sources. The microphone itself is an inexpensive element from Radioshack. It is mounted in the shell from a tweeter speaker, which helps to gather the sound if the element isn’t exactly aligned with the focal point. The setup also needs a preamplification system, which uses many components. Luckily there’s a schematic and other reference material linked in the write up.
You can also
build a laser microphone
which detects sound waves on a pane of glass.
[Thanks Anonymous] | 28 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "796945",
"author": "RobinJood",
"timestamp": "2012-09-26T14:46:28",
"content": "“You see them on the sidelines of NFL football games” or “You don’t see them on the sidelines of NFL football games”?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,376,727.140975 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/26/machine-offers-cheap-advice-charges-more-for-something-profound/ | Machine Offers Cheap Advice – Charges More For Something Profound | Mike Nathan | [
"News",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"fortune",
"linux",
"raspberry pi"
] | [Nick Johnson] recently wrote in, sharing a neat project he put together in his spare time.
Our readers are most likely familiar with the ubiquitous “fortune” program that ships with many *nix distros, offering cheeky comments and quotes with the press of a button. [Nick] thought it would be cool to
build a fortune telling machine
using the app, resulting in the handsome device you see above.
The laser-cut wooden case is home to a Raspberry Pi which does the heavy lifting, a coin acceptor, an LCD screen for displaying the device’s status, along with a SparkFun thermal printer. Upon feeding the machine some money, the user can press the “Advise Me” button, prompting the RaspPi to present a printed fortune from its vast database of sayings. [Nick] took some time to do some rough categorization of the fortune databases, enabling the machine to offer more substantial content as the user inputs more coins.
Check out the video below to see [Nick’s] fortune telling machine in action.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKlPvEEjxMQ&feature=player_embedded] | 17 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "796747",
"author": "Dion",
"timestamp": "2012-09-26T11:23:40",
"content": "Nifty. Something like this could be crafted (With the help of a bit of adver-evil) into a quirky marketing tool. Feed it 50c. Get a coupon for something (greater than 50c worth), a compliment, an insult or a ... | 1,760,376,727.193715 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/25/pantilt-wheel-trainer-ends-up-being-a-different-way-to-play-quake/ | Pan/Tilt Wheel Trainer Ends Up Being A Different Way To Play Quake | Mike Szczys | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"mouse",
"pan",
"quake",
"Tilt",
"vcr",
"vcr head"
] | This is a special controller that [Gary Scott]
built to help train camera operators
. The pan and tilt controls on high-end movie cameras use wheels to pan and tilt smoothly. This rig can be built rather inexpensively and used to practice following a subject as you would with a camera. This is where the project takes a turn into familiar territory. [Gary] set up a system so that you can play the game Quake using this controller, with your feet doing the rest.
The pan/tilt controller uses two heads from an old VCR. They are mounted above the guts from an old ball-type mouse. A couple of rubber belts connect the heads to the two mouse bars that are normally rotated by the ball. This gives him control of where the Quake game is looking. But he still needed to be able to move, jump, change weapons. and shoot. So he built a second controller for his feet. It uses a CD and some switches as a joystick, and a set of buttons for the other controls. He actually rigged up solenoids to each of those foot switches to physically press keys on a keyboard. You really must see it for yourself. We’ve embedded his set of videos after the break. | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "796315",
"author": "Mental2k",
"timestamp": "2012-09-25T21:16:47",
"content": "Not having ever used Garry’s Mod I may be talking utter pants, but wouldn’t that be a good training prog for this. Set up some awkward to film scenes and use this controller to set up the shots. I am of... | 1,760,376,726.97833 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/25/cryptography-learn-what-its-all-about/ | Cryptography – Learn What It’s All About | Mike Szczys | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"cryptography",
"key exchange",
"public-key",
"rsa"
] | The concept of cryptography touches our lives many times per day, and that’s probably a conservative estimate. We have a pretty good idea of how it works, having dealt with public-key cryptography for things like remote git repositories or ssh tunneling without a password. But we still enjoyed reading [Tiberiu Barbu’s] primer on the subject which he calls
From 0 to Cryptography
.
He begins the discussion with a definition of terms but quickly moves to the topic of key distribution. If you’re using a key to decipher data, how can you make sure that key only makes it to the person whom you want reading the data? One way is to use a Diffie-Hellman key exchange. The diagram above illustrates the trade, which uses an agreed upon value (color in this example) as a common starting point, then goes from there. After working our way through the key exchange scenario [Tiberiu] then runs the gammut of other options, include Public-Key, RSA, Hash, Digital Certificate, and a few others. It’s not a long post considering how many topics it covers. If you don’t have time today, make sure to save it for the weekend.
[via
Reddit
] | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "796418",
"author": "Gdogg",
"timestamp": "2012-09-26T00:02:27",
"content": "Great primer. Sent it out to a few friends.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "796468",
"author": "SuperNurd",
"timestamp": "2012-09-26T0... | 1,760,376,727.237047 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/25/personal-energy-orb-prevents-your-life-from-being-swallowed-by-the-internets/ | Personal Energy Orb Prevents Your Life From Being Swallowed By The Internets | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"bicycle",
"cursor",
"exercise",
"RGB LED"
] | We love the Internet, but we are definitely guilty of losing track of the time we spend traipsing around our virtual haunts. This project will not only remind you to get out and exercise, it will
cripple your digital experience if you don’t heed its colorful warning
.
[Janko Hofmann] calls it the Personal Energy Orb. It’s really just an Arduino and an RGB LED. But as with most creations, the idea is what makes it great. The orb has a dock next to your computer. It tracks how much time you spend online, changing colors as you rack up the hours. If you don’t heed the warning signs of overuse it will even start to slow down your mouse cursor. But never fear. Full functionality can be restored by topping off your personal energy. As you can see above, there’s also a docking station on [Janko’s] bicycle. The orb monitors your mileage, moving out of the red zone so that your computer will be unencumbered the next time you sit down for a long session of flash games. Don’t miss his video presentation embedded after the break.
[
Technabob
via
The Verge
] | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "796161",
"author": "Bigdeal",
"timestamp": "2012-09-25T18:48:24",
"content": "I like the idea, but I don’t have the courage and will to not disable the system :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "796188",
"author": "drae... | 1,760,376,727.351199 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/25/wii-nunchuck-controlled-robot-exhibits-rock-solid-balancing/ | Wii Nunchuck Controlled Robot Exhibits Rock Solid Balancing | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"IMU",
"pid",
"self balancing"
] | [Willy Wampa] is showing off
his self-balancing robot
. What strikes us about the build is how well tuned his feedback loop seems to be. In the video after the break you will see that there is absolutely no visible oscillation used to keep its balance.
The parts used are quite easy to obtain. The acrylic mounting plates are his wife’s design and were custom cut through the Pololu service. They were also the source of the gear motors. He’s using a SparkFun IMU with an Arduino and a motor shield. He first posted about the build about a month ago, but
the new revision
switches to a Pololu motor driver shield which he says works much better, and adds control via a wireless Wii Nunchuck.
The PID loop which gives it that remarkably solid upright stance is
from a library
written by [Brett Beauregard]. Once again the concept of open source lets us build great things by standing on the shoulders of others.
[via
Reddit
] | 24 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "796072",
"author": "JB",
"timestamp": "2012-09-25T17:32:18",
"content": "Very cool. It reminded me of R2D2 chasing the ewoks with the electric zapper :P",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "796084",
"author": "David",
"timest... | 1,760,376,727.45823 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/25/another-great-backyard-observatory-build/ | Another Great Backyard Observatory Build | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"astronomy",
"observatory",
"telescope"
] | With a little help from their friends [Jeff Fisher] and his dad
built this observatory in their back yard
. Their use of simple building materials and techniques show that you can create a respectable home observatory without breaking the bank.
It starts with a footing for the telescope mount. This is completely separated from the building that surrounds it so there will be no issue with vibrations affecting the images it is capturing. From there a foundation made of cinder blocks was laid before placing joists and installing a sub floor. It was during this process that they trenched and placed conduit to run power to the building. With the floor in place the walls were stick built and a carefully crafted dome was assembled and hefted in place by this septet of gentlemen.
Four months was all it took to get to this point, but [Jeff] and his dad are still working on a deck to go around the observatory. They’re using a very nice telescope that they purchased, but it is also possible to
build one of those yourself
.
[via Reddit] | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "796081",
"author": "ScottV",
"timestamp": "2012-09-25T17:44:45",
"content": "Fantastic job guys. Well Done!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "796117",
"author": "AC",
"timestamp": "2012-09-25T18:10:41",
"content": "Ya,... | 1,760,376,727.396701 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/27/nyan-cat-the-playstation-game/ | Nyan Cat: The PlayStation Game | Mike Szczys | [
"Playstation Hacks"
] | [
"game",
"homebrew",
"nyan cat",
"playstation",
"psx",
"sony"
] | We’d bet you didn’t know there was
a Nyan Cat game for the original PlayStation
. Well, there wasn’t one until very recently. This isn’t a title that has been licensed by Sony, and we bet you won’t spend hours playing such a thing. But the concept has let [Haunted] hone his development skills.
We’re not certain how he’s getting around the copy protection for PSX games, but we know there are a few different exploits out there. If you happen to have your own method playing homebrew games you can even download the bin/cue files to try this out for yourself.
After the break you can watch a demo clip of the game. It boots like normal until you hit a black screen with white text which displays a loading percentage. This is followed closely by the rainbow spewing feline pastry. The sound takes a minute to play but you can be sure it’s there. Currently there’s no scoring system but that’s in the works for a future revision. | 26 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "798399",
"author": "DanAdamKOF",
"timestamp": "2012-09-27T20:11:39",
"content": "I’ll have to run this on one of my modded playstations during an upcoming game night :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "798414",
"author": "Ski... | 1,760,376,727.547684 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/27/how-to-add-audio-in-to-the-sony-nex-5-line-of-dslr-cameras/ | How To Add Audio In To The Sony NEX-5 Line Of DSLR Cameras | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"audio in",
"dslr",
"flash",
"jack",
"microphone",
"nex-5",
"sony"
] | [Tynan] loves his Sony NEX-5 camera but he’s fed up with not being able to choose any external microphone when recording video. Recently he set out to remedy that, and managed to
add an audio in jack without modify the camera itself
.
The real trick here is to modify how a microphone accessory connects to the camera. In [Tynan’s] tutorial video (embedded after the break) he uses the enclosure from a flash module as a connector. After removing the electronics he’s left with plenty of room for the guts of a Sony microphone accessory. Those include the PCB and wiring, but not the microphone element itself. A 3.5mm audio jack is added to the flash case, and soldered to the microphone cable. Now he has a modular audio-in jack. The only problem is that his tinkering resulted in mono only. If you don’t mind spending a bit more time reverse engineering the scrapped microphone we bet you can parlay that into a true stereo option. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "798470",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2012-09-27T21:33:00",
"content": "Stereo option would be up to the hardware sound chip. Little chance to do stereo in.I would like to have line in or mic in in STEREO on any laptop I own. No such luck. Does the CD input on the sound util... | 1,760,376,727.674599 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/27/stm32-f4-discovery-tutorial-using-open-source-tools/ | STM32 F4 Discovery Tutorial Using Open Source Tools | Mike Szczys | [
"ARM"
] | [
"compiler",
"discovery",
"f3",
"gcc",
"openocd",
"sourcery codebench lite",
"stm32"
] | [Pulko Mandy] got his hands on the new STM32 F3 Discovery board. He’s a fan of the open source tools just like we are, so he posted a guide covering
the use of an open source toolchain with the F3 hardware
.
This board was just
announced earlier this month
but there is already support for it in OpenOCD. It’s not all that different from the F4 board, which we would think made the process a bit easier. [Pulko] is using the Sourcery CodeBench Lite toolchain, which works for pretty much all of the ARM chips out there. It is GCC based and comes with GDB for debugging (along with all the other tools you would expect). He did created his own Linker script and startup code. These are crucial for ARM so it’s nice that he provided them for us. He finishes up the guide by showing how OpenOCD can be used to flash the code to the chip and how it works with the debugger.
[
Photo source
] | 19 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "798300",
"author": "tophathacker",
"timestamp": "2012-09-27T18:28:16",
"content": "The title should say F3 not F4",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "798424",
"author": "rir",
"timestamp": "2012-09-27T20:41:01",
"content... | 1,760,376,727.907991 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/27/tri-mounted-monitors-using-strut-channeling-no-welding/ | Tri-mounted Monitors Using Strut Channeling (no Welding) | Mike Szczys | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"bracket",
"channel",
"monitor",
"mount",
"strut",
"vesa"
] | [Optec] want his own triple monitor setup built to his specifications. It turns out to have been a pretty easy project thanks to his mastery of stock materials. The image above is just a bit dim, but if you look closely you can see the
strut channel which makes up the monitor frame
.
When it comes to this type of
metal strut material
there’s a lot to choose from. [Optec] went with the half-slot format which provides a little bit of left and right wiggle room. This is important to get the edges of those monitors to butt up to one another. After making a pair of relief cuts he bent the channel in two places, using 45 degree brackets as reinforcement. The monitor mounts are made of MDF with countersunk holes to hide the bolt heads which connect it to the channel.
He figures the total cost of the mount was around $40. Seeing how easy it was makes us think we may never buy a commercial TV mounting bracket again. Of course if you’re more into woodworking there’s
a tri-monitor project for you too
.
[via
reddit
] | 15 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "798240",
"author": "Eirinn",
"timestamp": "2012-09-27T17:22:46",
"content": "Nice build! And very cheap compared to the commercial solutions. If I get the money for 3 monitors I’ll see if I can work out making one of those.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,376,727.769808 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/27/laser-power-system-keeps-uavs-flying-indefinitely/ | Laser Power System Keeps UAVs Flying Indefinitely | Mike Szczys | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"charger",
"drone",
"laser",
"photovoltaic",
"uav"
] | Drone technology is driving the aerospace industry as companies trip over each other trying to develop the next big thing. Here’s a good example of what we’re talking about.
Lasers can no be used to keep a UAV in the air
indefinitely. The trick is to add an array of photovoltaic cells specifically tuned to an IR laser’s wavelength. A ground system then directs a high-intensity laser beam onto the aircraft’s cell array to transfer energy while in flight.
After the break you can catch a video from a trade show where a Lockheed Martin employee describes the successful testing of such a system. But there’s a lot more information available in
the white paper
(PDF) which Laser Motive has released. They’re the folks behind the technology who have teamed up with LM to implement the system. The laser unit on the ground can track a UAV visually, but there is also a method of using GPS coordinates to do so in the case of overcast skies.
[Thanks Bearmos] | 60 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "798179",
"author": "Julien",
"timestamp": "2012-09-27T16:08:54",
"content": "Who will be the first one to make it work on a small RC heli ? would need less power, between 3 to 5W laser if remember my battery power values.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,730.030442 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/27/hands-on-the-stellaris-launchpad/ | Hands On The Stellaris Launchpad | Mike Szczys | [
"ARM",
"News"
] | [
"arm",
"cortex-m4",
"dev board",
"launchpad",
"stellaris",
"ti",
"usb"
] | We just got our hands on a Stellaris Launchpad. We had placed an order
when the preorder was originally announced
, but the marketing folks at TI reached out an offered to send us one a bit sooner and took them up on it. We’ve embedded a quick unboxing video after the break but read on for some info that didn’t make it into that clip.
The look and feel of the board and its packaging are almost exactly the same as the MSP430 version of the Launchpad. But why not? After all it worked so well the first time. This board hosts an ARM Cortex-M4 processor. The two buttons on the bottom are user buttons, the one on the upper right is a reset button. The top of the board is the programmer, with a micro USB port for connectivity. The kit also includes about a 2′ cable for this connection. Next to that jack is a switch that selects a power source. You’ll also notice a USB port to the left, this because the processor includes USB functionality, with a free library available from TI. Power can come from the programmer/debugger USB port, or from this device USB port. There are dual pin headers to either side on the face of the board, and pin sockets on the back which break out pins of the processor. Just below the reset button is a RGB LED, and a clock crystal has also been populated just above the chip.
When plugged in via the programmer’s USB port the PWR LED lights up as does the RGB LED. The firmware that ships on the device fades through a range of colors and the user buttons scroll through a set of predefined colors. The device enumerates as: “Bus 002 Device 005: ID 1cbe:00fd Luminary Micro Inc.” on our machine. But if you connect it via the device USB jack it enumerates as: “Bus 001 Device 015: ID 04e8:689e Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd GT-S5670 [Galaxy Fit]”. Interesting.
We have no idea if there are programming tools for flashing the board using a Linux box, but we’ll be trying to figure it out. If you have some info please share it in the comments. | 49 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "798085",
"author": "jc",
"timestamp": "2012-09-27T14:32:43",
"content": "I’ll definitely post everything from programming to debugging (and possibly C startup code, etc) here once it arrives. I ordered 2 at the very hour you made the original post about it so I hope it’s here soon."... | 1,760,376,729.661101 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/27/beginners-look-at-on-chip-debugging/ | Beginner’s Look At On-Chip Debugging | Mike Szczys | [
"ARM",
"how-to"
] | [
"arm",
"debugging",
"gdb",
"linux",
"openocd",
"stm32"
] | As your embedded applications get more complicated an On-Chip Debugger will save you a lot of time when things don’t run quite right. On-Chip Debugging (OCD) is just what it sounds like — a way to run your program on the target chip that lets you pause execution to examine values and change them if need be. The Arduino has no built-in method of using OCD, but the AVR chips used by the boards do. The caveat is that you need a proper AVR programmer to access the Debug Wire protocol, or a JTAG interface for some of the larger chips. In this case I’m going to be using an STM32 Discovery Board to give you an overview of OCD. But this will work the same way for any chip that has hardware debugging capabilities. Many IDE’s have debugging support built right in so that you can use a nice GUI as you work. But often these are just a front end for the command line tools I’ll be using. Join me after the break and we’ll get started.
Why use On-Chip Debugging?
Recently I was programming
a game of Snake on an ARM chip
. I had it working and could play for a few minutes but then things would go very wrong. It was most likely a bug in the code, but it could have been a memory problem cause by the startup or linker scripts, a typo, or a bunch of other things. Using OCD I was able to locate and fix the bug in under five minutes. As with software debugging all it took was to put a break point at a part of the program that was my best guess of the problem. This narrowed things down immediately and all I had to do was scan about twenty lines of code to pinpoint my mistake.
Software
In order to do this type of debugging you need three things: a program that controls the chip’s debugging mode, a way to interface with it, and a program which has been compiled with debugging information.
The interface part is easy, we’ll be using GDB (
GNU Debugger
). In almost every case this program is included in the same toolchain as the GCC compiler. Since GDB is used in almost universal circumstances it’s well worth your time to learn how to use. If you’re a software person it’s likely you already have.
In my case I’m using
OpenOCD
to control my ARM processor’s debugging features. It provides a port through which GDB connects. The platform supports a huge range of chips so a little searching should lead you to the commands/config files necessary to talk to different chips. In my case the STM32-Discovery F0 board has support built-in.
To compile with debugging information simply add the ‘-g’ compiler flag when using GCC. For me this merely affects the .elf file so I always include this flag in my makefile.
Getting Everything Running
Prerequisites:
I won’t cover installing a toolchain or OpenOCD. I did some work putting together
a template for developing STM32 F0 projects on Linux
. There are instructions in the readme that detail acquiring a toolchain and compiling OpenOCD with ST-LINK support.
Critical Prerequisite:
Whenever debugging you need to make sure you have compiled your program using the ‘-g’ flag. This rolls the information GDB needs to associate your C code with the machine code running on the chip.
Launch OpenOCD
With the debugging hardware connected (in the case of a Discovery board just plug it into a USB port) I start OpenOCD, specifying the board specific configuration to use. OpenOCD comes with a lot of board files. It’s going to be very rare for you to be the first one debugging any type of hardware so a ready-made configuration file should be available. Here’s the command I use for the Discovery board:
openocd -f /usr/share/openocd/scripts/board/stm32f0discovery.cfg
OpenOCD should now be running, time to launch GDB.
Launch GDB and connect to OpenOCD
When launching GDB it’s a good idea to tell it which debugging file to use. This will be the ‘.elf’ file generated when you compiled code with the ‘-g’ flag. It is very important that you do not use the simple command ‘gdb’. This will indeed launch the GNU Debugger, but not the one necessary for ARM debugging. For that we need to use the command for the cross compiled toolchain used to compile the ARM code:
arm-none-eabi-gdb main.elf
Once GDB starts up we need to tell it to connect to our target chip. This is done with a couple of keywords, and a port on which OpenOCD has been listening:
target remote :3333
Now we are connected and can use the GDB commands to start debugging.
Using GDB
Theoretically you can make changes to your program and flash it onto the chip while debugging. The software tools I have don’t offer that capability for this hardware (this is a newer chipset and it’s been a long time since I compiled OpenOCD so this may have changed). Here’s some general commands which should work with most chips:
file – tell GDB which file to use for debugging (I passed this as an argument when launching GDB)
load – flash the binary onto the chip (doesn’t work for me with the STM32F0Discovery board)
monitor – send special commands to the server (OpenOCD)
I use the monitor command to control the chip. To reset the chip (after setting break points, etc) the command ‘monitor reset halt’ tells OpenOCD to reset the ARM processor but do not start program execution yet.
The basic commands you will use while debugging include:
continue – start program execution and don’t stop unless a breakpoint/watchpoint/etc. is reached
break – add a breakpoint. This can be specified as the name of a function, or a line of code. When execution reaches this point the processor will be halted and you can check on your data
print – prints the value of a variable or memory address. Use this to see what’s up with your code
display – cause the ‘print’ command to be executed on a specified variable every time a break point is reached
There are just way too many commands to outline here. The majority of GDB commands are platform-agnostic, so searching for tricks and tips should be pretty simple. I find the best tool is this
GDB Refcard
(PDF). I’ll let you take a look at it yourself, but one important thing to note is the difference between the ‘next’ and ‘step’ commands. Next will let the processor run until the next line of code is reached, honoring function calls if they occur. Step will do the same but it will not follow any function calls.
The best bet is to watch the demo video, then give debugging a try for yourself. Help is just a Google search away, and the tricks of the trade are easy to learn. Good luck! | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "797932",
"author": "behzat_c",
"timestamp": "2012-09-27T12:18:00",
"content": "The video goes smoothly for some time and then stops and then continues. This happens periodically.The voice is OK.The situation is really disturbing.Is it just me or anyone having this issue also?Great m... | 1,760,376,730.149653 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/26/motorized-wheelchair-built-from-lego-pieces/ | Motorized Wheelchair Built From LEGO Pieces | Mike Szczys | [
"Toy Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"mindstorm",
"motorized",
"WheelChair"
] | You’re certainly not going to sneak up on anyone if using
this LEGO motorized wheelchair
. The high-pitched whine of all those tiny motors sounds like an army of robotic mosquitoes out for blood.
Six of the LEGO Mindstorm bricks are used to drive the motors, with a seventh acting as the master. It’s not pictured above, but there is a joystick on the right hand side which allows the rider to navigate. The master brick monitors the four sensors on that joystick. It then uses a pair of motors to actuate switches monitored by the slave bricks. Each slave has one switch for forward, and another for backward and drives two motors. To get around problems with angular velocities dues to turning, all of the wheels are multidirectional.
The plan is to add Bluetooth control in the near future. The master/slave setup should make that relatively easy as it only affects one of the bricks. The idea is to facilitate Android control to the chair
like we’ve seen in other Mindstorm builds
.
Don’t miss the demo embedded after the break. | 18 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "797459",
"author": "Colecago",
"timestamp": "2012-09-27T00:13:59",
"content": "That thing is stupidly awesome!Now someone needs to make a pizza box wheelchair.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "797475",
"author": "sjamaan",
... | 1,760,376,729.526957 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/26/quacking-egg-timer/ | Quacking Egg Timer | Mike Szczys | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"duck",
"egg timer",
"launchpad",
"msp430",
"quack",
"timer"
] | [Tom] managed to build
a geeky, quirky digital timer for the kitchen
. Where most would have used a few seven segment displays along with some buttons and called it done, he found a way to make it a lot more fun. The plush addition on top is a yellow ducky with an orange beak. When time runs out the duck will quack, call you back to the kitchen.
As you can see in the video after the break, [Tom’s] got his hands full with the family. This project was quick enough for him to fit it in during what dwindling free time he manages to hold onto. He used one of the chips that came with his MSP430 Launchpad. Since this family of processors offer extremely low-power modes when asleep they’re perfect for this type of battery-powered application. As for the duck, it’s a toy that had a couple of watch batteries and a small PCB inside. Some poking around led him to a pad that activates the quacking when grounded. | 11 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "797379",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2012-09-26T22:00:11",
"content": "So can I only use this for timing hard boiled duck eggs or what, I’m confused.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "797380",
"author": "Gdogg",
"... | 1,760,376,729.575104 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/26/midi-man-in-the-middle-hack-lets-you-add-pedal-to-the-mix/ | MIDI Man-in-the-middle Hack Lets You Add Pedal To The Mix | Mike Szczys | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"keyboard",
"midi",
"pedal",
"synthesizer"
] | [Sebastian] has a friend who would like to use a pedal with his MIDI setup, but his keyboard doesn’t support one. Some might interpret that as a sign you need to buy a new keyboard. But [Sebastian] has already done a lot of work with the MIDI protocol. He knew it should be possible to
create a MIDI pass-through which adds support for a pedal
.
You can see the two MIDI cables connected to the box above. One is the input from the keyboard, the other is the output to the synthesizer. There is also a jack for a pedal input to the left. The chip inside intercepts each packet, rolling in values based from the pedal input and passing on the altered packets to the synthesizer. As you can hear in the video after the break, this works like a charm.
Catch more of [Sebastian’s] midi work by following
his keyboard sensor replacement projects
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "797381",
"author": "sebion",
"timestamp": "2012-09-26T22:02:26",
"content": "Actually my friend is using a guitar to midi converter to control a synthesizer keyboard. And you know midi equipment that has cool stuff like progressive pedal inputs are rather expensive ;)",
"parent_... | 1,760,376,730.191867 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/26/zelda-engagement-ring-box-seals-the-deal/ | Zelda Engagement Ring Box Seals The Deal | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"engagement",
"ring",
"wave shield",
"zelda"
] | Congratulations to [John Scancella] and his wife to be. Their recent engagement was aided by one of [John’s] projects. Since [Betsy] is a big fan of Zelda, he thought it would be fun to present the ring with the Zelda music playing in the background. He and a friend combined forces to build what you seen in this image.
The music is played by an Arduino with the help of a wave shield. This is pretty much a one-use item so battery life was never a concern. A magnetic switch was used to detect when the box was opened and start the music playing.
You can see the full-sized images after the break, but we can tell that [John] went with a traditional engagement ring. We’re still waiting to see if
3D printed rings
are going to catch on in the geek scene. If you just can’t give her anything but precious metal there’s always the idea of
encoding messages on the band itself
. | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "797289",
"author": "sillyzombie666",
"timestamp": "2012-09-26T19:54:16",
"content": "lol man that awesome, i made a box like this and had so many people talk to me about making an engagement ring box. all you need is a $11 radio shack sound module and a lever switch",
"parent_id... | 1,760,376,729.938037 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/26/hybrid-rocket-engine-uses-acrylic-as-fuel/ | Hybrid Rocket Engine Uses Acrylic As Fuel | Mike Szczys | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"acrylic",
"ben krasnow",
"fuel",
"hybrid",
"oxygen",
"rocket"
] | We are fascinated by
the hybrid rocket engine
which [Ben Krasnow] built and tested in his shop. It is actually using a hollow cylinder of acrylic as the fuel, with gaseous oxygen as an oxidizer. We’re already quite familiar with
solid rocket propellant
, but this hybrid approach is much different.
When a rocket motor using solid propellant is lit it continues to burn until all of the fuel is consumed. That is not the case with this design. The acrylic is actually burning, but if the flow of oxygen is cut off it will go out and can be ignited later. This also opens up the possibility of adjusting thrust by regulating the pressure of the oxygen feed.
[Ben] milled the test rig in his shop. It’s a fat acrylic rod through which he bored a hole. There are two aluminum plates which complete either end of the chamber. The intake has a fitting for a valve which connects to the oxygen tank. There is a nozzle on the outflow end. Check out the video after the break to see a full description. You’ll also get a look at the toll the combustion heat takes on the rig.
[Thanks Cesar] | 33 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "797162",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2012-09-26T18:11:08",
"content": "The build is cool, but do you people watch mythbusters? Salami Rocket. Damn near any organic compound is rocket fuel when you add O2 gas.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,729.879585 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/26/astounding-papercraft-skills-result-in-this-working-robot/ | Astounding Papercraft Skills Result In This Working Robot | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"gift",
"papercraft",
"robot",
"toy"
] | It would have been very hard to believe this is made from paper if we hadn’t seen all the parts being built. As a still image it looks neat, but the speed at which those paper gears turn in the video after the break will certainly leave you slack-jawed. It really is
a walking robot made using papercraft
(
translated
).
These are actually being sold as kits, but there’s not much in the way of materials. You’ll get six sheets of paper, some skewers which act as the axles, and a bit of elastic band which stores potential energy when winding-up the model. The genius is in the design, which is printed on those sheets of paper. The build process involves plenty of delicate work. Dozens of cuts lead into hundreds of folds, and that’s before assembly even starts. We’ve never considered building a ship in a bottle, but this might be right up our alley. If you need to give a gift to a tinkerer this should show up high on the idea list.
Robot demo
Assembly process
[via
Make
] | 20 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "797111",
"author": "raidscsi",
"timestamp": "2012-09-26T17:22:06",
"content": "Needs to use the same sticks suckers use instead of wood, That way the only non paper is the rubber band.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "797285",
... | 1,760,376,730.091733 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/26/crystal-doorbell-helps-class-up-the-joint/ | Crystal Doorbell Helps Class Up The Joint | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"crystal",
"doorbell",
"glass",
"servo"
] | Even if you live in a dump this quick build will
make your doorbell sound high-class
. The new rig uses a crystal goblet to alert you of guests at the door. We suppose the room-silencing sound of flatware on a wine glass does make a great attention getter.
For [Tobias] the hardest part of the build was getting his wife to sign off on it. But he says the 1970’s era original was looking pretty shabby, which kind of made his argument for him. It took just two hours to develop and install the replacement. It uses a servo motor with an articulated striker to ping the glass which is hanging inverted between two pegs. The original AC transformer (which are most often 16V) was used to power the Arduino. He built a simple rectifier along with a big smoothing capacitor to make sure the Arduino doesn’t reset when voltage dips. Although it’s not mentioned in his comments, we’d bet the doorbell wire has been rerouted to connect directly to the Arduino, rather than remain patched into the power loop.
Don’t miss the clip after the break to hear how great this thing really does sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS-08X75RqU | 23 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "797025",
"author": "niekblankers",
"timestamp": "2012-09-26T16:06:08",
"content": "He could also’ve used asmallsolenoid, makes less sound than the servo",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "797221",
"author": "Eirinn",
... | 1,760,376,729.717521 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/repairing-a-vfd-driver-on-a-car-stereo/ | Repairing A VFD Driver On A Car Stereo | Mike Szczys | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"display",
"driver",
"head unit",
"stereo",
"vfd"
] | We love seeing repairs and always marvel at the ability to track down the problem. [Todd] seems to have a knack for this. He was met with a lot of adversity when
trying to get the Vacuum Fluorescent Display working on his car stereo
. A lot of persistence, and a little bit of taking the easier way out let him accomplish his goal.
The head unit is out of his 1994 Jeep. He knew the radio functionality still worked, but the display was completely dark. After getting it out of the dashboard he connected it to a bench supply and started probing around. He established that the data lines were still working by setting the radio to auto scan mode and testing with a multimeter. When he went to measure the cathode pins he didn’t get any reading. It seems the driver which supplies that signal is burnt out.
One easy fix would be to replace the parts from a scavenged unit. [Todd] hit the junkyard and picked up one from a Jeep that was just one model year apart from his. Alas, they weren’t exactly the same, and although he swapped out a chip (using a neat heated solder sucker) it didn’t work. In the end he simply dropped in a power resistor to use the 12V rail as a 1V at 0.1A source for the filament.
You can see his repair extravaganza in the video after the break. If you’re looking for tips on scavenging these types of displays
check out this post
. | 29 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "795134",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T20:11:12",
"content": "Good to keep original gear in place, it has less theft appeal.Are you sure there wasn’t a bad solder joint in the original ckt. These kind of resistors often fail on the board joint.",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,376,731.201587 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/an-actively-cooled-cloud-chamber/ | An Actively Cooled Cloud Chamber | Mike Szczys | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"alcohol",
"cloud chamber",
"peltier",
"radioactive",
"vapor"
] | This cloud chamber is designed to
keep the environment friendly for observing ionizing radiation
. The group over at the LVL1 Hackerspace put it together and posted everything you need to know to try it out for yourself.
A cloud chamber uses a layer of alcohol vapor as a visual indicator of ionizing particles. As the name suggests, this vapor looks much like a cloud and the particles rip though it like tiny bullets. You can’t see the particles, but the turbulence they cause in the vapor is quite visible. Check out the .GIF example linked at the very bottom of their writeup.
The chamber itself uses a Peltier cooler and a CPU heat sink. The mounting and insulation system is brilliant and we think it’s the most reliable way we’ve seen of putting one of these together. Just remember that you need a radioactive source inside the chamber or you’ll be waiting a long time to see any particles. They’re using a test source here, but we saw a cloud chamber at our own local Hackerspace that used thoriated tungsten welding rods which are slightly radioactive.
[Thanks JAC_101] | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "795069",
"author": "dbear",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T19:00:05",
"content": "Great project and very clean. Would be great for a class or science fair project.LVL1 Folks:Not to be a spelling Nazi but “presence” is misspelled in the first paragraph.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth"... | 1,760,376,730.729213 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/garage-door-opener-used-to-automatically-lower-a-game-table-top/ | Garage Door Opener Used To Automatically Lower A Game Table Top | Jesse Congdon | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"garage door opener",
"home automation",
"ping pong"
] | [Lou] is at it again, and this time he wrote in to let us know about his automated
ping pong table topper
. With no good spot to stash an entire extra table [Lou] decided to take a two in one game table approach and fit the top of the ping pong table to his pool table. A ping pong table top is no small thing though and it turns out the best (or maybe coolest) place to store it is above the ceiling! At the flip of a switch a garage door opener pulls away a section of ceiling tiles and a winch motor lowers the table top into place with two cables.
The system works very smoothly using some pretty easy to find parts. [Lou’s] instructional video (embedded after the break) shows the system in action and explains the concepts behind the automation. We aren’t sure how the winch stops lowering the table, but the ceiling section uses a light switch and spring combo as its limit switch. The only thing really missing is the flashing red light, industrial klaxon, and fog machine needed to compliment the screeching nightmare-howl of that winch motor. | 17 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "794929",
"author": "doxin",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T17:14:27",
"content": "where’s the video?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "794933",
"author": "Juun",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T17:18:14",
"content": "There:http://w... | 1,760,376,730.679432 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/wiper-motor-motion-simulator/ | Wiper Motor Motion Simulator | Eric Evenchick | [
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"driving sim",
"motion sim"
] | [DERIY] set out to create a
two degrees of freedom motion simulator
for driving simulation. After four months, he’s completed this impressive simulator for about $400. The simulator receives driving data from the game and actuates the seat to provide tactile feedback to the driver.
To keep the costs low, he decided to use wiper motors for actuating the seat. The system is controlled by the
Thanos AMC Motion Controller
. This AVR based system connects over USB and controls the motor drivers. There’s also a collection of software for calibrating the system, including tuning the PID control and setting up the feedback potentiometers. An LCD display provides some information on the system status during operation.
If you’ve ever wanted to build a motion simulator, this is a good example of how to get started. The open source hardware for this makes controlling the system easier, and using readily available components can lower the build cost.
Check out a video of the simulator in action after the break.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFtJk9StXCI | 17 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "794875",
"author": "Mark",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T16:27:50",
"content": "I think I like the use of lego tecnic components the most. :P",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "794907",
"author": "KillerBug",
"timestamp": "2012-... | 1,760,376,730.624511 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/stargate-eggbeater/ | StarGate Eggbeater | Eric Evenchick | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"lpd8806",
"POV",
"RGB LED"
] | [Jason] used a strip of 142 Adafruit LPD8806 Addressable RGB LEDs to create the
StarGate Eggbeater
persistence of vision display. The LED strips are controlled by an Arduino Mega, which is used to control the strip and provides 21 bit color control for each LED. The strip is housed into a ring-shaped tube which is mounted onto a rod and bearing to allow it to spin. A 1/4 HP motor is used to spin the ring at 250 RPM creating the POV effect.
One issue when controlling a spinning object is making electrical connections to a spinning object. The LPD8806 requires four connections: power, ground, clock, and data. To make the connections, [Jason] used a
MOOG Slip Ring
. This allows for the four connections to be made while the ring spins at 250 RPM.
Of course POV demos need videos, so check one out the “boss program” video after the break.
Via
Adafruit
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wqIyxzFOIU&w=450] | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "794810",
"author": "StarGate comment",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T15:38:38",
"content": "Looks cool, but I do not see what it has to do with Stargate.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "795777",
"author": "Dave",
"t... | 1,760,376,730.839735 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/uv-leds-expose-pcbs-gives-you-a-tan/ | UV LEDs Expose PCBs, Gives You A Tan | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"UV exposure box",
"UV LED"
] | Among the projects that define electronic design, a UV exposure box is right up at the top of the list. These boxes shine UV light on a work piece and are used for everything from exposing photosensitive PCBs to erasing EPROMs. [carlolog]
decided to build his own
and ended up with a fairly impressive array of ultraviolet LEDs perfect for making PCBs or tanning the back of your hand.
One important thing to remember when making large arrays of LEDs is current consumption and power needed to light the device up. [carlolog] naive assessment of how much power would be required used a 12 volt supply with 135 LEDs and 135 resistors, wasting a lot of energy and producing 24 Watts of heat.
Of course this power consumption can be reduced by putting a few LEDs in series, so [carlolog] wired 3 LEDs together with a 150Ω resistor. This array requires just over 11 Watts and consumes less than 1 Amp; perfect for a desktop UV box.
The enclosure for the box was crafted out of three Ikea photo frames, and a small timer circuit powered by an ATmega8 was added. Now whenever [carlolog] needs to wipe an EPROM, he can put the chip in the box, set the timer, and walk away.
A very nice build, but when dealing with a lot of UV we must remind our readers: do not look into the UV array with your remaining eye. | 30 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "794709",
"author": "Alex McAlpine",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T14:11:10",
"content": "I like the warning, Hackaday definitely knows it’s audience. Well done/useful build!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "794717",
"author": "S",... | 1,760,376,730.792904 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/adding-digital-readout-to-a-non-cnc-mill/ | Adding Digital Readout To A Non-CNC Mill | Brian Benchoff | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"digital readout",
"digital scales",
"machining",
"mill"
] | In the quest to add a digital readout to his mill, [Yuriy] has done a lot of homework. He’s sourced a trio of very capable scales, researched what kind of hardware his DRO should be based on, and even built a very cool display using seven-segment LEDs. After nearly a year of work, [Yuriy] finally hit upon something that works well: an Arduino and an Android tablet, perfectly matched for
one of the prettiest machine shop displays
we’ve ever seen.
[Yuriy] based his build off a trio of digital scales he
bought from Grizzly
. These scales bolt on to the frame of his mill and send data to their own display. An Arduino was used to pull the data off these scales and sent via Bluetooth to a Nexus 7 Android tablet.
Considering a DRO solely based on an Arduino and a character LCD would look a little chintzy – and the fact Arduinos can’t do floating point arithmetic – we’re really impressed with [Yuriy]’s very elegant solution.
Thanks [Lee] for sending this one in. | 28 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "794643",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T13:07:29",
"content": "Arduino *can* do floating point math.Slowly.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "794664",
"author": "andres",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T13... | 1,760,376,730.903323 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/25/this-diy-fume-extractor-will-be-a-showpiece-for-your-workbench/ | This Diy Fume Extractor Will Be A Showpiece For Your Workbench | Mike Szczys | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"enclosure",
"fan",
"fume extractor",
"spray paint"
] | We have no idea how well
this diy fume extractor
works, but it sure does look great! We’ve been thinking that it’s time to stop trying to blow away the solder fumes while working on project and this might be just the kind of motivation we need. The 6″ cube doesn’t get in the way of your work, and since it includes a carbon filter it should keep the smell of burning flux to a minimum.
[Jeff’s] project basically brings together a 120mm PC cooling fan with a power source. The fan mounts inside of a steel enclosure he picked up from Digikey. The face plates that come with it were modified to accept the fan, as well as the grill hardware that goes with it. Before assembling he painted the box with some Rustoleum “Hammered” black spray paint. This gives it a texture that will hide any imperfections in your application.
We’re a bit hazy on how this is being powered. It sounds like he’s plugging the cord into mains but we don’t see any type of regulator to feed what must be a 12V DC fan. There are
build instruction available
but they didn’t clear up our confusion. | 28 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "795867",
"author": "Hashiriya",
"timestamp": "2012-09-25T15:04:30",
"content": "The link says it’s an AC powered fan. You should be able to get something similar at a surplus store or the like.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": ... | 1,760,376,731.134739 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/25/tutorial-explains-the-concepts-behind-an-imu/ | Tutorial Explains The Concepts Behind An IMU | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"acceleromete",
"adxl345",
"gyroscope",
"IMU",
"processing"
] | [Anilm3] wrote in to share the IMU tutorial series he is working on. An Inertial Measurement Unit is most often found in self-balancing robots and quadcopters, providing enough high-speed sensor data to keep up with the effects of gravity. He previously used some all-in-one IMU devices in school which did most of the work for him. But he wanted to grind down and look at what each sensor spits out and how those measurements are used.
The first installment deals with the accelerometer
, using its data to calculate pitch and roll. For these demonstrations [Anilm3] is using this ADXL345 sensor board, an Arduino, and some processing sketches for testing.
Whenever working with sensors you need to take noise into consideration. The post shows how to implement a low-pass filter in the code which will help smooth out the readings. The filtered data is then fed to a couple of mostly-painless formulas which calculate the movement of the accelerometer in degrees. The demonstration sketch is mapped to a 3D cube to give you an idea of how accurate the accelerometer is. There’s a little bit of lag which would let a self-balancing robot have a nasty fall. The solution to this issue will be discussed in upcoming parts of the series. The next installment tackles the gyroscope sensor. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "795743",
"author": "Dax",
"timestamp": "2012-09-25T13:23:49",
"content": "On the side, are there any good tutorials for programming simple applications to interface with your serial/USB devices without having to use some silly IDE, just basic command line stuff for Windows (or Linux... | 1,760,376,730.947918 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/25/making-your-anime-papercraft-move-to-the-music/ | Making Your Anime Papercraft Move To The Music | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"animatronics",
"attiny44",
"AVR",
"leekspin",
"lm741",
"opamp",
"servo"
] | This anime character is
dancing to the music thanks to some animatronic tricks
which [Scott Harden] put together. She dances perfectly, exhibiting different arm and head movements at just the right time. The secret to the synchronization is actually in the right channel of the audio being played.
The character in question is from an Internet meme called the Leekspin song. [Scott] reproduced it on some foam board, adding a servo to one arm to do the leek spinning, and another to move the head. These are both driven by an ATtiny44. All of the movements have been preprogrammed to go along with the audio track. But he needed a way to synchronize the beginning of each action set. The solution was to re-encode the audio with one track devoted to a set of sine wave pulses. The right audio channel feeds to the AVR chip via an LM741 opamp. Each sine wave triggers the AVR to execute the next dance move in the sequence. You can see the demo video for the project after the break. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "795729",
"author": "mur1010",
"timestamp": "2012-09-25T13:09:04",
"content": "Cool design, except for the fact that I hate Mikku’s version of Ievan Polkka. Pauli Räsänen’s one is way better.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "79576... | 1,760,376,730.997043 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/25/turning-3d-prints-into-aluminum-castings/ | Turning 3D Prints Into Aluminum Castings | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"aluminium",
"casting"
] | [Jeshua] needed a laser head attachment for a 5×10 foot CNC machine he’s working on. Because he has a 3D printer, [Jeshua] could easily print a laser mount and attach it to his CNC gantry, but that wouldn’t look very professional. Instead of decorating his gigantic machine with brightly colored plastic, he decided for a more industrial look by
casting a laser head in aluminum
using a 3D printed master.
[Jeshua] designed two parts for his laser cutter in OpenSCAD and printed them out on his 3D printer. A few bits of foam insulation were glued on to act as sprues, and an investment mold was made out of 1 part Plaster of Paris and 1 part playground sand.
After the mold had cured, [Jeshua] put is mold in a coffee can furnace to burn out the wax and foam. These hollow molds were placed in sand and the crucible loaded up with aluminum scrap.
The finished laser head fit his CNC machine perfectly – no small feat, considering [Jeshua] needed to take in to account how much the aluminum would contract after cooling. Not bad for one day’s work. | 54 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "795618",
"author": "Alex Henrique",
"timestamp": "2012-09-25T11:24:00",
"content": "Here we have more info about:http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD2A7F5FD2D3C3088&feature=plcp",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "802113",
... | 1,760,376,731.297065 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/bacemaker-weds-organ-foot-pedals-with-guitar-whammy-effects/ | BaceMaker Weds Organ Foot Pedals With Guitar Whammy Effects | Mike Szczys | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"555",
"bass",
"organ",
"pedal"
] | [Jon Ferwerda] managed to fry the analog electronics on an old electric organ while conducting some circuit bending experiments. It’s a loss, but he’s still left with some cool equipment to play with. Recently he got to work
generating tones using the organ’s foot pedals
.
There were two types of foot pedal included with this organ, the set that is arranged like a keyboard, and a rocker pedal similar to what you might use with an electric sewing machine. Since the music generation was handled by those fried bits of organ [Jon] got to work interfacing the foot keyboard with a 555 timer. He used a fairly large capacitor to get the frequency into the bass range and wired individual pedals to different parts of a resistor network. But he didn’t stop with that. The rocker pedal has its own variable resistor hardware which lets him bend the pitches are they are being generated which sounds alike like a guitar whammy effect. He shows his work in the clip after the break. We think he nailed it! This is a perfect supplement to
any type of electronic music setup
. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "795281",
"author": "zuul",
"timestamp": "2012-09-25T00:20:54",
"content": "not bad, pretty good sine wave… i would be careful with connecting it to a guitar amp though because the 555 would probably output a higher level signalyou should change your write up though because he added ... | 1,760,376,731.343541 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/kayak-to-sailboat-conversion-shows-how-to-weld-plastics/ | Kayak To Sailboat Conversion Shows How To Weld Plastics | Mike Szczys | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"hdpe",
"kayak",
"plastic",
"sailboat",
"welding"
] | This
kayak to sailboat conversion
is well done and makes for an interesting project. But even if you’re not going to be hitting the water on one of your own, the construction techniques are a useful resource to keep in mind. Many of the alterations were done with a plastic welding iron.
[RLZerr] shows off the materials that went into the build right at the beginning of the video which you’ll find after the break. His kayak is made of High Density Polyethylene and he uses other HDPE scraps, PCV parts, and even some aluminum to make everything. To weld HDPE together he uses a plastic welding iron that is like a cross between a soldering iron and a hot glue gun. It has a pad tip that gets hot enough to melt the plastic, but also includes a channel through which additional HDPE filament can be fed to bulk up the connections.
Additions to the kayak include a centerboard, rudder, and mast. The sail is a plastic tarp attached to the PVC mast which has been stiffened with a wooden shovel handle in its core. The rudder and centerboard are aluminum attached to PVC pipes using JB weld. The boat catches the wind easily, but without outriggers [RLZerr] must be careful not to let a big gust swamp him.
[Thanks Bob] | 13 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "795178",
"author": "kerneya",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T21:19:11",
"content": "Instead of trying to stick random pieces of household plastic in the welder for working on something like a kayak just cut some extra right off the cockpit rim. That way you get the same exact composition ... | 1,760,376,731.392696 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/building-an-electric-powered-longboard-for-under-100/ | Building An Electric-powered Longboard For Under $100 | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"electic",
"longboard",
"motor",
"razor scooter"
] | [Alan] doesn’t have to kick to get around town because he
added a removable electric motor to his longboard
. It looks great, and works just as well because he didn’t reinvent the wheel. The idea is a mashup of an electric Razor scooter and his long board.
The majority of the project revolved around mounting everything he needed to the board. When it comes to the drive wheel he designed a tension system. When a rider is not on the board the back wheels of the long board are off the ground by about an inch. The springs in the suspension system make it so when you do mount the board all wheels are touching, with the main drive wheel held tight to the pavement even while turning.
Unlike
some electric skateboard builds
[Alan] didn’t need to raise the board off the ground as the battery compartment is mounted on top of the deck. He added cooling fans for the hot summer days, and even used velcro to attach the charger so that he can juice it up when away from home. Check out his three minute show and tell embedded after the break.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VNC18JMs3o | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "795204",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T22:08:05",
"content": "Notice the itch at the beginning of the video.. Cool board btw!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "795337",
"author": "moser",
"timestamp": "2012-09... | 1,760,376,731.443977 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/22/speech-recognition-on-an-arduino/ | Speech Recognition On An Arduino | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"speech recognition",
"voice recognition"
] | Speech recognition is usually the purview of fairly high-powered computers chugging along at hundreds of Megahertz with megabytes of RAM. Bringing speech recognition to the low-power microcontroller you’d find in an Arduino sounds like the work of a mad scientist or Ph.D. candidate, but that’s exactly what [Arjo Chakravarty] did. He developed the
μSpeech library for the Arduino
to allow for speech recognition for a limited set of voice commands.
Where most speech recognition systems use FFT and very fancy math to determine what phonemes a user is saying, [Arjo]’s system does away with this unnecessary complexity in favor of using very, very basic integral and differential calculus.
From [Arjo]’s
user guide for μSpeech
(PDF warning) we can see it’s possible to connect a small microphone to the analog input of an Arduino and accept voice commands such as ‘left’, ‘right’, and ‘stop’. The accuracy is pretty good, as well – 80% if μSpeech is trying to recognize words, and 30-40% if μSpeech is programmed to recognize single phonemes.
Sadly we couldn’t find a demo video of μSpeech in action, but you’re more than welcome to
grab it via github
for your own project.
Send us a video
of μSpeech in action and we’ll put it up. | 33 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "793244",
"author": "nafix",
"timestamp": "2012-09-22T17:53:14",
"content": "the dspic has a nice speech recognition library for free from microchip. i used it in a project and it is very accurate. the library supports 100 words if i recall correctly",
"parent_id": null,
"dep... | 1,760,376,731.876613 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/22/communicating-with-a-beam-of-light/ | Communicating With A Beam Of Light | Brian Benchoff | [
"LED Hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"full duplex",
"high power LED",
"led"
] | Last weekend, ARRL, the national association of amateur radio, held a contest called, “10 GHz and up” with the goal of communicating via radio or microwaves over long distances. [KA7OEI] and a few friends decided to capitalize on the “and up” portion of the ’10 GHz and up” contest by
setting up a full-duplex voice link over a distance of 95 miles
. They used the 478 THz band, also known as red LEDs and laser pointers.
With [Ka7OEI]’s friends [Ron] and [Elaine] perched atop a 5700 foot-high mountain near Park City, Utah, [Gordon], [Gary] and [KA7OEI] trudged up a hill about 10 miles north of Salt Lake City. With the help of a pair of 500,000 candlepower spotlights, the two teams found each other and began pointing increasingly higher power LEDs at each other.
The teams started off with 3 Watt red LEDs before moving up to 30 Watt LEDs and a photodetector at each end. Even though the teams weren’t working with a true line-of-sight – refraction of the atmosphere allowed them to transmit this far – they were able to transmit tone-modulated Morse and even full-duplex voice.
Not bad for a transmission that bends the FCC’s “275 GHz and up” amateur band to its breaking point. | 39 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "793129",
"author": "McGuiver",
"timestamp": "2012-09-22T15:41:19",
"content": "Just at point. It should be ARRL, not AARL.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "793176",
"author": "Corrosion",
"timestamp": "2012-09-2... | 1,760,376,731.952737 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/22/adding-famicom-audio-channles-to-an-nes-without-messing-up-the-console/ | Adding Famicom Audio Channles To An NES Without Messing Up The Console | Jesse Congdon | [
"how-to",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"audio connector",
"console modding",
"how-to NES",
"nes",
"nintendo",
"retro console"
] | [Callan Brown] wrote in to show us a really interesting
NES audio hack
. [Callen] decided that he wanted the full Castlevania III audio experience, which (without modifications) can only be had through the original Japanese Famicom console. [Callen] weighed a few adapter options, and instead decided to come up with his own.
The issue is that the Japanese Famicom and the American NES actually have a different cartridge connector. The change in hardware from a 60 pin to a 72 pin connector added “features” like the 10 pins connected directly to the expansion port (used for stuff like the teleplay modem, who knew). The other two additional pins are used by the annoying
10NES
lockout chip. While they were at it, Nintendo decided to route the audio path through the expansion connector instead of the cartridge.
This means that the Japanese cartridges can’t pipe sound to the NES audio channel with just a pin adapter. Good news though, after sourcing a pin adapter hidden inside certain NES games (Stack Up, Gyromite), audio can easily just be pulled from the adapter PCB. This requires the more expensive Famicom Castlevania III cartridge (Akumajou Densetsu). To cleanly route the new audio cable out of his front loading NES [Callan] reuses the sacrificial adapter game’s cart to make some kind of unholy hybrid. To round it off [Callan] also goes over steps to flash a translated ROM to the Japanese game.
What difference could an extra two squares and a sawtooth make? Check out the sound comparison video after the jump! Thanks [Callan].
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v9339JUK3U&w=470] | 25 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "793116",
"author": "KP",
"timestamp": "2012-09-22T15:22:18",
"content": "I can’t tell the difference. All the beeps and boops sounds the same to me!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "793693",
"author": "draeath",
... | 1,760,376,732.010812 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/21/automated-home-brewing-system-has-an-insanely-professional-controller/ | Automated Home Brewing System Has An Insanely Professional Controller | Mike Szczys | [
"Beer Hacks"
] | [
"brewery",
"controller",
"national instrument"
] | So you know how on
Breaking Bad
, the chemist [Gale Boetticher] sets up an impressive rig to brew the best cup of coffee? Well what do you think of a group of engineers taking on beer as their side project? This rig, which we do think is pretty insane, is
the result of embedded system engineers developing an automated brewing system
.
[Ben_B] started from humble beginnings. He built a PID controlled smoker much
like the one we saw last Monday
. From there he ground out several iterations of brewing hardware, adding a bit of automation at each step along the way. But things really took off when the events department at his company, National Instruments, took notice. They put the team on the task of assembling professional grade control hardware for the unit. And of course while we’re spending the company dime why not chrome those boiling vessels at the same time. The finished project was shown off at a trade show to help promote the company.
The post thread linked at the top has shots of the complicated mounting and wiring that went into the controller. We’re not sure how much intervention is actually necessary during a session. But with all the sensors, pumps, valves, filters, and whatnot we wouldn’t be surprised if all you need to do is pitch some yeast into what comes out of it. | 27 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "792610",
"author": "mewse",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T21:29:56",
"content": "no fermenter? lame(i kid, i kid)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "792626",
"author": "Ben_B",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T21:49:41",
"content": ... | 1,760,376,731.805514 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/21/wiring-up-a-lot-of-led-segment-displays/ | Wiring Up A Lot Of LED Segment Displays | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"ds1307",
"point to point",
"rtc",
"seven segment",
"sixteen segment"
] | One look at this display and you know there’s a whole lot of pins that need to be wired up. Now look at what those display modules are mounted on. That’s right, [Kemley] is
using point-to-point soldering to rig up this big display
. It sports four sixteen segment modules on top for alpha-numeric information, and eight large seven segment modules for displaying numbers only.
We’re not certain as to how the electronics are arranged. When talking about the 16-segment modules he mentions that all four are in parallel with NPN transistors to switch the common anode of each. That’s easy enough to understand. But when you get a look at the transistor board you’ll see 24 of them in use. He’s included a 150 ohm resistor on the collector of each transistor. It must be set up to only allow one segment of each group to switch on at a time? We’d guess that each segment is divided into two (upper and lower pins are multiplexed separately), which would explain the double set of transistors. As for date and time, an Arduino board monitors a DS1307 RTC and manages the scanning of the display. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "792583",
"author": "manis404",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T20:59:05",
"content": "And this guy is a final year medical student. Makers…Makers everywhere!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "792629",
"author": "Kaj",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,376,731.739438 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/21/nes-light-gun-gets-a-burning-laser-upgrade/ | NES Light Gun Gets A Burning Laser Upgrade | Mike Szczys | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"burning",
"diode",
"light gun",
"nes",
"nintendo",
"zapper"
] | The
Nintendo Light Gun makes a perfect burning laser
. Of course it’s been gutted to make this happen. Nonetheless, the retro look can’t be beat, and the gun form factor is just what you need in a laser weapon.
This will literally burn your eye out of your head, so [Justin] and his buddies over a North Street Labs are all wearing protective goggles designed for this laser’s wavelength. But they also built a safety into the zapper itself. At the beginning of the video clip (embedded after the break) you will see there’s a key lock mounted in the butt. This lock completes the circuit between the battery and driver board. The 2W output is achieved by a 445nm M140 diode. A lot went into the heat sink and mounting cylinder to make sure the diode doesn’t just burn up after a few seconds of use. | 34 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "792494",
"author": "James Glanville",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T19:18:39",
"content": "GAH! I thought I had the coolest light gun:http://i.imgur.com/32o2B.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/ZnGn4.jpgStill, at least mine is safer (reflections on a white wall are blindingly bright, but I’m slightly... | 1,760,376,732.305964 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/21/galaxy-siii-hack-puts-android-in-your-dashboard/ | Galaxy SIII Hack Puts Android In Your Dashboard | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"dashboard",
"Galaxy",
"head unit",
"phone",
"s3",
"samsung",
"siii"
] | Here’s how you can have a hands-free, no worries about the battery, Android experience while you drive. [Steve] removed the head unit from his car and
replaced it with a Samsung Galaxy SIII
Android phone. The look is pretty nice, but we do have a few suggested improvements if you try this one for yourself.
It started simply by removing the factory stereo which left a double-height opening in the dashboard. [Steve] cut a piece of wood to fit the gaping hole, painting it a grey that would compliment the interior colors of the car. The phone is mounted on this plate, with plenty of room for the USB and audio cables. From there it is finished up with another wooden plate which has a cutout for the touch screen. See the final project, as well as glimpses of the installation, in the video after the break.
[Steve] demonstrates using the GPS features and playing music. We’d improve this in a couple of ways. First off, using something like
the IOIO board
you could add a physical volume knob, which we’re not interested in giving up for a touch screen quite yet. If you were willing to go the extra mile, a CAN-BUS chip could be added too that would
monitor button presses from the steering wheel
music controls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YILgzrsV-A | 43 | 29 | [
{
"comment_id": "792475",
"author": "Mark",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T18:59:30",
"content": "I just recently bought a relatively cheap Pioneer deck with bluetooth ($200cad)… It instantly pairs and plays audio from my phone. It also does hands free calls.This just looks annoying.I used to have a full... | 1,760,376,732.087681 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/21/classic-game-of-snake-on-an-arm-controller/ | Classic Game Of Snake On An ARM Controller | Mike Szczys | [
"ARM"
] | [
"discovery board",
"game",
"lcd",
"nokia",
"snake",
"stm32"
] | Every now and again we take a break from looking at all of your awesome projects and get to work on our own. I thought I’d take a minute to
show off my game of Snake
. It’s a classic that I remember playing on a graphing calculator (TI-83) back in high school. I had never written my own version and decided it would be a good reason to spend some more time on the ARM platform.
The dev board I’m using is the STM32 F0 Discovery board. Once I had
a usable template for compiling the code on a Linux box
everything else just started to fall into place. The screen is from a Nokia 3595. Several years back I cut off the keypad and made a breakout board for it. It’s pretty dim but it’s small and uses SPI so it tends to be my go-to display for prototyping. But I did get my hands on an SSD1289 TFT screen (after
writing about this project
) for about $16 and I’ve had some success with that. It uses a parallel interface so it’s not as easy to hook up and I’ve had some crosstalk issues when running at 24 MHz.
But I digress. Check out the demo video of my simple game after the break. There are more details about my programming choices at post link above. You will see this hardware again soon. I’m working on an On Chip Debugging primer and these ARM dev boards are perfect for it! | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "792530",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T19:58:16",
"content": "Lol, guys, you’r aware that “classic game of snake” most of the times probably ran inside an arm core inside those nokias?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,376,732.12936 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/21/hackaday-links-september-21-2012/ | Hackaday Links: September 21, 2012 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"arm",
"makerbot",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspi",
"reprap",
"scroll wheel",
"sdr",
"titanium"
] | And then Obi-wan said, “you were supposed to be the chosen one!”
Yesterday, a little bird told us Makerbot will be
moving to a closed source model
for their newest printer.
This was confirmed
, and now [Zach Smith] a.k.a. [Hoeken] – creator of the RepRap Research Foundation and co-founder of Makerboth Industries
is weighing in with his take on the situation.
Hey! Free stuff!
Remember that
DIP28 ARM chip with BASIC
? Remember how I told you Coridium will be giving a few hundred away as samples? Yeah,
that’s happening now
.
Replacing a scroll wheel with titanium
[Rhett] has been using a Logitech mouse for a few years now. Recently the scroll wheel became corroded, so [Rhett]
replaced it with a titanium version
. The perfect match for the trusty battle axe, theIBM Model M keyboard.
Web-based IDE for the Raspi
[Phil Torrone]
sent in a video
of something he and [ladyada] are working on. It’s a web-based IDE for the Raspberry Pi. We’ll do a full review of this when it’s released.
Intro to software defined radio
So you have one of those TV tuner dongles and want to get in to software defined radio. Where do you start? [Al Williams] over at Dr. Dobbs
has a great introduction to SDR
, and gives a few pointers that should help you get that cool looking waterfall plot very quickly. Thanks for sending this in, [Chris]. | 31 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "792288",
"author": "farout",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T16:17:49",
"content": "I still can’t decide if selling my contact information is worth it for an ARM chip with BASIC.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "792289",
"author": "... | 1,760,376,732.376455 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/21/pulse-jet-tea-kettle/ | Pulse Jet Tea Kettle | Mike Szczys | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"kettle",
"pulse jet",
"tea"
] | [Colin Furze] is just showing off in this picture.
His pulse jet tea kettle
is built well enough to get by without help from a blow torch, but who can blame his showmanship? In fact, once it’s running there’s no flame to be seen. That’s because the combustion happens at an earlier stage of that pipe, heating a segment that is submerged in water so that you may have your tea in no time.
Once this thing is tuned up it roars like a robotic lion. [Colin] yells his commentary at the camera, but it is picked up as nothing more than a blip of distortion. Pressurized propane and air both feed into the jet. they’re regulated by the two knobs on the base of the unit (that enclosure is actually just a pie tin). There is also a 9V battery-powered igniter built into the base. You can see how the unit was built in the video after the break.
[Thanks Manicphase] | 24 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "792181",
"author": "uC",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T14:58:58",
"content": "This made my day.I’ll have a cup of tea, hold the eyebrows please.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "792194",
"author": "crenn",
"timestamp": "2012-0... | 1,760,376,732.43517 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/21/3d-printer-filament-made-of-wood/ | 3d Printer Filament Made Of Wood | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"3d printer filament",
"filament",
"plastic",
"wood"
] | Believe it or not, you can now
squeeze wood through the nozzle of your 3D printer
.
This new addition to the maker’s palette of 3D printer filaments comes from the mind of [Kai Parthy]. The new filament – going by the name Laywood – is a mix of recycled wood fibers and polymer binders that can be melted and extruded just like any other 3D printer filament.
Parts printed with Laywood have about the same properties as parts printed with PLA filament. One interesting feature of this material is the ability to add ‘tree rings,’ or a subtle gradation in color from a rich brown to a very nice beige. The color can be changed on the fly by setting the temperature of your printer’s hot end to 180° C for a light color, and 230° C for a darker color.
Judging from the ‘in action’ video of Laywood filament being pushed through a printer, the new wood-based filament works just the same as any other PLA or ABS plastic.
Outside eBay, there appears to be only one place to
buy this filament
. It’s not cheap at about €16/$20 USD per half kilogram, but hopefully that price will come down when it becomes more popular.
Video after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pZyrb_FA8U&w=470] | 24 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "792066",
"author": "crenn",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T13:10:07",
"content": "Interesting product, I wonder how strong it is.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "792070",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T13:17:54",... | 1,760,376,732.499152 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/21/monetizing-a-hackerspace-with-a-3d-printer-store/ | Monetizing A Hackerspace With A 3D Printer Store | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"Deezmaker",
"hackerspace",
"store"
] | Starting a hackerspace is easy, but maintaining it is a pain in the rear. Not only do you need to pay the gas, water, and electric bills, but you’ll also need to have enough members to keep the whole operation afloat. Deezmaker might have a solution to this problem: have a hackerspace
double up as a 3D printing store.
Deezmaker is the creator of the
Bukobot 3D printer
seen at Maker Faire San Francisco and successfully funded
on Kickstarter
. The new store/hackerspace will sell Bukobot 3D printers (as well as other brands if another company wishes), filaments, Kapton tape, electronic parts, and other random electronic paraphernalia to people on the street.
Alongside the 3D printer store, Deezmaker will also be running a hackerspace for anyone who needs something printed, a work table, or even just the use of a few tools. The grand opening will be this Sunday, Sept 23, in Pasadena, CA.
We’re really liking the idea of a store/hackerspace, if only because Deezmaker’s store will provide a wonderful case study for anyone with a similar business plan. It would be very nice to have a an independent hackerstore in every city, selling everything from 3D printers to batteries and LEDs. Yes, it’s sounds like a throwback to the RadioShack of the 70s, but that doesn’t mean the idea couldn’t succeed today. | 30 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "792012",
"author": "anybodysguess",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T12:17:01",
"content": "The problem is, sadly it probably wouldn’t succeed, simply because most people these days aren’t motivated! They would rather buy stuff than build it. Not very many people have the hacker mentality ... | 1,760,376,732.623889 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/21/coil-gun-with-parts-pulled-from-an-electric-stapler/ | Coil Gun With Parts Pulled From An Electric Stapler | Mike Szczys | [
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"bostitch",
"coil",
"coil gun",
"solenoid",
"stapler"
] | [Lou’s] latest tutorial details the process of
turning an electric stapler into a coil gun
. The stapler is the expensive part, but the rest is pretty simple. He used PVC pipe and a handful of fittings along with a few supplies you probably have kicking around your shop.
It’s surprising how perfect the Bostitch stapler (from which the parts were pulled) is for this project. The mechanism that drives the staples into your pages uses a solenoid with a rather large coil. To turn it into a coil gun you simply need to replace the core of the solenoid with a metal projectile. In the video after the break [Lou] shows us how to make a barrel onto which the coil can be mounted. From there he uses a wooden spacer to position a hunk of smooth metal from a bolt which serves as the projectile. The stapler’s original drive circuitry and trigger mechanism do the rest. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "792027",
"author": "TacticalNinja",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T12:37:52",
"content": "Neat hack",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "792032",
"author": "TacticalNinja",
"timestamp": "2012-09-21T12:43:48",
"content": "I noti... | 1,760,376,732.558468 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/20/how-to-repair-a-ribbon-cable-connection-on-consumer-electronics/ | How To Repair A Ribbon Cable Connection On Consumer Electronics | Mike Szczys | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"cable",
"connector",
"pcb",
"reflow",
"ribbon",
"solder"
] | It’s not uncommon in cheaper devices to find a ribbon cable soldered directly to the circuit board like the one pictured above. Using a connector would have been a much more resilient approach, but adding parts adds cost. If you take a close look you’ll see things aren’t looking so great anymore. [Chaotic and Random] pulled this board out of his VW Camper Van. Rather than buy an expensive replacement part, he shows us
how to repair a soldered ribbon wire connection
.
This repair is rather invasive and he suggests trying some hot-air rework (possibly using a heat gun) to fix up any misbehaving connections. But if that has failed it’s time for the knife. The first step is to cut the ribbon so that the LCD can be removed from the board. From there he peels the remaining scrap off ribbon of the pads. This makes us cringe as it could lift traces from the PCB, but he was gentle enough to avoid it. Now comes the time to start reassembling. After thoroughly cleaning the pads the ribbon is cut straight and resoldered. The trick is to flow the solder without melting the ribbon. He uses tin foil to cover the tip and cools it on a moist sponge just before reflowing solder.
It sounds like more art than science. But when the only alternative is to spend hundreds on a new part it may be worth a try. | 34 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "791603",
"author": "Uky",
"timestamp": "2012-09-20T23:15:31",
"content": "Nice. The very thin flex ribbons on newer small electronics doesn’t even melt at soldering temps, making it easy to solder.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id... | 1,760,376,732.74892 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/turning-a-shipping-container-into-a-3d-printer/ | Turning A Shipping Container Into A 3D Printer | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"shipping container",
"utilimaker"
] | Built inside a 20-foot shipping container placed on its end,
the Kamermaker
– ” room maker” in Dutch – is one of the largest 3D printers we’ve ever seen. Able to print objects as big as 2 meter square and 3.5 meters high, the Kamermaker is designed to print huge objects including furniture, architectural elements, and even entire rooms.
The Kamermaker is a collaboration between
Architectburo DUS
and
Utilimaker
and the result of wanting to build the world’s largest 3D printer pavilion. Built inside a stainless steel-clad shipping container, the Kamermaker features a scaled-up version of the X, Y, and Z axes you’d find in any other 3D printer. The only change is a scaling up of current designs, allowing it to print
small wind turbines
covering its surface or, theoretically, a life-size
TARDIS
.
Because using traditional plastic filament would be prohibitively expensive, the Utilimaker team chose to extrude plastic pellets on the fly as it is used. There’s an excellent video of the filament extruder
here
along with a walk-through of the machine in operation after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7qut2GepEU&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMfVakT_Wpo&w=470] | 22 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "794592",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T12:17:55",
"content": "I have always toyed with the idea of converting a garage into a huge MakerBot Replicator but this is even cooler. Transportation of the device is a possible feature on this one. Awesome!Andrewhttp://www.yo... | 1,760,376,732.683505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/programming-a-microcontroller-one-bit-at-a-time/ | Programming A Microcontroller One Bit At A Time | Brian Benchoff | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"attiny13",
"programming",
"spi"
] | Imagine you’re stuck on a desert island, hundreds of miles away from the nearest person, and you finally have time to finish that project you’re working on. You have a single microcontroller, but you’re lacking a computer and you need to program an ATtiny13. How do you do it? [androidruberoid] figured out how to
manually flash a microcontroller
(Russian, surprisingly good
translation
) using just three switches and a lot of patience.
[androidruberoid]’s ATtiny13 – like nearly all Atmel microcontrollers – are programmed using an SPI interface. This interface requires four signals: SCK, a data clock, MOSI, the data line from master to slave, MISO, data from slave to master, and RESET. By connecting these data lines to buttons, [androidruberoid] is able to manually key in new firmware one byte at a time.
This technique of manually programming bits relies on the fact that there is no minimum speed for an SPI interface. In the video after the break, you can see [androidruberoid] manually programming an ATtiny13 with a simple program. It only lights up an LED, but with enough patience he could key in a simple ‘blink a LED’ program.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJHeDvr_doM&w=470] | 27 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "794525",
"author": "slowJim",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T11:09:48",
"content": "Very geeky but very cool",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "794532",
"author": "ChalkBored",
"timestamp": "2012-09-24T11:18:31",
"content": "... | 1,760,376,732.87345 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/23/kickstarter-isnt-a-store-anymore/ | Kickstarter Isn’t A Store Anymore | Brian Benchoff | [
"Crowd Funding"
] | [
"Crowd Funding",
"crowdsource"
] | Over the past few months, we’ve seen an increasing amount of Kickstarter projects making it into the Hackaday tip line. We don’t mind all these emails from people trying to get their Kickstarter project off the ground, but reading through all the emails of people wanting us to pitch their stuff does get a little bothersome.
It looks like our problem of having to go through dozens of Kickstarter hardware projects a week is about to change.
Kickstarter is implementing a few new rules
for hardware and product design projects. The new rules prohibit product simulations. This means project creators can’t suggest what the product might do in the future. Only what the prototype can currently do is allowed in the Kickstarter project. Also, product renders aren’t allowed. The only pictures allowed on your Kickstarter project are photos as the prototype currently exists.
There’s also another catch for hardware and product design projects: offering multiple quantities of a reward are prohibited. Of course there’s a provision for things that only make sense as a set (building blocks, for instance), but it looks like funding an
Arduino-compatible ATtiny85 board
and getting multiple boards is out of the question now.
Of course Kickstarter is looking at the long-term, trying to dissuade project creators from taking the money and running off to South America. We’re wondering what the effect will be in the coming months, though; under these rules
Ouya
wouldn’t have passed Kickstarter’s litmus test, and smaller projects depending on Kickstarter funding for tooling and molds probably wouldn’t either.
The new changes are probably for the best, and will certainly speed up how long it takes us to go through our email. We’re wondering what HaD readers think of the change, so post your thoughts in the comments after the break. | 133 | 47 | [
{
"comment_id": "793983",
"author": "MakerDino",
"timestamp": "2012-09-23T20:43:54",
"content": "Hmm good to know as I have a product I’m going to pitch there soon. :)Oh was that a plug? Haha,, yes it was… sort of. :)Thanks H-A-D.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,733.11543 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/23/led-array-uses-ridiculous-amount-of-14-segment-displays/ | LED Array Uses Ridiculous Amount Of 14-segment Displays | Brian Benchoff | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"14 segment",
"14-segment dispaly",
"hd44780",
"LED display"
] | What do you do if you see a bunch of 14-segment LED displays for sale for a penny a piece? [Fritzler], when faced with that conundrum did what any of us would do – he bought 64 14-segment displays and built
a huge 16×4 alphanumeric display
(German,
here’s the translation
).
[Fritzler] found a cache of old East German 14-segment displays for €0.01 at
electrobi.de
(don’t bother, they’re out of stock), and the only thing he could think of was building a gigantic display. He used ULN2803 Darlington drivers for each LED module, but there was still the issue of controlling the entire display.
For that, [Fritzler] decided to make his 16×4 use the same protocol as the
Hitachi HD44780
LCD controller. This meant [Fritzler] could wire up his gigantic, power-hungry display to a microcontroller as if it were a simple LCD display.
An amazing amount of work went in to the creation of this display, as evidenced by a
pair
of
pictures
showing what [Fritzler] had to solder.
Thanks [freax] for sending this one in. | 29 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "793882",
"author": "Calum",
"timestamp": "2012-09-23T17:24:11",
"content": "If anyone can work out how to make electrobi.de do international shipping to the UK, let me know :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "794032",
"... | 1,760,376,732.938671 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/23/volumetric-display-projects-200-million-voxels-per-second/ | Volumetric Display Projects 200 Million Voxels Per Second | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"3d display",
"pico projector",
"volumetric display"
] | Over the last four years, [Will] and [Gav] have spent their time creating a huge, high-resolution 3D display. The’re just about done with their build, so they decided to offer it up to the Internet in the hopes of people creating new 3D content for their display. They call their project
the HoloDome
, and it’s the highest resolution volumetric display we’ve ever seen.
The HoloDome operates by spinning a translucent helix around its vertical axis at 20 rotations per second. A pico projector above the helix capable of projecting 1440 frames per second (
an amazing device by itself
) displays 72 ‘z-axis’ frames for each of the 60 ‘x and y frames’ per second. The result is a 3D display with a 480 * 320 * 72 voxel resolution capable of displaying 20 frames per second.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a
swept helix used as a volumetric display
, but it is by far the highest resolution display of its type in recent memory. [Gav] and [Will] have put their HoloDome up
on the Australian crowd-funded site Pozible
if you’d like to buy your own, but thankfully the guys have included enough detail on the main site to reconstruct this project.
Check out the video after the break to see the HoloDome in action.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q1CMNvfCNI&w=470] | 42 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "793785",
"author": "a",
"timestamp": "2012-09-23T15:00:23",
"content": "Shut up and take my money",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "793804",
"author": "Elliot",
"timestamp": "2012-09-23T15:17:11",
"content": "I think y... | 1,760,376,733.342283 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/23/usbpic-controls-just-about-anything/ | USBPIC Controls Just About Anything | Brian Benchoff | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"fet",
"led matrix",
"motor controller",
"pic",
"stepper motors"
] | Over the last few years, [Michael] has been developing a PIC microcontroller board.
He calls his project USBPIC
, and with the addition of a few FET drivers, H-bridges, and LED drivers his homemade dev board can handle just about anything thrown at it.
[Michael]’s board is build around a PIC18F2455 microcontroller with both an In Circuit Serial Programming header and support for a USB port included. Instead of going for a modular format where the board can expanded through shields or expansion cards, [Michael] decided to make three different versions of the USBPIC.
The TRANS USBPIC includes eight FETs for switching off high current devices totaling 32 Amps. The MATRIX board has twice as many outputs as the TRANS board, but uses ULN2803 or UDN2982 chips for driving smallish-current devices. Finally, the HBSW board takes a TRANS board and replaces four FETs with a an L298 H-bridge chip for driving two DC motors.
For what [Michael] lost in modularity, we think he gained a very tidy microcontroller board capable of driving everything from robots to LED matrix displays. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "793754",
"author": "wowme@wtf.com",
"timestamp": "2012-09-23T13:37:27",
"content": "I’ve missed something. Can the boards be used as a single project?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "793755",
"author": "wowme@wtf.com",
"... | 1,760,376,733.393148 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/22/mechanical-donkey-kong-features-laser-cut-mario/ | Mechanical Donkey Kong Features Laser Cut Mario | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks",
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"donkey kong",
"electromechanical",
"mechanical"
] | [Martin] just sent in a project he’s been working on that takes
Donkey Kong
out of the realm of pixels and sprites and
puts our hero Mario into a world made of laser cut plywood
.
This mechanical version of
Donkey Kong
uses an Arduino stuffed into an old NES to control Mario jumping over ball bearing ‘barrels.’ The game starts with 12 of these barrels ready to be thrown by our favorite gorilla antagonist, which Mario carefully dodges with the help of a pair of servos.
This is only the first iteration of [Martin]’s mechanical version of
Donkey Kong
. The next version will keep the clever means of notifying the player if Mario is crushed by a barrel – a simple magnet glued to the back of the Mario piece – and will be shown at the
UK Maker Faire
next year.
Although [Martin]’s ideas for a mechanical version of
Donkey Kong
aren’t fully realized with this build, it’s already a build equal to
electromechanical Pong
. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "793380",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2012-09-22T21:37:51",
"content": "Nice start, now lets get Mario moving.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "793487",
"author": "Tech B.",
"timestamp": "2012-09-22T23:56:24",
... | 1,760,376,733.442272 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/20/dropping-the-nitrogen-bomb-in-science-class/ | Dropping The Nitrogen Bomb In Science Class | Mike Szczys | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"bomb",
"liquid nitrogen",
"ping-pong balls"
] | We took Geology in college. It was pretty cool learning about the hardness of different minerals. But there were no explosions involved. We’re not entirely sure what this class is, perhaps Chemistry, maybe Physics, but we want in. [Dr. Roy Lowry]
wows the class with a bomb made of liquid nitrogen
. The demonstration was part of his lecture at
Plymouth University
.
A small explosion is cool, but [Roy] knows how to add the wow factor. To make the bomb he filled a one liter plastic bottle about 1/3 of the way with liquid nitrogen. After tightly sealing the cap it was dropped in that garbage can which had a pool of warm water in it. Before quickly running away he and his assistant dumped a few garbage bags of ping-pong balls on top of it all. When the plastic bottle bursts under the pressure of the expanding gas it sends the garbage can about six feet into the air and floods the room with bouncing white balls. See the whole presentation for yourself in the clip after the break and don’t forget the sound so you can catch the oohs and aahs at the end.
Looks like a Hackerspace recruitment tool if we’ve ever seen one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ9yn8vLdig
[
IO9
via
Reddit
] | 40 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "791523",
"author": "bwm",
"timestamp": "2012-09-20T21:35:13",
"content": "awesome demo. we used to do this with dry ice, and iv seen someone pour HCl into a bottle, drop a ball of aluminum foil in, and the buildup of H2 has a similar effect (which is of course significantly more ha... | 1,760,376,733.526131 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/20/key-code-door-lock-wont-endanger-your-security-deposit/ | Key Code Door Lock Won’t Endanger Your Security Deposit | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"apartment",
"deadbolt",
"door lock",
"peephole"
] | College students have returned in droves to dorms and apartments at campuses everywhere. So this is the time of year we usually start seeing some coded entry hacks. [Charmonkey] recently took on the challenge at his new apartment. There were some caveats though. He needed to ensure the Landlord could still enter using a key, and he didn’t want to alter the door or the jamb in any way. What he came up with is
a coded entry system that can turn the deadbolt
.
In order to mount some hardware on the door he removed the inner part of the dead bolt assembly and used the pair of threaded tubes on the adjoining lock section as anchor points. This holds the Pokemon tin he’s using as a project box securely in place. The rest of the components all mount to it. These include the stepper motor that actuates the deadbolt, a switch for manual operation, an Arduino, and a motor driver board.
He got really creative with the keypad. The wires connecting it travel through the door’s peephole and into the smaller plastic project box that hosts the rest of the hardware.
[via
Reddit
] | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "791448",
"author": "Coda",
"timestamp": "2012-09-20T20:10:10",
"content": "Great, but next time just so you know, you can buy wood filler and paint almost anywhere ;-)Oh, and being a student means the security deposit is going bye-bye anyhow, so why worry?",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,376,733.749523 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/20/how-to-build-your-own-dedicated-pandora-radio/ | How To Build Your Own Dedicated Pandora Radio | Mike Szczys | [
"ARM",
"digital audio hacks",
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"beaglebone",
"lcd",
"pandora",
"pic",
"radio",
"ubuntu"
] | This mix of modern and retro acts as
a standalone Pandora client
. It’s certainly a radio upgrade, falling somewhere in between the passive listening of traditional broadcasts, and the complete control of music players that use playlists.
Inside the wooden case a BeagleBoard does most of the work. It’s running Ubuntu 12.04 on which
pianobar
, a command line interface package for Pandora is running. Those components alone would make a pretty nice listening experience, but since Pandora rolls different music into the mix it’s nice to be able to see what you’re listening to. The four-line LCD is wide enough to display plenty of information. It’s being controlled by a PIC24 microcontroller which also monitors the controls on the top. As you can see in the video after the break, the user interface offers almost everything you could want. It’s easy to switch stations, and you can still register your preferences on each track being played.
[via
Twitter
] | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "791383",
"author": "cknopp",
"timestamp": "2012-09-20T19:18:06",
"content": "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "791409",
"author": "Panikos",
"timestamp": "2012-09-20T19:38:21",
"content": "... | 1,760,376,733.592469 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/20/programming-an-arm-with-basic/ | Programming An ARM With BASIC | Brian Benchoff | [
"ARM"
] | [
"arm",
"basic"
] | For those of us old enough to remember the beginnings of the microcomputer revolution, we can look back fondly on ‘the programming environment is the OS,’ a ton of BASIC programs, and typing in small programs found in the backs of computer magazines. It’s a whole new world now with cell phones and Linux computers the size of credit cards, but some companies still remember the beginning.
Coridium
is releasing an ARM microcontroller
in the vein of old fashioned microcomputers updated for the 21st century. Based on the LPC1114 Cortex M0 ARM microcontroller stuffed into a DIP28 package, the Coridium ARM BASIC provides a programming environment in the firmware.
The ARM BASIC is a complete system on a chip, with Rx and Tx connections to connect to a serial terminal. To get this BASIC microcontroller up and running, all you’ll have to do is connect 3.3 Volts of power. Then, it’s a simple matter of plugging in an FTDI cable and pretending it’s 1989.
Coridium is planning on giving away a few hundred of these ARM BASIC chips to makers in a few days. I’ll put up the announcement of free microcontrollers up in a few days, but [Bruce] at Coridium is sending me one very shortly. Hopefully I’ll be able to do a demo before the stock of free chips is completely depleted. | 55 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "791322",
"author": "morlog",
"timestamp": "2012-09-20T18:42:30",
"content": "1989? More like 1979. Windows came out in 1985.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "791360",
"author": "dude",
"timestamp": "2012-09-20T... | 1,760,376,733.693481 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/09/20/vfx1-virtual-reality-headset-linkbox/ | VFX1 Virtual Reality Headset LinkBox | Richard Steele | [
"classic hacks",
"Virtual Reality",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"augmented reality",
"Forte Technologies",
"headset",
"Kevin Mellott",
"vfx1",
"virtual reality",
"vr",
"VRML",
"vuzix"
] | [
Kevin Mellott’s
] take on the
VFX1
was to update it so it can be used with modern computers requiring just a USB socket and VGA feed.
The VFX1 is a Virtual Reality Headset that hit the market in the first half of the 90’s. The headset was the first of its kind to hit the home market and was ahead of its time. The VFX1 was developed and marketed by Forte Technologies, who’s assets where purchased in 1997 by Vuzix who now produce modern day Video glasses with optional tracking system.
What [Kevin] has achieved is nothing more than remarkable. The original system required a massive ISA card and a link from this card to the Feature Connector on the display card. [Kevin] did away with the ISA card and FCON replacing it with what he calls the LinkBox. This LinkBox has serial or USB out and accepts stereo/mono VGA input or RGB.
The system can now be used with modern day computers including laptops. Those into VR should really check this out.
The original promotional video for the VFX1 from 1995
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yGiiU8_gnE]
[Kevin’s] Updated take on the VFX1 with LinkBox that he designed
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNxWm9gzFUk]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRGVw2YiUME] | 21 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "791064",
"author": "flink",
"timestamp": "2012-09-20T16:11:33",
"content": "So many levels of win.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "791093",
"author": "polossatik",
"timestamp": "2012-09-20T16:31:12",
"content": "love... | 1,760,376,733.80863 |
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