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https://hackaday.com/2012/08/17/water-glider-prototype/ | Water Glider Prototype | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"ballast",
"glider",
"rov",
"syringe",
"underwater"
] | [Byrel Mitchell] wrote in to share some
details on this water glider
which he has been working on with his classmates at the Nonlinear Autonomous Systems lab of Michigan Technological University. As its name implies, it glides through the water rather than using
propulsion systems typically found on underwater ROVs
. The wings on either side of the body are fixed in place, converting changes in ballast to forward momentum.
The front of the glider is at the bottom right of the image above. Look closely and you’ll see a trio of syringes pointed toward the nose. These act as the ballast tanks. A gear motor moves a pinion connected to the syringe plungers, allowing the Arduino which drives the device to fill and empty the tanks with water. When full the nose sinks and the glider moves forward, when empty it rises to the surface which also results in forward movement.
After the break you can find two videos The first shows off the functionality and demonstrates the device in a swimming pool. The second covers the details of the control systems. | 48 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "740365",
"author": "th3badwolf",
"timestamp": "2012-08-18T00:06:25",
"content": "Bigger wings,eject port at the back to make good use of the mass flow of the expelled water.Very nice prototype.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "74... | 1,760,376,769.552724 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/17/pic-18f4550-dev-board/ | PIC 18F4550 Dev Board | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"18f4550",
"AVR programmer",
"breakout board",
"dev board",
"pic",
"tqfp",
"usb"
] | [Natsfr] was looking for a single-sided PCB to host a PIC 18F4550. Not finding one
he designed his own in Kicad and is sharing
(
translated
) the spoils of his labor.
This chip has USB capabilities which is why we see it used in a ton of projects. Almost all of them (including
this USB input device post
) use a very large DIP package. [Natsfr] went a different route, designing for the TQFP package to keep the drilling ot a minimum. The layout includes a crystal and USB-mini port, but it also breaks out the I/O pins on the chip. The red box above shows the quick fix he used on the VCC line as the board trace was shorting on the USB jack housing.
He didn’t drill out the holes for most of the breakout pins on this prototype. There’s just one header populated for programming the PIC chip. But he does have some plans for the first board. He’s going to use [Texan’s]
AVR programming firmware for PIC
to turn it into a USB AVR ISP programmer. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "740080",
"author": "Rob Buse",
"timestamp": "2012-08-17T22:57:17",
"content": "I made something similar myself for the 40DIP package. I used it for a MIDI controller project but also exposed all pins on one side so it could be plugged into a breadboard.Batch PCB PIC BoardSome pics ... | 1,760,376,768.998092 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/17/a-huge-microwave-powered-bug-zapper/ | A Huge Microwave-powered Bug Zapper | Mike Szczys | [
"cons"
] | [
"bug zapper",
"eth0",
"festival",
"microwave",
"microwave oven",
"transformer"
] | This is
the biggest bug zapper we’ve ever seen
. It’s called the Megazap as its zapping area is 1 square meter. [Eighdot] and [Sa007] combined their talents for the build in order to help reduce the insect population around the Eth0 2012 Summer festival.
You may recall from
our bug zapping light saber build
that these devices work by providing two energized grids. When an insect flies between the grids it allows the potential energy to overcome the air resistance by travelling through the insect’s body. The Megazap uses a transformer from a microwave oven to source that potential. The transformer produces 2.4 kV and the current is limited by a floodlight fitted inside the microwave. The side effect of using the lamp as a limiter is that it lights up with each bug zapped, providing a bit of a light show. Don’t miss the video after the break to see some flying foes get the life shocked out of them.
[Thanks Edwin] | 68 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "740017",
"author": "Rick Osgood",
"timestamp": "2012-08-17T21:42:57",
"content": "I wonder how big of a dead bug pile they will have when it’s all over.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "740055",
"author": "Chris",
... | 1,760,376,769.464025 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/16/cat-palace-with-an-automatic-heat-lamp/ | Cat Palace With An Automatic Heat Lamp | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"automatic",
"bed",
"cat",
"light",
"pic",
"weight sensor"
] | [Herpity] was getting tired of his cat manipulating him into turning on a lamp above her bed every time she wanted a nap. She likes the warmth put off by the light bulb but he knew he could do better than that so
he built a bed which includes an automatic heat lamp
. To help introduce her to the new enclosure he set it on the chair where she normally naps.
The bed has two parts, the lower chamber acts as the sleeping area. There is a false bottom underneath the blanket which acts a platform for the weight sensors which detect when the cat is ready for a nap. A PIC microcontroller monitors two sensors and switches on mains voltage to a heat lamp once the pre-calibrated weight threshold has been reached. The upper part of the enclosure holds all of the electronic components and makes room for the recessed light housing. [Herpity] included an exhaust fan for the upper chamber but it turns out a grating is all he needs to keep the temperature at an acceptable level.
[via
Reddit
] | 35 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "738011",
"author": "Rob Wentworth",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T16:47:00",
"content": "A DIY “Easy-Bake” oven? ;-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "738043",
"author": "Alex",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T17:01:39",
"content"... | 1,760,376,769.275996 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/16/toorcamp-milling-pcbs-with-kicad/ | Toorcamp: Milling PCBs With KiCad | Eric Evenchick | [
"cons"
] | [
"cnc",
"KiCAD",
"pcb",
"toorcamp"
] | [
Hao
] from
Noisebridge
showed me their CNC mill being used to etch PCBs. Using copper clad board, this MAXNC 10 mill routes the PCB with decent accuracy. This makes for very rapid prototyping of single sided PCBs.
[Hao] designed the PCB using the open source
KiCad
EDA tool. This was used to draw the schematic, layout the PCB, and generate the Gerber files. Next,
pcb2gcode
was used to convert the Gerbers to
G-code
, which is a standard set of instructions for controlling CNC devices. Finally,
LinuxCNC
was used to send the G-code instructions to the mill. It’s a powerful application of a completely open source workflow.
The PCB being milled is for a pressure based touch sensor. It uses the Freescale
MPL115A
barometric pressure sensor encased in a rubber housing. This sensor is being incorporated into the
Dora Opensource Robot Assistant project
, which [Hao] and the Noisebridge folks are working on. We’re looking forward to hearing more about the Dora project in the future. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "737927",
"author": "bigbob",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T15:50:01",
"content": "The title is misleading. He is doing board layout in kicad, but he is not using it to mill the PCBs. The g-code generation and milling operation has nothing to do with the layout software, once gerbers ar... | 1,760,376,769.109381 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/16/toorcamp-type-a-machines/ | Toorcamp: Type A Machines | Eric Evenchick | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cons"
] | [
"3d printer",
"RAMPS",
"reprap",
"toorcamp"
] | Type A Machines
designs and builds 3D printers in San Francisco. [Miloh], one of the founders, brought two of their flagship Series 1 printers to Toorcamp. He printed out a variety of models including water tight cups and quadcopter arms.
The
RepRap Arduino MEGA Pololu Shield
(RAMPS) is used to drive the stepper motors for each axis, as well as the extruder. This is attached to an Arduino MEGA running the
Marlin
RepRap firmware. Type A Machines ships the printer with
Polylactic Acid
(PLA) filament, which is biodegradable.
On software side, you start with a 3D model in STL format. This can be exported from 3D software such as Google SketchUp or Autodesk 123D. You then need a slicer to generate G-code and machine control software to command the printer. [Miloh] used
Slic3r
and
Repetier
for his workflow, but he also pointed out a good summary of
3D printer workflows
.
The Series 1 was launched at the Bay Area Maker Faire this past May. It has a print volume of 1200 mL, which is the largest print volume of any desktop printer around. The Series 1 brings another option into the low-cost 3D printer market. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "737808",
"author": "sneakypoo",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T14:45:28",
"content": "I love hyperbole:“volume that eclipses the competition with a full 729 cubic inches (9″ x 9″ x 9″).”Ultimaker:“~ 210 x 210 x 220 mm, almost 10 liters (single tool mode) / 8.27″ x 8.27″ x 8.67″ ”Bigger, a... | 1,760,376,769.601489 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/16/toorcamp-hackerbot-labs-giant-faa-approved-laser/ | Toorcamp: Hackerbot Labs’ Giant FAA Approved Laser | Eric Evenchick | [
"cons"
] | [
"faa",
"laser",
"toorcamp"
] | This is a
big laser
.
[3ric] from
Hackerbot Labs
gave me a run down of their BattleYurt laser installation at Toorcamp. It’s built with twenty-four 1 Watt lasers taken from a Casio DLP projector. The laser is housed on top of a yurt, which contains the controls and cooling system. It was built with the goal of measuring
diffuse reflections
of the atmosphere, but it also does the job of looking awesome when fired into the sky.
Since pointing lasers at planes is a bad idea (and very illegal), the Hackerbot Labs folks got clearance from the FAA through FAA AC70-1 to ensure airspace would be clear during Toorcamp. ANSI Z136 standards were followed to keep everyone safe. There were four emergency stops around the yurt, and motion sensors to ensure nobody entered the enclosure during operation. Tilt and thermal states were monitored to disable the system if it overheated or toppled over.
The cooling system consists of a custom heatsink and an array of Peltier devices that prevent the diodes from burning up. The whole thing is controlled by an Arduino, which cuts power to the laser if any of the safeties are tripped. The system was very well thought out, and they’ve posted details on the
regulatory and safety aspects
of the project.
Hackerbot Labs even added a Morse Code feature that sent out limericks during the camp. While many people had lasers at Toorcamp, Hackerbot Labs can take pride having the biggest, most powerful one.
[image
3ricj
] | 48 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "737572",
"author": "salomon",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T12:15:28",
"content": "This is a “Big laser pointer” xD",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "737587",
"author": "Steve",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T12:26:04",
"content"... | 1,760,376,769.359614 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/16/r2d2-drink-dispenser-will-happily-tinkle-in-your-glass/ | R2D2 Drink Dispenser Will Happily Tinkle In Your Glass | Mike Szczys | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"beverage",
"dispenser",
"drink",
"jabba the hutt",
"r2d2",
"star wars",
"super soaker"
] | As with Jabba the Hutt we’d like to have our own service droid to serve up a cold one. We’re in luck; it looks like you can make
your very own beverage dispensing droid
if you don’t mind a little awkward dispensation.
The body started as one of those big protein drink mix containers. After spraying it white and masking off the entire thing with blue painter’s tape, the shapes for the blue designs were cut out and painted. Half of a foam sphere from the hobby shop was used to form the dome.
Liquids are dispensed by the pump system from a Super Soaker motorized water gun. You can see it fill up a beaker with a mysterious blue liquid in the video after the break. It’s a long way from challenging
the Bar2D2
, but it’s also something a mere mortal can build | 8 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "737582",
"author": "ameyring",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T12:19:56",
"content": "Clever idea for a small version of R2D2. It does look like R2D2 is going to the bathroom he he, so I suggest the droid be made vertical and the drink come out of the middle of the body or the head. Or, ev... | 1,760,376,768.955688 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/laser-diode-controller-for-a-cnc-mill/ | Laser Diode Controller For A CNC Mill | Mike Szczys | [
"cnc hacks",
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"controller",
"diode",
"driver",
"laser",
"lm3402"
] | [Smells of Bikes] wanted to add laser etching to the list of tricks his home CNC setup is capable of. He has a diode which will work for the task, but he needed a driver that could be interfaced with the CNC system. He ended up
designing a driver board based around the LM3402 chip
.
Now driving one of these laser diodes isn’t all that different from driving a Light Emitting Diode. He chose to use the LM3402 chip because he’s the TI engineer who designed the official evaluation board for the part. It’s meant for high-power LED applications, and the 700 mA he needs for the laser is within spec. Since he’s soldering by hand, and this part has a ground pad on the bottom, he shares his soldering technique in detail. Once the driver board is ready, he uses a ‘sed’ command to replace the g-code Z axis commands with digital on/off commands to switch the diode.
Check out the demo video after the break. He uses a diffuse beam since the cutting beam is bright enough to damage his camera.
[flickr video=http://www.flickr.com/photos/9279759@N03/7786350966/ w=470] | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "737102",
"author": "zarthcode",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T00:30:47",
"content": "Looks like I’ll need to find a laser to put in my mill!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "737216",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"times... | 1,760,376,769.054046 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/arduino-voltage-measurement-tricks/ | Arduino Voltage Measurement Tricks | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"adc",
"analog",
"AVR",
"battery",
"voltage reference"
] | We think it’s a great learning experience to tear back the veil of abstraction and learn a bit more about the hardware found on an Arduino board. This project is a great example. [Scott Daniels] takes a look at
the other voltage measurement options available to AVR chips used by Arduino
.
If you’ve used the analogRead() function then you’ve already measured a voltage using the Arduino. But do you know what is going on behind the scenes to make this happen? The Analog to Digital converter on the AVR chip is being used to measure an incoming voltage by comparing it to a known voltage reference. That reference is by default the supply voltage line for the chip. This should be 5V but will only be as accurate as the regulator supplying it. [Scott] looks at the other voltage references that may be used. An external reference can be used by adding hardware, but that’s not the focus of his article. Instead he looks at using the 1.1V internal reference. He’s written some short example code that let’s you measure the incoming line voltage based on that internal reference. This is a very handy trick that can let you detect when the chips is running from a battery and how much juice is left in the cell. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "743269",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2012-08-20T06:45:36",
"content": "Five days after this HaD post – with zero comments. The masses have voted, Enough Arduino!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "773097",
"author": "Jam... | 1,760,376,768.903503 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/17/raspberry-pi-as-a-pic-programmer/ | Raspberry Pi As A PIC Programmer | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"level converter",
"pic",
"programmer",
"RPi",
"voltage divider"
] | [Giorgio Vazzana]
turned his Raspberry Pi into a PIC programmer
using a rather small collection of common parts. It supports about a dozen different chips from the 16F family. But we’d guess that software is the limiting factor when it comes to supporting more chips.
Generally the problem with PIC programming is the need for a 12V supply. He chose to use an external 12V supply and a 78L05 linear regulator to derive the 5V rails from it. With the power worked out there are some level conversion issues to account for. The RPi provides 3.3V on the GPIO header pins, but 5V logic levels are needed for programming. He built transistor and voltage divider circuits to act as level converters. The programming software bit bangs the pins with a write time of less than eight seconds per 1k words of program data. So far this does not work with ICSP, but he plans to add that feature in a future version. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "739948",
"author": "steve",
"timestamp": "2012-08-17T20:43:20",
"content": "That wins the prize for the most crazy overkill ever.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "741236",
"author": "M4CGYV3R",
"timestamp": "201... | 1,760,376,769.656246 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/17/turning-m-c-escher-prints-into-real-objects/ | Turning [M. C. Escher] Prints Into Real Objects | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d modeling",
"M.C. Escher"
] | September is coming, and soon college freshmen the world over will be decorating their dorm room walls with
Dark Side of the Moon
posters and [M.C. Escher] prints. Anyone can go out and simply buy a prism, but what if you wanted a real-life version of objects and buildings from [Escher]’s universe? Professor [Gershon Elber] at the Technion at the Israel Institute of Technology decided to
turn [Escher]’s prints into reality
.
First beginning with simple shapes such as a Penrose Triangle and a Necker Cube, [Elber] decided to branch out into much more impossible shapes such as [Escher]’s
Waterfall, Belvedere,
and
Relativity.
These buildings are extremely hard to visualize in any traditional computer design program, so [Elber] wrote a plugin for his
IRIT computer modeling program
to design the buildings before committing them to a 3D printer.
In the video after the break, you can see a few rotating views of the resulting [Escher] buildings. Of course they only work from exactly one point of view – and even then, only with one eye closed – but it’s amazing to see these famous architectural studies brought into the real world.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmr4HqjSSw4&w=470] | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "739936",
"author": "SARodrigues",
"timestamp": "2012-08-17T20:34:38",
"content": "Isn’t there something wrong in the first sentence?Especially this part right here: “and soon college freshmen the world over will be decorating “.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,376,769.695314 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/17/femto-photography-taking-pictures-of-bullets-made-of-light/ | Femto-photography: Taking Pictures Of Bullets Made Of Light | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"femto",
"femto-fotography",
"light",
"light bullets"
] | Femto-photography is a term that derives its name from the metric scale’s prefix for one-quadrillionth. When combined with photography this division of time is small enough to see groups of light photons moving. The effect is jaw-dropping. The image seen above shows a ‘light bullet’ travelling through a water-filled soda bottle. It’s part of [Ramesh Raskar’s]
TED talk on imaging at 1 trillion frames per second
.
The video is something of a lie. We’re not seeing one singular event, but rather a myriad of photographs of discrete events that have been stitched together into a video. But that doesn’t diminish the spectacular ability of the camera to achieve such a minuscule exposure time. In fact, that ability combined with fancy code can do another really amazing thing. It can take a photograph around a corner. A laser pulses light bullets just like the image above, but the beam is bounced off of a surface and the camera captures what light ‘echos’ back. A computer can assemble this and build a representation of what is beyond the camera’s line of sight.
You’ll find the entire talk embedded after the break.
[ted id=1520]
[Thanks Pim] | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "739810",
"author": "Tom",
"timestamp": "2012-08-17T18:59:35",
"content": "“embedded after the break” What fucking break? The link is in line with the text body.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "739825",
"author": "gizmo... | 1,760,376,769.758315 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/17/prototyping-with-very-very-small-ics/ | Prototyping With Very, Very Small ICs | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"breakout board",
"LGA-16",
"smd"
] | Gone are the days when all the cool chips are able to be thrown into a breadboard very easily. [starlino] was working with a circuit that uses an accelerometer, but unfortunately these chips come in hard to solder LGA-16 packages. [starlino]
figured out a way to prototype with these packages
that doesn’t require a custom breakout board or spending any time watching a reflow oven.
[starlino]’s LGA-16 adapter board began with a piece of perf board drilled out to form a space that perfectly fits his accelerometer. A piece of tape is placed over the pads of the chip and perf board, and the gap between the chip and board is filled in with a two-part plumbers putty.
Once the putty has cured, the leads on the acclerometer are connected to the pads on the board with a
silver conductive pen
. After putting a few header pins in the corners of the board, [starlino] soldered the pads to the pins and had a permanent breakout board for a very small accelerometer.
It’s not by any means a pretty build, but after [starlino] sealed the entire build in liquid electrical tape and installed it in a DIP socket, he had a completely functional accelerometer in an easy to prototype package. Not bad for a breakout board that can be built from stuff just lying around a workbench. | 20 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "739699",
"author": "elwing",
"timestamp": "2012-08-17T17:42:55",
"content": "it’s quite an old news…. where did I saw that a few month/year ago? was it on HaD or by ladyada, seedstudio or an other site like that? I can’t remember…nice trick through…",
"parent_id": null,
"dep... | 1,760,376,770.540723 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/17/toorcamp-the-lock-picking-village/ | Toorcamp: The Lock Picking Village | Eric Evenchick | [
"cons"
] | [
"lockpicking",
"toool",
"toorcamp"
] | The Open Organization Of Lockpickers
(TOOOL) ran the lock picking village at Toorcamp. They gave great workshops on how lock picking works, provided a lot of examples of security flaws in popular locks, and let everyone practice with their locks and tools. Lock picking is a bit addictive, and I spent quite a bit of time at the village.
TOOOL is an international organization that aims to advance the general public knowledge about locks and lockpicking. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about locks, you can check out their
list of chapters
to see if there’s one in your area, or send them an email to see if there’s other lock picking enthusiasts near you. Their detailed
slides
that were used for the village are also available.
[Eric] from TOOOL worked on building a lock picking installation called the Labyrinth of Locks. The first prototype of this consists of locks enclosed in 3D printed enclosures, and lit by LEDs. The goal was to string them up in the woods and challenge people to find and pick the locks. MakerBot Industries printed the orange and flower shaped enclosures that the LEDs and locks were mounted into.
This is a first prototype, and [Eric] plans to expand on the idea and use it at other lock picking events he attends. It’s a neat way to mix lock picking and an art installation into an interactive activity. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "739672",
"author": "JamieWho",
"timestamp": "2012-08-17T17:27:56",
"content": "Seriously cool.I love lock picking, and it is indeed contagious. I’ve taught several coworkers the basics of lock picking and even demonstrated on some old padlocks that I own.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,376,770.25461 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/17/were-getting-an-oculus-rift-dev-kit/ | We’re Getting An Oculus Rift Dev Kit | Caleb Kraft | [
"News"
] | [
"oculus rift",
"vr"
] | Before you get jealous of the massive amount of sway that hackaday must’ve tossed at these guys to get a dev kit, don’t be. We just
funded the kickstarter like everyone else
. This is exciting news though since, as you probably know, I’m very fond of immersive gaming and have
always craved a strong VR rig
.
We are expecting our dev kit some time in December. I have no idea exactly what we’ll do with it. Right now [John Carmak] has made the iD engine work with it and it ships with Doom3. They’ve stated that it will work with the Unreal engine as well. Even though I saw [Gabe Newell] from valve in the video, I don’t see any source engine compatibility in the list. I really would love to see that one added, especially since
Valve released the source film maker for free
.
So, who has ideas about what to do with this? I’d like to build a telepresence rig with stereo vision, possibly mounted on a radio controlled car chassis. | 35 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "739535",
"author": "Benjamin",
"timestamp": "2012-08-17T16:01:53",
"content": "I’m jealous. I wish I could have afforded to fund the kickstarter.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "739542",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,376,770.211751 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/17/an-in-depth-interview-with-jeri-ellsworth-about-everything/ | An In Depth Interview With [Jeri Ellsworth] About Everything | Caleb Kraft | [
"Interviews"
] | [
"jeri ellsworth"
] | Here’s an interesting
interview with [Jeri Ellsworth] over at the Jenessee Network
. Usually the interviews I see popup with people are fairly short and sweet but this one really delves into many subjects and takes its time to explore. They start off talking about how [Jeri] began with hacking, which was literally smashing toys “with rocks” to see what was inside. They move on to discuss her adventures in building a race car, and then racing it as a teen… as an act of defiance.
In case you didn’t know,
[Jeri] has been full time at Valve for about a year
. Much of the discussion focuses on this from about 20 minutes in. She doesn’t hold back on information about what her daily life is like at valve as well as her experience during the hiring process. An interesting fact is that she didn’t initially recognize the name “Valve” and ignored them for a while. She does admit that if they had mentioned portal she would have paid a little more attention.
I was unaware that she had a side job putting the overflow of pinball machines she aquires into bars. When she moved to valve, she shut down that business, but she’s been flooding the halls with pinball machines, much to the enjoyment of the older folks. | 25 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "739365",
"author": "nabilt",
"timestamp": "2012-08-17T14:36:34",
"content": "Here is another 1 hour long interview on twit.tv:http://twit.tv/tri3From what I remember she talked a lot about her history as well.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"... | 1,760,376,770.363012 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/mechanical-skeeball-built-from-knex/ | Mechanical Skeeball Built From Knex | Mike Szczys | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"knex",
"mechanical",
"skeeball"
] | We don’t really know what to say. This
Skeeball cabinet is built entirely from Knex
. It works exactly how you’d expect Skeeball to work. You plug in quarter and it dispenses balls and keeps score.
[Shadowman39] worked on the build for more than a year. Everything that went into it is a Knex part with the exception of a few rubber bands, and the paper numbers that are used on the scoreboard. There are six motors which drive the machine. Four of them are responsible for turning the scoreboard digits, the others handle ball return.
The link at the top starts off with a bunch of images of the various parts, but you’ll want to watch the video after the break for a closer look. It shows the coin hopper in greater detail. It’s built to only accept quarters and to reject all other coins.
[Thanks Bobby] | 18 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "736988",
"author": "EmuMoogle",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T22:07:47",
"content": "Whoa. WHOA. Just… WHOA.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "737013",
"author": "Galane",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T22:41:13",
"content": "Tha... | 1,760,376,770.134894 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/connect-4-binary-clock/ | Connect 4 Binary Clock | Mike Szczys | [
"clock hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"binary clock",
"board game",
"connect 4"
] | As part of a class at University, [Emacheen22] and his teammates
turned an old Connect 4 game into a binary clock
. This image shows the device nearing completion, but the final build includes the game tokens which diffuse the LED light. We enjoy the concept, but think there are a few ways to improve on it for the next iteration. If you’re interested in making your own we’d bet you can find Connect 4 at the thrift store.
Instead of using the free-standing game frame the team decided to use the box to host the LEDs and hide away the electronics. Since they’re using a breadboard and an Arduino this is a pretty good option. But it means that the game frame needs to be on its side as the tokens won’t stay in place without the plastic base attached. They used a panel mount bracket for each LED and chose super glue to hold all of the parts together.
We think this would be a lot of fun if the frame was upright. The LEDs could be free-floating by hot glueing the leads to either side of the opening. Using a small box under the base, all of the electronics can be hidden from view. After all, if you solder directly and use just a bare AVR chip there won’t be all that much to hide. Or you could get fancy and go with
logic chips instead of a uC
. | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "737044",
"author": "anonymous",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T23:19:36",
"content": "Aww, I was hoping they had one that would actually drop the game pieces (red for 0, yellow for 1) in as the time changed, and release them out the bottom to reset the row.It’s doable if you don’t do seco... | 1,760,376,770.299822 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/automatic-speaker-control-via-tv/ | Automatic Speaker Control Via TV | Mike Szczys | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"gate",
"logic",
"optoisolator",
"power",
"speaker",
"tv",
"usb"
] | [Jon] wanted his speakers to come on and off along with his TV. The speaker heats up if left on so he didn’t want to do that. But killing the power also resets the volume level (this is an old set of PC speakers and the remote is wired, not IR) so using one of those switched power strips was out as well. He thought a bit about trying to use the power LED on the TV to build his own circuit when it dawned on him. It’s possible to
monitor the USB port on the TV and use it to switch on the speakers
.
The circuit above uses a couple of opto-isolators to protect both the television and the speakers. The 5V line from the USB port on the back of the TV is monitored by an XNOR gate (which helps to filter out some of the toggling at power-on). When that gate latches it activates a 555 timer which in turn fires up the speakers. Presumable this happens when power is cut as well, but we’ll let you work through the circuit logic yourself. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "736934",
"author": "BitMage",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T20:45:05",
"content": "*Presumably",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "737318",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T07:18:47",
"content": "The speakers h... | 1,760,376,770.588366 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/southwest-tour-fablab-in-tulsa-oklahoma/ | Southwest Tour: Fablab In Tulsa Oklahoma | Caleb Kraft | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"fablab",
"southwest tour"
] | We passed through Tulsa Oklahoma the first day we were traveling, but it was very early in the morning, so we skipped the
Fablab
. On the way home though, the timing was perfect for a quick visit. [Blixa] was happy to show me around and explain how the fablab works.
I’ve never been to a fablab before, so I was very curious what it would be like. Fablabs are slightly different than your standard hackerspace, having a set structure that they must adhere to, to be considered a fablab, sort of like a franchise. Instead of paying to become a member, you pay for time on the machines. From what I saw at the fablab in Tulsa, this model seems to be working well. They had very nice equipment that appeared to be in constant use by the visitors.
Much like a hackerspace, local groups will gather there as well. As [Blixa] was pointing explaining in the video, the
Tulsa Webdevs
, and the
Tulsa Open Source Hardware
groups had met there recently. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "736851",
"author": "Jonas",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T19:51:57",
"content": "So that Objet Makes ready to use Parts ? Cool. How about printing a Razor? *g",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "736951",
"author": "Blixa Morgan... | 1,760,376,770.815601 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/buying-cheaper-electronics-and-not-saving-money/ | Buying Cheaper Electronics And Not Saving Money | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"chinese manufacturing",
"power supply"
] | As an engineer at Spectrum Design in Minneapolis, [Carl] works with clients to get their product out to the masses. When designing a new USB-powered device, one client thought it would be a great idea to include a USB car charger with the device. The client promptly ordered a few thousand car chargers from China and everything was going swimmingly.
Everything was fine, of course, until [Carl] decided to test the Chinese car chargers with the client’s device. The USB PHY burnt out in short order, and the likely culprit was a shorted 12 volt regulator. This demanded a closer inspection, so after cracking open the charger
[Carl] was amazed at what he found
.
Yes, what you see on that circuit board is accurate. The manufacturer of these car chargers never even populated the switched mode regulator for this car USB charger. Amazing, considering a single 10 cent 7805 DC regulator would have almost worked for this application.
If there was ever an example of being careful when purchasing the cheapest possible product to increase profit margins, this would be it.
Ever the engineer, [Carl] sent this into the tip line as a Word document. That’s available
here
, along with a slide show of the pictures [Carl] snapped.
[slideshow] | 125 | 48 | [
{
"comment_id": "736680",
"author": "DanAdamKOF",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T18:03:16",
"content": "Cool slideshow! I haven’t seen one before on HAD.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "736682",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T18:05... | 1,760,376,770.760587 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/toorcamp-bliplace-2-0/ | Toorcamp: Bliplace 2.0 | Eric Evenchick | [
"cons"
] | [
"audio",
"AVR",
"leds",
"toorcamp"
] | We’ve shown [
Tanjent
]’s
Bliplace 1.0
in the
past
. He handed out a few hundred of the open source audio toys at Burning Man. At Toorcamp, he’s been showing off an improved 2.0 version of the project. This one has a more powerful microcontroller and many more RGB LEDs.
The device uses the ATMega328 and an electret microphone to sample ambient noise. It the processes the sound into a light pattern which is displayed on the line of RGB LEDs. The demo that I saw showed the LEDs synchronized to bass frequencies, which it could pick up at a range from the large sub-woofers at Toorcamp. It’s powered by a CR2032 coin cell battery, which means it can be worn as a neat audio toy.
This prototype version was etched in his kitchen but [Tanjent] is working on making a production version of the PCB. He plans to release it as a surface mount soldering kit. | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "736642",
"author": "hellotanjent",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T17:20:50",
"content": "The dangly wires are for reprogramming the chip with an AVRISP, in case anyone’s wondering. The final board will be about 1 inch across and teardrop shaped.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,770.859931 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/hackaday-links-august-15-2012/ | Hackaday Links: August 15, 2012 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"CompareRC",
"EDL",
"fedora",
"Khan academy",
"megadrive",
"octopart",
"radio control",
"sega",
"sega genesis",
"segway",
"teleconfrence"
] | An Octopart for RC equipment
When [Zach] started building a quadcopter he found it very difficult to source the required parts. Thus was born
CompareRC
, an aggregation of several online RC retailers. There’s over 150,000 parts in the database, all searchable and sortable by lowest price.
Segway iPad Skype teleconferencing robot
It’ll be a while until robots completely eliminate the need for any human interaction, but until then
there’s Double
. It’s a two-wheeled balancing robot with an iPad dock, controllable via a remote iPad.
Free electronic design
In case you weren’t aware, Fedora has an
electronic design distro
that includes just about everything needed to build electronic circuits called Fedora Electronic Lab. FEL has PCB designers, circuit simulators, editors for just about everything, and support for PICs, AVRs, and 8051 micros. Thanks for sending this in, [Simon].
Make your own Megadrive ROMs
Last month, [Lee] sent in a build where he connected an
Arduino Mega to an old Sega Genesis/Megadrive cartridge
. He’s figured out how to
read the contents of the cartridge
now, allowing you to preserve your 100% complete Sonic & Knuckles / Sonic 3 save for time immemorial.
A surprising amount of graphics tutorials
Khan Academy, every autodidacts best friend,
is now teaching computer science
. Right now, there is a heavy focus on drawing graphics, and everything is coded in the browser (using Javascript…), but at least it’s a start. The fundamentals of programming are platform and language agnostic, so this looks to be a great way to learn programming.
Here’s a blog post
from the lead dev of the Khan CS project. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "736550",
"author": "William",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T16:13:43",
"content": "FEL is old. Hasn’t been updated to a recent release in quite a while.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "736674",
"author": "Ren",
"tim... | 1,760,376,770.910057 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/17/inventor-of-the-555-timer-passes-away/ | Inventor Of The 555 Timer Passes Away | Caleb Kraft | [
"News"
] | [
"555",
"news"
] | August 15th 2012, the news was reported that [Hanz Camenzind], the
creator of the 555 timer, has passed away
. We are all familiar with 555 timer, but many of you may not be aware that [Hanz] also created the first class D amplifier. Actually, he had over 20 patents under his belt
as well as a few books
.
He is survived by His Wife, Daughter, and three Sons. | 25 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "739274",
"author": "Zhen",
"timestamp": "2012-08-17T13:41:18",
"content": "I guess his timer was up.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "739279",
"author": "Caleb Kraft",
"timestamp": "2012-08-17T13:43:46",
... | 1,760,376,770.969329 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/17/turn-signals-on-your-head/ | Turn Signals On Your Head | Caleb Kraft | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Crowd Funding",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"bike",
"cyclist"
] | Several weeks ago, I was in Culver City L.A., and happened to find a hackerspace nearby. It was a pleasant coincidence that the night I chose to randomly show up, was their public meeting which focused more on projects people were doing. The place was packed, I was barely able to squeeze in the door and actually stood outside for part of the meeting, just listening to people talk about what they’re making.
One of the projects
I did get to see was this bike helmet built by [Naim]
. At first I was amused at the idea, but the idea of putting lights and an accelerometer on a helmet wasn’t that groundbreaking. But as [Naim] kept talking, he caught my attention. For one thing, the one he was showing at the hackerspace seemed to have some built in correction for natural head movement. In this video he does look around a bit without false positives. At the hackerspace he explained the way he monitors the motion to avoid natural movements causing the lights to initialize.
The part I was really interested in was his power. He spent tons of time reducing the power consumption on the base arduino. I believe the number he used was 10 years of standby without causing the battery to vent or die. If you pick up the helmet at any point during that time period, it automatically turns itself on based on the accelerometer’s motion. While the bike helmet itself was a fairly cute idea, I was really trying to get him to send me the information on how he’s saving power. I believe he had to cut the traces to the arduino’s native power management. Hopefully we’ll still hear from him on the details. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "739181",
"author": "Leo-R",
"timestamp": "2012-08-17T12:25:01",
"content": "It’s a pretty cool implementation and an interesting challenge.I can’t help feeling that sticking your arm out would be easier though…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,771.272779 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/16/washing-machines-that-do-it-without-electricity/ | Washing Machines That Do It Without Electricity | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"bike",
"human-powered",
"laundry",
"washing machine"
] | Those of us living in the first world take clean clothes for granted. Throw them in the washing machine, transfer to the dryer after 45 minutes, and you won’t smell for another two weeks or so. But for people living in areas without electricity, clean clothes are a huge amount of work. Hand washing a family’s clothes is estimated at 6 hours per day, three to five days per week. Here’s a post that looks at
some of the different human-powered washing machines
out there.
We’ve built our own human-powered machine before using a five-gallon bucket with a hole in the lit to receive the handle of a toilet plunger which acts as an agitator. But that pales in comparison to some of the machines seen here. The concept we like the most is shown above. It’s an MIT project being used at an orphanage in Peru. The bicycle lets you easily power the spinning basket inside of the drum. The rear derailleur has been mounted on the axle so that the rider has a wider range of gears when spinning heavy loads. Take a look at the post linked above to see all of the offering, but we’ve also embedded video of two of them after the break.
If you were looking for a washing-machine powered bike instead of a bike-powered washing machine you’ll want to
head on over to this post
.
[via
Reddit
] | 26 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "738582",
"author": "Salomon",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T22:17:33",
"content": "If you put two giradoras together, you could use them like a climber machine, so you can have a laundry-gym!.. excuse my english",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"com... | 1,760,376,771.170123 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/16/autonomous-fixed-wing-drone-threads-the-needled-in-a-parking-garage/ | Autonomous Fixed-wing Drone Threads The Needled In A Parking Garage | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"airplane",
"drone",
"fixed-wing",
"laser range finder",
"mit",
"plane"
] | We’ve got something of a love affair going on with quadcopters, but there’s still room for a little something on the side. This
fixed-wing drone can pull off some pretty amazing navigation
. MIT’s Robust Robotics Group is showing off the work they’ve done with the plane, culminating in a death-defying flight through a parking garage (video after the break). This may not sound like a huge accomplishment, but consider that the wingspan is over two meters and repeated runs at the same circuit brought it within centimeters of clipping support columns.
Unlike the precision quadcopters
which depend on stationary high-speed cameras for feedback
, this drone is self-contained. It does depend on starting out with a map of its environment, using this in conjunction with a laser rangefinder and inertial sensors to plot its route and adjust as necessary. We think the thing must have to plan a lot further ahead than a quadcopter since it lacks the ability to put on the brakes and hover. This is, however, one of the strengths of the design. Since it uses a fixed-wing approach it can stay in air much longer than a quadcopter with the same battery capacity.
[via
Reddit
] | 23 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "738481",
"author": "Destate9",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T21:09:33",
"content": "This is hardcore badass. The stuff that goes on at MIT is rediculous. They must have soooo much fun!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1036800",
... | 1,760,376,771.227884 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/16/raspberry-pi-wedded-to-a-dslr/ | Raspberry Pi Wedded To A DSLR | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"battery grip",
"debian",
"dslr",
"imagemagick",
"linux",
"RPi"
] | This is
a Raspberry Pi outfitted in a DSLR battery grip
. [Dave H] was very interested in the idea of combining a single-board computer with a high-end camera. The size and cost of such a computer was prohibitive until the RPi came along. He managed to fit the board into the broken battery grip he had on hand, and he already has the prototype up and running.
[Dave’s] alterations to the battery grip allow access to the USB, Ethernet, and Composite video ports. Powering the RPi was a bit of a challenge. He tried using an iPhone charger with four AA batteries but that only provided 4.2V. After going back to the drawing board he discovered he could rework the parts that he removed from the grip, using a Cannon 7.2V 1800 mAh battery. So far he can automatically pull images from the Camera and transmit them over a network connection. But since the RPi is running Linux, there’s a whole world of hacks just waiting to be exploited. What comes to mind first is image manipulation software (like ImageMagick) which has a command-line interface.
[Thanks Christian] | 11 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "738402",
"author": "macona",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T20:17:26",
"content": "I guess I am missing the point. Between an eye-fi card and installing the magiclantern firmware it seems pretty much all his features are covered.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,771.105183 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/16/building-an-led-suit/ | Building An LED Suit | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"led",
"msgeq7",
"suit",
"tlc5947",
"tyvek"
] | [Rob] has been hard at work designing and building
this LED suit which he can wear to parties
. He’s got it working, although right now it’s just a pair of pants. It reacts to sound, and has the potential to be controlled from a smartphone via Bluetooth. You’ll find a video description of the build embedded after the break.
The planning started off by
selecting driver hardware for the LEDs
. [Rob] wanted the suit to pulse to the music in the room so he grabbed an MSGEQ7 chip. When connected to a microphone and opamp this chip will output a signal which can be used as a VU meter. He built the hardware into an Arduino shield, then got to work on the LED driver board. He’s using LED strips, but they’re not individually addressable. Instead he cut loops which wrap around the wearer’s legs. Each loop connects the pins of a TLC5947 LED driver chip which sinks a constant current and offers PWM abilities. He’s using PNP transistors on the high side.
For anyone that’s ever worked in a Tyvek suit before you’ll know they don’t breathe. Sweat will literally be pouring off of you. And we’d bet that’s what cause the short that burned the back of [Rob’s] leg at a recent party. Then again,
your light-up pimp coats
are going to be hot to wear too. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "738295",
"author": "freelancer",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T19:05:36",
"content": "awesome at night for sure, but don’t let you see passed out on the street the next day.. (you’ll look like an escaped experiment)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,376,771.320405 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/16/adding-inductive-charging-to-an-android-tablet/ | Adding Inductive Charging To An Android Tablet | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks"
] | [
"charger",
"g9t",
"gemei",
"inductive",
"palm",
"touchstone"
] | This is a Gemei G9T, a 9.7″ Tablet running Android 4.0. [Carnivore] shows us
how to modify it to use inductive charging
. The inductive charging hardware is taken from a Palm device (this uses
the Touchstone charging
hardware seen in several other hacks). It’s easy to interface with the tablet’s electronics, but physically placing the coil and magnets is another story.
The video after the break gives you a full walk-through of the process. He starts by removing the screws and prying the case off of the tablet. From there [Carnivore] shows how to carefully remove the coil, circuit board, shielding, and magnets from a Palm back plate. The magnets are the first to be positioned on the tablet’s back plate. The metal is too thick for them to hold well so he uses a Dremel to grind away just enough material for a strong connection. Unfortunately the metal will shield the magnetic fields the coil needs to work so he cuts a hole in the case the same size as that coil. The area is covered in liquid electrical tape to prevent shorts, and everything is taped in place. Two jumper wires connected from the coil’s circuit board to the 5V charging input are all it takes to finish up the hack. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "738237",
"author": "???",
"timestamp": "2012-08-16T18:31:43",
"content": "I’ll have to agree with the statement that if you pull on a soldering point, there is a high chance that the point will pull the trace away from the pcb. Good idea on gluing the wire next to it.",
"parent_... | 1,760,376,771.73701 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/turning-a-keyboard-into-a-computer-with-a-raspberry-pi/ | Turning A Keyboard Into A Computer With A Raspberry Pi | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"Cherry keyboard",
"keyboard",
"raspberry pi"
] | Only 80s kids will get this: remember when computers had built-in keyboards, like the Apple II line, or the Commodore 64? That’s a form factor duplicated by case modders many times over the years, but [preamp]’s project is the first time its been done
using a Raspi
(German,
Google translation
).
For his build, [preamp] used what he considers the best keyboard in the world, the
Cherry G80-3000
. Except for the HDMI port, just about every plug was moved to the back side of the keyboard with the help of an Ethernet jack, a USB hub, and RCA jack. Audio is missing, but for an extremely portable system [preamp]’s RaspCherry Pi is at the top of its class.
We were wondering when someone would shove a Raspi into a keyboard, and we couldn’t be happier that [preamp] chose a Cherry keyboard for his build; they’re wonderful input devices second only to
the 8 pound behemeoth
used to write this post. | 28 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "735624",
"author": "Scuffles",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T22:16:40",
"content": "Ok so can I officially call this the best “case mod” ever?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "735667",
"author": "nah!",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,376,771.592605 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/making-chiptunes-with-32-bytes-of-ram/ | Making Chiptunes With 32 Bytes Of RAM | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"Atmel TPI",
"ATtiny9",
"chiptune"
] | Ah, chiptunes. One of the few remaining human endeavours where less RAM, less storage space, and fewer capabilities are actually considered an improvement. [dop3joe] over at the Stuttgart hackerspace Shackspace sent in a
tiny chiptune playing circuit
using the most bare-bones hardware we’ve ever seen.
The Noiseplug, as [dop3joe] calls it, is based on a very, very small 6 pin ATtiny9. With 1 kB of Flash memory and only 32 bytes of RAM [dop3joe] was able to create a small device inside an RCA jack that plays chiptunes whenever it is powered by a battery.
If you’d like to make your own noise plug, [dop3j0e] put all the code
up in his Git
. There are two relevant pieces of software for this build: a Windows app to create the chiptunes, and the ATtiny9 firmware itself. Of course to program the tiny, you’ll have to deal with the Atmel TPI, so
here’s the application note
(PDF).
Oh, [dop3joe]
won third place
at the
Evoke demoscene party
last weekend with the Noiseplug. Awesome. | 25 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "735413",
"author": "minifloat",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T21:11:11",
"content": "Why don’t you phantom power it?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "735995",
"author": "einballimwasser",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T06:... | 1,760,376,771.834126 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/servo-controlled-wine-glass-plays-the-music-of-the-angels/ | Servo Controlled Wine Glass Plays The Music Of The Angels | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"armonica",
"glass harmonica",
"glass harp",
"GoOSC"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUNuTgNU-3c&w=470]
There’s a lot of cool stuff brewing on the Hackaday forums. [igor_b] posted
a project he’s been working on
that uses a servo, motor, wine glass, and a balloon to create a one-glass armonica.
A
glass harmonica
is a series of nested bowls turned on a spindle that is played by running your finger along the rims of the glasses. They’re very unique sounding instruments and something [igor] decided to emulate using only one glass.
Because the note produced from a wine glass varies with the volume of liquid, [igor]’s first thought was to use a pump to change the level of the water. He discarded this idea when he realized he could displace water by tying a balloon to a servo.
The rest of the build is a simple 555-based motor driver, a phone app written with
GoOSC
, and a Teensy dev board. To change the pitch of his instrument, [igor]’s phone sends a command via WiFi to his computer, which in turn controls the Teensy, servo, and ultimately the level of water in the glass.
It’s a very cool build, but there is a small change in timbre as the water balloon displaces more liquid in the glass. [igor] tried a few other objects – a peach and a plum – but using a balloon filled with water produced the clearest tone.
Now to make a few more of these and connect them to a MIDI keyboard… | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "735258",
"author": "David M.",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T20:14:59",
"content": "I love this!I wonder, if the balloon was filled with sand instead of water, would it still make the quavering sound?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,376,771.954841 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/toorcamp-banana-piano/ | Toorcamp: Banana Piano | Eric Evenchick | [
"cons"
] | [
"banana",
"MaKey MaKey",
"music",
"toorcamp",
"VUSB"
] | [Michael] built his own clone of the popular
MaKey MaKey
Kickstarter project. His implementation uses an ATMega328 and the
V-USB
stack to connect as a USB Human Interface Device. He was showing it off at Toorcamp wired up to a banana piano, which captured the interest of kids and adults alike.
The digital inputs are pulled to ground with a large (10 Mohm) resistance. The user holds a supply voltage in one hand and completes the circuit by touching a conductive object like a banana, which is connected to a digital input of the ATMega328. Since the internal resistance across your body is typically around 1 Mohm, this pulls the input high and corresponds to a key being pressed on a normal keyboard.
We featured
banana pianos
before, and it’s a great demo of the interfaces that can be built with this project. This implementation is very simple, and works well if your internal resistance is low enough. [Michael] taught a workshop at Toorcamp to show people how to build their own. He has found that the ‘magic’ of playing music with bananas is a great way to get children interested in electronics. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "735612",
"author": "redbeard",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T22:01:55",
"content": "I was at toorcamp, great time. That being said do you plan on posting any real details of the build?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "736015",
... | 1,760,376,771.532595 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/light-painting-with-the-raspi/ | Light Painting With The Raspi | Brian Benchoff | [
"LED Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"led strip",
"light painting",
"Raspi",
"rgb"
] | The art of taking long exposure photographs with blinking RGB LEDs has improved greatly over the years, mostly due to the extremely easy to use Arduino and hundreds of tutorials on the web. If there’s one problem with light painting with a ‘duino, it’s that large, full color images take up a ton of storage space, much more than the flash memory on an Arduino can provide. Wanting fancier and more colorful light painted images, [Phil] over at Adafruit
used a Raspberry Pi
to make some very awesome light painted images.
Like any Adafruit tutorial that uses LEDs, the build begins with a
digital RGB LED strip
wired to the GPIO pins on the Raspi. After loading up the
Adafruit educational Raspi Li
nux distro
for hardware SPI support, the only thing left to do was writing a Python script to display images in the air.
[Phil] says vertical, hand-held LED bars are old hat, so he took a hula hoop and a few bits of PVC pipe, attached the LED strip, and
put it on his bike
. The results are really impressive – we’re loving the flames in the title pic – and considering the Raspi is a full-fledged computer, light paintings larger than what [Phil] made are very possible. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "735981",
"author": "me",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T06:26:17",
"content": "Anyone know what kind of update rate is possible with these strips?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "736508",
"author": "Phil Burgess",
"t... | 1,760,376,771.780172 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/back-up-the-band-with-some-rgb-stage-lights/ | Back Up The Band With Some RGB Stage Lights | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackerspaces",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"el wire",
"led strip",
"lpd8806",
"rgb"
] | Fresh off the 72-hour madness of the Red Bull Creation contest some of the folks a
North Street Labs took on a stage lighting project
. It’s for a local performing venue that just opened up, and despite the time crunch the team pulled off another great build.
Sixteen meters of LED strip make the electronics for the project a whole lot easier. The strips run up the center of a cabinets built as stand-alone columns which will end up at the back of the stage. Each cabinet has its own 5V 4A power supply (note the burnout issues they mention when using cheap eBay PSUs). Each column has its own Arduino Uno driving the LEDs, with an RS485 shield to connect back to a main Arduino Mega 2560 controller. It uses a PSX controller to switch between different lighting modes.
The seven towers boasting 688 LEDs isn’t all that’s shedding light on the show. There’s also about 300 feet of EL wire at work. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "735060",
"author": "derekb",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T17:41:05",
"content": "reaaally needs more DMX.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "735211",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T19:43:50",
"cont... | 1,760,376,771.887897 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/robot-servo-control-using-smartphone-audio-jack/ | Robot Servo Control Using Smartphone Audio Jack | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"motor",
"servo",
"transistor"
] | [Jim] has an old Android phone he’d like to use as a Robot brain. It’s got a lot of the things you’d want in a robot platform; WiFi, Bluetooth, a camera, an accelerometer, etc. But he needed some way to make the mobile, mobile. What he came up with is
a chassis with servos that can be controlled by the phone’s audio port
.
To start his adventure he crafted a square wave audio file in Audacity and then played it back on the Android music player. By monitoring the output on an oscilloscope he found the wave was well produced, with peaks of about 1V. With that in mind he designed a circuit using two transistors to amplify the signal, thereby creating a usable input for the servo motors. Each motor has one of these circuits connected to it, with the left and right channels from the audio jack driving them separately. In the clip after the break you can see he even wrote a simple Android app to extend the idea to a more usable level.
This is a similar technique as used by
the recon robot
we saw about a year ago. | 10 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "734939",
"author": "Jim McC",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T16:22:52",
"content": "If you have an inexpensive PPM R/C receiver, you could feed it the audio signal and control N-channels that way…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "73517... | 1,760,376,772.007273 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/toorcamp-quadcopter-controlled-by-a-ti-84/ | Toorcamp: Quadcopter Controlled By A TI-84+ | Eric Evenchick | [
"cons"
] | [
"attiny13",
"graphing calculator",
"quadcopter",
"toorcamp"
] | What happens when you combine a TI-84+ graphing calculator with an added bluetooth module, a 1 Watt Alfa wifi dongle, and a Parrot Wifi Quadcopter? You get a long range quadcopter that’s controlled from the TI-84+ directional pad.
This TI-84+ looks like a standard issue school calculator, but [
Owen
]
added an ATTiny13 microcontroller
and a bluetooth module which sniffs the I/O port of the calculator. This allows for bi-directional communication with a laptop. He wrote a few Python scripts on the laptop to receive data from the calculator and send commands to the Parrot Quadcopter. The high-powered wifi module allowed for pretty good range with the Quadcopter, which was flown across the Toorcamp grounds.
Of course, having an innocent looking calculator with wireless communications has some other uses. Data could be displayed on the calculator from a phone over bluetooth. How about accessing Wikipedia or WolframAlpha from your calculator? Despite the possibilities, [Owen] did say that he’s never used it to cheat on tests. | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "736450",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T15:13:35",
"content": "Quote: “[Owen] did say that he’s never used it to cheat on tests.”So… did [Owen] build it at toorcamp? That could explain why it hasn’t been used in tests…:-P",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"rep... | 1,760,376,772.072104 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/toothbrush-timer/ | Toothbrush Timer | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"atmega328",
"bell",
"lamp",
"timer",
"toothbrush",
"weight"
] | This toothbrush holder will make sure you’re brushing your pearly whites for an appropriate length of time. The three cups serves as tootbrush storage, and detect when one has been removed. Once you start brushing your teeth
the lights on the front and bell in the back count down the process automatically
.
The counting sequence starts when a weight sensor in the base detects a change caused by picking up a toothbrush. The ATmega328 — which is programmed with Arduino-style code — then turns on all of the incandescent lamps mounted on the front portion of the base. Each of these are switched with a 2N3904 transistor in order to sink enough current for the bulb. As a two-minute timer decrements, the bulbs are extinguished one by one. But there is also an auditory feedback mechanism. On the back of the base is a small bell. A hammer on a servo strikes the bell every 30 seconds to let you know how you’re doing. The entire thing is driven by an internal Li-ion battery which lasts about three weeks between charges. Don’t miss the demo video found after the break. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "736361",
"author": "kormsbee",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T14:12:07",
"content": "Wheres the video… It’s after the break….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "736473",
"author": "techknowledgist",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T15:26... | 1,760,376,772.120393 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/donation-meter-raises-alarm-when-not-plugged-with-coins/ | Donation Meter Raises Alarm When Not Plugged With Coins | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"coin",
"festival",
"meter",
"siren"
] | This is something of a mandatory donation meter. If you don’t feed it with coins
it sounds a very loud alarm continuously
.
[Piet De Vaere] built the device for a free festival in Ghent, Belgium. The intent is to help raise awareness that although free of an admission price, the success of the event depends on donations. It works much like a parking meter. When you feed it coins time is added to the meter. When it runs all the way down that large loudspeaker on the right side of the case sounds the alarm.
In the video after the break [Piet] walks us through a demonstration, followed by a tour of the hardware. The pointer on the meter is a piece of cardboard connected to a servo. An Arduino board controls the servo, adding time in two-minute intervals whenever a coin enters the chute and passes by an optical sensor. There is no distinction between types of coins.
The use of a pizza box as a prototyping board shows that you don’t have to be fancy to build something neat. | 15 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "736288",
"author": "EmuMoogle",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T13:12:56",
"content": "Absolutely brilliant – love it!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "736300",
"author": "Eventhorizonn",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T13:30:06",
... | 1,760,376,772.176368 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/watering-system-for-your-vegetable-garden/ | Watering System For Your Vegetable Garden | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"garden",
"hose",
"solenoid",
"watering"
] | The vegetables will be alive when [Dillon Nichols] returns from vacation thanks to
this automatic watering controller
that he built. This is the second iteration of the project, and deals mainly with replacing the electronics and UI of the controller itself. He
detailed the hardware used for watering
in a previous post. He plumbed in a solenoid valve with a hose threading on the output end for the soaker hoses snaking through the garden beds. This is a normally open valve but we’d suggest using a normally closed valve as a power outage will let the hose run continuously.
[Dillon] prototyped the design on an Arduino board, then moved to a standalone ATmega328 chip on some protoboard for the final design. He used a 3D printer to make the custom face plate which allows access to the three control buttons and provides a place for the character LCD to be mounted. In addition to the timer settings there is a manual watering switch as well. He used a typical mains light switch, wiring it with a pull-down resistor to make it work well with the Arduino. His explanation of the timer system can be seen after the break. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "736237",
"author": "kao",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T12:25:40",
"content": "Yet another uC overkill. Get a 5$ timer socket, conncect it to a relay, set it, problem solved.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "736289",
"author... | 1,760,376,772.31073 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/15/birth-of-an-arduino/ | Birth Of An Arduino | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"circuit board",
"drill",
"etch",
"fab house",
"fr4",
"pcb"
] | Hey look, an Arduino without its clothes on. This one’s just started its journey to becoming the ubiquitous prototyping tool. The image is from [Bunnie’s] recent
tour of the fab house where Arduino boards are made
.
As it says on every true Arduino board, they’re made in Italy. [Bunnie’s] trip to the factory happened in Scarmagno, on the outskirts of Torino. The process starts with large sheets of FR4 copper clad material, usually about 1 by 1.5 meters in size. The first task is to send the sheets through a CNC drill. With all of the holes done it’s time for some etch resist; the image above is just after the resist has been applied. A robotic system takes over from here, running the panels through the chemicals which first etch away the copper, then remove the resist and plate the remaining traces. From there it’s off to another machine for solder mask and silk screen.
There are videos of each step available. But our favorite piece is the image at the end that shows a pallet with stacks of completed PCB panels which are headed off to be populated with components.
[via
Reddit
] | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "736153",
"author": "serxoz",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T11:12:15",
"content": "pr0n!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "736194",
"author": "Snobound",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T11:57:13",
"content": "How cool! Arduino Ba... | 1,760,376,772.357801 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/lego-rov-without-a-tether/ | LEGO ROV Without A Tether | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"lego",
"mindstorm",
"nxt",
"nxtbee",
"rov",
"xbee"
] | [Brane]
built an underwater ROV from LEGO mindstorm parts
. Look closely at this image and you should notice something missing. The tether that normally carries power and control lines from an ROV to the surface is missing. This is a wireless solution that lets him control the device using an Xbox controller.
The video after the break shows about five minutes of test drive footage. [Brane] has a big aquarium in which he can test the thing. Since he put it together as his senior engineering project at University it’s likely that this is a testing facility at the school. Here’s the little we know about the hardware: It’s using NXT Mindstorm parts to control the motors, with a sealed chamber for a battery. Connectivity is provided by an XBee module with an NXT adapter board called the NXTBee. A laptop with its own XBee module makes up the other end of communications. Right now [Brane] uses an Xbox controller connected to the laptop, but a standalone device would be easy to build by hacking the XBee and controller together directly.
[via
Reddit
via
WonderHowTo
] | 13 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "735720",
"author": "itwork4me",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T00:06:48",
"content": "Quite a nice bit of work.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "735753",
"author": "Rob R.",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T00:31:57",
"content": "A... | 1,760,376,772.407587 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/building-a-giant-game-of-life-spinner/ | Building A Giant Game Of Life Spinner | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"children's museum",
"game of life",
"hasbro",
"museum",
"spinner"
] | We see a lot of projects related to Conway’s Game of Life, but this one is Hasbro’s Game of Life. The board game company recently commissioned a giant game spinner as part of a museum exhibit. Here’s
the build log that shows how it was pulled off
.
The first thing to note is that [Jzzsxm] does this for a living. His company was hired to build several exhibits related to board games for a children’s museum in Springfield, MA. But don’t let that stop you from offering to help at your own local museum. We know some
hackers love doing that kind of work
.
The scale of the project is what makes the build really interesting. It starts with a design which can be cut out with a CNC router. First the spinner frame and numbers are cut out of MDF to verify the code. From there the design is cut in two pieces out of
HI-MACS
, a durable solid-surface material. Pegs for spinning the dial are milled from more HI-MACS stock. The clicker mechanism uses a steel rod as a pivot point. On the underside of the table it has opposing springs to hold it in place no matter which way the thing is spun. [Jzzsxm] mentions that it sees a lot of abuse from the young patrons, but seems to be holding up just great!
[via
Reddit
] | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,376,772.448801 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/toorcamp-mc-hawking-robotic-wheelchair/ | Toorcamp: MC Hawking Robotic Wheelchair | Eric Evenchick | [
"cons"
] | [
"autonomous",
"noisebridge",
"toorcamp"
] | This is the
MC Hawking
robot built by the
Noisebridge
hackerspace in San Francisco. It’s a robotic electric wheelchair outfitted with a PC, an XBox Kinect, and an Arduino. On the software side, it uses Ubuntu and the open source
ROS
platform. A few folks from Noisebridge were hacking away on the robot at Toorcamp to add a robotic arm and other upgrades.
One goal of the project was to build a hardware platform that lets software hackers work on autonomous applications without having to delve in to the complexities of the hardware. Since an autonomous wheelchair could get dangerous, it clearly boasts that it does not behave by Asimov’s
three laws
.
An example of an autonomous application for the MC Hawking is a facial tracking. This uses the Kinect’s sensors to follow people around. The platform is now being used to develop the
DORA Opensource Robot Assistant
project, which hopes to use the robotic arm to grab a soda from the fridge 51 days from now.
[Jake] from Noisebridge pointed out that they are seeking people who are interested in working on the software side of the project. If you are in the Bay Area and haven’t visited Noisebridge, you need to. Check their website for lots of information on the group.
Check out a video of MC Hawking partying at Toorcamp after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqNlY6tx_6o] | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "734901",
"author": "Wm_Atl",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T15:59:42",
"content": "Note to viewers turn volume way down before playing video. That’s all I have to say.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "735707",
"author": "Dan",
... | 1,760,376,772.538103 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/how-to-design-your-own-led-driver/ | How To Design Your Own LED Driver | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"boost",
"buck",
"driver",
"max16834",
"maxim"
] | If you find yourself in need of a driver for a high power string of LEDs this is a must read. [Limpkin] just designed this driver as a contract job. He can’t show us the schematic, but he did share some tips on
how to build an LED driver around a MAX16834 chip
.
As you move to higher power designs the barriers to success pile up rather quickly. Using a chip like the MAX16834 really helps to simplify the task as it can be used as a boost or buck converter, it includes functionality that allows for dimming, and it’s a constant currents solution. There are board design issues that need to be accounted for in these designs. [Limkin] included links to a few calculators that will help you determine trace width based power levels used with the driver. He also recommends using copper pours on both sides of the board connected with vias to help dissipate heat. To that end he used an IR thermometer for feedback during testing.
It’s too bad he doesn’t have any photos of the device at work. If you build something similar please take some pictures and
tip us off about it
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "734775",
"author": "halfelf",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T14:39:52",
"content": "Given that he posted the solder masks, pictures of the populated board, pictures of the depopulated board, the reference designs he based it from, and a lot of the design philosophies he based it from, it ... | 1,760,376,772.589869 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/toorcamp-the-american-hacker-camp/ | Toorcamp: The American Hacker Camp | Eric Evenchick | [
"cons"
] | [
"toorcamp",
"toorcon"
] | Toorcamp is all wrapped up after four great days of talks, hacking, and parties. Located in Neah Bay, Washington, Toorcamp was a four day event modelled after European hacker camps. This is the second time Toorcamp has been run, and it’s clear that both the organizers and attendees know how to throw an awesome stateside hacker camp.
The camp featured talks, including keynotes by [
Joe Grand
] and [
George Dyson
], and villages for hardware hacking, lock picking, crafting, and welding. Workshops ranging from
Arduino for Total Newbies
with [
Mitch Altman
] to
Wifi Hacking
with [
Darren Kitchen
] let attendees get their hands dirty in a variety of activities. Hackerspaces and other collectives set up fantastic campsites featuring full kitchens, ham radios, questionably legitimate wifi networks, and bike jousting.
Some of the highlights include a giant laser that required FAA approval to fire into the sky, an elaborate tribute to the classic arcade game
Robotron: 2084
, and a working hand-held Tesla Gun. Stay tuned for coverage about these hacks and more.
If you missed Toorcamp, you’ll be glad to know that the organizers plan to run it on alternating years, which means the next one will be in 2014. You should also check out
Toorcon San Diego
in October and
WorldToor
in Antarctica. It looks like Toorcamp will only get better with time, and Toorcamp 2014 should be a great open air hacking event that you won’t want to miss. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "735167",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T19:09:31",
"content": "And there’s an English version happening soon too: ElectroMagneticField – emfcamp.org in Milton-Keynes.Running 31st Aug – 2nd Sept.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"com... | 1,760,376,772.636985 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/work-station-includes-a-smartcard-lock-for-usb-ports/ | Work Station Includes A Smartcard Lock For USB Ports | Mike Szczys | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"16f1939",
"ADG714",
"lock",
"pic",
"usb"
] | The USB ports on this work station are locked. In order to use a USB device you’ll need to
insert a Smartcard into the reader seen above
. The interesting thing here is that this shouldn’t affect your ability to charge a USB device. When you visit the link above make sure to check out the worklog tab as it contains nine pages worth of build information.
The device is conceived of in two parts. There is one board which does the USB switching, and another that takes care of the Smartcard reader. That reader is based on a PIC 16F1939. It readers the Smartcard, verifies the data, then controls the USB switching board via SPI. An ADG714 chip completes the circuit on eight data lines making up the four USB ports. There is also a mechanical relay on the board which can cut USB power. Since this is separate from the data switching, the power could be left on for charging or toggled separately by a card that has permission to charge but not to use the data ports. You can see a demonstration of the system embedded after the break. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "734589",
"author": "Garret",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T12:42:33",
"content": "It readers the smartscards! for USBs!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "735799",
"author": "Galane",
"timestamp": "2012-08-15T01:38:26"... | 1,760,376,772.686761 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/14/rgb-chandelier-may-not-fly-with-the-wife/ | RGB Chandelier May Not Fly With The Wife | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"chandelier",
"led strip",
"rgb"
] | We understand where [Craig] is coming from, leaving no stone unturned when looking for new electronic projects to occupy his time. He tried to convince his wife that they needed a light show to accompany dinner, and while she was skeptical he went ahead and built this
remote control RGB chandelier
anyway.
He recently purchased fifteen feet of RGB LED strip and has since been trying to use it in his projects. What’s interesting is that he didn’t make direct use of the strip. Just 10 of the LED packages were used. He desoldered and extended each wire leads and used one of the driver chips to address them all. The main body of the light fixture is a triangle, and out of each side two test tubes host one LED each. To diffuse the light [Craig] mixed up some resin and laced it with glitter. Once hardened the resin holds the LEDs firmly in place. The glass shade in the center of the fixture hides four more LEDs.
[Craig] uses a remote control from a Roku box to control the chandelier. An IR receiver is monitored by an Arduino which drives the LEDs accordingly. After the break you can see a demonstration of the completed project. Unfortunately it doesn’t provide as much light as they need. We’d suggest
an upgrade along these lines
. | 13 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "734516",
"author": "Karl",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T11:44:53",
"content": "O M F G!@ 4:20 “So you can scroll through all 23 effects and … a lot of them a really pretty”=> my GF would throw me and this thing out if i’d put anything similar near her (and eat the food alone)",
"par... | 1,760,376,773.046835 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/convert-a-speaker-to-a-battery-powered-amplifying-party-box/ | Convert A Speaker To A Battery-powered Amplifying Party Box | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"amplifiyer",
"battery",
"lead-acid",
"LM317",
"portable",
"speaker",
"tda2003a"
] | [Matt the Gamer] loved his pair of Minimus 7 bookshelf speakers. That is until a tragic hacking accident burned out the driver and left him with a speaker-shaped paper weight. But the defunct audio hardware has been
given new life as a single portable powered speaker
. Now he can grab it and go, knowing that it contains everything he needs to play back audio from a phone or iPod.
The most surprising part of the build is the battery. [Matt] went with a sealed lead-acid battery. It just barely fits through the hole for the larger speaker, and provides 12V with 1.2 mAh of capacity. He uses an 18V laptop power supply when charging the battery. The PSU is just the source, his own circuit board handles the charging via an LM317 voltage regulator. Also on the board is an amplifier built around a TDA2003A chip. He added a back panel which hosts connections for the charger and the audio input. Two switches allow the speaker to be turned on and off, and select between battery mode and charging mode. As a final touch he added a power indicator LED to the front, and a drawer pull as a carrying handle. | 19 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "733880",
"author": "flynblender",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T23:08:51",
"content": "I certainly hope that a SLA battery of that size sources more than 1.2mAh. The source states it was a 1.3Ah.Cool build though, it’s giving me some ideas.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"r... | 1,760,376,774.774254 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/fauxrarri-is-the-ppprs-champion/ | Fauxrarri Is The PPPRS Champion | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackerspaces",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"electric",
"hybrid",
"Power Wheels",
"ppprs",
"racing"
] | The Power Racing Series (PPPRS) is an electric vehicle competition with a $500 price ceiling. This is Fauxarri, the 2012 Champion. It was built by members of Sector67, a Madison, WI hackerspace. To our delight,
they’ve posted an expose on the how the thing was built
.
It should come as no surprise that the guys behind the advance electric racer aren’t doing this sort of thing for the first time. A couple of them were involved in Formula Hybrid Racing at the University of Wisconsin. That experience shows in the custom motor controller built as an Arduino shield. It includes control over acceleration rate, throttle response, and regenerative braking. But you can’t get by on a controller alone. The motors they used are some special electric garden tractor motors to which they added their own water cooling system.
If you want to get a good look at how fast and powerful this thing is head on over to the post about
the KC leg of PPPRS
(it’s the one towing a second vehicle and still passing the competition by). | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "733845",
"author": "Chris C.",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T22:30:14",
"content": "What a best! Can’t wait to see those promised details about the motor controlled, especially the “lessons learned” part.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment... | 1,760,376,774.821484 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/southwest-tour-scrap-tattoo-gun/ | Southwest Tour: Scrap Tattoo Gun | Caleb Kraft | [
"hardware",
"home hacks"
] | [
"kludge",
"tattoo"
] | I had an idea for keeping things interesting on this long road trip through the southwest. I was going to gather a few bits from each hackerspace and build something using minimal tools
while we were driving down the road
. I settled on the idea of a really simple “jailhouse” tattoo gun. I knew I could build one from parts I could source very easily and that I wouldn’t need much in terms of tools to make it happen.
Here’s what I had:
leatherman micro multitool (though I only used the scissors).
A roll of electrical tape
a spool of wire
a handful of DC motors (one had a little cog on the end of the shaft)
a battery holder from a handheld fan
a few switches
various pens I found in the vehicle
a short piece of guitar string
I was able to wrap wire around the leads on the motor, through the switch, and to the batteries very easily. The electrical tape ended up holding everything in place quite nicely. Actually the electrical tape was the key player here as it ended up being structural as well. I needed the motor to be perpendicular to the barrel that would hold the needle and enough electrical tape made that happen.
The cam on the end of the motor consisted of a tiny piece of tubing from the ink cylinder inside a pen, taped to the outside edge of the cog that came on the larger motor. A barrel was created out of the rest of the pen and taped into place. The final part was simply bending the wire to fit inside the cam and travel down the barrel, then trimming it at the end so that it wouldn’t stab too deep.
The Tattoo gun works about as well as you would expect. It is extremely difficult to make a strait line and the ink transfer below the skin is fairly poor. Add on top of that the fact that we’re not using real tattoo ink, the results are pretty horrible. As I said in the video, DO NOT DO THIS if you want a tattoo.
Go to a professional
. You’ll get more hygienic, higher quality, results.
However if you absolutely NEED a tattoo before you reach your final destination, it is possible to cobble a tattoo gun together in your lap out of scraps. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "733744",
"author": "Zak",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T21:21:42",
"content": "This post is simply irresponsible. Hygiene is critical when it comes to tattoos, and even then a crappy setup like the one above is NEVER going to give clean, even results, especially in the hands of someone w... | 1,760,376,774.921344 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/flutter-dress-vibrates-when-it-hears-loud-noises/ | Flutter Dress Vibrates When It Hears Loud Noises | Brian Benchoff | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"dress",
"flutter",
"haptic feedback",
"wearable"
] | Many people with hearing impairments have assistive devices at home that flash a light whenever a fire truck goes by, an alarm bell goes off, or the doorbell rings. With the exception of a hearing dog, these devices are useless outside the home, and this is where [Halley]’s
Flutter dress comes into play
. Flutter has microphones and microcontrollers sewn into the dress to listen to the surrounding environment and uses small vibration motors to wave small cloth leaflets whenever a loud sound is detected.
In the
writeup for Flutter
(PDF), [Halley] tells us she used a quartet of microcontrollers to detect the ambient acoustic environment. Each microcontroller passes the signal from the microphone into a buffer where it performs an FFT on the sound data. From this, the loudness and frequency of a noise – as well as the direction from a time-of-flight calculation – can be determined. Once that is complete, each microcontroller actuates a small vibrator motor in the dress’ leafs according to how loud and in which direction the sound came from.
As with all assistive technologies for the hearing impaired, there is always the aspect of deaf culture’s point of view that such inventions are seen as forcing a disability on someone. [Halley]’s Flutter dress was with the input of a few family members who have hearing impairments and got some positive feedback from members of the community. Good job, and we can see why it won Best in Show at the 2012 International Symposium on Wearable Computer’s Design Exhibition. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "733801",
"author": "Colecago",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T22:04:25",
"content": "I’ve wanted to do something similar, using several directional mics around the neck or head and then having motors in multiple areas vibrate with the frequency and intensity in the location that it hears ... | 1,760,376,775.038062 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/copper-vapor-laser-is-diy-awesomesauce/ | Copper Vapor Laser Is Amazing | Brian Benchoff | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"copper vapor laser",
"laser",
"spark gap"
] | What better way to spend a few months in the workshop than by heating Copper chloride to 400° C, building rotary spark gaps and 30kV capacitors, playing with high vacuums and building a very powerful laser? It’s just a day in [Jon]’s life as he builds a
DIY Copper vapor laser
.
Copper vapor lasers
require temperatures of about 1500° C, but this is only when using pure Copper. Compounds such as Copper chloride are able to bring the required temperatures for lasing down to about 400° C, a reasonable temperature for [Jon]’s home built laser tube furnace. The only problem with this setup is the requirement for two electrical pulses, one to disassociate the Copper and a second to make the Copper lase.
The professional way of creating these electrical pulses would be a Thyratron, but it seems [Jon] wanted something cooler. He built a rotary spark gap out of two 2 inch thick blocks of acrylic that allow him to perfectly time the frequency and separation of the electrical pulses needed for his laser.
There is no word on exactly how much power [Jon]’s Copper vapor laser will put out when it’s complete, but [Jon]’s build log is already an amazing display of awesome. You can check out a short video showing off [Jon]’s laser, spark gap, and huge home-made capacitor after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeQPHVg2Bbg&w=470] | 25 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "733664",
"author": "Aaron",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T20:09:36",
"content": "Calling this a hack doesn’t do it justice, I think. Amazing work!And it appears from the spell-check results that Gospodin Benchoff knows someone by the last name of Copper — well, we shouldn’t fuss, at leas... | 1,760,376,774.713792 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/southwest-tour-mikey-sklars-homestead/ | Southwest Tour: [Mikey Sklar’s] Homestead | Caleb Kraft | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"homestead",
"off grid",
"sklar",
"southwest tour"
] | While on our southwest tour, we were sure to make some time to go visit [Mikey Sklar]. He’s been a friend of hackaday for a long time, both
as a writer
and as someone who
sends us cool projects
. As you may have noticed from some of the posts we’ve done on his projects, [Mikey] lives in the middle of the desert and is attempting to lead a fairly self sustaining life style. He and [Wendy] showed us their gardens, the hot spring on their property,and some cool building materials they’ve utilized. We got to tour [Mikey’s] workshop and check out how his solar system was set up. It was pretty cool seeing “
da Pimp
” being used to revive old batteries. [Mikey] even mentioned that he’s building in a lot of safeguards in the next revision based on the feedback he got online.
What I really enjoyed about talking with [Mikey] and [Wendy] was that they didn’t act like they had it all figured out. They’re approaching this whole lifestyle as a learning adventure as you can hear when [Mikey] talks about their bees. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "734115",
"author": "Itwork4me",
"timestamp": "2012-08-14T03:13:36",
"content": "Surprised there are no comments…at first I was like, whatever…Still a bit confused as to how ‘off the grid’ this is. From the statement of building the wall to keep the outside elements out, and a shot ... | 1,760,376,775.077916 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/building-a-better-kinect-with-a-pager-motor/ | Building A Better Kinect With A… Pager Motor? | Brian Benchoff | [
"Kinect hacks"
] | [
"Kinect",
"structured light"
] | Fresh from Microsoft Research is
an ingenious way to reduce interference
and decrease the error in a Kinect. Bonus: the technique only requires a motor with an offset weight, or just an oversized version of the vibration motor found in a pager.
Being the first of its kind of commodity 3D depth sensors, the tracking on a Kinect really isn’t that good. In every Kinect demo we’ve ever seen, there are always errors in the 3D tracking or missing data in the point cloud. The Shake ‘n’ Sense, as Microsoft Research calls it, does away with these problems simply by vibrating the IR projector and camera with a single motor.
In addition to getting high quality point clouds from a Kinect, this technique also allows for multiple Kinects to be used in the same room. In the video (and title pic for this post), you can see a guy walking around a room filled with beach balls in 3D, captured from an array of four Kinects.
This opens up the doors to a whole lot of builds that were impossible with the current iteration of the Kinect, but we’re thinking this is far too easy and too clever not to be though of before. We’d love to see some independent verification of this technique, so if you’ve got a Kinect project sitting around, strap a motor onto it, make a video and
send it in
.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSBDY0RuhS4&w=470] | 35 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "733526",
"author": "Kaj",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T18:14:18",
"content": "This is truly elegant engineering, I love it!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "733528",
"author": "Tinkerer",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T18:15:09",
... | 1,760,376,774.99223 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/roomba-4000-teardown-ready-for-your-doomba-build/ | Roomba 4000 Teardown Ready For Your Doomba Build | Brian Benchoff | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"robot",
"roomba",
"roomba 4000",
"teardown"
] | In addition to getting a haircut, [Dino] spent his week editing an old video of him
tearing down a Roomba 4000
. These robots can be picked up for just a few dollars on eBay, making them one of the cheapest bodged up robotics dev platforms available.
After [Dino] goes over how to unscrew the cover and disassemble the Roomba 4000, he goes over the layout of the motherboard and takes a look at the sensors. The wheels on the Roomba are actually very neat pieces of technology with a very cool planetary gear system that is the perfect drive system for your next robot build.
There are a ton of ways to use the electronics in Roombas for a few interesting robotics projects. [Dino]
built 2/3rds of a all terrain rocker bogie robot
– just like the Curiosity rover – out of a Roomba, and a small two wheeled indoor robot using a Parallax Propeller. If you’re a redditor there’s always the possibility of
building a Doomba
, but we think [Patrick]
has a better idea
than a knife strapped to a vacuum cleaner.
As always, [Dino]’s vidia after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsOUcEPVSkM&w=470] | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "733427",
"author": "Destate9",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T17:10:19",
"content": "Back in my days as an electronics parts salseman, some jabroni came in and wanted a new power supply for one of these, but we didn’t have any that had the same barrel connector type for his. So he bought... | 1,760,376,774.863285 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/teensy-tiny-arduino-board-with-an-attiny85/ | Teensy Tiny Arduino Board With An ATtiny85 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Android Hacks",
"Crowd Funding"
] | [
"arduino",
"attiny85",
"Digispark"
] | Planning another Arduino build? If you’re just doing something simple like switching a relay or powering a LED, you might want to think about
the Digispark
. It’s a very small ATtiny-based Arduino compatible board developed and Kickstarted by [Erik].
The Digispark is based on the very popular
Atmel ATtiny85
, an 8 pin microcontroller that provides a quarter of the Flash storage and RAM as the ‘official Arduino’ ATMega328p. The lower storage space and RAM doesn’t mean the ’85 is a slouch, though; it can run
Arduino code without a hitch
, providing six pins for whatever small project you have in mind.
Right now, [Erik]’s Kickstarter is offering three Digisparks for the price of a single Arduino. At that price, it’s cheap enough to leave in a project and not be repurposed after the build is over. [Erik] is also working on a few shields for the Digispark – only RGB LED shield for now, but hopefully he’ll get some more finished by the time the Kickstarter ends. | 55 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "733346",
"author": "noouch",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T16:23:45",
"content": "This looks good in quite a few ways. Most of all, the price makes it trivial to buy a bunch of these and do whatever with them. Additionally, it’s even smaller than the TeensyUSB boards, making this perfect... | 1,760,376,775.165119 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/a-perpetually-powered-wireless-outpost/ | A Perpetually Powered Wireless Outpost | Brian Benchoff | [
"Solar Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"solar",
"wireless"
] | For [Justin], the topic of remotely powering electronics in the field comes up often. So often in fact he decided to put up a
tutorial for powering electronics from solar power and batteries
, as well as sending and retrieving data with the help of a cellular connection.
The electronics [Justin] chose for his remote wireless project include an AT&T 3G connection to the Internet provided by a Beaglebone,
BeagleTouch display
, and
BeagleJuice battery pack
. Of course an Arduino had to make it into this project, so a few light sensors were wired into a few Arduino Unos and connected to the Beaglebone.
After finding a few deep cycle boat batteries, [Justin] wired up a pair of solar panels that put out about 200 mA in full sun. This equates to about 2700 mAh a day, about 300 mAh more than his Beaglebone/Arduino/3G connection/WiFi setup needs per day.
As for what [Justin] can do with his wireless outpost, it makes setting up remote sensors for agriculture a breeze, and could easily be used to automagically send pictures from a game camera straight to a web page. Pretty neat, and very useful if you need to wire up sensors in the field to the Internet.
Edit: Yes, [Caleb] jumped the gun on publishing this post. He’s in the corner now, thinking about what he did. | 24 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "733282",
"author": "Cathy Garrett",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T15:40:49",
"content": "Looks like someone is mixing up current (mA) with charge (mAh).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "734291",
"author": "DarwinSurvivor",
... | 1,760,376,774.649573 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/taking-a-look-at-decapped-ics/ | Taking A Look At Decapped ICs | Brian Benchoff | [
"chemistry hacks",
"hardware"
] | [
"decap",
"logic chip",
"nitric acid"
] | Aside from wanting to play around with nitric acid, [Ben] really didn’t have a reason to
decap a few 74xx and 4000-series logic chips
. Not that we mind, as he provides a great tutorial at looking at a bare IC that isn’t covered in epoxy and resin.
Most ICs are encased in a hard epoxy shell making it very difficult to look at the circuits within. [Ben] tried to grind this epoxy off with a Dremel tool, but didn’t have much luck until he moved over to a CNC mill to remove 0.040 – 0.050″ of epoxy without breaking the bond wires.
After carving out a nice pocket above the die, [Ben] put a few drops of nitric acid on the chip to dissolve the epoxy coating. This worked very slowly at room temperature, but after putting the chips on a hot plate the acid was able to reveal the die underneath.
After successfully removing all the epoxy and giving them an acetone bath, [Ben] took his chips over to the microscope and was able to check out the underlying circuit. He doesn’t have any idea what he could do with these decapped logic chips, but the bond wires are still intact so he could still use these chips in a build.
We’d like to see a few decapped
MEMS devices
, but if you have a suggestion on what [Ben] can do with his decapped chips, drop a note in the comments.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT1FStxAVz4&w=470] | 37 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "733234",
"author": "matseng",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T15:14:24",
"content": "Decap an old dram chip and use it as sensor for a camera. I remember people doing that back in the 80’ies.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "733236",
... | 1,760,376,775.339022 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/building-a-casting-furnace-with-heat-exchanger/ | Building A Casting Furnace With Heat Exchanger | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"blacksmith",
"casting",
"form",
"furnace",
"heat exchanger",
"mold"
] | This
completely DIY casting furnace
turned out just great thanks to all the work [Biolit11] put into it along the way. He wanted to replace his older furnace with one that was more efficient, and to that end he built a heat exchanger into the design. This way the exhaust will preheat the intake air.
The furnace itself started with the shell of an old electric water heater. Excluding the design process, the majority of the build involved mold making. For circular parts he’s using quick tube, the paperboard forms used for pouring concrete footings. For more intricate parts he shaped polystyrene. They are layered in place and high-temperature cement is poured to form the permanent parts. After it hardens the polystyrene can be removed in chunks.
The heat exchanger is the part to the left. It includes several wide, flat pipes made of cement for removing the exhaust. Around those pipes a snaking metal chase carries the intake air which picks up the heat as it passes over the exhaust pipes.
For his first run with the new furnace he melted down a bunch of scrap aluminum and poured ingots.
[Thanks DC3] | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "733163",
"author": "Natalie",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T14:29:25",
"content": "surprised the unsupported refractory does not crack.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "733319",
"author": "old, so very old",
"timestamp": "2012... | 1,760,376,775.57659 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/the-coming-age-of-arm-chips-for-the-hobbyist/ | The Coming Age Of ARM Chips For The Hobbyist | Brian Benchoff | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"32-bit",
"arm",
"cortex m0",
"cortex-m3",
"microcontrollers"
] | The days of the 8 bit Arduino may be quickly coming to a close. Sure, there will always be a place for AVRs in blinking LEDs and turning on relays, but for doing anything cool – playing MP3s, driving LCD displays, or running a CNC machine – you need the power of a 32 bit chip. [Brian Carrigan] put up
a great tutorial
on getting started with these bigger, more powerful micros and moving beyond what is possible with an 8 bit PIC or AVR.
These new 32 bit chips are much more powerful, but aren’t exactly hobbyist friendly. Most of the ARM chips we’ve found are stuffed into very fine pitch QFN or QFP packages that require a reflow oven to solder to a board. In fact, we can only find
one through-hole Cortex M0
chip that is suited for breadboard development. This doesn’t make it easy to whip up a circuit in a few hours, so builders needing a very powerful microcontroller will be more dependent on dev boards.
Already there are a good number of ARM-based 32 bit dev boards available including the offerings from
Leaf Labs
, the
extremely inexpensive STM Discovery board
,
Kinetis KL25Z Freedom Board
, the outrageously powerful
BeagleBone
, and the perpetually delayed
Arduino (over) Due
.
None of these boards are particularly new developments; they’ve all been around the block once or twice. However, there are many more options for 32 bit development than the current 8 bit PIC and AVR holy war. We’re going to turn the comments over to Hackaday readers with the following questions: what supersized dev board are you rolling with? What’s good for a beginner, and what should they watch out for? | 98 | 41 | [
{
"comment_id": "732978",
"author": "Jonathan from HackSpark",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T12:15:20",
"content": "I mainly use STM32 chips, and the F4 range is great when you need a lot of power, with chips starting at 5 usd… (168mhz, easily overclockable to 250 mhz, with builtin fpu).The STM32F4 disco... | 1,760,376,776.271076 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/13/writing-javascript-without-using-any-letters-or-numbers/ | Writing Javascript Without Using Any Letters Or Numbers | Mike Szczys | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"casting",
"javascript",
"punctuation",
"typecasting"
] | Did you know it’s possible to write Javascript code without using any letters or numbers at all? Well, it’s not just Javascript, but that’s the language used in this demonstration. [Patricio Palladino] shows
how code can be written using just eight characters
, and all of them are punctuation marks.
Typecasting is the name of the game here. By starting out with an empty array formed by a pair of square brackets, [Patricio] can generate the number zero by casting the array with the plus sign. From there he can use an exclamation point (a boolean cast) and addition to generate any number. The image above is an example of the digits 0-9. This would get very tedious for larger numbers but there’s another shortcut. Cast the digits to strings, concatenate them, then cast back to a number and you’re in business.
The technique is fascinating, and basically unreadable. As a proof of concept he wrote a parser that will convert any Javascript into this hieroglyphy. Check out
his Github repository
to give it a try.
[via
Reddit
] | 19 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "732919",
"author": "gizmoguy",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T11:14:10",
"content": "Heh, reminds me of Church numbers.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "732922",
"author": "Benny Born",
"timestamp": "2012-08-13T11:15:55",
"... | 1,760,376,775.969848 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/12/hackaday-links-august-12-2012/ | Hackaday Links: August 12, 2012 | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"bench supply",
"lync",
"Power Wheels",
"surveillance",
"tablet"
] | License plate tablet rack
[Hunter Davis] used
an old license plate as a tablet stand
. It loops around the leg of his laptop table and has a cutout for the power cord of the tablet.
More power power wheels
It may look stock, but
this power wheels is hiding a new frame, motors, and tires
. You won’t see it in
the Power Wheels Racing Series
, but it is a ton of fun for this lucky kid.
Surveillance
camera chess
Want to play a game? A yellow briefcase
hijacks surveillance camera feeds
and lets those monitoring them play chess via text message.
ATX bench supply looks like a bench supply
Here’s
another rendition of an ATX bench supply
. [Ast] rolled in a voltmeter for the variable voltage plug, and an ammeter to finish off the hack.
Lync auto-responder to fool the bossman
In a move reminiscent of [Ferris Bueller], [Sepehr]
coded a Lync auto responder
to answer the boss when he sends an IM. | 23 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "732427",
"author": "Uh",
"timestamp": "2012-08-12T22:09:12",
"content": "“A yellow briefcase hijacks surveillance camera feeds and lets those monitoring them play chess via text message.”I don’t think so.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"com... | 1,760,376,775.908992 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/12/a-custom-monitor-mount-built-from-wood/ | A Custom Monitor Mount Built From Wood | Mike Szczys | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"desk",
"monitor",
"mount",
"rack",
"stand",
"wood"
] | [LuckyNumbrKevin] wanted an epic monitor array of his own but didn’t really have the desk real estate to pull it off. His solution was to
build a three computer monitor mounting rack
with a relatively small footprint.
The design started with some virtual test builds using SketchUp. Once he had it dialed in he began transferring measurements for the base onto some plywood. The rest of the parts are built using dimensional lumber. As the project shaped up he wrapped the edges of the plywood with some trim, and gave the piece a good sanding. After a few passes with a dark stain he was ready to mount the monitors he bought from Newegg.
[Kevin] left a comment in
the Reddit thread
about the parts cost for his design. Including the monitors, this came in under $300. That does not include the Nvidia graphics card which is capable of driving the trio. | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "732367",
"author": "BadIntentions",
"timestamp": "2012-08-12T20:54:01",
"content": "I run triple monitors, its actually tricky finding a large enough desk at most home goods stores. In the end i went with wall mounting and in wall wire install, but for apartment owners that’s not r... | 1,760,376,775.840604 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/12/super-angry-birds-is-a-physical-controller-for-the-game/ | Super Angry Birds Is A Physical Controller For The Game | Mike Szczys | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"angry birds",
"linear actuator",
"linear encoder",
"motorized"
] | This role reversal is quite entertaining. While the game Angry Birds is a virtual realization of knocking over stuff with a sling-shot,
Super Angry Birds adds a physical control element back to the virtual game
. It’s silly, but well-executed. The main controller takes advantage a part which we don’t see used very often. It’s a motorized linear actuator which would most often be seen on a high-end audio console.
Check out the video after the break to see the controller in action. The linear encoder is used to simulate pulling the rubber sling shot back. It uses the motorized feature to spring back in place, but we’re not sure whether or not the motor also provides resistance during the pull. The laser cut case also includes a companion in the form of a TNT trigger box al-a Wile E Coyote.
If this isn’t real enough for you
perhaps this slingshot controller will suffice
.
[Thanks Maddin and many others] | 8 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "732302",
"author": "Treehouse Projects",
"timestamp": "2012-08-12T19:06:21",
"content": "Love it! So well planned and executed. Very inspiring.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "732310",
"author": "rusted",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,376,775.625276 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/12/3d-printed-exoskeleton-helps-this-little-girl-develop-more-normal-body-function/ | 3D Printed Exoskeleton Helps This Little Girl Develop More Normal Body Function | Mike Szczys | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks",
"Lifehacks",
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"arms",
"exoskeleton",
"physical therapy"
] | This 2-year-old girl has a condition called arthrogryposis which causes her not to be able to move her arms. But with a little help, her muscles can be strengthened to achieve more normal use of her limbs. This is not the first time that an exoskeleton has been used, but
the advent of 3D printed parts makes the skeleton work much better
.
Previous exoskeletons were made of metal and were quite heavy. When you’re talking about a 25 pound child every extra ounce counts. Moving to plastic parts lightened the load. Now the structure can be mounted on her torso, using rubber bands to aid her movement until her muscles are strong enough to do it on their own.
Of course to [Emma] this isn’t an exoskeleton. It’s her set of magic arms.
[Thanks Luke] | 29 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "732246",
"author": "VooDude",
"timestamp": "2012-08-12T17:20:24",
"content": "Good job! Whoever made these “arms” gave Emma one very special gift.And I just want to say: 3D Printing – Saving the World One Piece at a Time",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}... | 1,760,376,775.693744 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/12/southwest-tour-xerocraft-in-tucson-arizona/ | Southwest Tour: Xerocraft In Tucson Arizona | Caleb Kraft | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"southwest tour"
] | Traveling further south through Arizona, we ended up in Tucson to meet up with [Connor] at
Xerocraft
. [Connor] immediately apologized for the slightly disheveled state of the shop, but as I told him, I prefer a shop that has been used. Xerocraft was an interesting stop in our
southwest tour
. There was a workshop area in the front foyer that was nearly outdoors, something I’m not used to seeing in Missouri. The indoor areas included their electronics, library, 3d printing, and kitchen area. A nice little back yard allowed for some larger work to get done, like an electronic conversion that is currently in process on that car you can see in the video.
If you’re ever in the area, you should definitely swing by and at least attempt to de-throne [Connor] in Super Smash Bros. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "732213",
"author": "MorbiousStone",
"timestamp": "2012-08-12T16:40:10",
"content": "hacker space growth explosions all across the USA, amazing,the technological advancement and learning potential is infinite :))another cool space, right on!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,776.072247 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/12/earthworm-robot-does-what-earthworms-do/ | Earthworm Robot Does What Earthworms Do | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"earthworm",
"muscle wire"
] | This
earthworm robot
comes to us from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is made up of mostly soft parts and manages to inch its way along the ground.
The robot’s “skin” is made from a tube of polymer mesh that will hold up to an awful lot of bending and stretching. As with its biological namesake, locomotion is facilitated by circular muscles. In this case muscle wire, when stimulated with electricity, contracts around the mesh casing. By coordinating these contractions the robot is able to inch its way along.
But it’s not just the method of travel that makes this research project interesting. The bot is also extremely resistant to damage. The video after the break shows the device withstanding several whacks from a mallet and being stepped on by the team that created it. | 16 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "732133",
"author": "Hack Man",
"timestamp": "2012-08-12T15:12:01",
"content": "Sex toy. There, you were all thinking it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "732166",
"author": "Tobi",
"timestamp": "2012-08-12T15:33... | 1,760,376,776.027989 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/12/painting-a-wall-with-light-using-water-as-ink/ | Painting A Wall With Light Using Water As Ink | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"light",
"paint brush",
"short",
"spay bottle",
"squirt gun",
"wall",
"water"
] | This art installation uses a fantastic concept. The wall can be painted using
water as ink which lights up a huge grid of white LEDs
. This offers a very wide range of interactive possibilities since water can be applied in so many ways. Grab a paint brush, wet your finger, use a squirt gun, or mist with a spray bottle and the lights will tell you where you hit the wall.
We’re hoping a reader who speaks both French and English might help out by posting a translation as a comment on
the prototyping video
. In it, [Antonin Fourneau] shows off the various prototypes that led to the final product and we’d love to know what he’s saying. But by seeing the prototypes, then watching the English promo video after the break we can make a pretty good guess. The boards have a hole that fits the flat-lens LEDs perfectly. This creates a mostly water tight seal to keep the liquid on one side while the leads are safe on the other. The water side has squiggly pads which allow droplets of water to complete an electrical connection.
[Thanks Jake] | 19 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "732045",
"author": "aidandunbar",
"timestamp": "2012-08-12T13:55:35",
"content": "Yes, this is cool. Nice idea, well executed, it looks really fun as well.I do wonder how they ‘clear’ the screen once it is all lit, could you use compressed air or something, or would it just be a cas... | 1,760,376,776.130573 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/11/manpowered-pvc-rollercoaster/ | Manpowered PVC Rollercoaster | Mike Szczys | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"backyard",
"pipe",
"PVC",
"rails",
"roller coaster"
] | Swing sets and jungle gyms are good enough for your average back yard. But if you want to go extreme you need to
build your own backyard roller coaster
.
This impressive offering uses PVC pipe for the rails. At its tallest it stands 12 feet, using pressure treated 4×4 lumber as the supports. Pressure treated spacers span the tracks, with the uprights — which are cemented in place — in the center.
You can get a better look at it in the video after the break. This is a parent-powered system. Strap you kid in and then use a stick to push the car up to the top of the hill. We just love it that before the kart has made it back to the start the child is already screaming “again daddy”!
It doesn’t look quite as fast as
the metal back yard roller coaster
we saw some time ago. But we do wonder how they bent the PVC pipes and whether they’re strong enough to pass the test of time (especially being exposed to the sunlight)? | 50 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "731486",
"author": "addidis",
"timestamp": "2012-08-11T21:14:12",
"content": "It would be cool if you guys have HAD shirts that on one side have the HAD logo and the other side had something along the lines of “Awesome Dad”.This guy deserves one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth"... | 1,760,376,776.361207 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/11/announcing-international-hack-day-august-11th/ | Announcing: International Hack Day, August 11th. | Caleb Kraft | [
"News"
] | [
"hack",
"hacking",
"mod",
"modify"
] | There is no single and definitive definition of what hacking is. We all have different versions of similar ideas in our head, but depending on your background and area of enthusiasm, hacking means something different. While dictionary.com has many definitions of the word itself, none seem to cover what we see on a daily basis.
We set out to define “hacking” ourselves. We tossed around words like “modify”, “kludge”, “explore”, and “create”. Each time we committed an increasingly vague definition onto the page, we decided it was too narrow and tossed it in the proverbial trash. The variations were just too many.
What we do know is that “hacking” seems to breed advancement and innovation. Much like mutations in an evolutionary chain, each hack pushes the topic in a slightly new direction, inspiring others and thereby perpretuating the evolutary event. In a very short time we’ve witnessed hacking bring forth the evolution of wagons to cars, kites to airplanes, and the creation of the computer.
We at Hackaday would like to declaire August 11th to be “International Hack Day”. A day to celebrate hacking in all of its diverse forms. From soldering to sewing, coding to carbonating, knitting to knurling, we want you to keep on hacking. Take August 11th as a day to show pride in your hacking. Waive your hacker flag high and educate those around you.
We have asked many of our friends to contribute their personal definition of hacking. Here they are, in the order they were received.
Hacking is being completely obsessed with a puzzle that shares it’s solution with everyone once it’s solved.
—
Limor “Ladyada” Fried, Adafruit
I don’t hacking is something you do, it’s a mindset, you look at the same world as everyone else, filled with the same things, things that are assumed to do just one thing or what we’re told they should do… but you constantly ask yourself “what else can I make this thing do?”.
—
Phil Torrone: Adafruit, MAKE Magazine & Founder of Hack-a-day
hacking is the noble art of tricking hardware or software into doing something unexpected. —
Leo LaPorte
Hacking’ is the process of exploring and understanding a system. A ‘hack’ is the application of that gained knowledge in a clever and novel way. —
Andrew “Bunnie” Huang
I would say a “hack” is anytime you extend a know system beyond its intended functionality. Quite often this results in features a product might have had if its designers didn’t have to meet a ship date. —
Benjamin Heckendorn
Taking what exists, learning what you can about it, improving upon it, and sharing it. —
Mitch Altman
Repurpose, reuse, invent, and recycle.” Not just duct taping stuff together, it applies to code, ideas, whatever. —
Ian Lesnet, Dangerous Prototypes
Hacking means building with less regard for the polished nature of the final project. Think MacGyver meets electronics. He was never building something to sell, he just had to get the job done. Whether we are deconstructing a device or building something new and completely wacky, hacking it means we don’t care what other people think of our methods, we’re more concerned about what people think of the outcome. —
Nathan Seidle, Sparkfun
Hacking is technical dissection that leads to discovery of function and exploration of repurposed or enhanced usability. —
Lindsey Levkoff, Education at Sparkfun
To me, “hacking” means that I can bend my environment to my liking. I have the understanding, will and ability to rearrange the world into something that is most palatable to me. Hacking is power. —
Pete Doktor, Engineering at Sparkfun
Hacking is making a mess of a solution then refining it until someone else acknowledges that you have done something of interest. —
Mikey Sklar
Hacking is many things to many people. To me, it’s about stirring things up, not accepting blindly whatever it is you’re told, seeking out the answers firsthand, and sharing what you discover with others so they can embark on their own journey. Note the absence of computers or even technology in this definition. They are not essential in being a hacker. If you look at every instance of exploration, creative expression, journalistic investigation, or even rebellion, you will find the basic components of hacking. The modern age simply gives us more tools with which to use them.
—
Emmanuel Goldstein
We would love to see all of your definitions of hacking. Sure, many may be similar, but you’ll probably find that many are very different. Here are the current writer’s definitions:
To me, hacking is more of a mindset. When you’re just tearing into something headed toward some goal without the proper research and planning. There’s an excitement there, like you’re exploring. —
Caleb Kraft
Use things in a way in which they were not originally intended. —
Mike Szczys
Modifying something from it’s original use to do something that it was never intended to do. Although much (but not all) legal hacking is done for fun and not necessaryil profit, sometimes a device or technique is hit upon that changes society and hopefully brings the author the monetary reward he or she deserves. —
Jeremy Cook
Hacking is all about learning. Gaining just enough knowledge to know how something works, and then using that knowledge to improve upon or just mess with it. To me, things start getting very interesting when simple tricks lead to things you aren’t supposed to know. —
Jesse Congdon | 36 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "731403",
"author": "plamoni",
"timestamp": "2012-08-11T19:12:20",
"content": "My definition of hacking has always been pretty straightforward:Hacking is the process of utilizing, modifying, or exploiting a technology or process in a way not intended by the users or creators of that ... | 1,760,376,776.441831 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/07/diy-flanagan-neurophone-lets-you-hear-with-ultrasound/ | DIY Flanagan Neurophone Lets You Hear With Ultrasound | Jesse Congdon | [
"how-to"
] | [
"neurophone",
"neurostimulation",
"ultrasonic"
] | [Andreas] wrote in to let us know about this
DIY Neurophone
project. Apparently a Flanagan Neurophone uses ultrasound in some manner to transmit audio directly to the body, or nervous system? Needless to say we are a bit skeptical of anyone whose wiki page leads directly to pyramid power. In fact most of the references to this thing start rambling about some pretty pseudo-scientific theories.
At any rate, the schematic is clear and simple enough for anyone who has the parts to easily try. The only challenge might be tuning the thing with a signal generator or audio feed. So how about it, any one have a TL494 pulse-width modulation controller and want to be a guinea pig? | 85 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "726056",
"author": "akismet-a8c1e1fc23835324d400ef9acfc5d14b",
"timestamp": "2012-08-07T17:17:48",
"content": "No need to be skeptic, since there is no magic here. It already exists and is sold :http://www.holosonics.com/technology.htmlI tried another brand (I don’t remember the nam... | 1,760,376,776.575395 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/07/olympic-shot-machine-pours-one-out-for-every-us-medal/ | Olympic Shot Machine Pours One Out For Every US Medal | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"liquor",
"olympics",
"shot pourer"
] | What better way to watch the Olympics than having a robot pour you a shot every time the United States wins a medal? The folks behind SmartThings
did just that
, by creating a machine that pours some liquor for each American Olympic win.
From the
behind the scenes video
, we see the entire build is controlled by an Arduino with an XBee shield. The XBee is connected to a simple iPhone app where the current user watching the Olympics can select which medal the US won. Bronze dispenses a shot of Jack Daniels, Silver is a shot of Jose Cuervo, and Gold means someone in the room is getting a shot of Goldschläger.
Even though the build revolves around the SmartThings framework, we’re not really quite sure what this framework is. From the Facebook page (the best source of info for SmartThings, at least until they launch), it looks to be a piece of hardware that serves as an Internet to XBee bridge, along with a framework for easily whipping up a mobile app.
Whatever SmartThings is, it’s still a very cool build.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPSo4t9Y4rw&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OlLco5XwkY&w=470] | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "726039",
"author": "anonymous",
"timestamp": "2012-08-07T16:55:13",
"content": "I was hoping they’d tie it into an RSS feed (or other data source) and have it AUTOMATICALLY pour a shot whenever the US wins a meadal, instead of requiring someone to push a button.Still, the workings o... | 1,760,376,776.672193 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/07/dual-channel-variable-voltage-test-box-is-a-busy-console-modders-dream/ | Dual-channel, Variable Voltage Test Box Is A Busy Console Modder’s Dream | Mike Nathan | [
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"modding",
"psu",
"test box",
"variable voltage"
] | It seems like [Chris Downing] is
always up to something new.
If he’s not keeping busy by
creating slick portable iterations
of previous-gen gaming consoles, he is dreaming up ways to make his modding life a bit easier.
Recently while working on a Nintendo controller designed to control three different consoles, [Downing] found his desk buried in a pile of power supply and A/V cabling. Annoyed with his growing rat’s nest, he decided to
build a universal power supply
that would allow him to quickly switch between consoles with little effort.
He dug up an old PC power supply, and fed it into a LED control box built for cars. [Downing] then mounted an array of nine rocker switches on the box, adding A/V inputs and outputs along the way. A set of voltage regulators hidden inside allow [Downing] to dial in whatever custom voltages he might need at the moment.
The test box should come in pretty handy as [Downing] pursues even more modding projects in the months to come. In the meantime, be sure to check out the video below where he covers the finer points of the device’s design.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO6KLmPpXlk&feature=player_embedded&w=470] | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "726271",
"author": "Downing",
"timestamp": "2012-08-07T21:08:00",
"content": "Thanks to Mike for the write up! Should say that the variable voltages are not in quite yet, but will be as soon as they get here. Adding two voltmeters and an LED tester. Should be pretty nice once done."... | 1,760,376,776.623143 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/07/southwest-tour-quelab-in-albuquerque-new-mexico/ | Southwest Tour: Quelab In Albuquerque New Mexico | Caleb Kraft | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"hackerspace",
"new mexico",
"southwest tour"
] | Our travels brought us to
Quelab in Albuquerque New Mexico
for the 2nd stop on our
southwest tour
. [Adric] agreed to give us a tour of this really cool space and a few other folks were there working on various projects. There were several things I really enjoyed that will hopefully be gracing our pages soon with full writeups.
The Quelab hackerspace has a small machine shop area as well as a few collaborative spaces. They occasionally hold events where you can come and learn different skills as well. While I was there, I saw some cool high altitude balloon projects, a teletype playing Zork, and a 3d printer spitting out some custom Quelab tokens.
The group seemed to be very a really cool bunch. Everyone was enthusiastic about their projects and their space. They even tried to feed us (but the timing just wasn’t right). If you ever make it by, be sure to go play with the phosphorescent wall in their bathroom. Easily one of my favorite simple projects. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "725887",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2012-08-07T14:25:37",
"content": "So Caleb, the last time you left New Mex, you forgot to say, “whatever happens, don’t name it after me!”?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "725972",
"au... | 1,760,376,777.010566 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/07/hacker-dojo-renovations-kickstarter/ | [Hacker Dojo] Renovations Kickstarter | Jeremy Cook | [
"Crowd Funding"
] | [
"Crowd Funding",
"Hacker Dojo"
] | The
[Hacker Dojo]
, as you might have suspected, is a California based hacker space that would like your money to help with renovations. Sure, there is nothing wrong with a little dust on the ground, but half of this space was apparently deemed unfit to use for it’s member hackers. For this purpose, they are running a
Kickstarter campaign
to raise $250,000 for renovations. If this seems a little steep to you, keep in mind that this looks like a pretty massive space by most standards, and land prices aren’t exactly cheap in that area.
If you’re not that generous, (Who can resist the sad faces around 0:35 in the video on their Kickstarter?) they are also offering some sweet prizes. Unfortunately, the original Super Pong Machine signed by creator Al Alcorn is already sold, but for only $2 you can have their eternal gratitude! For something a bit more tangible, they have stickers for $8, shirts for $32, and other prizes up to $10,000 for the most expensive of them, “creative input” on a mural. | 46 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "725771",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2012-08-07T11:09:26",
"content": "I need money to build a rack server to run IP cameras on my house. The biggest donor gets to tell me what to paint on the side of the cabinet. hahaha",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [... | 1,760,376,776.839995 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/06/knock-lock-balks-knock-uses-capsense-without-shock/ | Knock Lock Balks Knock, Uses CapSense Without Shock | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"capsense",
"knock lock"
] | [Rob Hemsley] sent in an update to an RFID-based door lock. Previously, if you wanted to enter the MIT media lab, a RFID-enabled card was required to get in. Now, with [Rob]’s update, you only need to
tap the door handle in a ‘secret’ pattern
.
The earlier RFID-enabled build used about $80 in hardware, not a very economical solution. The new touch-based solution only uses an Arduino and servo, making the build much cheaper.
The touch sensitive lock uses the CapSense Arduino library. By turning the door handle into a touch sensor, [Rob] allowed a secret code to be saved in the EEPROM. Repeating this sequence when the door is locked sends power to the servo, unlocking the door.
A very cool build that’s also a little more secure than the traditional, audible knock lock. Check out the video after the break. | 42 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "725476",
"author": "Kaz",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T22:51:13",
"content": "Is it me, or does it audibly unlock before he finishes the tap pattern at the end? Does it really just unlock after you tap some # of times? ;) (And did it unlock when you held the lock for 10 seconds? Seem... | 1,760,376,776.920488 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/06/southwest-tour-ohmspace-in-oklahoma-city-oklahoma/ | Southwest Tour: OhmSpace In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma | Caleb Kraft | [
"Hackerspaces",
"News"
] | [
"hackerspace",
"southwest tour",
"tour"
] | OhmSpace
in Oklahoma City is the very first stop on our
southwest tour
.
When we arrived it was around 2 in the afternoon and the temperature outside was nearly 110 degrees. It was HOT. [Stan] met up with us to give us a tour of the space. As you can see, the facility is huge. While at first glance it may appear somewhat disheveled, there is order to the madness. There is a nice community work area set up in the middle as well as several different stations throughout. Since the facility is almost just one giant room, storage is out in the open giving the illusion of a mess. We were there in the early afternoon, so there wasn’t anyone around working on anything, but you can see projects in various states of progress throughout the tour.
There was one short break from the heat in the computer room that is run by DC405, the local Defcon group. I took a few minutes to talk to [Taylor] and have him explain more about that in the video below. | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "725407",
"author": "Stan",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T20:26:30",
"content": "Caleb, thanks for stopping by and for the write up.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "725412",
"author": "Taylor",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T20:41:5... | 1,760,376,776.966181 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/11/seeing-through-walls-using-wifi/ | Seeing Through Walls Using WiFi | Mike Szczys | [
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"passive",
"radar",
"wifi"
] | Turns out you don’t need to be Superman to see through walls. Researchers at University College London have developed
a way to passively use WiFi as a radar system
. Unlike active radar systems (which themselves send out radio waves and listen for them to echo back), passive radar systems cannot be detected.
The system is small enough to fit in a briefcase, and has been tested through a one-foot-thick brick wall. It can detect position, speed, and direction of a person moving on the other side of that wall, but cannot detect stationary object. [Karl Woodbridge] and [Kevin Chetty], the engineers behind the prototype, think it can be refined to pick up motion as minuscule as a person’s rib cage moving with each breath. For some reason we get the picture in our mind of
that body scanner from the original
Total Recall
.
[via
Reddit
]
[
Image Credit
] | 20 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "731289",
"author": "charles",
"timestamp": "2012-08-11T17:14:50",
"content": "This hit other sites some time ago. It isn’t WiFi. It only uses the same spectrum. It is rather impractical and comes with tons of caveats.Having anything that runs in the same spectrum within 200 feet and... | 1,760,376,777.06953 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/11/blinking-light-switch/ | Blinking Light Switch | Mike Szczys | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"blink",
"eye",
"light",
"switch"
] | In addition to being a great replacement for that aging eye patch,
these specs act as a light switch
. By watching your eyelids, they are able to kill the lights whenever you blink.
The installation is a shared experience piece conceived by [Michal Kohút]. He wanted to illustrate the constant blinking we all do but rarely think about. The system uses an Arduino to capture events from the blink sensors and switch the lights accordingly. This way the wearer doesn’t experience a loss of illumination, but the observer does. Check out the video after the break for a quick demonstration.
One of the commenters from
the source article
shared
a video link to another blink-based light project
. That one uses electrodes attached to skin around your eye in order to detect eyelid motion.
[via
Reddit
] | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "731210",
"author": "kay",
"timestamp": "2012-08-11T15:31:47",
"content": "Great, now the Weeping Angels can team up with that Vashta Nerada…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "731468",
"author": "Roger Parkinson",
... | 1,760,376,777.126564 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/11/building-a-coal-forge/ | Building A Coal Forge | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"blacksmith",
"coal",
"forge",
"furnace",
"welding"
] | We don’t get to see Blacksmith hacks around here too often. But even if they were rolling in on a weekly basis we think this one would be considered the special expanded edition with full-color centerfold.
The sixty-five images in this coal forge build log
are all commented and just begging to steal your attention for part of the afternoon.
The build mostly involves fabricating a system for injecting air into the forge and providing a mechanism for evacuating the waste ash. [BillDaCat] starts with a 3″ pipe as the ash dump, adding a latching door used to empty it when full. He then welds together a metal trough with a slotted bottom to hold the fiery fury, attaching the ash dump below. He uses a plasma cutter to add an opening in the upper portion of the ash dump for a blast gate.
If you’re excited about his build you should also
check out the metal pour
and
the induction furnace
.
[via
Reddit
] | 21 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "731106",
"author": "xorpunk",
"timestamp": "2012-08-11T13:26:56",
"content": "forging is an art.. good luck making anything even with a proper setup. Especially considering the price of stock..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "... | 1,760,376,777.649981 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/10/how-not-to-dim-el-panels-triacs/ | How Not To Dim EL Panels, TRIACs! | Jesse Congdon | [
"home entertainment hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"EL dimming",
"electroluminescence",
"triacs"
] | We’ve all been there: an exciting brilliant idea, scratched onto a napkin, hastily plugged into a breadboard, all for naught. Even the best ideas sometimes suffer from a heavy dose of reality. [Ch00f] over at ch00ftech recently had a similar experience dimming an EL panel of his using a TRIAC and some clever waveform manipulation. Instead of tossing the parts
across the room in a fit
aside and moving on he goes into
a detailed analysis
of what went wrong.
This method differs from the way most EL drivers dim output loads, instead of chopping the output like a PWM controlled LED the TRIAC snips the ends of the waveform and makes an ugly but less powerful output. The issue with this method is that when you cut the waveform during non-zero crossings it causes massive current spikes. These can wreak havoc on a cheap EL inverter and generally cause headaches all around. [Ch00f ] speculates that his woes may be due to the fact that EL wire is a capacitive load, causing voltage to fall out of phase with the current. This is one of those engineering problems with a thousand and one answers, we can’t wait to see what he comes up with.
Check out the
writeup
for all the “deets” (as [ch00f] would say) as it is a pretty good primer on TRIAC operation. If there isn’t enough glowy wire in this post you can also check out this sound reactive
panel
or an
informative guide
on EL or even more from [ch00f] in
general
. | 15 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "730443",
"author": "adcurtin",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T22:05:29",
"content": "First comment. Sparkfun had an EL inverter shield and arduino that use this method. They sucked phenomenally.I got the sequencer, the arduino based one. It sucks at dimming, it always reset itself, and j... | 1,760,376,777.180337 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/10/swapping-out-eee-pc-bga-chip-for-1-6-ghz-upgrade/ | Swapping Out Eee PC BGA Chip For 1.6 GHz Upgrade | Mike Szczys | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"bga",
"eee pc",
"hot air gun",
"processor",
"soldering",
"xandros"
] | Personally we find this Ball-Grid Array chip-swap rather horrifying. But if you want to beef up the processor on your 701 Eee PC this is what you’ll need to go through. Not only did [Red Fathom]
upgrade to a 1.6 GHz chip
, but he managed to get the computer to boot up with the new hardware in place.
BGAs are notoriously
hard to solder
. This hack pulls it off using just a hot air gun. [Red Fathom] heats the board from the underside until the solder melts and he can pluck off the old chip. He then uses a solder braid and iron to remove extra solder from the footprint. After a little cleanup with a cotton swab and some flux he plops in an Intel Pentium M LV 778. It doesn’t look like he added any solder after the cleaning process. Perhaps he’s relying on the small amount left on the tinned pads of the board?
After the break you can see the soldering process and a video of the new processor booting Xandros.
Soldering video:
Booting Xandros after the swap:
[Thanks Nonya-Biz] | 37 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "730281",
"author": "zaprodk",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T19:17:52",
"content": "The replacement processor is factory new or bought “Reballed” on eBay etc. the balls on the chip is sufficient to solder on the new chip – especially if the pads has just been soldered before and cleaned, ... | 1,760,376,777.58792 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/10/nas-based-transcoding-facilitates-security-cam-viewing-on-iphone/ | NAS-based Transcoding Facilitates Security Cam Viewing On IPhone | Mike Szczys | [
"iphone hacks",
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"ffmpeg",
"LG",
"n4b2",
"nas",
"security camera",
"transcode"
] | [Zitt] has a security camera which will send him messages any time it detects motion. However annoying this might seem, we’re sure he has his reasons for needing this much immediate feedback. The real problem comes when he goes to view the feed on his iPhone. His solution is to turn the camera’s notifications off, and
use his own script to transcode a clip and shoot off an email
.
As you can see above, the end result is a concise email that includes the recently captured clip, as well as links to the live feed. He has been storing the clips on an LG N4B2 Network Storage Server (NAS) and since he’s got root access to the Linux system on the device it was an easy starting point for the new system. After he compiled FFmpeg from source (which handles the transcoding) he started work on the script which backs up the recordings and sends the email messages.
One thing he wants to add is a method to clear out the old backup videos. Having encountered a similar issue ourselves we decided to share our one-liner which solves the problem. Find it after the break.
Here’s a cron job that runs at 4:50pm everyday and removes backup video files older than three weeks. If you don’t understand what it does, just
consult the documentation
.
50 16 * * * find /Videos/backup/*.mpg -mtime +21 -exec rm {} \; | 14 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "730220",
"author": "redbat",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T18:30:37",
"content": "The unix geeks among us eschew -exec in favour of xargs:find /Videos/backup/ -type f -name \\*.mpg -mtime +21 -print0 | xargs -0 –no-run-if-empty rm",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [... | 1,760,376,777.416069 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/10/vortex-drive-for-underwater-rov-propulsion/ | ‘Vortex-drive’ For Underwater ROV Propulsion | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"bristlebot",
"motor",
"pager",
"thrust",
"vibrate",
"vortex"
] | This is [Lee von Kraus’] new
experimental propulsion system for an underwater ROV
. He developed the concept when considering how one might adapt
the Bristlebot
, which uses vibration to shimmy across a solid surface, for use under water.
As with its dry-land relative, this technique uses a tiny pager motor. The device is designed to vibrate when the motor spins, thanks to an off-center weight attached to the spindle. [Lee’s] first experiment was to shove the motor in a centrifuge tube and give it an underwater whirl. He could see waves emanating from the motor and travelling outward, but the thing didn’t go anywhere. What he needed were some toothbrush bristles. He started thinking about how those bristles actually work. They allow the device to move in one direction more easily than in another. The aquatic equivalent of this is an angled platform that has more drag in one direction. He grabbed a bendy straw, using the flexible portion to provide the needed surface.
Check out the demo video after the break. He hasn’t got it connected to a vessel, but there is definitely movement. | 23 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "730113",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T17:08:44",
"content": "IANANE (heh, I am not a nautical engineer is inane.. nice) a second bendy straw on the other side could then cause direct forward motion, steering by removing the straws from the surface somehow.. interestin... | 1,760,376,777.482049 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/06/edisons-cradle-is-a-bright-idea/ | Edison’s Cradle Is A Bright Idea | Caleb Kraft | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"edison",
"incandescent",
"newton"
] | This interesting take on Newton’s Cradle is called
“Asobi” and was created by [Yasutoki Kariya]
. However, [Johnny] at
Spoon and Tamago
dubbed it “Edison’s Cradle”, which we think is a great name.
As you can make out in the video, it isn’t really a Newton’s Cradle. There is a solenoid pushing the bulbs at the end out at the correct time, but that’s fine. The overall result is quite brilliant. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the setup. Anyone have more information? Anyone want to take a stab at making “Tesla’s cradle”?
[via
Make
] | 45 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "725326",
"author": "Unanymous",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T18:06:50",
"content": "Edison was a dick.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "725387",
"author": "SpydaMonky",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T19:48:58",
"c... | 1,760,376,777.780858 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/06/yet-another-arduino-blinkenlight-thing-actually-pretty-cool/ | Yet Another Arduino Blinkenlight Thing, Actually Pretty Cool | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"space invaders"
] | On the Tasmanian Linux User Group mailing list, [Hoolio] read someone complaining about the eventual downfall of their upcoming hackerspace as becoming a club of Arduino fanboys. [Hoolio] asked what was wrong with the Arduino, and this terrible, terrible Tasmanian replied, “there’s far too much boring blinkenlights and not enough actual cool stuff.” [Hoolio] took this as a challenge and
created his own Arduino blinkenlight project
that emulates
Space Invaders
on a 5×5 matrix of LEDs
The board is just a buzzer, 25 LEDs, 10 transistors, and a pot and button. Before the game begins, a LED chaser is traced out on the perimeter of the display, its speed controllable by the pot. When the button is pressed the game begins, allowing [Hoolio] to move his ship left and right with the pot and fire his lazor with the button.
Yes, it’s a game written for an array of blinkenlights for the Arduino. This doesn’t diminish the build, though. If this were put in a fabulous beige and transported back to 1978, we’d look on the LED version of
Space Invaders
as fondly as
Mattel’s
Football
.
You can see [Hoolio]’s game demo after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXROpHMbwxk&w=470] | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "725309",
"author": "Bob D",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T17:25:10",
"content": "It’s a fun project, but seriously, don’t let the haters motivate you. Ignore the ignorant idiots and move on.I know several hackerspaces that would throw a member out for being so close-minded and non-suppor... | 1,760,376,777.836409 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/06/drawing-things-very-slowly-very-easily/ | Drawing Things Very Slowly, Very Easily | Brian Benchoff | [
"cnc hacks",
"hardware"
] | [
"Polargraph"
] | A while back, we saw [Euphy]’s polar pen plotter project. The mechanics of the build are very simple – just a pair of motors attached to a pen by a beaded cord. Even though the build is very simple, it’s possible to create awesome works of art albeit very slowly.
Since we featured [Euphy]’s polar pen plotter,
a lot of improvements have been made
. Now the Polargraph has an SD card slot for computer-less printing, a touch screen for manual control of the plotter, and a few new drawing styles that improve on the previous version a lot.
Right now the improved version of the Polargraph is set up in the front of a graffiti art supply shop in Edinburgh where it spends its time slowly drawing a window dressing. [Euphy] put up a few videos of what the Polargraph is capable of doing, very impressive and we hope he gets a few more PCBs in soon. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "725280",
"author": "Kaz",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T16:17:47",
"content": "“we hope he gets a few more PCBs in soon”With a plotter and some etch-resistant pens, it can be quite soon… ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "725568",
... | 1,760,376,777.699076 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/06/pov-bike-wheels-with-the-msp430/ | POV Bike Wheels With The MSP430 | Brian Benchoff | [
"LED Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"led",
"msp430",
"POV"
] | Being an intern a Texas Instruments isn’t all fun and games, but from [George], [Valerie], and [Ryan]’s TI intern design project, it sure looks like it. They built a
persistence of vision display for a bicycle
using the ever popular MSP430 Launchpad board.
The team of interns created a POV display by combining the power of the TI Launchpad with a row of 32 RGB LEDs soldered onto a booster pack. Once the whole circuit is fastened securely to the bike wheel, a hall effect sensor mounted to the bike frame allows the MSP430 to detect how fast it is going. From there, it’s just a matter of flashing LEDs at the right time to create a stationary display inside a rotating wheel.
Although the display will theoretically work with just one Launchpad/Booster pack combo, the team decided to use three of these circuits, totaling 96 LEDs per wheel, to create a really nice RGB display. The video (available after the break) shows a little bit of flicker but this is an artifact of the camera. In real life, the POV bike wheel display is simply stunning.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0hutxTx2NI&w=470] | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "725235",
"author": "miceuz",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T15:12:04",
"content": "been there done that, ended up adding two more slave spokes, because you have to go too fast for anyone to notice with one spoke :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,777.982043 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/06/curiosity-landed-heres-the-lego-version/ | Curiosity Landed, Here’s The LEGO Version | Brian Benchoff | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"Curiosity",
"lego",
"Mars Science Laboratory"
] | The Mars Science Laboratory hasn’t had her wheels down for a day and already the
Curiosity-
inspired builds are rolling in. [Will] and [Doug]
built a LEGO model of the
Curiosity
rover
for the Build the Future in Space event at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Everything on this scaled-down version of
Curiosity
is completely made out of LEGO, including the four powered wheels, motorized mast, and articulated, controllable arm.
The LEGO rover contains 7 NTX bricks, 13 motors, two power function motors, and over 1000 pieces of LEGO held together without any glue. The rover is under remote control from two operators. The driver controls the rotation and direction of the four powered corner wheels, while another operator uses a Waldo-like manipulator built out of LEGO to move
Curiosity
‘s mast and arm. Each of these controls communicate with the rover over a Bluetooth connection.
We’ve been wondering when we would see a
Curiosity-
inspired rocker bogie bot, and we’re pleased as punch the first one just happened to be a LEGO build. Having [Will] and [Doug] time their submission to the
Curiosity’s
landing on Mars is the icing on the cake.
You can see the LEGO
Curiosity
in action after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kfoa39XzZY&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wrt5f2SrpQ&w=470] | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "725196",
"author": "jc",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T14:13:10",
"content": "I’m curious.. was this made deliberately to improve HAD pagerank?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "725210",
"author": "goodwin",
"timestam... | 1,760,376,778.0307 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/06/learn-a-new-language-with-the-babel-fish/ | Learn A New Language With The Babel Fish | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"Babel fish",
"rfid",
"wave shield"
] | The Babel fish from
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
is one of the strangest things in the universe. After inserting a Babel fish into your ear, it feeds off brain wave energy and excretes a matrix from the conscious frequencies into the speech areas of the brain. It’s invaluable as a universal translator, but until Earth is targeted for demolition we’ll have to make do with [Becky] from Adafruit’s
Babel fish language toy
.
[Becky]’s Babel fish is still able to feed off the energy given off by language, but in this case the energy comes from a set of RFID cards on which Chinese characters are written. After waving these RFID flash cards in front of the Babel fish, a wave shield connected to the Arduino plays a recording of how the logogram on the flash card should sound when pronounced.
While it’s not a biologically engineered fish that simultaneously proves and disproves the existence of god, every human endeavor – learning a language included – needs more [Douglas Adams] references. You can check out [Becky]’s Babel fish demo video after the break. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "725303",
"author": "Sam",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T17:08:05",
"content": "Neat idea, but I don’t see how that could possibly fit in my ear.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "725342",
"author": "alxy",
"timestamp": "2012-08... | 1,760,376,778.073211 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/06/biological-inspired-robotic-eye-movements/ | Biological-inspired Robotic Eye Movements | Richard Steele | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"actuator",
"biological",
"camera",
"eye",
"georgia tech",
"human",
"muscle",
"piezoelectric"
] | Researchers at
Georgia Tech have developed a biologically inspired system to control cameras
on board robots that simulate the Saccadic optokinetic system of the human eye. Its similarity to the muscular system of the human eye is uncanny.
Joshua Schultz, a Ph.D candidate, says that this system has been made possible in part to piezoelectric cellular actuator technology. Thanks to the actuators developed in their laboratory it is now possible to capture many of the characteristics associated with muscles of the human eye and its cellular structure.
The expectation is that the piezoelectric system could be used for future MRI-based surgery, furthering our ability to research and rehabilitate the human eye.
[via
engadget
] | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "725121",
"author": "Rob Wentworth",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T12:11:41",
"content": "The real question if the goal is an accurate simulation of human eye movement is how often the eyes should dart down for a glance at a chick’s cleavage. :-O",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,778.123988 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/09/sound-o-light-simple-and-interesting-diy-speakers/ | Sound-o-Light: Simple And Interesting DIY Speakers | Caleb Kraft | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"speakers"
] | This is a great project for a slow afternoon, or a beginners introduction to DIY. [William] shows off a
really simple speaker project that results in a light show as well as a decent enclosure
. He’s using a PVC elbow to mount the speakers. They’re just glued in place. Below that, a section of clear tube allows for the lighting effects and a flange at the bottom supplies stability. For the lights, [William] opted to forego any complicated electronics and simply wired LEDs to the speakers themselves.
Admittedly we’ve seen more complicated systems in the past, but his results are quite nice and could be done pretty fast. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "729051",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "2012-08-09T20:17:41",
"content": "This is step by step out of make volume 31",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "729775",
"author": "Eirinn",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T12:55:5... | 1,760,376,778.416267 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/09/largest-cnc-router-is-controlled-by-hand/ | Largest CNC Router Is Controlled By Hand | Brian Benchoff | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"router",
"siggraph"
] | Fresh from this year’s SIGGRAPH is a very interesting take on the traditional X Y-table based CNC machine from [Alec], [Ilan] and [Frédo] at MIT. They created a
computer-controlled CNC router
that is theoretically unlimited in size. Instead of a gantry, this router uses a human to move the tool over the work piece and only makes fine corrections to the tool path with the help of a camera and stepper motor.
The entire device is built around a hand held router, with a base that contains a camera, electronics, stepper motors, and a very nice screen for displaying the current tool path. After a few strips of QR code-inspired tape, the camera looks down at the work piece and calculates the small changes the router has to make in order to make the correct shape. All the user needs to do is guide the router along the outline of the part to be cut with a margin of error of a half inch.
You can read the SIGGRAPH paper
here
(or get the PDF
here
and not melt [Alec]’s server), or check out the demo video after the break.
Anyone want to build their own?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UmL7xZZSUk&w=470] | 61 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "728797",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2012-08-09T17:06:56",
"content": "Pff, let me know when they hold .003″ consistently.lol",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "728809",
"author": "Alex",
"timestamp": "2012-08... | 1,760,376,778.371896 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/09/southwest-tour-heatsync-labs-in-mesa-arizona/ | Southwest Tour: Heatsync Labs In Mesa Arizona | Caleb Kraft | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"heatsync",
"southwest tour"
] | With temperatures rising to around 117degrees, we arrived in Mesa Arizona to visit
Heatsync Labs
as part of our
Southwest Tour
. We have actually seen a tour of Heatsync in the past, and you should probably
refer back to it for the quick run-through
of the facility. When I was there, there was simply so much to see and talk about that the video ended up running over 10 minutes and I feel we barely scratched the surface of what was going on.
Check out the video above to see a few things, like the giant laser cutter, the electron microscope, some mold making, the beat lab (called “Beatsync”, and the 3d printing. We briefly walk through the facility, but mainly I spent time letting people tell me about what they were making.
I have to give them credit, the entire trip my sons were disappointed that they couldn’t find their names on the tourist attraction keychains available all over. The folks at Heatsync remedied that by cutting some custom keychains with their names on them. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "728672",
"author": "th3badwolf",
"timestamp": "2012-08-09T15:41:55",
"content": "Awesome review!As I see,i’m not alone in the DIY casting anymore! hehe",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "728692",
"author": "BoKu",
"timestam... | 1,760,376,778.280187 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/09/turning-a-12-year-old-mill-into-a-modern-workhorse/ | Turning A 12 Year Old Mill Into A Modern Workhorse | Brian Benchoff | [
"cnc hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"ftdi",
"MDX-20",
"mill",
"router"
] | Even though the Roland MDX-20 CNC mill fetched a pretty penny when it was first made available 12 years ago, there were a few features that made any builder lucky enough to own one scratch their head. The only way for a computer to communicate with this mill was through an RS-232 connection, and instead of a
normal
control protocol such as GCode, the Roland mill uses a very proprietary software package.
[Johan]
fixed these problems
and at the same time turned this wonderful machine into a tool for the 21st century. Now, instead of running a very long serial cable to his mill with a serial to USB converter at the end, he can just plug a USB cable into his mill with the addition of an FTDI USB to serial chip wired directly to the mill’s circuit board.
Stock, the Roland mill used a very strange proprietary communications protocol. [Johan] was able to reverse engineer this protocol by tracing out a few simple shapes and curves and taking a highlighter to the printout of the resulting file. Instead of the outdated software package that shipped with his mill, [Johan] can now export tool paths directly from his CAD program and send them over a USB cable.
It really is a shame such a nice machine like [Johan]’s mill suffered from the glaring shortsightedness of Roland executives 12 years ago, but at least now [Johan] has a machine that should easily last another decade. | 20 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "728410",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2012-08-09T13:26:28",
"content": "What!!?? A Roland that doesn’t have a MIDI connection?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "728558",
"author": "JB",
"timestamp": "2012-08-09... | 1,760,376,778.650095 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/09/exposing-pcbs-with-a-home-made-laser-printer/ | Exposing PCBs With A Home Made Laser Printer | Brian Benchoff | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"board etching",
"laser",
"pcb",
"Printed Circuit Board"
] | Making your own printed circuit boards – as useful as it is – is a pain. Using the very popular toner transfer method requires a dozen steps that have to go perfectly the first time, and milling boards on a CNC machine creates a lot of mess. The most industrious hackers are able to bodge up a direct-to-board printer from an old inkjet printer, but these builds are usually a little kludgy. [Tixiv]’s
LaserExposer board printer
is one of the first builds we’ve seen that does away with all the negatives of the other techniques of PCB manufacturing and turns making your own boards into a very, very simple process.
The LaserExposer uses photosensitive copper board, like many of the other PCB printers we’ve seen. Instead of printing out the board artwork to a transparency or mask, [Tixiv] used a 1 Watt 445nm blue laser with a hexagonal mirror to directly expose the artwork onto the board, line by line.
The entire device is built around an old flatbed scanner that slowly crawls over the PCB, exposing the traces of copper to be etched away. This required reverse engineering the mirror motor control board from an 90s-era laser printer and building a circuit to precisely control the timing of the laser. [Tixiv] eventually got everything working and after etching had some of the most professional looking home-brew boards we’ve ever seen.
[Tixiv] put up a demo video of his build (after the break, German audio, YouTube has captions…). Anyone have an old flatbed scanner lying around?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi4P-Bwc6g8&w=470] | 50 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "728254",
"author": "Daniil",
"timestamp": "2012-08-09T11:38:39",
"content": "I think the diode is 450nm not 45nm",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "728267",
"author": "manuel",
"timestamp": "2012-08-09T11:52:17",
... | 1,760,376,778.729718 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/08/making-a-game-with-capacitive-touch/ | Making A Game With Capacitive Touch | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"capsense"
] | Hackaday has seen a ton of builds make use of the Arduino CapSense library of late, so it was only a matter of time before we posted a
capacitive sensing game controller
that is able to move sprites around a screen.
For this build, the controller is made out of small strips of Aluminum foil, wired straight to an Arduino with a few resistors. Once embedded inside a wonderful enclosure that brings about pangs of nostalgia it’s time tow write the game.
For the game portion of the build, Processing was brought into the mix to create a SpongeBob-themed ‘capture all the jellyfish in jellyfish fields’ game. By taping the contacts for the d-pad, the player can move SpongeBob around to catch jellyfish. If you’d like to give the game a go, you can play it in your browser
on the project page
.
This isn’t the first – or the last – CapSense build we’ll see on Hackaday, but it
is
the first one dedicated to making a DIY (albeit Nintendo inspired) video game controller. If six buttons aren’t enough, you’ll just have to wait for the PS3 version. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "727817",
"author": "SavannahLion",
"timestamp": "2012-08-09T00:05:18",
"content": "I had this long tirade in my head about how people keep trying to shoehorn touch technologies into “older” technologies such as making NES controllers or creating “buttons” on touchscreens (Check out ... | 1,760,376,778.587126 |
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