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https://hackaday.com/2012/07/08/adding-an-auto-shutoff-to-the-simplest-of-drip-coffee-makers/ | Adding An Auto-shutoff To The Simplest Of Drip Coffee Makers | Mike Szczys | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"coffee",
"coffee maker",
"drip",
"shut-off",
"timer"
] | [Jerry Pommer] and his wife have relied on a percolating coffee pot for years. We have fond memories of camping trips with these things; they make great coffee which tastes even better on a cold morning in the back woods. But a recent package from the stork means that they no longer have time to sit and watch the coffee perk. After several days of boil-overs [Jerry] switched to this very basic drip coffee maker he salvaged from the trash pile. It has one switch that turns it on and off and nothing else. In order to make sure he doesn’t forget to turn it off,
he hacked together his own shut-off timer for the device
.
His write-up is all back story, but the 34 minute video embedded after the break takes us through the hack itself. We like it that he starts by discussing the different options that he could have chosen. Of course it might have been a microcontroller, or a 555 timer keeping time. But in the end he went with a simple resistor-capacitor timer. The carefully calculated component pair drives a Darlington transistor which keeps a relay closed. When the slowly draining capacitor lets the voltage drop past a certain threshold it also kills the power to the hot plate. In this case it will only stay on for about a half hour. | 15 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "697569",
"author": "Greg",
"timestamp": "2012-07-08T14:15:13",
"content": "Wait, no raspberry pi?Seriously though, it is great to see someone that hasn’t forgotten how to actually build a simple circuit.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"commen... | 1,760,376,814.080011 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/07/another-switch-mode-regulator-swap-for-the-raspberry-pi/ | Another Switch Mode Regulator Swap For The Raspberry Pi | Mike Szczys | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"RPi",
"switch mode",
"voltage regulator"
] | [Karl Lunt] is working to slim the Raspberry Pi current draw as much as possible. The first step in his journey was to
replace the linear voltage regulator with this switch mode version
. It’s a step-down voltage regulator circuit with a tiny footprint and a matching price tag (about $10)
made by Pololu
. It’s small enough to be mounted in the empty space between the LCD ribbon connector and the main processor.
The project was based on
the hack we saw at the end of June
. But we give much more credit to [Karl] for removing the old part in a safer way. He clipped the two small leads on the bottom of the old part, then used a beefy iron to sufficiently heat the large pad before removing the body of it. With the old part out of the way it’s just a matter of connecting the three wires in the right configuration.
This cut consumption by about 50 mA. He’s hoping to do more by removing the on-board LEDs. His goal is a draw of under 250 mA in order to make it last a reasonable amount of time when running from batteries. | 32 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "697238",
"author": "CampGareth",
"timestamp": "2012-07-07T22:38:43",
"content": "Hope he underclocks or at least undervolts the CPU, config.txt is very helpful.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "697262",
"author": "imajeenyus"... | 1,760,376,814.394465 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/07/all-terrain-electric-scooter-build/ | All-terrain Electric Scooter Build | Mike Szczys | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"electric",
"scooter"
] | This all-terrain electric scooter
can destroy the speed limit in a school zone without even trying. [Ben Katz] built from the ground-up and did an amazing job of documenting the journey.
He strated by redesigning the suspension of a plain old kick-scooter to use these large inflatable wheels. This includes a suspension system that helps cushion the rider from the bumps of an uneven driving surface. The increased deck height leaves plenty of room for the locomotive parts. You can see the three cylinders mounted near the rear wheel. Those are the motors, connected to a single drive shaft with a gear box which [Ben] built. The drive shaft powers the rear wheel via chain drive. Batteries are housed in the rectangular enclosure in front of the motors.
Don’t miss the video after the break. [Ben] takes the thing on and off-road, averaging 15 MPH while topping out at 24! | 18 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "697119",
"author": "B",
"timestamp": "2012-07-07T19:17:38",
"content": "“to use these large inflatable wheels. This includes a suspension system that helps cushion the rider from the bumps of an uneven driving surface.”Well, judging from the video, that mission pretty much failed, b... | 1,760,376,814.131979 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/07/resurrecting-a-hi-fi-cabinet/ | Resurrecting A Hi-Fi Cabinet | Mike Szczys | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"hi-fi",
"mice",
"record player",
"stereo",
"tube"
] | [VintagePC] pulled this old stereo out of a barn. It was in pretty shabby shape, but he managed
get it running again and make it look great as well
.
While it had been protected from the elements, it had not been protected from the rodents. Mice had chewed their way through the fiberboard backing and made a nice home inside. He mentions that they chewed the string which operates the tuning dial, and we’re sure they were the cause of other problems as well. He gives the wise advice of not powering on an old set like this until you have a chance to assess the situation.
The insides of the amplifier were about as disorderly as
the last radio repair we looked at
. But after carefully working his way through the circuits, replacing capacitors and resistors as needed, he started to make some progress. The receiver coil needed to be rewound and he used wire from an old CRT monitor for this purpose. The loop antenna was remounted and the record player arm was given a new cartridge and balanced using a clever LEGO apparatus. Some veneer work and wood finishing brought the case itself back to its original beauty. We’d say the hard work was well worth it. He’s got a big piece of furniture he can always be proud of! | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "697041",
"author": "truthspew",
"timestamp": "2012-07-07T18:02:04",
"content": "That is an awesome rebuild. I’m rather shocked that a system from 1961 still used tubes. Transistors were pretty much in full swing here in the U.S. at the time. But then that is a Canadian set – it may ... | 1,760,376,814.591549 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/07/going-to-the-park-with-your-augmented-reality-girlfriend/ | Going To The Park With Your Augmented Reality Girlfriend | Brian Benchoff | [
"Kinect hacks"
] | [
"augmented reality",
"Kinect",
"video goggles"
] | Lonely? Bored?
Really
into J-pop? If you’re any of these things,
here’s the build for you
. It’s an augmented reality system that allows you to go on a date with one of Japan’s most popular virtual singers.
The character chosen to show off this augmented reality girlfriend tech is [
Hatsune Miku
], a voice synthesizer personified as a doll-eyed anime avatar. [Miku] is an immensely popular character in Japan, with
thousands of people going to her concerts
, so choosing her for this augmented reality girlfriend project was an obvious choice.
The build details for this hack are a little sparse, confounded by the
horrible Google Translate results
of the blog linked in the YouTube description. From what we can gather from the video and
this twitter account
, the build is based on an
ASUS Xtion
Kinect clone and a nice pair of
video goggles
.
We’re expecting the comments for this post to fill up with, ‘Japan is
really weird’
comments, but we can see a few very, very cool applications of this tech. For instance, think how cool it would be to be guided around a science museum by [Einstein], or around Philadelphia by [
Ben Franklin
]. | 50 | 30 | [
{
"comment_id": "696963",
"author": "Mr. Hsu",
"timestamp": "2012-07-07T16:05:25",
"content": "This reminds me way too much of Dr. Krieger (from Archer) and his virtual Japanese bride.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "697125",
"author":... | 1,760,376,814.215881 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/07/monitoring-a-clothes-washer-with-an-accelerometer/ | Monitoring A Clothes Washer With An Accelerometer | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"12f683",
"accelerometer",
"alarm",
"freescale",
"MMA7361",
"pic",
"washing machine"
] | [Viktor’s] washing machine did a good job of cleaning his clothes, but it kept a bit too quiet about it. The machine doesn’t have an audible alert to let him know the cycle has finished.
He decided to build his own alarm
which can just be slapped on the side of the machine.
You can see that a couple of magnets hold the board to the metal housing of the washer. The board doesn’t actually connect to any of the machine’s circuitry so this should work about equally as well for any unit. The detection is based on motion, thanks to a Freescale MMA7361 3-axis accelerometer. When he starts a load of wash he flips the power switch for the board on. The PIC 12F683 that drives the device starts monitoring the accelerometer for changes. If it goes for more than about one minute without reading motion the piezo buzzer starts beeping. It’s a fun and easy solution along the same line of this
oven pre-heat alarm add-on
. | 15 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "697010",
"author": "Hal",
"timestamp": "2012-07-07T17:19:08",
"content": "What about the mid cycle refill? I am doing laundry right now and I know that while it is washing it is vibrating like crazy (shakes my whole small house). But it stops as it refills the basket. So it this sen... | 1,760,376,814.525761 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/07/keyless-bmw-cars-prove-to-be-very-easy-to-steal/ | Keyless BMW Cars Prove To Be Very Easy To Steal | Mike Szczys | [
"Security Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bmw",
"keyfob",
"keyless",
"odb"
] | A lot of higher end cars are now coming out with RF fobs that unlock and start the car. There is no longer a physical key that is inserted in the ignition. It turns out that
for BMW this means stealing the cars is extremely easy
for a sophisticated criminal. We always liked the idea of metal keys that ALSO had a chip in them. The two-tiered security system makes sense to us, and would have prevent (or at least slowed down) the recent rash of BMW thefts that are going on in the UK.
So here’s the deal. A device like the one seen above can be attached to the On-Board Diagnostic (ODB) port of the vehicle. It can then be used to program a new keyfob. This of course is a necessary feature to replace a lost or broken device, but it seems the criminals have figured out how to do it themselves. Now the only hard part is getting inside the car without setting off the alarm.
According to this article
there are ultrasonic sensors inside which are designed to detect intrusion and immobilize the vehicle. But that’s somehow being circumvented.
You can check out a keyfob programming demo, as well as actual theft footage, after the break.
Fob programming demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LevE6iogIy8
Theft video
[Thanks Lee] | 84 | 35 | [
{
"comment_id": "696933",
"author": "birdmun",
"timestamp": "2012-07-07T15:10:10",
"content": "I would wonder if ultrasonic transducers could be blinded by more powerful ultrasonic transmissions?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "696934",
"aut... | 1,760,376,814.327487 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/07/minot-makers-launch-red-bull-too/ | Minot Makers Launch Red Bull Too! | Caleb Kraft | [
"Beer Hacks"
] | [
"redbull"
] | When we posted our redbull firing pneumatic cannon, we got a pretty quick email from [Ryan] at Minot Makers. Apparently, they were working on
a redbull cannon as wel
l. Theirs, however, has a completely different use. They intend for this to fire a redbull with a gentle arc allowing you to simply catch and drink it. They appear to be firing over a fairly short distance, so this isn’t any more dangerous than, say, tossing a drink to a friend a few feet away.
Their approach to handling the barrel size/can size difference was to build a piston cannon instead of a sabot. This conveniently also allows for easy firing of pretty much anything that will fit! [Ryan] described some future plans to give this an r/c platform allowing it to drive around at events and deliver beverages. That would be pretty cool. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "696898",
"author": "henry",
"timestamp": "2012-07-07T14:11:43",
"content": "i wonder how many “shots” it makes before it needs recharging. Maybe 3? should have hooked it upto an air compressor and a battery",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"c... | 1,760,376,814.474824 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/06/set-your-arduino-free-with-wifino/ | Set Your Arduino Free With Wifino | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"ide",
"wifi",
"wifino"
] | [Tod] wrote in to tell us about his latest project.
It’s called wifino
, and aims to set your Arduino free by offering a web-based IDE, online storage for your Arduino sketches, and even WiFi enabled hardware to upload sketches wirelessly.
The wifino was conceived with the same train of thought as the
codebender IDE
we saw earlier this week. Instead of only providing a web-based programming environment, the wifino works in conjunction with
wifino hardware
, meaning you can upload sketches over a wireless connection.
On the software side of things, the
wifino IDE
features code editing, compiling, and uploading right from a browser. There are plans for a github-style interface in the works, allowing for the easy sharing of Arduino sketches from makers around the world.
[Tod] is planning on getting a Kickstarter underway in the next few weeks to get the wifino boards out into the wild. We’ll be sure to keep you updated with any info or specs that come our way.
You can check out [Tod] uploading code from the Windows and iOS clients after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phyrSFNxvdw&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhHpMpb6yDI&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48xJdrDWTWo&w=470] | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "696705",
"author": "David S",
"timestamp": "2012-07-07T03:28:23",
"content": "Would you be able to read the serial data on a networked computer?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "696849",
"author": "Tom G",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,376,813.915069 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/06/data-mining-and-saving-money-with-octoparts-historical-pricing/ | Data Mining And Saving Money With Octopart’s Historical Pricing | Brian Benchoff | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"data mining",
"octopart"
] | [Greg Shikhman] is at Octopart this summer as a software development intern. In between the time he’s spending getting coffee for the other devs, he came up with
historical pricing for thousands of components
available at Octopart
There’s a lot of cool data out there, like
this bit of pricing info
for a 555 timer. We’re guessing a few people were out of stock of 555s around the end of May, explaining why they were selling (well, available for) $1.68 a piece. If you’re trying to source components, it might be worth your while to check out Octopart’s historical price index. Buying a
PIC microcontroller
last August was a roll of the dice; in one day the price changed from $5 to just over $2.
With all this data, it’s even possible to data mine for real life events unrelated to shipping and stocking issues. Japanese manufacturer Renesas was hit pretty hard by last year’s earthquake, and
this shows up
in the historical prices for one of their microcontrollers. Not bad for an intern’s project. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "696654",
"author": "charles",
"timestamp": "2012-07-07T01:32:48",
"content": "I just have to throw this out there as my axe I’m grinding…“In between the time he’s spending getting coffee for the other devs”He better be getting paid then. Legally to have an unpaid internship in the U... | 1,760,376,814.437624 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/06/opengl-on-the-raspi/ | OpenGL On The Raspi | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"GLES2",
"opengl",
"Raspbian"
] | Perhaps we’ve been concentrating too much on the hardware side of the Raspberry Pi. Sure, connecting the Raspi to the outside world through GPIO pins is cool, but let’s not forget we’re dealing with a full-fledged Linux box here. [chris] is doing his best to keep us in check with by bringing
the power of OpenGL graphics
to the Raspberry Pi.
Previously,
OpenGL ES
was only available for xorg but [chris] successfully added support for
Raspbian
. There’s a
great physics demo
[chris] put together showing off 128 spheres and cubes bouncing around a plane.
Right now, [chris] is looking for people to contribute samples and tutorials for making accelerated 3D graphics on the Raspi. You can grab all the code over at
[chris]’ Git
and contact him over
on the Raspberry Pi forums
if you’d like to help out.
As with any graphics demo, check out the videos after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=884rHzIp9dU&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsQpn3Z3U-s&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuzdWwQyJbo&w=470] | 8 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "696631",
"author": "dreamer",
"timestamp": "2012-07-07T00:06:29",
"content": "“Previously, OpenGL ES was only available for xorg but [chris] successfully added support for Raspbian.”This sentence doesn’t make any sense. You make it sound like xorg is a linux distribution.And is the ... | 1,760,376,814.636105 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/06/fritzs-fast-food-with-a-robotic-slant/ | Fritz’s, Fast Food With A Robotic Slant | Caleb Kraft | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"fast food",
"railroad",
"train"
] | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhvSPgSAzsU&feature=player_embedded
While at Maker Faire K.C. this year, I was sure to take my family to a spot we tend to visit every time we are near:
Fritz’s
. Fritz’s is a restaurant with an interesting food delivery method. The food itself is your standard faire of burgers and fries, however the railroad theme comes into play when your food is delivered by a model train on a track that runs along the ceiling. Your tray of burgers is deposited safely on a platform that is lowered (hydraulically?) to your table. The whole thing doesn’t look terribly complex, but it is fantastic fun.
We’ve eaten there several times and there is always excitement as each train leaves the kitchen towing some goods. There is also always a sigh of disappointment as it passes each table over on the way to its final destination. The little arm that stops the food on your delivery device doesn’t deploy until the last moment, leaving you guessing each time as to the final destination.
This year was particularly fun because the place was full of robot enthusiasts. I heard conversations all around me discussing the sensor networks, hydraulics, etc. I personally enjoy the theme, though if I were to build one I’d use the same mechanism but go 50’s sci-fi. | 27 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "696528",
"author": "Will",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T19:16:10",
"content": "Pure awesome! Creative how they get the meals off the train. I wonder if it’s harsh enough to spill drinks or if those are delivered traditionally?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,814.912071 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/06/lift-beer-with-quadcopters-win-prizes/ | Lift Beer With Quadcopters, Win Prizes | Brian Benchoff | [
"contests"
] | [
"beerlift",
"hobby king",
"quadcopter"
] | If you have a quadcopter and are looking for a beer delivery device, HobbyKing is
putting on a beerlift competition
The rules for the HobbyKing beer lift are pretty simple: lift the most beer with a quad/hex/octo copter and win a HobbyKing gift card.
There are 3 classes: Unlimited, which means a vehicle of any size goes, a 700 class for copters with a motor-to-motor diameter of 700 mm or less, and a Disaster class for the coolest crash.
So far the largest lift is a
monsterous 2 meter octocopter
by [Muresan Alexandru Camil] capable of lifting just over 47kg. In the 700 class, a
bizarre looking 9-rotor copter
built by the Whac-A-Mole flying team was able to lift 28kg.
The disaster category,
a smaller quad
built by [Gabriel Devault] was barely able to lift four cans of
Coors Light
water, while the current disaster class leader made
a few valiant efforts to lift a keg
. Protip: if you’re doing a blooper reel,
Yakety Sax
is definitely the way to go. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "696558",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T20:06:34",
"content": "Contest finished June 30.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "696578",
"author": "Michael",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T20:59:19",
"content": "Unfo... | 1,760,376,814.848669 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/06/android-controlled-monitor-stand-uses-marbles-as-ball-bearings/ | Android Controlled Monitor Stand Uses Marbles As Ball Bearings | Brian Benchoff | [
"Android Hacks",
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"monitor stand"
] | [mobile_earth_explorer] sent in an Instructable he put together documenting
an Android-controlled rotating monitor stand
he built.
The stand itself is three disks turned on a lathe out of a 18mm thick board. After turning these disks, [mobile_earth_explorer] hopped over to his bench grinder and made a semicircular tool to carve out the track for the ball bearings.
Once the disks could rotate freely on each other, the only thing left was to carve out a space for the servo, Arduino, a pair of pots, and the wiring. The pots control the maximum speed of the monitor stand as well as provide a manual rotation control for when your phone is across the room.
[mobile_earth_explorer] wrote the Android app so up to five of these swiveling monitors can be controlled by just one Arduino; yes, that might be overkill for home or office use, but we’re sure it would be highly useful for some sort of presentation.
You can check out a few videos going over the conception and construction of [mobile_earth_explorer]’s monitor stands after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJXUPfC_7b8&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzR7JwY1Cuw&w=470] | 20 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "696472",
"author": "Ryan",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T17:09:47",
"content": "Is OP turning wood on a metal lathe?(I thought this was a HUGE no-no?)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "696486",
"author": "mstone",
"ti... | 1,760,376,814.809038 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/06/taking-a-moon-light-from-grayscale-to-full-color/ | Taking A Moon Light From Grayscale To Full Color | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"atmega328",
"fet",
"ldr",
"moon",
"rgb"
] | [Terry Miller] picked up a moon light on the cheap. All it does is light up some white LEDs to simulate moon phases after sensing nightfall via an LDR. He figured he could do better and set out to
replace the electronics with a more colorful offering
.
He chose to use an ATmega328 because he already had it on hand. The chip drives a series of RGB LEDs in a multiplex arrangement. To protect the I/O pins (and drive the LEDs at their target current) he is using a set of high and low side MOSFETs. Rather than rely on the light sensor to switch on the lamp he decided to add an IR receiver. In the video after the break you can see that this lets him cycle through colors and effects, in addition to switching the lamp on and off with a remote control.
With the enclosure put back together he is still able to reprogram the chip thanks to a serial header included in the design. The device is battery operated and the life estimates are included in his write-up. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "696628",
"author": "XEPH",
"timestamp": "2012-07-07T00:03:14",
"content": "Groovy. Nice documentation and nice clean work. Could be cool to use this as a means of delivering content (e.g. temperature, email notifications, etc.).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,376,815.420059 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/06/cnc-zen-gardening/ | CNC Zen Gardening | Mike Szczys | [
"contests"
] | [
"bullduino",
"gantry",
"mosfet",
"red bull",
"stepper motors",
"zen garden"
] | The Harford Hackerspace in Baltimore, Maryland just went public with
the zen garden they built for the Red Bull Creation contest
. It’s a CNC creation that will help ease your frustration with that DIY 3d printer that you just can’t seem to get calibrated correctly.
On the hardware side the base of the machine serves as a sandbox. Finding the correct grain size of the medium was one of the more difficult parts of the build. The stylus is driven along three axes using a gantry common in CNC builds. The pulleys and some brackets were 3d printed, with the remained of the brackets being laser cut from wood. The Bullduino commands the stylus via a stepper motor control board, and drives the LEDs via a bank of MOSFETs. Limiting switches were also included to ensure an error didn’t result in damage to the device.
After the break you can see a build montage put to one of the greatest 8-bit game soundtracks of all time. The one thing we wish they would have shown is the built-in leveling bar that is responsible for “erasing” the garden.
Update:
The Harford Hackerspace members came through with a new video that shows the ‘erasing’ process. You’ll find it after the break. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "696424",
"author": "David Powell",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T15:07:48",
"content": "Saving the best for last I see… :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "696425",
"author": "Robogreg",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T15:0... | 1,760,376,815.146593 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/06/ancient-radio-repair/ | Ancient Radio Repair | Mike Szczys | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"ham",
"radio",
"simplex"
] | They sure don’t build them like that anymore. [J.W. Koebel] managed to take this 1934 Simplex Model P radio and
bring it back to life
.
So where do you start with a repair job like this one? Being a ham radio guy he has a good idea of what he’s doing, and started by replacing the AC capacitor with one which will provide quality noise filtering. He tried to make fixes throughout that would improve functionality and declutter the wire mess. This led him to find a snapped solder connection on the volume knob. Next he tested out the speaker and found that the primary transformer needed replacing. After as replacing the A67 converter (we’ve got no idea what that is) he swapped out the rest of the original capacitors, most of the resistors, and fixed the mechanical problems with the tuning dial. The result is a working radio that looks fantastic!
[via
Reddit
] | 39 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "696389",
"author": "Eirinn",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T14:05:16",
"content": "Lol It looks dead-bugged.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "696450",
"author": "Dylan",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T16:16:21",
"co... | 1,760,376,815.328746 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/06/acrylic-rpi-case-you-can-make-without-a-cnc-machine/ | Acrylic RPi Case You Can Make Without A CNC Machine | Mike Szczys | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"acrylic",
"case",
"RPi"
] | [Simon Inns] is showing off
the Raspberry Pi case which he built out of acrylic
. It provides a lot more protection than
a flimsy film case
, but it is also a little bit more involved to fabricate. No, this doesn’t need to be laser cut, but to get the nice edges [Simon] used a band saw which many don’t already have in their shop. Ask around, or poke your head in at the local Hackerspace. It only takes a few minutes to cut out the parts.
It sounds like either 8mm or 6mm acrylic will work for this project. Aluminum pipe serves as a spacer to keep the two main sheets in place. The RPi board itself is held in position by a few well-place acrylic chunks super glued in place. You can see the entire build process, including rounding cut edges with a torch, in his video embedded after the break. | 15 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "696367",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T13:20:31",
"content": "RPi != RPI (Renssaelaer Polytechnic Institute)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "696368",
"author": "mohonri",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T13:21:25",
... | 1,760,376,815.379977 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/06/book-review-eight-amazing-engineering-stories/ | Book Review: Eight Amazing Engineering Stories | Mike Szczys | [
"Reviews"
] | [
"bill hammack",
"book",
"Engineer Guy",
"engineering",
"gift"
] | We’re big fans of [Bill Hammack], aka the Engineer Guy. His series of engineering videos dredge up pleasant memories of watching Mr. Wizard but spin to the adult science enthusiast. The most resent season (he calls it series #4) scratches the surface of the topics covered in his book
Eight Amazing Engineering Stories
, which was written with fellow authors [Patrick Ryan] and [Nick Ziech]. They provided us with a complimentary digital copy of the book to use for this review.
The conversational style found in the videos translates perfectly to the book, but as with comparing a novel to a movie, the written word allows for much more depth. For instance, we loved learning about
how Apple uses anodization to dye the aluminum used for iPod cases
. The same presentation style makes the topic easily understandable for anyone who took some chemistry and math in High School. But primers a sidebars offer an optional trip through the looking-glass, explaining the history behind the process, how it compares to natural materials, and what trade-offs are made in choosing this process.
Some of the other topics included are how CCD camera sensors, lead-acid batteries, mems accelerometers, and atomic clocks work. As the book progresses through all eight topics general concepts the complexity of the items being explained advances quickly. By the seventh story — which covers the magentron in a microwave oven — we’d bet the concepts challenge most readers’ cognition. But we still enjoyed every page. The book would make a great pool-side read. It would make a great graduation gift (too bad we missed that time of year) but keep it in mind for any science minded friends or relatives. You can see [Bill’s] own description of the book and all its formats in the clip after the break.
TLDR: Buy it or give it as a gift | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "696336",
"author": "anonymous",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T12:05:18",
"content": "The magentron is the part of the microwave oven that turns all your food purple.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "696489",
"author": "JB",
... | 1,760,376,815.467978 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/06/turning-a-bunch-of-solenoids-into-a-performance-of-stomp/ | Turning A Bunch Of Solenoids Into A Performance Of Stomp | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"solenoid"
] | Say you have a handful of solenoids, a copy of MaxMSP, an Arduino, and access to a whole bunch of parts in a textile museum. What do you do? If you’re like [Luke], you’ll probably come up with
an Arduinofied performance of Stomp
, played on dozens of old gears, light fixtures, and various other metal parts.
To control what noise sounds when, [Luke] used a Touch OSC interface running on an iPad to send MIDI information to Ableton. From there, MAX/MSP sends messages to an Arduino to actuate the solenoids on cue. The interface is set up so anyone can make their own compositions by reusing patterns into loops of solenoids making noise. Sure, it’s not the dulcet tones you would expect from a more traditional instrument, but [Luke] manages to put on a good show.
While [Luke]’s instrument may sound overly mechanical and dissonant, it’s entirely possible to replace the objects he’s hitting with the solenoids with something a little more melodious. Putting a few solenoids in a cave wouldn’t be a bad idea; too bad it’s
already been done. | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "697062",
"author": "Rob Wentworth",
"timestamp": "2012-07-07T18:25:37",
"content": "These google play videos are annoying. I do not have time to RTFM right now, but so far, all the links to google play videos only play the “Introducing Google Play” video. No obvious link to click on... | 1,760,376,815.514386 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/3d-dlp-printer-builds-an-orange-tardis/ | 3D DLP Printer Builds An Orange TARDIS | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks",
"Crowd Funding"
] | [
"3d printer",
"DLP printer",
"resin"
] | This micro-sized TARDIS
is the latest print from [Ron Light]’s
Sedgwick 3D DLP printer
. Yes, it’s orange, but the print quality for such a small object is pretty astounding.
The Sedgwick 3D printer is currently
available as a kit on Kickstarter
. For five hundred bones, the Sedgwick provides all the parts – minus a DLP projector and resin – to make your own miniature Type 40 with a broken chameleon circuit. There’s a lot more this printer can do, from
miniature cathedrals
to hollow geodesic spheres.
This is the latest in what will be a long line of DLP projector / resin 3D printers, and the most affordable one to date. The last one we saw was an
awesome $2400 machine
that included a projector and resin. At $500 for a projector-less kit, the Sedgwick still handily beats even the cheapest option we’ve seen so far.
[Ron Light] is from Kansas City, and our boss man [Caleb] ran into him at the KC Maker Faire a few weeks ago. You can check out that little interview and a few videos of the Sedgwick doing its thing after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX968O6wHRI&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX2P82pIG1o&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G1kPQzZn9w&w=470] | 16 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "695893",
"author": "oneguythought",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T00:19:59",
"content": "According to the kickstarter, it’s $500 PLUS the cost of a projector ($350-$450).Still, a fairly affordable alternative to extrusion 3d printing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies... | 1,760,376,815.565559 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/anti-sanecraft-artillery-cannon-is-farm-boy-engineering-at-its-finest/ | Anti-Sanecraft ARTillery Cannon Is Farm Boy Engineering At Its Finest | Jesse Congdon | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"dangerous",
"fire cannon",
"music festival",
"transformus"
] | The term “just enough knowledge to be dangerous” comes immediately to mind with this one. The official description is “a large scale pan and tilt propane Flame Effect” but that hardly does this thing justice.
The Anti-Sanecraft ARTillery Cannon
is a three-barrel fire cannon that can move around like its namesake and launch massive propane bursts from two 1″ diameter barrels. The third barrel is somewhat special, it is constructed of stronger steel and can be pre-fed with oxygen to create one massive intense propane-O2 mixed fire
burst
.
The trick about the whole thing is that when oxygen and propane are mixed it is a highly volatile and dangerous thing, in a closed space they classify as an explosive. Instead oxygen is filled directly into the open ended barrel separately and is allowed to sit until propane fires it out. This mixes the two fuels in the open air where it is safer and far away from any bystanders. We would not suggest you try this at all ever, as the effect was so loud during the Transformus festival that neighbors, miles away from the large festival ground, were complaining about rattling windows. This is the kind of place where several thousand watt sound systems are pushed near the red with no issue, just to give a bit of a comparison.
We can’t seem to find a video of this thing in action either
[Beyond Joy] just posted a video of this crazy contraption in action (without the O2 effect), check it out after the jump! Don’t forget to check the facebook photo album for all the NPT pipe fitting action, (warning some images of the phallic controls are very mildly NSFW).
Photo Credit: [
Bert Reed Photography
]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRdNq7bILnI&w=470] | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "695851",
"author": "rich",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T23:16:09",
"content": "Ok, looking at the surroundings, this like like a forest fire waiting to happen….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "696031",
"author": "Hirudinea",
... | 1,760,376,815.615619 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/reverse-engineering-silicon/ | Reverse Engineering Silicon | Mike Szczys | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"24c02",
"reverse engineering",
"schmitt trigger",
"silicon"
] | [John McMaster] is doing some pretty amazing work with figuring out how the circuitry in an integrated circuit works.
Right now he’s reverse engineering a serial EEPROM chip
one section at a time. This is a 24c02 made by ST, and he chose this particular portion of the die to examine because it looked like there were some analog components involved.
He removed the top metal using hydrofluoric acid in order to take this image. By continually removing layers this way he manages to work out the traces and even the components themselves. To help clarify the parts he uses the set of snapshots to generate a colored map using Inkscape. From there he begins labeling what he thinks the components might be, and like a puzzle the pieces start falling into place one by one. From the Inkscape drawing he lays out a schematic, then rearranges the components to make the design easier to understand. Apparently this is a Schmidt trigger.
[Thanks George] | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "695787",
"author": "sawo",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T22:04:23",
"content": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmitt_trigger",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "695789",
"author": "DanAdamKOF",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T22:05:50",... | 1,760,376,815.670468 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/the-cool-kids-all-file-their-resistors-for-accuracy/ | The Cool Kids All File Their Resistors For Accuracy | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"accuracy",
"file",
"resistor"
] | Here’s a tip to keep in your back pocket,
you can use a metal file to adjust your resistors
. [Gareth] shows off this technique in the video after the break. A metal file is literally all that you need to do some fine tuning. Just make sure you’re starting off with a carbon film resistor as this will not work with the metal film variety.
His example shows a 10k resistor which is reading just 9.92k on his multimeter. But he needs precisely 10k. After getting through the protective layer he makes just a couple of passes with a small file, each time adding about 20 Ohms of resistance. Now he does mention that excessive deep cuts can hurt the power rating of the resistor. But this certainly isn’t damaging it if done correctly. It turns out this is how they are tuned at the factory.
One possible use he mentions is trimming the balance on a hacked servo motor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQDjjIvLaj4
[Thanks David] | 43 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "695732",
"author": "Borre",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T21:10:43",
"content": "Great trick ! I think I’ll use this trick in some of my 5% resistors.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "695737",
"author": "macegr",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,376,815.748481 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/facedancer-board-lets-your-python-programs-pretend-to-be-usb-hardware/ | Facedancer Board Lets Your Python Programs Pretend To Be USB Hardware | Mike Szczys | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"exploit",
"facedancer",
"travis goodspeed",
"usb"
] | This is the prototype board for [Travis Goodspeed’s] new
USB development tool called the Facedancer
. He took on the design with USB security exploits in mind, but we think it’s got a lot of potential for plain old development as well.
Kudos on the [Frank Herbert] reference when naming the project. Like the characters from the Dune mythology that can perfectly mimic any person they touch, this device let’s you mimic whatever you can imagine. One the USB ports connects to the victim (or host) the other connects to a development machine. Python can then be used to send USB commands in real time. Think of this as doing the same thing the Bus Pirate does for SPI and i2c, except that it’s doing it on the USB protocol itself. This way you can feel your way through all of the road-bumps of developing a new device (or testing an exploit) without the need to continually compile and flash your hardware. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "695725",
"author": "SDC",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T21:03:17",
"content": "It wasn’t named after the song by The Who?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "696144",
"author": "Willrandship",
"timestamp": "2012-07-06T05:57:13",
... | 1,760,376,815.792512 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/automatic-beverage-delivery-system/ | Automatic Beverage Delivery System | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"bullduino",
"cooler",
"creation",
"heat exhanger",
"red bull"
] | Members of theTransistor, a Provo, Utah based Hackerspace, are showing off their entry in the Red Bull Creation contest. This is
an all-in-one energy drink delivery system
. It can take a warm can of Red Bull from a reserve rack and turn it into a chilled cup of goodness in no time. And it (kind of) cleans up after itself too!
The process starts when a can is opened by lancing it through the side walls. At the upper right corner of the rig you can see the apparatus that is responsible for this beverage extraction technique. The drink drains from the newly created openings into a funnel below. It then enters a heat exchanger the team built by surrounding an aluminum pipe with several copper pipes. The copper has ice water circulating through them from the orange bucket that serves as the reservoir. By the time the drink gets to the cup on the bottom left it is ready to drink. The empty can is crush, falling into a bin and making space for the next in the 16-can backup supply. | 19 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "695616",
"author": "atttoooomiccc",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T19:15:00",
"content": "Read the headline as “Atomic beveradge delivery system”.Automatic is cool, but atomic is always cooler.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "695747... | 1,760,376,816.109579 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/fstop-printer-for-analog-printing-black-and-white-photos/ | F/stop Printer For Analog Printing Black And White Photos | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"exposure",
"f-stop",
"film",
"prints",
"timer"
] | This beautifully crafted device is
a timer used for getting the perfect exposure when making film prints of photos
. But in addition to keeping time, it also does logarithmic calculations that are based on the f-stop values used for each exposure. It does this in 1/100th of a stop increments. While he was at it, [William] also decided to pack in a bunch of other features like dry down correction, and support for making test strips. This is a little hard to understand when discussed in the abstract, but just take a look at his video after the break where [William] walks us through an example exposure and all will become clear.
You can see from the
construction page
that the device is basically an Arduino shield. It provides a relay for controlling the exposure lamp, a keypad, rotary encoder, and character LCD. Slap it in a fancy case, connect it to the equipment you’re using, and you’ll be creating perfect prints in no time flat! | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "695620",
"author": "atttoooomiccc",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T19:18:48",
"content": "Really excellent build.I still love making black and white prints.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "696069",
"author": "Tom",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,376,816.20535 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/television-built-from-a-tin-can/ | Television Built From A Tin Can | Brian Benchoff | [
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"mechanical television"
] | A tin can and string telephone just doesn’t impress the kids anymore. Luckily, now you can
turn that tin can telephone into a television
, as [aussie_bloke] over on the Narrow-Bandwidth Television forum showed us.
[aussie_bloke]’s tin can TV is a
mechanical television
, a TV where the scanning lines of a CRT is replaced with a spinning disk with very small holes.(if you have a better analogy in this day of LCDs, tell us). Instead of the usual
Nipkow disk
, [aussie_bloke] used a small tin can.
The image displayed on this TV isn’t very large; there are only 30 scan lines and the pattern of the holes results in a display 10.5mm in width by 7.85mm high. Basically, this display is microscopic but it’s still very impressive.
Sure, you may not be able to sit your kids down in front of this can-powered TV and let them watch Yo Gabba Gabba for hours on end, but it’s more than enough to impress those technically minded kids.
You can check out a video of [aussie_bloke]’s can TV after the break. Thanks [gary] for sending this in.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXajEDSbeS0&w=470] | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "695545",
"author": "anybodysguess",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T17:26:53",
"content": "Looks like the website was Hack A Day crashed already!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "695547",
"author": "Drake",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,376,816.165941 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/raspberry-pi-prototyping-boards-available-at-adafruit/ | Raspberry Pi Prototyping Boards Available At Adafruit | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"Pi Cobbler",
"Pi Plate",
"raspberry pi"
] | If you’re one of the lucky few with a Raspberry Pi, adafruit has two things you might be interested in if you’re into GPIO hacking.
First up is the
Pi Cobbler kit
. It’s a 2×13 ribbon cable with a breakout PCB ready to attach to a solderless breadboard; perfect for playing around with (or cobbling together… get it?) the GPIO pins on your Raspi.
Next up is the
Pi Plate kit
that comes complete with enough perfboard space, screw terminals, and female headers to kill a yak. All the GPIO, I2C, and SPI pins are broken out on the Pi Plate, making it very easy to prototype a semi-permanent Raspi circuit.
They might be just prototyping boards now, but we expect these Pi Plates to quickly evolve into a truly useful device with the addition of a few level shifters,
port expanders
and a few ADCs and DAC thrown in for good measure. If you’re still on the fence and thinking about buying a Raspi, I ordered one last week from
element14
and now have an expected ship date of November 5th. These things must be
really
popular. | 24 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "695456",
"author": "lwatcdr",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T15:22:28",
"content": "I think they only made like 500 of them and most of those have ended up on ebay.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "695473",
"author": "Reggie"... | 1,760,376,816.052423 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/flimsy-pi-case-still-provides-a-level-of-protection/ | Flimsy Pi Case Still Provides A Level Of Protection | Mike Szczys | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"case",
"film",
"inkscape",
"papercraft",
"pdf",
"RPi",
"transparency"
] | This flimsy case isn’t going to protect your Raspberry Pi if you knock it off the workbench. It will provide a level of protection against shorting out from contact with metal objects, or from liquids spilled in the near vicinity. [CGPatterson] ended up
making this case from a single sheet of transparency film
.
The project is basically papercraft. He started with the dimensions published on the Raspberry Pi FAQ, which turned out to be wrong. Not having a caliper available to help with the precision of the measurements, he grabbed his ruler and did the best he could. The first two cases were a poor fit, but as you can see the third is like a glove. Luckily you don’t have to go through this same trial and error as he release the design. Both A4 and US Letter sized PDFs are available for download. Print them out on the transparency, cut along the lines, apply transparent double-sided tape to the tabs and you’re in business. If you wish to alter the design he has also posted the SVG source he made in Inkscape.
This is certainly a good option for those of us without the ability to produce
laser cut parts
. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "695442",
"author": "dude",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T14:51:13",
"content": "This inspires me to do more papercraft using transparency film. It’s almost a no brainer but I never thought of it. Very cool idea and well executed. You could possibly make this more solid if you use pvc glu... | 1,760,376,816.415675 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/04/kansas-city-makerfaire-greentechweeklys-coverage/ | Kansas City MakerFaire: Greentechweekly’s Coverage | Caleb Kraft | [
"cons"
] | [
"makerfaire"
] | We hadn’t been at the MakerFaire long when we ran into a couple hackaday fans lugging around camera equipment and microphones. I agreed to a quick interview for their show
greentechweekly.tv
which was fairly painless, then we all went our separate ways. [EcoGeeco] later sent me the footage and I couldn’t help but think… these guys did a better job than I did! They asked some great questions, got some great footage, somehow managed to get decent audio too!
You’ll recognize many of the projects undoubtedly, but it is really cool to hear what the creators have to say about them, in their own words. Enjoy.
Lessons I can learn from these guys:
bring a better camera
bring a camera operator
show URLs in the video
take more time to ask questions | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "694994",
"author": "n0lkk",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T20:26:56",
"content": "In that the electric conversions featured are going to be rarely practical for most, undoubtedly there will be those who will use that to dismiss all “green tech”. In the interview with to converted typewrit... | 1,760,376,816.615865 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/04/the-most-surprising-game-of-simon-youve-every-played/ | The Most Surprising Game Of Simon You’ve Every Played | Mike Szczys | [
"contests",
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"creation",
"desk",
"red bull",
"simon",
"vibrate",
"vibration"
] | How does one take a game of Simon and make it extremely awesome? The folks at the North Street Labs — a Hackerspace in Portsmouth, Virginia — have found the secret and it’s all in the execution. They turned this chair-desk into
a coin-operated Simon game that hides a huge surprise
.
We suppose you should be able to guess the secret. Most coin-operated sidewalk attractions are rides, and so is this. As their Red Bull Creation entry the team built a base for the desk around a 2000 Watt floor buffer. These are the kind of things that you’d see a janitor in the 1980’s using to polish the tiles of your middle-school. This one just happens to shake the bejesus out of a player who makes a mistake. To help suck you into the game this won’t happen right away. You have to make it past at least four rounds before making the mistake.
The rest of the game is as expected. The playing area is nicely milled from a piece of wood with acrylic windows serving as the buttons. Apparently the biggest problem with that part of the build is finding a way to hold everything together despite the intense vibrations. See for yourself in the clip after the break. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "694926",
"author": "S",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T18:17:45",
"content": "They turned this chair-desk into a coin-operated Simon game that hides a huge surprise.I was thinking electric shock but I guess that works!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,376,816.581428 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/04/ask-hackaday-who-wants-to-build-a-function-generator/ | Ask Hackaday: Who Wants To Build A Function Generator? | Brian Benchoff | [
"Ask Hackaday",
"hardware"
] | [
"function generator",
"MAX5216"
] | [tari]
sent in a tip
about a MAX5214 DAC evaluation board AVNET is giving away this summer. The
MAX5214 / MAX5216
is a neat little chip providing a 14 or 16 bit DAC with a serial interface in a tiny 8-pin package. [tari] thinks this eval board could be hacked into a function generator, and we’ve got to agree. Now, who wants to build one?
It’s entirely possible to take the MAX5214 chip and put it in a circuit with a small ARM uC, a display, and a few knobs, but that seems like a waste of time given function generators of this caliber
are already available
for about $60. It seems the most efficient hack of this dev board will be simply adding an amplifier to this board’s output and possibly programming a better interface than the current LabView software available.
If you want to tinker around with some free hardware and make something useful in the process, have a go at making a function generator out of this dev board. Be sure to
send it in
when you’re done. | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "694893",
"author": "karmicthreat",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T17:19:31",
"content": "Wow, the avnet website is bad even for a parts distributor.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "694951",
"author": "NATO",
"timesta... | 1,760,376,816.278552 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/04/makerfaire-k-c-power-wheels-racing/ | MakerFaire K.C.: Power Wheels Racing | Caleb Kraft | [
"cons"
] | [
"makerfaire",
"Power Wheels"
] | [vimeo=44644726]
This section of the MakerFaire almost deserves an entire event of its own. I know I would happily attend a
monthly match of the power racing series
in my home town. To compete, you must have a modded Power Wheel. Yes, those electric kids vehicles that go really slowly across your lawn, those power wheels. You tear it apart, soup it up, and race it.
The modifications I saw were all fantastic. There were completely different drive trains ranging from electric drills to starter motors. The wheels had often been replaced for better traction as well, though some opted to keep the poor traction just for effect. Control systems ranged from micro controllers handling power down to two bare wires being mashed together. It was fantastic.
Though it was technically a race, I got the feeling that most of the participants weren’t there to win, so much as to build an amusing performance. Goofy costumes and slick tires mixed with squirt guns and shouts of joy made the whole thing quite the spectacle. As you can imagine, there were electrical fires as well, but everyone jumped in immediately with a practiced set of actions to ensure the driver and bystanders were un-scathed. This was fantastic. I may have to start looking for people who want to start up a league here in Springfield Missouri.
Note that the black car that I was able to get closest to had a starter motor for the power. This motor kept overheating so he rigged up a water cooling system you can see in the pics. It was great. | 10 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "694854",
"author": "Luis Rodriguez",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T16:09:31",
"content": "It’s not too late to race in Detroit and Evanston!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "694871",
"author": "leeahart",
"timestamp": "2012-07... | 1,760,376,816.467141 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/04/wireless-bullduino-belt-buckle-sets-the-stage-for-romance-schtick/ | Wireless Bullduino Belt Buckle Sets The Stage For Romance, Schtick | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"contests"
] | [
"bullduino",
"contests",
"red bull"
] | As the Red Bull Creation Contest gets underway, we’re seeing a ton of great entries,
including this one put together by [Team Instructables].
While we are pretty partial to
our own spectacular Red Bull Cannon
, it’s hard to deny that there is some stiff competition out there.
Instructables’ “Romance Pants” are a creation that would undoubtedly fit perfectly as a prop piece for any of the Naked Gun movies. The basic premise behind the pants is that when unzipped, the Bullduino belt buckle wirelessly signals the lights in the room to dim, the music to turn up, and candles to light – setting the mood for romance.
Some might argue that anyone wearing a Red Bull-themed Arduino as a belt buckle would have a snowball’s chance in hell of encountering a potential mate – We can’t really argue with you there. That said, their concept is pretty amusing.
Stick around to see the Romance Pants in action, as well as a behind the scenes look at how they work.
[Thanks, Bill!]
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/45152498 w=470] | 19 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "694806",
"author": "ballisticlocomotive",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T15:20:41",
"content": "It’s a project- a hack, if you will, with a good bit of humour. It’s great!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "694835",
"author": "dphuk... | 1,760,376,816.526266 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/04/robbs-house-has-no-light-switches/ | [RobB’s] House Has No Light Switches | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"attiny85",
"bluetooth",
"capsense",
"home automation",
"light switch",
"relay"
] | So [RobB] wanted to take out all the light switches in his house. His plan was to replace them with a system that could be operated from his smart phone. But his wife insisted that there still must be
some
way to control the lighting directly — we have to agree with her on that one. The solution was to develop
a system that switches the lights via a touch sensor or by Bluetooth
.
The touch part of the project is pretty easy. He coated the back of a blank outlet plate with tin foil and hooked it to a microcontroller with a couple of resistors. He’s using an ATtiny85, which can be programmed using Arduino sketches, so the software side is made easy by
the CapSense Library
. The chip also uses the software serial library to communicate with a Bluetooth module. You can see the result of both in the demo video after the break.
Of course you need to throw a relay in there to switch mains, and find a way to power the uC and Bluetooth module. [RobB] went with a tiny plug-in USB power converter and managed to fit everything in a single-gang switch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUvN5WG-Peo | 46 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "694750",
"author": "MrTaco",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T14:13:49",
"content": "But how do you power the touch panels when the power’s out!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "694755",
"author": "crenn",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,376,816.747783 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/04/the-excitement-of-ice-fishing-now-from-anywhere-in-the-world/ | The Excitement Of Ice Fishing Now From Anywhere In The World | Mike Szczys | [
"Cellphone Hacks"
] | [
"celluar",
"gsm",
"ice fishing",
"tip-up",
"xbee"
] | Now you can experience the excitement felt for centuries by ice fisherman
thanks to this cellular-capable tip-up
.
For the uninitiated a little ice fishing primer may be in order. The majority of what you see above is a standard tip-up rig for ice fishing. Basically it lets you set many baited lines and just watch for a flag to pop up when one of them hooks a fish. Just drill a hole in the ice and drop the line through — the orange frame rests on the surface of the ice.
The add-on here is the grey box which is hiding an Xbee device. A magnet and reed switch (which can be found at the local hardware store) complete a circuit when the flag is down. But if the flag pops up the reed switch opens (or closes, we’re not sure which) and the Xbee sends an alert to a base station, which then converts that to a text message to push to your phone. As you guessed, there’s a video after the break.
Fun and convoluted. But not entirely useless. We’d suggest swapping the Xbee/cellular hardware for a cheap microcontroller/Bluetooth setup. This way you can knock back a few cold ones in the ice house while
waiting for the wireless network to alert you via an SL4A script
.
[via
Make
] | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "694865",
"author": "nizon",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T16:29:41",
"content": "I work for an M2M communications firm, and can tell you… none of our customers have this… lol",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "704260",
"author": "st... | 1,760,376,816.665683 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/arduino-rover-evolves-to-a-trike-design/ | Arduino Rover Evolves To A Trike Design | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"autonomous",
"inverter",
"rover",
"trike",
"ultrasonic"
] | [Eduard Ros] wrote in to show off
the latest version of his Arduino powered autonomous rover
(
translated
). You may remember seeing the first version of the build back in June. It
started with a remote control truck body
, adding an Arduino and some ultrasonic sensors for obstacle avoidance.
The two big wheels and the pair of sensors look familiar, but most of the other components are a different from that version. The biggest change is the transition from four wheels to just three. This let him drop the servo motor which controlled steering. At first glance we though this thing was going to pop some mad wheelies, but the direction of travel actually drags the third wheel being the larger two. The motors themselves are different, this time depending on gear-reduced DC motors. The motor H-bridge is the same, but [Eduard] used a simple transistor-based inverter to reduce the number of pins needed to activate it from two down to just one. He also moved from an Arduino Uno to a Nano to reduce the footprint of the controller. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,376,816.835652 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/interfacing-snes-controllers-with-your-raspberry-pi/ | Interfacing SNES Controllers With Your Raspberry Pi | Mike Szczys | [
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"controller",
"emulator",
"port",
"RPi",
"snes",
"super nintendo"
] | This lovely set of wires lets [Florian]
connect stock Super Nintendo controllers to his Raspberry Pi
. The IDC connector in the upper left plugs into the GPIO header on the RPi rather than going the route of
using an intermediary USB converter
.
The setup lets you connect two controllers at once, so you’ll have no trouble going head-to-head on Mario Kart as seen in the clip after the break. The ports themselves were pulled from a pair of SNES extension cables. Since button signals are pushed to the console via a shift register there’s just five wires needed for each (voltage, ground, data, clock, and latch). As far was we know the Raspberry Pi pins are not 5V tolerant so you probably want to add some level conversion to this circuit if you build it yourself.
[Florian] wrote a C program which shifts in data from the controllers and converts it to HID keyboard inputs. This should make it extremely flexible when it comes to emulator setup, and using the technique for different styles of controllers should also be pretty easy. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "695378",
"author": "Alex",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T12:17:44",
"content": "I did this with an NES controller. How did you get it to mimic an HID keyboard? I had mine output letters using a printf and tried piping that to an emulator for a short term solution, but that didn’t seem to... | 1,760,376,816.797972 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/library-for-driving-ssd1289-lcd-displays-with-small-microcontrollers/ | Library For Driving SSD1289 LCD Displays With Small Microcontrollers | Mike Szczys | [
"News"
] | [
"c++",
"lcd",
"library",
"mikroc",
"pic",
"ssd1289",
"TFT LCD"
] | [H. Smeitink] got his hands on a 320×240 color TFT LCD screen. He set out to drive it with a small PIC microcontroller but didn’t find a lot of help out there to get up and running quickly. This is surprising since it’s a really nice display for quite a low price (under $16 delivered on eBay at the time of writing). He decided to
write his own library and support tools
to help others.
The display includes an SPI touch screen, but since that works separately from the LCD controller, touch input is not supported in this package. The driver that he wrote is coming from a mikroC toolchain point of view, but it shouldn’t be too hard to port to your platform of choice. We took a quick look at the code and it seems all you need to do is tweak the defines to match your hardware registers, and implement your own delay_ms() function.
But he didn’t stop with the driver. You’ll also find a C# program which converts images to an array for easy use on the display. Incidentally, this is the same display
which [Sprite_TM] got working with the Raspberry Pi
. | 20 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "695355",
"author": "Entropia",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T11:28:37",
"content": "Sprite_TM used a Carambola board, not a Raspi.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "695370",
"author": "Reggie",
"timestamp": "2012-07-05T11:58:49... | 1,760,376,816.894078 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/04/ti-chronos-watch-monitor-your-sleeping-infant/ | TI Chronos Watch Monitor Your Sleeping Infant | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"baby monitor",
"chronos",
"ti",
"wristwatch"
] | [Bill] wants a little piece of mind when his infant is sleeping in the other room. For him, the audio-only baby monitor could use some improvement. His proof-of-concept is that blue patch Velcroed on the swaddled infant. It
monitors movement, orientation, and temperature and alerts you
when something’s amiss.
Inside the pouch you’ll find a TI Chronos eZ430 wristwatch with the band removed. It’s a nice hardware choice because it includes an accelerometer, temperature sensor, and RF link to a USB dongle. [Bill’s] code sends a data packet to the PC about once a second. The PC watches to make sure there’s slight motion, indicating the baby is breathing. This part doesn’t work all that well as the accelerometer doesn’t pick up tiny movements all too well, but it does have potential. In the video after the break you can see the functions which make sure the baby doesn’t roll onto its belly, and that she’s not too cold do work extremely well.
We wonder if the accelerometer would pick up more motion if the watch was hung from a string inside of a small enclosure. This way it would swing back and forth with small movements. But perhaps that would make the whole thing too bulky? | 21 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "695136",
"author": "Guillermo",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T23:40:11",
"content": "in order to pickup breathing movements, what seems to work extremely well is a piezoelectric sensor, like the Angelcare that I bought for my daughter.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,376,817.286714 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/04/a-resistors-fiery-death-used-to-launch-fireworks/ | A Resistor’s Fiery Death Used To Launch Fireworks | Mike Szczys | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"fireworks",
"launcher",
"resistor"
] | Check out this control center which [Awesome0749]
built for launching fireworks
. From the looks of his stash he’s going to be doing quite a bit of celebrating. The control console is clean and offers some safety features, and he just upgraded to an interesting ignition technique.
He’s using CAT5 cable to connect to the fireworks. At the top of the enclosure you can just make out the edge of the almond-colored wall plates which offer three jacks each. The two keys on the controller must be turned on to power the device. There is also a safety toggle switch in the middle.
The ignition is
cause by running 70 VDC through a 1/4 Watt 24 Ohm resistor
. As you can see in the demo after the break this results in flames quite quickly. One other thing we saw in the demonstration is that only the LED for the button which is hooked up comes on when the system is armed. We didn’t see a schematic, but he must have wired this so the system checks for continuity to ensure there’s something wired to the business end of the button. | 62 | 30 | [
{
"comment_id": "695083",
"author": "michel",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T22:08:39",
"content": "The wiring might be quite simple. Connect the LED with an additional resistthrogh to the ignitor resistor to ground. then Blast the thing and the ground is disconnected and the LED off.",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,376,817.380081 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/04/roller-coaster-simulator-for-the-redbull-creation-contest/ | Roller Coaster Simulator For The Redbull Creation Contest | Brian Benchoff | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"redbull",
"roller coaster",
"simulator"
] | [Dave] and [Martin], otherwise known as Ballistic Locomotive, sent in their entry for the Redbull creation contest. It’s a
roller coaster simulator
that can emulate the twists, turns, and drops of a roller coaster in your living room.
The simulator is built around a plywood roller coaster car mounted on a 2 DOF table. With a few first-person roller coaster videos and the speed, roll, and tilt data provided. Ballistic Locomotive had a functioning roller coaster simulator.
Of course, watching a 1st-person shot of a roller coaster just isn’t the same experience without the wind blowing through your hair. To simulate this aspect of a roller coaster ride, so the Ballistic Locomotive team connected a relay to the bullduino and connected a
carpet drying fan
.
Not only did Ballistic Locomotive build something awesome with their bullduino, they also manage to make a great ride for one of the builder’s son’s birthday party this weekend. You can check out the demo and a few videos after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1Jmdy-LOFA&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRAP0v-lBfc&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IExpqaoh6Uk&w=470] | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "695084",
"author": "Philippe",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T22:08:46",
"content": "VVS!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "695091",
"author": "n0lkk",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T22:15:22",
"content": "What be funny is to in... | 1,760,376,817.175132 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/04/fifa-looks-at-electronic-augmentation/ | Fifa Looks At Electronic Augmentation | Mike Szczys | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"chronos",
"ez430",
"fifa",
"football",
"soccer",
"tennis",
"ti",
"wristwatch"
] | The [Fédération Internationale de Football Association] is joining the growing list of professional sports that is adopting technological means in an attempt to help the human referees. After a botched call in 2010 the organization called for a system that would work day or night, with 100% accuracy and the ability to report to the Refs in less than 1 second. The applicants have been weeded out and
it comes down to two systems
, both of which use a piece of personal hardware we’re quite familiar with. [Fe80], who sent in the tip, recognized the TI Chronos eZ430 watch in the image above.
The two systems both use the watch as an interface, but work very differently. The first, called GoalRef, uses a sensor suspended inside the ball. This detects a magnetic field made up by the goal posts. We’d guess it’s an inductance sensor that is triggered when it passes a coil in the goal posts (we didn’t find much in the way of
technical info
so please do your own speculation in the comments). The second system is very familiar. It’s the Hawkeye camera system used by the APT (Tennis) in all the major tournaments. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "694999",
"author": "Name",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T20:39:06",
"content": "this is old. i saw it years ago.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "695002",
"author": "Oliver Heaviside",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T20:42:14",
"... | 1,760,376,817.427791 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/04/building-a-moat-for-your-hackerspace-alligators-piranhas-not-included/ | Building A Moat For Your Hackerspace; Alligators, Piranhas Not Included | Brian Benchoff | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"hackerspace",
"moat"
] | There has to be something tainting the water supply over at the Louisville Hackerspace LVL1. They’re
building a freaking moat
in front of their building, ostensibly to keep the black knight and zombies at bay.
After digging a 14-foot deep trench in front of their building – a hazard mitigated by a few steel plates and orange cones generously donated by the Louisville city workers – the members of LVL1 started moving pipes around in preparation for their moat.
Officially, the Louisville city council thinks this project will be a fountain and reflecting pool. City hall seems very friendly; the Louisville chamber of commerce asked about including LVL1 in next year’s Derby tour.
The barely-zombie proof moat build is the latest in a series of builds to improve the security of LVL1. Previous builds included a
robotic overlord guarding the building
and
a robotic arm
to cajole members into doing its bidding. Like we said, there’s probably something in the water supply. | 11 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "694689",
"author": "Isaac",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T12:15:13",
"content": "Fountain and reflecting pool. That’s classic. I’d love to see the city hall members faces’ when they see the completed product.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"commen... | 1,760,376,817.225023 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/levitating-lightbulb-does-it-all-with-no-wires/ | Levitating Lightbulb Does It All With No Wires | Mike Szczys | [
"classic hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"induction",
"led",
"levitation",
"wireless"
] | It would be really fun to do an entire hallway of these levitating wireless lights. This a project on which [Chris Rieger] has been working for about six months. It uses magnetic levitation and wireless power transfer
to create a really neat LED oddity
.
Levitation is managed by a permanent magnet on the light assembly and an electromagnetic coil hidden on the other side of the top panel for the enclosure. That coil uses 300 meters of 20 AWG wire. A hall effect sensor is used to provide feedback on the location of the light unit, allowing the current going to the coil to be adjusted in order to keep the light unit stationary. When working correctly this draws about 0.25A at 12V.
Wireless power transfer is facilitated by a single large hoop of wire driven with alternating current at 1 MHz. This part of the system pulls 0.5A at 12V, bringing the whole of the consumption in at around 9 Watts. Not too bad. Check out [Chris’] demo video embedded after the break.
A similar method of coupling levitation with power transfer was
used to make this floating globe rotate
. | 58 | 29 | [
{
"comment_id": "694261",
"author": "Willy",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T23:14:43",
"content": "That would be pretty wicked full scale, although pretty dangerous…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "694400",
"author": "drgncabe",
"tim... | 1,760,376,817.631292 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/ti-chronos-watch-controls-raspberry-pi/ | Ti Chronos Watch Controls Raspberry Pi | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"alsa",
"chronos",
"ez430",
"mpg321",
"raspberry pi",
"ti"
] | [Mike Field] was working on interfacing his TI Chronos eZ430 watch with the Raspberry Pi. As things were going pretty well, he took a side-trip from his intended hack and
implemented watch-based control for an RPi audio player
.
It really comes as no surprise that this is possible, and even easy. After all, the RPi board has native USB capability for hosting
the watch
‘s RF dongle, and it’s running Linux which we know already works well with the Chronos platform. But we still love the thought of having automation controls strapped to our wrist!
mpg321 is the audio playback program used for this hack. It plays MP3 files using ALSA for sound, which does have a few hiccups on the RPi. [Mike] found workarounds and included them in the C program he uses to gather everything into one nice code package. Control depends on keypresses sent from the watch (meant for use with PowerPoint) which are translated by his code and pushed to the audio/mp3 programs. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "694187",
"author": "MobileWill",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T22:24:18",
"content": "Nice, I was just thinking of seeing of the Access Pointed worked in the RPi. I just got a CommandIR working so this will be a nice addition to home automation. Click my name for my blog, I should be pos... | 1,760,376,817.676867 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/game-of-chance-built-as-a-red-bull-creation-entry/ | Game Of Chance Built As A Red Bull Creation Entry | Mike Szczys | [
"contests",
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"bullduino",
"creation",
"hard drive",
"max485",
"quadrature encoder",
"red bull"
] | [Tom Bourke] wrote in to show off
the game of chance
which was built for this year’s Red Bull Creation contest. The project was completed with the help of the Wausau Collaboration Center, a Hackerspace in Wausau, Wisconsin.
He does a great job of showing off the game in the clip after the break. Near the bottom of the device is a hard drive platter which each player can spin to test his or her luck. [Tom] used a max485 chip to turn the leads for the hard drive motor into a quadrature encoder. This input is monitored by the Bullduino board, which puts on a light and sound show during the spin. The LEDs that surround the display are individually addressable (probably
the same LED strings as this wall display
) and cycle trough different colors based on the rotational speed of the patters. The large seven segment display provides a readout for the random number that is generated. Roll a ten and you win! We guess you need to make the rest of the game up yourself, but this could easily be used as a 16-sided die (or less). | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "694113",
"author": "gabriel",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T21:16:40",
"content": "when is this site being renamed to redbull-a-day?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "694142",
"author": "Jarel",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T21:44:2... | 1,760,376,817.722483 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/christmas-prep-starts-early-midi-control-for-strings-of-lights/ | Christmas Prep Starts Early: MIDI Control For Strings Of Lights | Mike Szczys | [
"Holiday Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"christmas lights",
"mains",
"midi",
"relay",
"usb bit whacker"
] | If you’re planning to outdo yourself with this year’s Christmas decorations now’s the time to start planning. After all, what else have you got going on since the dreadful heat is making outdoor activities a sweat-soaked misery? Take some inspiration from [Tim] who just finished prototyping
a wireless MIDI controller for his strings of Christmas lights
. You can just see the four spools in the distance which are lighting up as he tickles the ivories.
The wireless link is provided by a WiFi access point which uses its USB port to control the external hardware. This is
a USB Bit Whacker board
which in turn drives a relay board that was designed to switch mains voltages. The high voltage parts of the rig are housed in a plastic food storage container which hosts two pair of outlets to drive four channels in total. [Tim] is happy with the outcome, which he shows off in the video after the break, and hopes to expand to a total of sixteen channels for this year’s festivities. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,376,817.761483 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/two-thirds-of-a-casting-foundry/ | Two-thirds Of A Casting Foundry | Mike Szczys | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"foundry",
"smelting",
"th3badwolf"
] | [Th3BadWolf] decided to undertake a casting foundry project of epic proportions. The hardest part of the build is obviously the apparatus for melting the metal. It needs a vessel that can stand up to the heat, and a heating method that has enough thermal power to melt metal. He’s
just finished the burner portion of the build
. His writeup includes information about the cement casting that finishes up
the vessel on which he had already done a lot of work
.
You’ll remember that for the enclosure he started with an oil drum and lined it with a ceramic blanket. That was lined with fire brick. In this update he finish it off by placing a smaller barrel inside to act as an inner form, then filled the remaining gap with 3000 degree cement.
The burner injects air, propane, and oil which are all driven by a blower and forced through a nozzle into the chamber. You can catch a quick blower and burner test clip after the break. We can’t wait to see the next post, which we assume will be a test run of the final assembly. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "694026",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T19:48:18",
"content": "As if it ain’t hot enough! Flame seems turbulant not jet-like?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "694077",
"author": "WA",
"timestamp": "2012-0... | 1,760,376,817.804854 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/easy-to-build-parts-tumbler-you-can-add-to-your-shop/ | Easy To Build Parts Tumbler You Can Add To Your Shop | Mike Szczys | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"ball mill",
"bb",
"parts tumbler",
"vice"
] | This parts tumbler was easy to build
but it still does a great job of rounding rough edges and polishing the surfaces of parts cut with a CNC machine. You can see that it mounts in a bench vise, and the cooling fans have a magnet which holds the tray in place on the anvil portion of that tool. Since you’re not constantly tumbling parts this makes it very easy to store the unit between uses.
[Neo7CNC] mounted the wooden tumbler plate directly to the motor shaft. This is done with the help of some aluminum stock which bolts to the round wooden plate, and has a hole and set screw for the motor’s keyed shaft. There are four wooden dowels which cradle the plastic coffee jug where the parts go. As a first test he used zinc BB’s that he already had lying around, but has put some steel ball medium on order for future projects.
It’s certainly more robust and powerful than
the LEGO ball mill
we saw a while ago. Just be careful with motor. Even at a lowly 60 RPM it ended up getting really hot and that’s the reason there’s a heat sink and fan unit included in the build. See it in action after the break.
[via
Hacked Gadgets
] | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "693938",
"author": "meh",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T18:11:55",
"content": "whatever happened to tumbling things in sand?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "693941",
"author": "Brett",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T18:15:32",
... | 1,760,376,819.445072 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/dino-upgrades-his-robot-chassis/ | [Dino] Upgrades His Robot Chassis | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"chassis",
"microrax",
"roomba"
] | This is the fourth iteration that [Dino] has produced for his all-terrain robot. Just before this it was more of a turtle, with an aluminum pan shell. We think
his upgrade to MicroRAX frame parts
makes it look a lot better, and lightens the load so it can get around better as well.
It’s hard to tell from the picture, but many of the components are from a Roomba robot. The four motors, and the mainboard are all from units he picked up on eBay. To drive the motors he tapped into the H-bridge signals on the control board using a Seeeduino. His write-up (linked above) shares some of the details regarding the electronics, but the video after the break shows the development and assembly of the new chassis. It’s made from extruded aluminum bars which easily connect to each other with the system’s brackets. To interface with the non-standard parts he makes his own brackets from some aluminum sheet stock. It’s similar to
other modular building materials
, but the
MicroRAX
is a great size/weight for a small design like this one. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "693986",
"author": "REX",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T18:59:47",
"content": "Bigger wheels might help",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "694655",
"author": "Alex",
"timestamp": "2012-07-04T10:36:25",
"content... | 1,760,376,819.542661 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/noise-pollution-tit-for-tat-uses-the-baha-boys-as-a-weapon/ | Noise Pollution Tit For Tat Uses The Baha Boys As A Weapon | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"apartment",
"arduino",
"baha boys",
"neighbors",
"noise"
] | Here [Matthew Br] explains the situation he’s in with the neighbors that share this wall of his apartment. When they listen to music they like it loud and so he gets to ‘enjoy’ the experience as well. But he can’t ignore it any longer, and has decided to
use a sound volume detector to blast some tunes right back at them
.
He taped a microphone to the wall and wired it up to his Arduino. It monitors incoming sound and, using an adjustable threshold, it will trigger when the neighbors are too loud. We think he was wise to include some time filtering that makes sure the loud noises are sustained and not just the result of someone bumping into the wall. When the system does detect loud music for a sustained period it triggers [Matthew’s] own CD player to pump out
Who Let the Dogs Out?
by the Baha Boys. It will play for a period of time, then shut off to listen and see if the neighbors are still rowdy.
He documents an actual run in the latter half of the clip after the break. We sure hope he’s living in a building with just two units, otherwise this will drive the rest of the neighbors batty as well! | 88 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "693752",
"author": "dext3r",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T15:07:50",
"content": "Ugh, cool hack, but I’m really against passive-aggressive tactics like this. Just go knock on their door? Maybe they’ll just turn it down and you don’t have to poison your own ears with Baha Boys. I’m just ... | 1,760,376,819.868216 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/turning-the-red-bull-cannon-to-assault-mode/ | Turning The Red Bull Cannon To Assault Mode | Caleb Kraft | [
"contests"
] | [
"redbull"
] | Once we got our official entry into the red bull creation contest finished and submitted, we figured we might as well kick things up a notch just for giggles. We set up a firing range in the basement at Squidfoo and positioned “herbert”, a mannequin that was left over in the building from a previous tenant, in the sights.
We discovered two things:
1. it is hard to aim this thing precisely. We should have found a laser to affix to the barrel.
2. “Herbert” is the toughest mannequin in the universe. He barely had a chip on him even from point blank range! | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "693710",
"author": "tjb",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T14:14:19",
"content": "Point blank to the nether regions, ouch!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "693713",
"author": "chango",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T14:18:39",
"con... | 1,760,376,819.926177 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/cnc-table-saw-jig/ | CNC Table Saw Jig | Jeremy Cook | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"jig",
"table saw",
"woodworking"
] | [Woodgears.ca]
seems to be a wealth of clever hacks, and this
CNC box joint jig
is no exception. Although one has to manually move the jig to make the actual cut, it still gives the user a lot of extra functionality. One only has to click the mouse button to advance the workpiece. One drawback to using a table saw, even with this jig is that some internal parts still may have to be cut. Check out the video after the break to see this device in action, or skip to around 3:08 to see what hand operations still have to be done.
Besides just being a cool build, we loved the box-jointed project enclosure for the electronics. As this was made in 2003, it’s nice to see that the idea of “self-replication” (at least in part) didn’t start with the
[Rep-Rap]
. The 10 year old (as of 2003) Thinkpad notebook computer running QBasic in DOS is a nice “hacker” touch as is using 100 Watt light bulbs as power resistors. Pretty clever electronics, especially for someone that’s known more for his excellent woodworking skills than his obvious electrical engineering knowledge!
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTGO_NR6YiA&w=470&h=315%5D | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "693732",
"author": "Kris Lee",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T14:45:18",
"content": "Awesome!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "693819",
"author": "messmaker",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T16:00:24",
"content": "That is really c... | 1,760,376,819.752942 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/start-thinking-4th-dimensionally-with-a-time-circuit-tutorial/ | Start Thinking 4th Dimensionally With A Time Circuit Tutorial | Brian Benchoff | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"back to the future",
"i2c",
"seven segment",
"time circuits"
] | When [Phil Burgess] showed off a few I2C – controlled seven-segment displays on adafruit’s weekly vlog, the comments immediately turned to the time circuits featured in everyone’s second-favorite time machine, the
Back to the Future
DeLorean. The
time circuits are now active
, so now you can easily add a temporal display to your car well before a hover conversion.
[Phil] used
these LED displays
, conveniently controlled by a four-wire I2C bus. Although the displays are addressable independently, it’s only possible to assign each display to one of 8 I2C addresses. [Phil] figured out a neat way to control the 9 displays of the time circuit with the help of a 74HC138 3-to-8 line decoder.
The case was constructed out of clear acrylic lasercut in adafruit’s shop and spray painted with faux-metal paint. After installing the seven-segment displays, a
Teensy
,
ChronoDot
, and a few AA batteries finished up the build.
With any luck, the design files for the laser cut case should be available shortly, so get those I2C displays while they’re still in stock. | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "693658",
"author": "bnjfdngjfd",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T12:45:19",
"content": "The Tardis is way cooler than a DeLorean.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "693712",
"author": "Brian Benchoff",
"timestamp": "2012... | 1,760,376,819.497879 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/dueling-mechanical-bulls/ | Dueling Mechanical Bulls | Mike Szczys | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"mehcanical bull"
] | Do you have what it takes to stay on the mechanical bull longer than the next guy? Who cares! We want to know if you’ve got what it takes
to build your own dueling mechanical bulls
. After seeing the development stages in the video after the break we think you’ll agree that the construction part of the project is way more fun than the ‘sport’ that results. But still, we can’t watch the competition without beaming with delight too.
The project was developed by the Madagascar Institute, an Art Collective out of Brooklyn, New York. The scene displayed above is the installation at this year’s Google IO conference, where two contestants could battle it out on the same hardware, being driven the same way, at the same time. You can make out a sign on the wall in the background. It acts as the scoreboard with two red arrows, one of which will light up to identify the loser when they have been thrown from the bull.
If only this had been
driven with a Bullduino
… maybe next year.
[via
Adafruit
] | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,376,819.393752 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/03/automated-system-hopes-to-make-manual-road-patching-a-thing-of-the-past/ | Automated System Hopes To Make Manual Road Patching A Thing Of The Past | Mike Nathan | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"patching",
"potholes",
"road repair"
] | You don’t necessarily have to live in a cold climate to experience how roads start to deteriorate once cracks begin forming in the asphalt surface. Even more frustrating than the potholes, dips, and road erosion is the snarled traffic that results from closing lanes to repair them. Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute
have developed a way to detect and quickly fix these cracks
with minimal human interaction, making the process a bit less painful than before.
The automatic road patcher resides on a trailer which is towed behind a service vehicle at 5 km/h. Cameras mounted near the front of the device detect cracks down to 3mm in width using an array of LED lights to guide the way. Once a fault has been detected, nozzles mounted under the trailer blast the road with liquid tar to seal the crack before it becomes a real problem.
The system seems to work reasonably well in the tests we’ve seen, and researchers are tweaking the processing software to make the rig even more effective before rolling it out on a wider scale.
[via
Gizmodo
] | 23 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "693599",
"author": "ab",
"timestamp": "2012-07-03T11:26:49",
"content": "Sounds like a smart and cost effective way to repair streets… but if water already entered the crack this usually already washed away the supporting material below or expanded when freezing and created a pocket... | 1,760,376,819.647237 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/02/decoding-rf-link-using-a-pc-soundcard/ | Decoding RF Link Using A PC Soundcard | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"outlets",
"RF"
] | [Ray] wanted to use a microcontroller to send signals to some wireless power outlets. Instead of tapping into the buttons on the remote control
he is using an RF board to mimic the signals
. There are two hurdles to overcome with this method. The first is to make sure your RF module operates on the proper frequency. The second is to get your hands on the codes that are being sent from the remote control unit.
Now you could just hook your oscilloscope up to the transmitter and take a look at the timing of the signals. But most hobbyists don’t have that kind of high-end test equipment in their basement or garage shops. [Ray’s] approach uses something we all have available to us: a sound card and some open source software. He connected the data pin from his RF receiver to an audio plug and inserted it in the line-in jack of his computer. Using Audacity he recorded the signal as he pressed buttons on the transmitter. This method not only captures the data, but the time stamps native to the audio editing program let him easily work out the timing for each signal.
It’s kind of amazing what you can do with this audio analyation technique. Earlier this year we saw it
used to measure response time for DSLR cameras
. | 26 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "693145",
"author": "tz2026",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T22:29:22",
"content": "I used Audacity to record J1850 before I had an ELM327 and to record the datastream and audio from my Valentine One radar detector.Caution! If your sound card is DC coupled you can fry the input.But anythi... | 1,760,376,819.709567 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/02/lightsaber-lets-you-pick-just-about-any-blade-color/ | Lightsaber Lets You Pick Just About Any ‘blade’ Color | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"555",
"led strips",
"lightsaber",
"rgb",
"star wars"
] | If you’re staging some epic Star Wars battles you could go original with Red or Blue lightsabers. But what if you decide you’re more of a fan of
Jedi
and want to go green? Or perhaps the prequels have inspired you to take on purple? Why choose at build time when
you can adjust the color to match your mood
.
[Phik] built himself a color-selectable lightsaber using RGB LEDs. He sourced a 5M strip of them from eBay for around $20. The pixels are not individually addressable, but each color channel can be driven with a pulse-width modulation signal to mix and match the final color. Now he could have gone with a microcontroller solution, but [Phik] decided to give himself a bit more of a challenge. He built three PWM circuits based on a 555 timer which can be adjusted with a potentiometer. It’s not going to
kill any insects
, but the keep-it-simple-stupid aspect of the project makes it something we could actually build ourselves. The same cannot be said for most of
the replica builds we see
. | 15 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "693099",
"author": "NBitWonder",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T21:15:23",
"content": "Going to mentionthisalternative RGBSaber project, for people that like the above project but aren’t satisfied with the light diffusion characteristics of an RGB strip.As an added bonus, it was evenprevi... | 1,760,376,819.589709 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/02/timer-based-cooling-helps-your-network-survive-the-summer/ | Timer-based Cooling Helps Your Network Survive The Summer | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"cooling",
"fan",
"timer"
] | Start your week off with a smile thanks to the video [Sammy] put together. It shows off
the cooling rack he made for his network equipment
. The project was developed out of necessity as the summer weather was causing his modem and router to heat up and at some point one of them would just shutdown and refuse to work again for hours. We haven’t run into this ourselves but it’s good to know that over-temperature safeguards have been built into the equipment.
His solution was to build a rack that offers fan cooling above and below the two pieces of equipment. As with
most of his projects
, we think making the video (embedded after the break) was half the fun. In addition to playing around with a turntable for some extra special camera effects he gives us a good view of the overall build. The base includes spacers and velcro strips to hold the equipment in place above a pair of exhaust fans. The standoffs at each corner of the rack suspend a second pair of fans above the equipment. But it wouldn’t look nearly as good without some custom LED effects thrown into the mix.
This is purely timer-drive. It’s a plug-in module that uses mechanical timing to switch mains. But some creative circuitry (or a small microcontroller) could implement temperature-based switching instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUzDRh8oYaY | 24 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "693065",
"author": "anonaaaa",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T20:18:51",
"content": "Ridiculous. Crack open the case stick in a heatsink or something. No need for this.However must say; excellent build quality.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comme... | 1,760,376,820.079584 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/02/hack-a-days-entry-into-the-red-bull-creation-contest/ | Hack A Day’s Entry Into The Red Bull Creation Contest | Caleb Kraft | [
"contests",
"News"
] | [
"redbull"
] | We had tons of ideas, but the one that seemed most feasible, and had the least probability of causing mortal injury, was this. We created a red bull launching mortar system. The cans are launched and a parachute deploys to bring them down to the eager people below safely. I was the one in charge of construction, so the rest of the team acted as consultants for this round. I was also able to recruit a few people from here at
Squidfoo
for help.
Our first task was creating the cannon itself. It is a fairly simple pneumatic cannon. There’s an empty propane tank for a compression chamber, then a solenoid valve going to the barrel. We chose to lay the propane tank on its side and set it on some wheels to allow for a perfect aiming mechanism. You can rotate the barrel up and down very easily. [Andrew Mitzel] put in several hours of hard work getting that rotating mechanism to work just right.
After that, [Tony Sherwood] and I came up with a design that would function as a sabot as well as a removable harness for the cans. The barrel is 3″ wide, so the cans needed some help making a seal. [Tony] happened to have a makerbot replicator with him, so we printed out perfectly sized bits, including our hackaday logo for the bottom. I added an LED in the hackaday logo just in case you were to fire these after dark. You can find the files for our logo on
thingiverse
. You can find the can top/bottom on [Tony’s]
account
(updated link coming as soon as he uploads them).
The only rule to this section of the contest was to
utilize the bullduino they sent out
. We used it as our safety system. You have to push specific pads at the same time to arm the device. Once armed, you can fire only if you depress both the thumb button and the trigger. After about 15 seconds, they bullduino automatically disarms itself.
As you can see in the video, this sucker really shoots the cans well. The parachutes deploy and the wind can carry the cans pretty far. Of course, if the wind is blowing back at the cannon, they can drift all the way back too. We ended up deciding to fire some rounds without parachutes just for fun. It easily covered the distance of a football field.
We’re working on something completely un-safe with it, stay tuned.
Interestingly, the only problem I’ve run into in this entire process is the fact that the public domain music I chose has legal issues on youtube.
Apparently WMG owns every performance
of “Ride of the Valkyries” that is out there. Jerks.
Here’s a
Vimeo link
just incase the music ends up being an issue. | 41 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "693007",
"author": "Kevin",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T19:07:09",
"content": "sellout",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "693049",
"author": "Caleb Kraft",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T20:14:17",
"content": "ha!"... | 1,760,376,820.157179 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/02/junkyard-scavenging-nets-a-tachometer-to-play-with/ | Junkyard Scavenging Nets A Tachometer To Play With | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"junkyard",
"motorcycle",
"tachometer",
"transistor"
] | We never thought to hit the automotive junkyard to find electronics we could play with. But [Istimat] was able to pull
this working tachometer
from an otherwise destroyed motorcycle dashboard. The Kawasaki part has just three pins on the back of it. By connecting 12V to the IGN pin, ground to GND, and tapping a 12V wire on the unlabeled pin he was able to make the needle dance and knew he was getting somewhere.
His microcontroller of choice for the project is an Arduino board. But the 5V logic levels aren’t going to put out the square wave needed to drive the device. A search of the internet led him to a 2-transistor circuit which lets him get the results seen in the video. His plan is to add functionality that uses the Arduino to pull data in from just about any source and display it on the dial. That
computer desk that featured all the CPU load readouts
immediately comes to mind.
Do you think the square wave circuit is more complicated than necessary? Could this be done with just one NPN transistor and a pair of resistors?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySFnJYeZqqY | 13 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "692956",
"author": "philwatcher",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T18:15:16",
"content": "Use one NPN, a base resistor and a pullup, invert the signal in the arduino, and you have your 12V signal.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "692960"... | 1,760,376,820.255234 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/02/printing-mounting-boards-and-boxes-for-hobby-projects/ | Printing Mounting Boards And Boxes For Hobby Projects | Mike Szczys | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"gadgeteer",
"ultimaker"
] | That’s a great base board for these Gadgeteer components. [Rob Miles] has been designing and
printing mounting boards and enclosures
for several of his projects. He just got into printing parts with
the Ultimaker
last week, and we’d say he’s found his stride. The board pictured here features nubs that act as stand-offs, and on the underside there are countersunk spaces for the bolt heads used as fasteners.
He started designing with Autodesk 123D but the interface didn’t really suit his working style. He switched over to FreeCAD and that experience fit him like a glove. He starts out with the sketch view to draw his parts, then extrudes that into the 3D model for further refinement before having the printer turn the digital into the real. This is the third board he produced in just one day of experimenting, but he is also showing off an enclosure he made for his thermal printer.
If you’re not working with boards that have nice mounting holes like these, don’t fret. We’ve seen 3d printed mounting systems that cradle the board, like
these Raspberry Pi enclosures
.
[Thanks Peter] | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "692937",
"author": "Alan",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T17:50:30",
"content": "While you are busy printing the bases, why not print little click-hooks that hold the board in place. No need for screws.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,376,820.207433 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/02/adding-a-bomb-bay-to-a-quadcopter/ | Adding A Bomb Bay To A Quadcopter | Brian Benchoff | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"bomb bay",
"quadcopter",
"servo"
] | The Fourth of July is fast approaching, and what better way to celebrate the independence of your country than by blowing up a small piece of it? [Anzel360] decided to take that line of thought to a whole new level
by adding a bomb bay
to his quadrocopter.
[Anzel360] recently upgraded his transmitter to a
Spektrum DX8
, giving him two extra channels on his four-channel quadrotor. After adding a small servo to the quad, it was a simple matter of taping a box to the undercarriage and filling it full of fireworks.
The ammo [Anzel] is using is just a handful of Snappin’ Pops – otherwise known as the lamest firework ever created. We won’t hold that against him, though; a remote ignition system for a few Black Cats mounted on a fancy quadrocopter is just asking for trouble. We do recall a throwable cap gun bomb from our youth, though, that would allow for year-round ammo replenishment… | 24 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "692862",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T15:43:22",
"content": "Now how long before Homeland Security shows up to ruin the party :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "692866",
"author": "Kuroneko",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,376,820.317108 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/02/printing-organs-with-a-3d-printer/ | Printing Organs With A 3D Printer | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"bioprinting",
"medical",
"organ printing",
"tissue printing"
] | [Jordan Miller], [Christopher Chen], and a whole bunch of other researchers at the department of bioengineering at U Penn have figured out a way
to print 3D tissues
using a 3D printer. In this case, a RepRap modified to print sugar.
Traditional means of constructing living 3D tissues face a problem – in a living body, there’s a whole bunch of vasculature sending Oxygen and nutrients to the interior cells. In vitro, these nutrients can’t get to the cells in the core of a mass of tissue. [Jordan], [Chris], et al. solved this problem by printing a three-dimensional sugar lattice. After encasing this lattice in a gel embedded with living cells, the sugar can be dissolved and the nutrients pumped through the now hollow capillaries in the gel.
If you have access to
Nature
, the full text article is
available here
. There’s also a great video showing off this technique after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yys1766j9js&w=470] | 24 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "692804",
"author": "vasskk",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T14:09:46",
"content": "This was a senior design project at Drexel U….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "692806",
"author": "vasskk",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T... | 1,760,376,820.486221 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/02/getting-a-console-and-quake-ii-running-on-a-raspberry-pi/ | Getting A Console And Quake II Running On A Raspberry Pi | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"max232",
"MAX3232",
"quake 2",
"serial",
"uart"
] | Those Raspberry Pi boards are flying into the mailboxes of tinkerers all around the globe, so our tip line is currently awash in a deluge of Raspi hacks. Here’s two that came in over the weekend:
First up is [reefab]’s
port of Quake II
for the Raspberry Pi. The build is based of
Yamagi Quake II
and is
mostly
playable. The Quake III port for the Raspberry Pi
is old hat
, but we’re happy to relive the pulse-pounding action of Quake II any day.
Next up is [Joonas]’ take on
getting a serial console up and running
with the Raspi. The Raspberry Pi has a UART serial console on its 26-pin header, but you can’t just connect those pins to a serial port. To shift the +/- 12V down to the 3.3 Volts the Raspi can understand, [Joonas] used a MAX3232 – the 3.3 Volt version of everyone’s favorite RS-232 transceiver. With a breadboard and a couple of caps, it’s easy to connect your Raspi to a serial console. Neat. | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "692790",
"author": "ho0d0o",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T13:33:20",
"content": "I can’t wait to get my hands on an RPi…don’t have the funds yet.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "692800",
"author": "t&p",
"timestamp": "2012-0... | 1,760,376,820.371917 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/02/open-source-synth-sounds-awesome/ | Open Source Synth Sounds Awesome | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"Ambika",
"midi",
"synth",
"synthesizer"
] | A little bird sent in a tip about a really cool MIDI synth. It’s called
the Ambika
, and it seems like just the thing to introduce a synth head to the world of soldering.
Compared to an entry-level synthesizer like the microKorg or its ilk, the Ambika is packed full of really cool features that just happen to sound awesome. In addition to the basic saw, square, and sine waves, there is also FM, and wavetable synthesis along with a noise generator, rudimentary voice synth, and a bitcrushed sawtooth wave voice. Really, the sound demos (available after the break) speak for themselves.
The hardware is based on the ATMega644p, a fairly high-powered 8-bit microprocessor notably used in the
Sanguino
. This synth supports up to 6 voices, each individual voice is contained on a separate circuit board attached to the motherboard.
Of course, the schematics/board files/firmware for the Ambika
are freely available
along with a pretty amazing set of
technical notes
. There’s no word on how much the Ambika will cost, but having it available as a kit should make it palatable if you don’t mind spending a Saturday holding an iron.
Tip ‘o the hat to an anon for sending this one in.
[soundcloud url=”
http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/2157531″
; height=”200″ iframe=”true” /] | 16 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "692796",
"author": "henry",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T13:48:46",
"content": "suatmm",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "692797",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2012-07-02T13:53:37",
"content": "Sublime.",
"parent_id"... | 1,760,376,820.426013 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/01/codebender-an-online-arduino-ide/ | Codebender: An Online Arduino IDE | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"Codebender",
"ide"
] | Because everything is moving to a web app, [Vasilis Georgitzikis], a.k.a. [tzikis] developed
codebender
, a cloud-based Arduino IDE replete with built-in libraries, documentation, and the ability to upload your code to an Arduino from a browser.
To compile an Arduino sketch, codebender uses
clang
a wonderful compiler that will give you extremely descriptive warnings on terrible code. Like any good IDE, there’s built-in highlighting and documentation, and a small bit of Java allows you to upload your code and monitor the serial port right in the browser.
One of the more interesting innovations is codebender’s (upcoming) use of a TFTP bootloader. With this and an Ethernet shield, it’s easy to upload code to any Internet-connected Arduino, whether it’s on your desk or halfway across the world. We can see that being
very
useful for a data logger or even a UAV balloon, and can’t wait to see it in action. | 28 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "692375",
"author": "Bob D",
"timestamp": "2012-07-01T20:32:03",
"content": "Both Firefox and Chrome teams have been talking about adding Serial communication in the browser. I would much rather have that (or even mBed’s method of downloading a .bin and drag and dropping it to the u... | 1,760,376,820.633669 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/01/spoofing-gps-and-getting-your-own-uav/ | Spoofing GPS And Getting Your Own UAV | Brian Benchoff | [
"gps hacks",
"News"
] | [
"gps",
"gps spoofing",
"uav"
] | A couple folks over at the Radionavigation Lab at UT Austin successfully
spoofed GPS
to take control of a small helicopter drone this weekend. Of course, this attracted the attention of the Department of Homeland security, so you’d better stock up on GPS spoofing equipment while there’s still time.
The DHS, CIA, and US Military have a
huge
interest in spoofing GPS;
Iran stole a drone
late last year using the same method. The UT Austin team used only about $1000 worth of equipment to take control of an autonomous drone and pilot it away under unauthorized control. Of course with matters of homeland security, the open-source hacker scene has yet to publish
how
this spoofing attack was actually done, but
here’s a paper
covering what is needed to remotely control up to four GPS-guided drones.
While waiting on the details of this build to be made public, feel free add your own insight in the comments as to how this attack was actually performed. | 92 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "692282",
"author": "DeAuthThis",
"timestamp": "2012-07-01T17:13:08",
"content": "I’m thinking a USRP with specialized software…GPS is basically just a satellite with a radio signal.If you have over power that signal, you should be able to tell it that its somewhere else.. and, If yo... | 1,760,376,820.826345 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/01/hackaday-links-june-1-2012/ | Hackaday Links: July 1, 2012 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"kerbal space program",
"laser cutter",
"lockpicking",
"M.U.L.E",
"mirror",
"ST:TNG"
] | Opening really old lock boxes
[Barry Wels] is a locksmith. One day, he got a call from a museum that had a few 17th century strong boxes that needed to be opened. After a little probing with an endoscope, he decided
they could be picked
with a little bit of spring steel. So, what’s in the box? [Barry] is going to send in an update in a month or two.
An awesome Geordi La Forge VISOR. But don’t take my word for it.
[DrewSmith007]
made a replica
of Geordi’s VISOR from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Bonus: it’s autographed by Levar Burton.
Free mirrors for your laser cutter
If you have a laser cutter, your mirrors
will
get damaged, and they’re very expensive to replace. [Phil] sent in a neat tip:
make your own mirrors
from hard drive platters.
A proper M.U.L.E. remake
Combine Settlers of Catan with M.U.L.E.. That’s what
this Kickstarter
is trying to do, and it sounds freakin’ awesome.
This game is
so cool
A few months ago, I
mapped the surface of a video game moon
. Since then, Kerbal Space Program had a huge update with a
brand new moon.
Over on Reddit
, [InsanityCore] started mapping this new moon, so
I rendered it
. Go give [InsanityCore] some karma. He did all the hard work. | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "692230",
"author": "MrX",
"timestamp": "2012-07-01T15:36:36",
"content": "At the optics department of my University it is fairly common the usage of HDD plates as first surface mirrors.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "692236",
... | 1,760,376,820.700292 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/01/test-firing-the-largest-amateur-built-liquid-fuel-rocket-engine/ | Test Firing The Largest Amateur-built Liquid Fuel Rocket Engine | Brian Benchoff | [
"Engine Hacks"
] | [
"copenhagen suborbital",
"rocket"
] | Last April, we caught wind of a very impressive rocket engine being built by Copenhagen Suborbitals. That engine was on the test pad this weekend, and
the video is incredible
(skip to 20:30 for the actual test). The Copenhagen Suborbitals team pulled off a successful test firing of their 65 kilo Newton alcohol and liquid Oxygen-fueled rocket.
When last we saw
the TM65 engine, it was sitting on the design floor of the Copenhagen Suborbitals workspace. The plan was to fire the engine using alcohol fuel and LOX pressurized by Helium, but that plan was changed to use Nitrogen as the pressurant. The static test was an immensely successful demonstration of the engine, but unfortunately the chamber pressure (and therefore thrust) was a little low meaning the team will be moving back to Helium for the next test.
Thanks to the very successful test of the TM65, Copenhagen Suborbitals may be launching their HEAT booster later this year possibly carrying
their new space capsule
. Even if it’s only a crash test dummy that will make the ride into space, we can’t wait for the video of the flight.
Check out a few more (abridged) videos of the TM65 test firing after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aibcVJOetaI&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32b3g3UiKkQ&w=470] | 11 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "692180",
"author": "ino",
"timestamp": "2012-07-01T13:18:29",
"content": "awesomness sir!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "692249",
"author": "Stendall",
"timestamp": "2012-07-01T16:09:38",
"content": "Just amazing.Ke... | 1,760,376,820.873665 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/30/raspberry-pi-controlled-tank-goes-deeper-than-you-might-think/ | Raspberry Pi Controlled Tank Goes Deeper Than You Might Think | Mike Szczys | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"manchester encoding",
"oscilloscope",
"RPi",
"tank",
"transistor",
"wireless"
] | This remote control tank
now takes its orders from a Raspberry Pi board
. Well, actually it’s taking orders from commands pushed to the RPi board via SSH. The control scheme works out quite well. Using a low-profile WiFi dongle the RPi automatically connects to the wireless network when it is powered on. This makes it a snap to SSH into the device, and a more user-friendly controller will put a nice front-end into play at some time in the future.
But the real meat and potatoes of the hack comes in getting the RPi to talk to the tank’s circuitry. Just getting the Heng Long Tiger I remote control tank apart proved to be a ton of work as the treads need to be removed to do so and there’s a lot of screws holding it together. Instead of just
replacing all of the control circuitry
[Ian] wanted to patch into the original controller. To do so he spent a bit of time analyzing the signals with an oscilloscope and discovered that commands were coming in a Manchester encoded format. He established what various packets were doing, used a transistor to protect the GPIO pin on his board, and now has full control of the Tank. The final part of the hardware alteration was to power the RPi from the Tank’s battery.
After the break you can catch a demo of the reassembled tank sporting its new wireless controller.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSPcJL1CGjA | 22 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "691928",
"author": "Wilcorp70",
"timestamp": "2012-06-30T21:18:51",
"content": "I really want to see some hacks with this board that actually use the massive processing power it has. But at that price point I can’t blame anyone for using it for stuff like this, I know I probably wi... | 1,760,376,820.933679 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/30/computer-desk-literally/ | Computer Desk… Literally | Mike Szczys | [
"computer hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"computer",
"desk",
"ikea",
"led"
] | This piece of furniture begs the question, why think of a desk and a computer case as separate things? It combines Ikea furniture with electronic hardware to
create the ultimate command center
.
First the obvious parts: there’s a nook for the computer case that hangs just below the desktop off to the side, and the twin displays are mounted front and center. The divider between the cabinet pieces was cut away to allow the monitors to be wall-mounted. But things start to get interesting to the left of those monitors. You can see a series of dial displays in the door for that cabinet. Those meters were sourced from the MIT Flea Market and after a bit of alteration they display CPU load information fed to them by an Arduino board. This also drives some LED strips which are mounted behind the frosted glass panel that we guess could be called a back splash. The heavier the load, the better the light show.
All of the power management is taken care of in the cabinet to the right of the monitors. The top row hides a printer, external hard drive backup system, and several gaming consoles. Heat will be an issue so exhaust fans were added to each of these partitions. They’re switched based on a temperature sensor in each. It’s a lot of work, but the outcome proves it was worth it.
[via
Reddit
] | 28 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "691812",
"author": "naturetm",
"timestamp": "2012-06-30T17:06:59",
"content": "I’ll take that when you’re done with it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "691823",
"author": "coyoteboy",
"timestamp": "2012-06-30T17:25:49",
... | 1,760,376,821.173298 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/30/raspberry-pi-power-regulator-transplant-reduces-power-consumption/ | Raspberry Pi Power Regulator Transplant Reduces Power Consumption | Mike Szczys | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"power regulator",
"RPi",
"switch mode"
] | If you want to run your Raspberry Pi from something other than a mains power converter, and you’ve got some courage to spare, this hack is right up your alley. [Tom] wrote in with
a switch mode power replacement for the RPi’s stock linear regulator
. This is the first hack we’ve seen where the RPi’s on-board hardware is being altered and that’s where things get a little scary.
The first thing done was to remove the linear regulator, leaving the unpopulated RG2 footprint seen above. Apparently a rework station wasn’t available as the technique they used describes holding the board up by gripping the regulator with tweezers, then blasting it with a hot air gun. It makes us a bit queasy because the processor chip has a solder footprint you don’t want to mess with.
But apparently all is still well. With the wasteful linear regulator gone a pair of 5v and 3.3V switch regulators inject voltage through the GPIO header. Initial tests show a savings of around 25% but we’d imaging this varies greatly based on load. | 52 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "691758",
"author": "BusError",
"timestamp": "2012-06-30T15:10:40",
"content": "It’s basic rework, nothing really ‘scary’ about it. If you want to add protection to the surrounding components, wrap the board in alu foil, gently cut a window around the component you want to remove the... | 1,760,376,821.109289 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/30/under-bench-timed-outlets-wont-let-you-leave-the-iron-on/ | Under-bench Timed Outlets Won’t Let You Leave The Iron On | Mike Szczys | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"mains",
"outlet",
"soldering iron",
"timer"
] | When we used to use firesticks (the pen style plug-in soldering irons) it was always a worry that we might leave them on. But now we use a base unit which has an indicator light to serve as a reminder. Still, [FoxxTexx] isn’t taking any chances and instead
built this timer-based outlet
which kills the power automatically.
The parts are all pretty common. The timer itself is the same form factor as a light switch and is commonly used for heat lamps or hot tub jets. It feeds the outlet next to it by way of the indicator switches to the right. We like the use of the switches but since mains voltage is still running through them we would suggest using a three-gang box and mounting them on the cover plate so that all the wiring is contained. If done this way you could just have the electrical box siting on your bench, but it is a nice touch to have it mounted this way.
We’ve long been proponents of a timer system. Back
when we put together our Hacker’s Soldering Station
we just used a plug-in timer unit. | 18 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "691720",
"author": "Martin Demling",
"timestamp": "2012-06-30T13:24:46",
"content": "My soldering iron already has a standby and (!) auto-off timer, but without it this would be a nice thing to have.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id... | 1,760,376,821.230481 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/robot-dares-you-to-snatch-the-pebble-from-this-flower/ | Robot Dares You To Snatch The Pebble From This Flower | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"flower",
"groboduino",
"sensor",
"servo"
] | This pleasant-looking plant may try to take your hand off if you’re not careful.
The robot flower
(
translated
) includes sensors that cause the petals to move in reaction to external stimuli.
You can just make out the distance sensors as black rectangles on two of the petals. These let the flower track an object by rotating the flower stem. But if they determine the object is getting a bit too close for comfort, the servo motor on the back of each petal will cause the flower to suddenly clamp shut.
The video after the break starts off with an in-depth look at the hardware that went into the project. An Arduino clone called the GRoboduino makes this project a lot easier since it has a bunch of extras on the board aimed at things like sensors and servo motors. The mounting technique for the petal-powering-servos is quite attractive, and we enjoy the Snapple lid (probably not the actual brand but you get the picture) which has been coated with yellow felt for the center of the bloom. The final look is normal enough to fit in with home decor, but it still has enough geek in it to melt our hacker hearts.
[via
Make
] | 27 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "691291",
"author": "CG",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T23:26:34",
"content": "Probably beatable with a vacuum cleaner w/ hose attachment.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "691425",
"author": "ChalkBored",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,376,821.29577 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/testing-lithium-cells-for-use-with-a-hybrid-car/ | Testing Lithium Cells For Use With A Hybrid Car | Mike Szczys | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"battery tester",
"electric car",
"hybrid",
"lithium"
] | [Mikey] got a real deal on some A123 Pouch Cells. These are large Lithium cells that tolerate 100A discharge and 50A recharge currents, with 20 AH of life off of one charge. He’s been doing a bunch of testing to find out if the cells can go into
an expandable battery pack and be made for use with hybrid cars
.
We just looked in on
a battery tester used for solar power car arrays
. This is a similar situation except [Mikey] is focusing on the test data, rather than the apparatus. The link above is a collection of his notes from testing. Start reading at the bottom of the page up to get the chronology right. He starts to zero in on the most efficient charging methods. Immediately he’s hit with a big need for cooling as the cells take no time to pass 100 degree Fahrenheit. He continues testing with heat sink and fan, and even brings a thermal imaging camera to help with the design.
[Thanks Chris] | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "691287",
"author": "razor",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T23:15:30",
"content": "This is cool, but be on the lookout, looks like there’s some bad cells in the wild.http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/03/26/a123-recalling-55m-in-ev-batteries-made-in-livonia/",
"parent_id": null,
"dep... | 1,760,376,821.337944 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/a-guide-for-laying-out-4-layer-pcbs/ | A Guide For Laying Out 4+ Layer PCBs | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"eagle",
"layout",
"pcb",
"via"
] | Learning to lay out a printed circuit board takes some time. But after you’ve churned out a few it’s really pretty easy. If you find yourself at that point it may be time to learn about more complicated board fabrication. We think a good primer is
this multi-layer PCB layout guide
which [Rik te Winkel] recently put together. It’s one of the results of his internship experience.
One of the major differences with boards that have more than two layers is the ability to alter what layers are actually connected by vias. Vias are plated holes through the substrate that connect different layers of copper. In the case of a 2-layer board these just go right through and connect the top to the bottom. But as you can see above, there are additional choices when it comes to multi-layer boards. #1 is a through via connecting all of the layers. #2 is a blind via; it stops part way through the board. And #3 is a buried via; it connects internal layers but cannot be seen from either side.
The guide is aimed at Eagle CAD. To use more than two layers you’ll have to purchase a license. But we think the concepts can easily be translated to other PCB layout software like Kicad. | 21 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "691265",
"author": "Elias",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T22:36:23",
"content": "For any commercial use you also need to buy an EAGLE license, but for the Light version it is only around 50€ compared to few hundred for the versions supporting more layers.Still would like to get one of th... | 1,760,376,821.395973 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/two-interesing-boards-coming-down-the-pipe/ | Two Interesting Boards Coming Down The Pipe | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"hardware",
"kinetis",
"MIMO DREAMPLUG"
] | Hey, it’s a hardware twofer! Here’s two platforms coming down the pipe:
First up is the
Mimo Dreamplug
, the latest in a continued expansion of choices for very tiny, single-board Linux computers. The Dreamplug should be extremely capable of just about any task you can throw at it. With a 1.2GHz Marvell Sheeva CPU, eSATA, fiber optic/TOSLINK, WiFi, Bluetooth, two Gigabit Ethernet connections, and 512
MB
of RAM, we’re thinking this could be used for just about anything. It’s a little pricy at $250, but that’s what you pay for all those features.
No idea when it will be available, though.
Never mind, you can get the same thing
for $150 here
. Thanks, [Scott].
Next up is the
Kinetis KL25Z Freedom Board
, an Arduino-compatable, Cortex-M0+ based dev board being made available for pre-order. The specs on this machine seem pretty good – with a 48MHz ARM chip, on-board accelerometer, a capacitive touch ‘slider’ built into the PCB, and OpenSDA for a USB debug interface, you should be able to make a few cool projects with this board. As a neat bonus, it costs $13, and Freescale is giving away a version of their Codewarrior development environment (limited to 128kB, but that’s all the Flash the Kinetis has). Hopefully, it’ll be a much
more open development platform
than what our own [Mike Szczys] has been able to
wrangle from the STM32 board
that has been floating around. The Kinetis should be available this fall.
Thanks [Impulse405] and [Hussam] for sending these tips in. | 20 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "690922",
"author": "Conner Smith",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T14:06:43",
"content": "Interesting*No need to thank me. :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "690925",
"author": "CrashSerious",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T14:08:27... | 1,760,376,821.463267 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/makerfaire-k-c-hexy-the-200-hexapod-project/ | MakerFaire K.C.: Hexy, The $200 Hexapod Project | Caleb Kraft | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"hexapod",
"hexy"
] | I’ve always loved hexapods. Unfortunately, the cost to play with them can be rather daunting. Hexy is seeking to make a decent impact on that by being only $200. Yep, that $200 includes everything but the computer. You get the entire chassis, micro controller, servos, sensors, batteries, etc.
I ran into [Joe] from
arcbotics
showing off
a hexy
at the maker faire and had a few moments to check it out. He showed off some slick motion and explained some future upgrades. It looks like they are intending to go to metal gears in the commercial version which might push the cost to around $250. At this cost, this robot is comparable to the Lego NXT systems. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "690879",
"author": "Circuitmage",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T13:01:54",
"content": "Doable with lego robotics….I’m just sayin’",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "690902",
"author": "devinmoore",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T13:30... | 1,760,376,821.508367 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/turning-an-arduino-into-a-usb-keyboard/ | Turning An Arduino Into A USB Keyboard | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"hid",
"usb",
"usb hid"
] | The newly released Arduino Leonardo has a few very interesting features, most notably the ability to act as a USB keyboard and mouse thanks to the new ATmega 32U4 microcontroller. This feature isn’t exclusive to the Leonoardo, as [Michael] explains in a build he sent in – the lowly Arduino Uno can also
serve as a USB HID keyboard
with just a firmware update.
The Arduino Uno (and Mega) communicate to your computer through a separate ATmega8U2 microcontroller. Simply by uploading new firmware with the Arduino
Device Firmware Upgrade
, it’s easy to have your old Arduino board gain some of the features of newer boards such as the Teensy or Leonardo.
[Michael] goes through the steps required to make this upgrade work and ends his build by showing off an Arduinofied ‘cut, copy and paste’ button project as well as a few multimedia controls. You can check those builds out in the video after the break.
If emulating a USB keyboard isn’t your thing, it’s also possible to install
LUFA firmware
to emulate everything from joysticks to USB audio devices. Very cool, and very useful.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_F9pNyTtFc&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKObxbaJgKI&w=470] | 23 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "690838",
"author": "Necromant",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T11:39:10",
"content": "So what? vusb-based HID keyboards have been around for ages already!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "690968",
"author": "Flip",
"t... | 1,760,376,821.565512 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/28/dollar-store-terminator-replica/ | Dollar Store Terminator Replica | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"cyborg",
"dollar store",
"replica",
"skull",
"terminator"
] | Okay, now we think [James] is just on a mission to see what he can build using the dollar store as his parts bin. This is the nearly finished
replica of the cyborg skeleton from the
Terminator
franchise
. It’s made mostly from things that cost $0.99.
Actually we’ve got that a bit wrong. [James] is really shopping at the £0.99 store but the concept is basically the same. He’s already shown us that he’s a pro at this with
the arc reactor replica
we recently saw from him. This time around a set of speakers donate their enclosures to build up the spinal column supporting the skull. Fittingly these are glued together using a hot glue gun from the store. The sides of the skull are carefully crafted from a set of four plastic bowls. The jaw comes together thanks to the corners of a plastic box’s lid. And finally the majority of the face is from a golden skull costume mask. Spray it all grey and pop in some LEDs for the eyes and he’s done it! He show’s off his final creation in the video after the break. | 16 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "690615",
"author": "Mikey",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T00:11:05",
"content": "Holy crap. This guy is amazing!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "690623",
"author": "roberto",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T00:21:35",
"content"... | 1,760,376,821.85135 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/28/linux-picture-frame-serves-as-wireless-raspberry-pi-display/ | Linux Picture Frame Serves As Wireless Raspberry Pi Display | Mike Szczys | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"digital picture frame",
"spi",
"vnc"
] | Here’s a novel approach to adding a display to your Raspberry Pi. Instead of using a wired display — either via the HDMI (which can feed a DVI port with a simple hardware adapter) or the composite video out — [Chris Bryden] decided to
use Bluetooth to provide a wireless display
. This really depends on the hardware that you have available. He snapped up
a hackable digital picture frame
for a song and used the 320×240 display for this project.
You can see the USB nub plugged into the RPi in the image above. It’s a Bluetooth dongle and there’s with a matching one on the digital frame. With the two networked in such a way [Chris] got to work setting up a VNC that would let him pull up the X desktop over the network.
This ends up being one of the best uses we’ve seen for the Bluetooth protocol, and the small screen offers a huge advantage over
the use of a simple character display
. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "690605",
"author": "Josh",
"timestamp": "2012-06-28T23:42:05",
"content": "brilliant.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "690614",
"author": "jayqu",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T00:10:32",
"content": "Great to see this work... | 1,760,376,821.801909 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/28/building-a-cmos-clock-on-a-breadboard/ | Building A CMOS Clock On A Breadboard | Brian Benchoff | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"4000",
"clock",
"digital logic",
"logic"
] | If you’re going to learn digital logic, why not aim high? That’s what [Easton] and his friend did when
they built a clock
using only 4000-series logic chips. On a breadboard, no less.
For a 1 Hz clock, [Easton] and his friend used a 4060 counter paired with a flip flop. This counts off 59 seconds until, with the help of an AND gate, the seconds counter rolls over to zero. After repeating that again for the minutes and building a similar circuit for the hour, and [Easton] had a working 4000-series 24-hour clock.
The breadboard clock may not be the prettiest thing, or a textbook example of how to prototype circuits, but that was fixed with [Easton]’s friend’s PCB layout of a 12-hour clock. We couldn’t find any pics of this, but we’re sure it’s
awesome
and a great way to learn about logic and design. | 20 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "690575",
"author": "DM",
"timestamp": "2012-06-28T22:39:44",
"content": "One of my first electronic projects back in college, though I kept expanding into a “rat’s nest” alarm clock. It’s a great project and was a lot of fun.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [... | 1,760,376,821.750379 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/28/an-interview-with-lean-the-force-behind-dorkbot-pdx/ | An Interview With Laen (the Force Behind Dorkbot PDX) | Mike Szczys | [
"Interviews"
] | [
"dorkbot pdx",
"interview",
"james neal",
"osh",
"osh park",
"pcb",
"phillip torrone"
] | [PT]
recently interviewed [Laen]
, the man who makes it cheap and easy for hobbiests to have small PCBs manufactured. He created Dorkbot PDX’s PCB group order, a rapid turn PCB service which we see used in projects all the time (pretty much any purple PCB has gone through [Laen]).
Turns out his real name is [James Neal]. He’s a sysadmin by trade but deals in recreational circuitry at night. We were surprised to learn that the service has been rebranded. Its new name is OSH Park and it’s got
a purple website with a new submission system
. In the interview he discusses the genesis of the service. Inspired by a group parts order (that’s a mouthful!) with other hackers in Portland he saw a need for boards on which to mount them. The service has grown so much that he was spending 2-4 hours per night panelizing the designs. He made the wise choice to include an automated submission service in the new website that takes care of most of this work for him.
The rest of the interview spans a large range of topics. [Laen] shares his feelings on getting the boards manufactured domestically. He speaks briefly on the future of the service, and riffs on why open source hardware has value to him. | 20 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "690526",
"author": "rattboi",
"timestamp": "2012-06-28T21:06:00",
"content": "Laen, not Lean.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "690537",
"author": "Colecago",
"timestamp": "2012-06-28T21:21:16",
"content": "Neal backwa... | 1,760,376,821.903256 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/electric-bike-earplugs-not-included/ | Electric Bike (earplugs Not Included) | Mike Szczys | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"bicycle",
"bike",
"electric",
"mosfet",
"pwm"
] | It’s obvious this bike has some extra parts. But look closely and you’ll see the chainring has no chain connecting to it. Pedaling will get you nowhere since [PJ Allen] rerouted the chain in order to
drive this bicycle using an electric motor
.
He’s got beefy motor which pulls 350 Watts at 24 Volts. For speed control he opted to use an Arduino, pumping out PWM signals to some MOSFETs. This results in an incredibly noisy setup, as you can hear in the bench test video after the break. But once this is installed on the bike it doesn’t quiet down at all. You can hear the thing a block away.
The original road test fried the first set of 7A MOSFETs when trying to start the motor from a standstill. It sounds like the 40A replacements he chose did the trick through. We didn’t see any information on the battery life, but if he runs out of juice on the other side of town we bet he’ll be wishing he had left the chain connected to the crankset. | 29 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "691213",
"author": "Alexander",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T21:12:11",
"content": "I like it, I used to have an electric bike that had a ratcheting mechanism in the chainset so that the chain could route via the motor, over the cranks and back to the rear wheel",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,376,822.131363 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/a-tail-of-unbricking-a-10k-microsoft-surface-unit/ | A Tale Of (un)bricking A $10k Microsoft Surface Unit | Mike Szczys | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Multitouch Hacks"
] | [
"brick",
"bricked",
"firmware",
"linux",
"microsoft surface",
"ms surface",
"usb"
] | We’ve all had that sinking feeling as a piece of hardware stops responding and the nasty thought of “did I just brick this thing?” rockets to the front of our minds. [Florian Echtler] recently experienced this in extremis as
his hacking on the University of Munich’s Microsoft Surface 2.0 left it unresponsive
. He says this is an 8,000 Euro piece of hardware, which translates to around $10,000! Obviously it was his top priority to get the thing working again.
So what’s the first thing you should do if you get your hands on a piece of hardware like this? Try to run Linux on the thing, of course. And [Florian]
managed to make that happen pretty easily
(there’s a quick proof-of-concept video after the break). He took a Linux kernel drive written for a different purpose and altered it to interface with the MS Surface. After working out a few error message he packaged it and called to good. Some time later the department called him and asked if his Linux kernel work might have anything to do with the display being dead. Yikes.
He dug into the driver and found that a bug may have caused the firmware on the USB interface chip to be overwritten. The big problem being that they don’t just distribute the image for this chip. So he ended up having to dump what was left from the EEPROM and rebuild the header byte by byte. | 20 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "691179",
"author": "P",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T20:12:16",
"content": "Hats off to that guy :)Also, spelling mistake (‘tail’ rather than ‘tale’) in the title.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "691182",
"author": "Illuminati",... | 1,760,376,821.977854 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/using-your-bench-tools-to-test-a-new-display/ | Using Your Bench Tools To Test A New Display | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"bus pirate",
"display",
"i2c",
"oled",
"sabernetics",
"ssd1306"
] | It usually takes a bit of work to gain confidence when it comes to using new parts. [Glitch] got his hands on this OLED display which is manufactured by Sabernetics and wanted to give it a whirl before building a project around it. He
grabbed his Bus Pirate to help learn the ins and outs of the new part
.
The 96×16 Dot-Matrix display uses the i2c protocol, keeping the pin count really low (six pins for: ground, reset, clock, data, chip select, and voltage). Since the Bus Pirate gives you command-line-like access to i2c it’s a natural choice for a first test. In fact, the tool has been
our go-to device for that protocol for most projects
.
The first commands sent are configuration values for the SSD1306 that drives the display. These configure contrast, voltage conversion, and other important values necessary to power on the display. It sprung to life, showing random pixels since the RAM had not yet been initialized. With that success [Glitch] moved on to the Bus Pirate’s scripting capabilities and ended up with a Python script that drives the demo seen above. Now that he knows the commands he needs, it’ll be a lot easier to write code for a microcontroller driver. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "691227",
"author": "FrankTheCat",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T21:36:03",
"content": "Hello from Saratoga Springs, NY!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "691511",
"author": "JB",
"timestamp": "2012-06-30T05:29:34",
... | 1,760,376,822.175158 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/fighting-over-the-frats-tv-remote/ | Fighting Over The Frat’s TV Remote | Mike Szczys | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"cable box",
"frat",
"fraternity",
"ir",
"remote control"
] | [Colin Bookman] lives in a Fraternity house and apparently the remote for the cable box has a way of walking off. He figured out
a method to give everyone control of the TV channel
in one form or another.
The cable box can be seen perched on that shelf, and [Colin’s] addition is the wooden box sitting on the floor. Inside is an Arduino board, and the cable snaking out of the enclosure is an IR LED. This give the Arduino the ability to send remote control commands to the TV box. The two arcade buttons on the front will switch the channel up or down.
But this is hardly a remote control replacement since you have to get up to use it, so he went a few steps further. The Arduino board was paired with an Ethernet shield. It serves up a web page that has a virtual keypad. So anyone with a smart phone or laptop can log into the server and start changing the channels. We’re not sure if this provides relief from a missing remote, or promotes impromptu fist fights when brothers can’t agree on what to watch. It certainly opens up the possibility of long-distance trolling as you could be sitting in class and decide to change the channel to Lifetime every ten minutes or so.
If you don’t have an Ethernet shield handy we’ve seen
a similar setup that uses Bluetooth
instead the network. | 11 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "691116",
"author": "Shawn",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T18:19:18",
"content": "I live in a fraternity. We can connect our smart phones through Bluetooth to the common TV. Then anyone can use a simple app to control the TV.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},... | 1,760,376,822.324819 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/self-balancer-does-it-differently-than-were-used-to-seeing/ | Self Balancer Does It Differently Than We’re Used To Seeing | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"balancing",
"bicycle",
"self balancing",
"unicycle"
] | This self balancing robot
still uses just two wheels, but it’s balancing very differently than we’re used to seeing. Where most of the projects use
a form factor that’s similar to a Segway
, this works just like a bicycle. But it doesn’t need to keep the front and rear wheels spinning to stay upright. In fact, the video after the break shows it balancing perfectly while at a complete standstill. [Aoki2001’s] creation isn’t stuck in one place. He included distance sensors on the front and back which are used to move the bike as if by repulsion.
The large wheel where the rider would be is what makes sure the vehicle doesn’t topple over. It acts as an inverted pendulum, pushing against the large wheel’s inertia by rotating the motor to which it is attached. The
same concept was seen back in march on a full-sized bike
. But why use two wheels when you only need one? His unicycle version can also be seen embedded after the break.
It’s worth looking at [Aoki’s] other YouTube offerings too. He’s got a small robot which balances on top of a ball. It’s
the desk-sized version of this hack
. | 18 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "691080",
"author": "David Rysdam",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T17:24:05",
"content": "That is almost creepily awesome.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "691081",
"author": "Iw2",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T17:26:27",
"conte... | 1,760,376,822.234767 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/two-retro-successes-with-a-commodore-64/ | Two Retro Successes With A Commodore 64 | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"c64",
"commodore 64",
"retro edition"
] | Slowly but surely, Hackaday readers have been logging onto
our retro edition
with some very old hardware. Of course we’re featuring the coolest as
retro successes
. [azog] and [logik] entered the pantheon of brave souls who loaded up Hackaday with a Commodore 64 this week, and their builds are pretty impressive to say the least.
[logik]’s build
was nearly doomed from the start: he used a C64 found dumpster diving one day with a bad power supply and half-dead VRAM chips. The first order of business was getting the C64 talking to a PC with the help of a MAX232 serial IC and loading up
64HDD
to transfer a copy of Novaterm. From there it was a simple matter of connecting to an Ubuntu box and pulling up our retro site with the help of a text-only web browser.
[azog] didn’t want to
abuse Lynx with his submission
so he connected a
Commodore 64 Ethernet card
and loaded up
Contiki
. The banner image (above) is the ASCII Hackaday logo rendered with the C64’s PETSCII character set, something I did not foresee when I created our retro edition. Still, freakin’ awesome.
As a small aside, we’re going to open up the comments for this post to suggestions and recommendations you’ve got for the Hackaday retro edition. What would you like to see? The Retrocomputing guide is woefully inadequate, we know, but there’s a project in the works (getting WiFi over a serial port on a 68k Mac) that should be well received. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "691122",
"author": "Josh Malone",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T18:31:19",
"content": "Yay! An actual retro machine actually loading the page!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "691140",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2012... | 1,760,376,822.27785 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/29/raspberry-pi-enclosure-turns-it-into-a-desktop-pc/ | Raspberry Pi Enclosure Turns It Into A Desktop PC | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"enclosure",
"laser cutter",
"raspberry pi"
] | While you’re still waiting for your Raspberry Pi to be delivered, why not
build an enclosure for it
? This build comes from the fruitful workshop of [builttospec], and gives the Raspi a very nice case well-suited for being placed on your desktop.
Like most of [builttospec]’s case builds, this enclosure was made on a laser cutter out of acrylic and features everything you would expect in a good Raspi enclosure. All the hardware ports are available, and there’s also a slot for a
GPIO ribbon cable
, perfect for connecting an enclosed Raspi to whatever hardware project you’re working on.
One thing we’re loving about [builttospec]’s enclosure is the
tasteful use of light pipes
that funnel the light from the LED indicators on the Raspi to the surface of the case. Sure, they’re just a few bits of laser-cut polycarbonate, but its little touches like this that transform a good case build into a great one.
Files available
on Thingiverse
. | 21 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "690984",
"author": "SonicBroom",
"timestamp": "2012-06-29T15:21:06",
"content": "Damn, that is one nice looking case! Too bad i’m in the UK. Shipping costs alone are more expensive than the parts :/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,376,822.384422 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/28/penetration-testing-with-the-raspberry-pi/ | Penetration Testing With The Raspberry Pi | Mike Szczys | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"pen testing",
"penetration testing",
"pwnpi",
"raspberry pi",
"RPi"
] | PwnPi is
a penetration testing distribution rolled up for the Raspberry Pi platform
. This should come as no surprise to anyone. The RPi board has a beefy processor, it’s relatively low power, has the option of the on-board NIC or a USB WiFi dongle, and it already has Linux kernel and desktop sources available to start from.
Now we will admit we’re a bit disappointed from this tip. Don’t get us wrong, the distro looks like it’s well done, and we’re sure there are a lot of folks out there who will be happy to have these tools to help test their network security. But this is a software only hack and we were expecting to see a nice little covert package that could be plugged into an outlet (
SheevaPlug style
), or a battery-powered module that can be
plugged into an Ethernet port and hidden away
.
Now you know what we want, don’t forget to
send in a link once you pull it off
.
[Thanks Scott] | 28 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "690250",
"author": "Rob Thomas",
"timestamp": "2012-06-28T13:08:29",
"content": "Seems the PwnPi site has been HackaDayed: very slow to load. My argument against a black box/hat approach with the Pi is that it is over kill. The WR703N is good enough, and cheaper (in case you lose it... | 1,760,376,822.542155 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/28/roll-your-own-battery-backup-system/ | Roll Your Own Battery Backup System | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"battery backup",
"CCTV",
"inverter"
] | [Chris] and [Dom] wanted to build their own battery backup system on the cheap. They were very creative in sourcing the parts, and ended up
putting together a battery-backed CCTV system for about eighty bucks
.
Since short power outages are fairly common in the area this battery backup makes sense. We’ve seen
some pretty gnarly whole-house systems
but this is more of a novelty. That’s a good thing, because the hacking duo decided to reuse batteries which were headed for the scrap yard. They’re connected to a trickle charger which makes sure that they’re continually topped off when mains power is energized. But when there’s a blackout a relay switches an outlet box over to the inverter (also a used part).
The system is outlined in the entertaining video after the break. You’ll see they guys show off the completed build, followed by a walk through of the circuit they designed and how it functions. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "690235",
"author": "dattaway2",
"timestamp": "2012-06-28T12:31:23",
"content": "Be careful if using batteries in higher voltage configurations. There is no shortage of lead acid battery fire pictures on google. From my experience, the maintenance free batteries can go dry allowing... | 1,760,376,822.478059 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/28/cheat-your-way-through-the-original-prince-of-persia/ | Cheat Your Way Through The Original Prince Of Persia | Mike Szczys | [
"Mac Hacks"
] | [
"cheat",
"cheats",
"emulator",
"jace",
"prince of persia"
] | If you don’t have the patience to play through the original Prince of Persia perhaps you should just cheat? [BLuRry] has made this easy for us, by
building Prince of Persia cheats into JACE
, the Java Apple Computer Emulator.
He shows off the emulator and the cheats he added in the video after the break. We saw the ability to teleport anywhere, kill enemies immediately, and open gates and exits. All of this happens with the click of a mouse. But there’s also a configuration screen used to enable the cheats that offers a handful of other cheat options that weren’t original to the game. [BLuRry] managed to roll these cheats into the emulator after some thoughtful study of
the original source code which [Jordan Mechner] recently released
after the once-lost floppy discs storing the ancient digital gem were discovered.
You know, we always see people
running doom on various types of hardware
. Maybe we should start using PoP as our go-to novelty game? | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "690353",
"author": "BLuRry",
"timestamp": "2012-06-28T15:46:12",
"content": "A fun thing to try: Wait for the credits and opening to finish and the game will start a demo level. The mouse cheats will ALSO work there, so you can kill the enemy in the demo or kill the prince by telep... | 1,760,376,822.423314 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/27/rickrolled-by-redbull/ | RickRolled By RedBull | Caleb Kraft | [
"contests",
"News"
] | [
"contest",
"redbull"
] | As you’ve already seen, we’ve been invited to participate in the
Redbull creation contest
. While we were deep into our work today, hacking things apart and soldering things together while trying not to blow ourselves up, we received a second package! It had a hand written note explaining that this was the last of its type, reserved for only the most awesome teams. We got the very last one.
In this box was another bullduino. This one had a shield on it with a fancy display in the middle and a few scattered LEDs. Upon plugging it in, we were greeted with a “simon” style game that you can play using the resistive touch pads on the pcb. You can see the result in the video above. Also, my nose doesn’t work very well, but my wife informed me that the red bull mail smelled like bacon. I’m unsure if this was intentional or not.
Our project is coming long nicely. Preliminary tests today yielded fantastic results with minimal sub dermal hematoma. We look forward to unveiling this beast to the public. Stay tuned! | 25 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "689890",
"author": "MorbiousStone",
"timestamp": "2012-06-28T00:19:53",
"content": "BWAHAHAHA THATS FUNNY :P",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "689905",
"author": "oodain",
"timestamp": "2012-06-28T00:48:32",
"content":... | 1,760,376,822.618592 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/27/lipo-battery-tester-for-solar-vehicle-battery-array/ | LiPo Battery Tester For Solar Vehicle Battery Array | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"discharge",
"lipo",
"lithium polymer",
"solar",
"tester"
] | If you’re building solar vehicles at a competitive level you’ve got to know exactly how the storage batteries will perform. To that end [Matthew] built a Lithium Polymer battery tester for use by the McMaster University Solar Car Project. It worked well, but could only test one battery at a time. He just finished up a second version,
which can test battery specifications on up to eight units at once
. It saves a lot of time, but still takes fifteen hours to test just one set of the units used by the vehicle.
The most important aspect being measured is the discharge curve. Sure, there’s a datasheet that includes this information, but how can be sure that what you received will perform at spec? Each of the eight channels can be disconnected from the system using a relay. This is just one of the safety features which watch for things like over-voltage and over-current conditions. Remember, Lithium batteries can heat up fast if there’s a problem. Data is sampled on a 12-bit ADC and can be pushed to a computer via USB for graphing. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "689946",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2012-06-28T02:28:13",
"content": "Is that the McMaster car?(sorry)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "689955",
"author": "matthack",
"timestamp": "2012-06-28T02:42:44",
... | 1,760,376,822.801131 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/27/ankle-bracelet-lets-you-become-emperor-palpatine/ | Ankle Bracelet Lets You Become Emperor Palpatine | Mike Szczys | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"high voltage",
"inverter",
"ion generator",
"static electricity"
] | Want to shoot lighting bolts from your hands to punish your enemies? You can (almost) do just that with
this static electricity generator hack
. Above you can see the charge jumping off of this guy’s knuckle and surging through the LED. But that’s not the only trick you can pull off when wearing just a bit of hardware around your ankle. The video after the break shows sand grains jumping around as a charged hand is waved over them.
The trick is done by powering a negative ion generator from a 9V battery. This can’t be done directly, since the ion generator is looking for an AC power source. But conversion is as easy as scrapping an inverter which is designed to plug into a car cigarette lighter. Everything is shoehorned into a glasses case, which can then be strapped on to your ankle. Why this fascination with the ankle area? One part of the answer is that this provides an easy way to interface the ion generator output with your skin. The other part of the answer is that you need to make sure the system is grounded (but you’re not) and the build includes a ring that goes around your shoe to achieve this.
Check out the demo and full build instructions in the video after the break.
[Thanks Nate] | 57 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "689814",
"author": "charles",
"timestamp": "2012-06-27T22:07:03",
"content": "What is old is new again. Behold the Pikashoe!!http://afrotechmods.com/cheap/negativeiongenerator/pikashoe7.htmI made one a long time ago. Use aluminum tape for the ground.Oh yeah, these things are incredi... | 1,760,376,822.942983 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/27/robotic-rock-paper-scissors-never-lets-you-win/ | Robotic Rock-paper-scissors Never Lets You Win | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"robot hand",
"rock paper scissors"
] | So robots kick our butts at tic-tac-toe, chess, Jeopardy, and now they’re the dominant species at rock-paper-scissors too. This
robot arm will outmatch your at the game every single time
. It’s not just fast enough to keep up, but it figures out what you’re planning to do and reacts according. All of this happens way to fast for you to catch it in the act.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo came up with the idea of combining high-speed vision with a high-speed hand. Apparently one millisecond is all it takes to analyze what move you’ve chosen. The time it takes for the hand to form the conquering position is only marginally longer than that. As you can see in the clip after the break, it already knows the protocol of 1-2-3 shoot and doesn’t need any operator intervention to start a new game, or repeatedly school you on trying to compete with a machine.
We’ve been
beaten at the game by a machine before
. This is just first time that the human player doesn’t need to wear special equipment and the machine has moved from a virtual hand to a physical one.
[via
Reddit
] | 12 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "689773",
"author": "Lex O'nhym",
"timestamp": "2012-06-27T21:09:34",
"content": "A robotic hand going up and down, in Japan. Am I the only one to see how it will probably go from there?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "689780",
... | 1,760,376,822.848917 |
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