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https://hackaday.com/2012/06/07/update-androcade-2-0/ | Update: Androcade 2.0 | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"arcade",
"bluetooth",
"buttons",
"hid"
] | [Chris] has been going about his business, letting his interest guide him as it will. But always in the back of his mind is his Androcade project, and he’s
spent the last year making improvements
. It’s an arcade controller for playing games on an Android tablet. It connects to the device via Bluetooth, and includes a built-in stand.
His original version
was featured here last year. It was made from wood (with a nice Android green finish) and included three buttons and a joystick. This time around he moved to some black laser-cut acrylic for the case, and has doubled up on the buttons. It also now enumerates as an HID Bluetooth device, whereas before it was pushing serial data over the BT connection.
He’s had enough interest from his friends to also create an iPad version all in white. It connects and works just the same as the Android flavor. Check out a bit of Donkey Kong gameplay after the break. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "673424",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2012-06-07T23:45:40",
"content": "Hell that controller looks better than a lot of CRAP (China Region Android Pads) I’ve seen! His next project should be building a stand up MAME cabinet, some plywood and a cheap monitor with an HDMI hook... | 1,760,376,846.418061 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/06/seeing-the-venus-transit-this-is-why-you-should-visit-your-local-hackerspace/ | Seeing The Venus Transit; This Is Why You Should Visit Your Local Hackerspace | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"telescope",
"transit",
"venus"
] | So I thought about getting a pair of protective glasses so that I could safely stare at the sun during yesterday’s Venus transit. But then it was forecast to be cloudy in the afternoon (the event didn’t start until 5pm here) so I forgot about it and figured I’d try to catch it next time around (which is 105 years from now).
I went about life, ate some dinner, then grabbed my latest project and headed off to the monthly meeting at
Sector67
, the local Hackerspace in Madison, WI. Lo and behold I arrived to find this sight in the parking lot:
Sure, my priorities may have pushed the viewing to the side. But others made it their mission to see the once or twice in a lifetime event and I got to see it just for being in the same place as them. This is the meat and potatoes of Hackerspaces…. collaboration. A source of new ideas, motivations, and inspirations.
One of the members brought a telescope and went online to figure out how to safely use it for viewing. For about $2.50 he rigged up a funnel covered with a piece of acetate which interfaced with the eyepiece of the scope. The image at the top shows the entire sun, and even though some of the cloud cover can clearly be seen, there’s Venus, plain as day. The cardboard box is just providing a shaded viewing area around the funnel. As with most cosmic experiences, it surprised me by being way cooler than described. See a few extra pictures in the gallery after the break. | 23 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "671711",
"author": "Billyboy",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T21:44:49",
"content": "The Venus transit is cool and all, but we really want to know the story behind that frankenbus thing in the background that somehow combines _two_ VW buses and a school bus!",
"parent_id": null,
"... | 1,760,376,846.377593 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/06/hackerspace-intro-chattlab-in-chattanooga-tn/ | Hackerspace Intro: Chatt*Lab In Chattanooga TN | Caleb Kraft | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"chattanooga",
"hackerspace",
"makerspace",
"southeast tour"
] | During our trip through Tennessee, we were able to get a sneak peak into a hackerspace that hasn’t quite opened its doors yet.
Chatt*Lab in Chattanooga
has just acquired a space and begun putting equipment in. Chattanooga, once called “the dynamo of the south” due to the amazing amount of industry located there, has been in need of a gathering place for like minded hackers for a while. They’ve been conversing through various means on the web for some time, but have finally found a space that suits their needs.
[Tim Youngblood] gave us a tour of what they currently have and shared a little bit of their plans for the future. As you can see in the video, there’s not a whole lot of stuff there yet. There are a handful of nice tools and a very nice looking and rather large CNC machine. However, they have solid plans and determined people, so we expect this to expand soon. On the subject of expansion, this space may seem tiny but that’s only because we shared the active space. The rest of the facility is vacant and available for them to expand into as they grow!
Let this act as a reminder, we don’t care how big or small your hackerspace is, send us a tour and we’ll publish a story on it. On almost every single hackerspace intro, we’ve seen comments where people had no idea there was a hackerspace in their immediate vicinity. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "671584",
"author": "ariggsd",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T20:09:24",
"content": "YES!!!! Finally a hackerspace near me!!!!!!!! I have been waiting for this for so long!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "671631",
"author": "mostly... | 1,760,376,846.530269 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/10/batbot-building-a-functionally-correct-bat-wing-robot/ | Batbot: Building A Functionally Correct Bat Wing Robot | Caleb Kraft | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"bat",
"ornithopter"
] | Batbot is a project wherein the researchers are
attempting to mimic the biological structure of a bat wing for flight
. The desire is to attain the maneuverability and agility you see in bat flight due to the ever changing shape of their wings. Also, bats look really cool. In attempting to mimic the structure, they have decided to use SMA based artificial muscles and steel tendons as opposed to the typical cam linkage you would see in most ornithopters.
Unfortunately, there’s no video of this bot attempting to fly. There is a video (below) of a presentation on the project that explains in detail what they are doing, and how they are doing it. It also has some really cool slow motion footage of real bats doing what they do.
[via
Adafruit
]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY4f3XXNliM | 22 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "676938",
"author": "justice099",
"timestamp": "2012-06-10T13:34:23",
"content": "Hmm about using SMA. That requires a counterforce to stretch it back out and the process is slow. I suppose it would be fine for moving control surfaces ocassionally, but it could not be changed quickly... | 1,760,376,845.95572 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/09/inmoov-a-3d-printed-animatronic-hand-you-can-download/ | InMoov: A 3d Printed Animatronic Hand You Can Download | Caleb Kraft | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"animatronics",
"robot"
] | [Hairygael] has been hard at work
designing and building this robot structure that can be completely 3d printed
. He’s admittedly not a big electronics person, so most of his focus has been on the design and construction of the bot frame. So far, he as a fully 3d printable (and available for download) hand that you can see in action after the break. Once printed, you’ll have to drill it for your own servos and add your own control system.
You can see the action is quite nice and sturdy in the video. [Hairygael] laments his lack of electronics knowledge when you see him hit roadblocks like multiple finger control. But, just as he points out in the video, we’re positive that some of you who are more familiar with that end of things will undoubtedly make this work well.
[via
HackedGadgets
] | 20 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "676017",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2012-06-09T18:56:08",
"content": "Excellent work. Keyboards usually can only press 1-2 keys at once due to their nature. Maybe he could map a closed hand grip to one key, and release grip to another key. Wish I had a 3D printer!",
"parent... | 1,760,376,846.107842 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/09/free-linux-computer-from-a-printers-wifi-card/ | Free Linux Computer From A Printer’s WiFi Card | Brian Benchoff | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"Lexmark",
"printer",
"wifi"
] | Whether it’s building a 3D scanning system with a Kinect, or using a USB TV tuner dongle for software defined radio, there are a lot of interesting off-schedule uses for commodity hardware. The latest comes from the fruitful mind of [sjMoquin] and a
Lexmark N2050 WiFi card
that runs Linux.
This build started off with a Lexmark X6570 all-in-one printer available for about $100 USD on eBay. This printer comes packaged with a Lexmark N2050 WiFi card running
BusyBox
. After soldering a few wires to the USB/UART pins on the N2050, [sjMoquin] had a very cheap but highly useful single board computer running Linux.
There is still a little more work to be done – the WiFi and USB on the N2050 aren’t currently supported. [sjMoquin] and [Julia Longtin] are working on that, so a fully functional embedded Linux board based on a printer’s WiFi card should be available soon. It might be time to hit up eBay for a few of these cards, you know. | 40 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "675856",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2012-06-09T16:21:05",
"content": "Neat hack but I can think of many off the shelf devices that will give you linux and wifi in a <$100 package (or even <$50).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,376,846.494027 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/09/autonomous-robot-uses-an-iphone-for-its-brain/ | Autonomous Robot Uses An IPhone For Its Brain | Brian Benchoff | [
"iphone hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"iphone",
"robot"
] | At the beginning of the school last year, [Ryan] needed to come up with a project for his master’s thesis. Having a bachelor’s in mech. engineering and doing his graduate work in software engineering allowed [Ryan] to do something really cool for his thesis; he decided to turn
an iPhone into an autonomous robot
with live video streaming, remote control, and object detection.
[Ryan] started building his ArduiPhone
last October
with an Arduino, motor shield, and a
Magician Chassis
. The software is based on an
iPhone network programming tutorial
that opens a socket connection to a desktop PC and relays commands to an Arduino serial port.
One of the more interesting features of [Ryan]’s ArduiPhone is the ability to stream video directly from the phone to a Java application. Instead of FaceTime, [Ryan] streams videos by converting an image from the front-facing iPhone camera to a byte array, sends it over the network, and decodes the image in a Java app. It’s low-level stuff, but the video quality is excellent and something we’ll probably be seeing more of in the future.
As always, videos after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBwjFh5DH7M&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aj4B6OG3Xc&w=470] | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "675794",
"author": "HAD",
"timestamp": "2012-06-09T15:16:54",
"content": "I thought a thesis had to be original? This has been done literally thousands of times. What am I missing?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "675828",
... | 1,760,376,846.155951 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/09/theremin-takes-the-touch-out-of-multitouch/ | Theremin Takes The Touch Out Of Multitouch | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"hall effect",
"hall effect sensor",
"maple",
"Maple Mini",
"theremin"
] | Multitouch builds are all the rage now, so it’s not surprising someone would come up with a multi-touchless interface sooner or later. [Hanspeter] did just that; his
Multi-touchless ribbon controller
, a.k.a. Polymagnetophonic Theremin is multi-touch without the touch.
[Hanspeter]’s touchless ribbon controller uses an array of 24 Hall effect sensors that activate whenever a magnet mounted on a thimble is placed near a build. These sensors go to an ARM-equipped
Maple Mini
to record multitouch events and send them out over Ethernet.
Even though [Hanspeter] is only using his “multi-touchless ribbon sensor” as a theremin, there’s no reason why it couldn’t be put to other uses. It’s entirely possible to place several of these magnetic sensors in an array and build a real
Minority Report
interface where the user interacts with a computer without touching anything.
After the break is a video demo showing off how much control [Hanspeter] can get with the thimble/magnet setup. There’s also a few demo songs made with
SuperCollider
showing off a trio of sitar/Moog/harpsichord synths.
[soundcloud url=”
http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/48944706″
; iframe=”true” /]
[soundcloud url=”
http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/48368667″
; iframe=”true” /]
[soundcloud url=”
http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/49074848″
; iframe=”true” /] | 11 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "675709",
"author": "Stol24",
"timestamp": "2012-06-09T13:46:50",
"content": "Great tune!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "675730",
"author": "JulsPower",
"timestamp": "2012-06-09T14:05:42",
"content": "good skill on p... | 1,760,376,846.312115 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/08/using-old-phones-as-an-intercom-in-your-vw-bus-or-anywhere-else/ | Using Old Phones As An Intercom In Your VW Bus (or Anywhere Else) | Caleb Kraft | [
"classic hacks",
"Featured",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"phone",
"telephone",
"volkswagen",
"vw"
] | In case you haven’t noticed from my many comments on the subject, I drive a VW bus. It is a 1976 Westfalia camper with sage green paint and green plaid upholstery. I absolutely love it and so does the rest of my family. We go for drives in the country as well as camping regularly. We have found that the kids have a hard time communicating with us while we’re going higher speeds. These things aren’t the quietest automobiles in the world. Pushing this bread loaf shaped hunk of steel down the road with an engine that might top out at 75hp results in wind noise, engine noise, and of course, vibration.
I decided to employ a really old hack to put two functional telephones in the bus so my kids can talk to my wife (or whoever the passenger is) without screaming quite so loud. This hack is extremely easy, fairly cheap, and can be done in just a few minutes. The result is a functional intercom that you could use pretty much anywhere!
The circuit to make two phones work as an intercom is extremely simple. You can see in the picture below, all you really need is a little bit of spare phone cable (or a spare junction box), a resistor, and a power source. A single 680 ohm resistor should let you use the 12V directly from your car or even a standard 9V battery if you’re wanting to make this portable (in a treehouse for example).
This circuit allows both ends to be picked up and audio to be transmitted either way. If you want it to ring, you’re going to have to come up with a slightly different circuit. However, since you’re not using the black and yellow wires, you could theoretically rig up a circuit with a buzzer that would run off the normal 12V.
While doing this project, I expected it to be mildly amusing. Possibly a unique use of the old hack. I was pleasantly surprised by my children’s reactions. I just installed this today and they’ve already played with it more than the
Pinball Stomp that I built last time
! This may have to become a permanent addition to my bus, if not, maybe it will be moved to their bedrooms.
For those who are interested in the mural on the ceiling, here you go. | 68 | 33 | [
{
"comment_id": "674967",
"author": "Saul Goode",
"timestamp": "2012-06-08T21:23:01",
"content": "Nice. This is going into my handy-info file.Thanks!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "674969",
"author": "Saul Goode",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,376,846.262526 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/08/a-quick-kludge-to-view-the-transit-of-venus/ | A Quick Kludge To View The Transit Of Venus | Brian Benchoff | [
"Solar Hacks"
] | [
"astronomy",
"astrophotography",
"eclipse",
"telescope",
"venus transit"
] | [Justin] is a bit of an astronomy geek, but that doesn’t mean he’s always prepared for celestial phenomena. When he realized the May 20th annular eclipse was only a few days away, [Justin] dropped everything, built a pinhole solar viewer, and drove three hours for the best view of the eclipse. He learned something watching the eclipse; these sort of things sneak up on you, and you really need to plan ahead if you want to truly enjoy the music of the celestial spheres. After the eclipse, [Justin] set to work
building a filter
to watch a Venusian eclipse with his telescope.
If [Justin] pointed his 8 inch Schmidt–Cassegrain directly at the sun, he would most likely damage the optics in his ‘scope, burn several retinas, and other very, very bad things. The best way to view the Sun with a telescope is with an expensive Hydrogen alpha or a general solar filter, but these are expensive and the clock was rapidly ticking down to the transit of Venus. After reading that blocking most of the light from coming into the ‘scope, [Justin] built an aperature reducer out of a few bits of foam board, foil, and dark fleece.
How did viewing the transit with a telescope turn out? Well, if you don’t compare [Justin]’s pictures to the multi-million dollar toys NASA and astronomers have, pretty good. It’s a very good job considering the entire foam-core aperture reducer was built in the course of an evening.
While it may be a little early to be planning for the next Venusian transit in the year 2117, there will be a transit of Mercury on May 9, 2016. All [Justin] has to do is remember when it will happen. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "674823",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2012-06-08T19:16:59",
"content": "Couldn’t you use a simple welding helmet to stare at the giant burning mass?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "674958",
"author": "Vonskippy",
"tim... | 1,760,376,845.87162 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/06/bossy-calendar-tells-visitors-when-to-go-away/ | Bossy Calendar Tells Visitors When To Go Away | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"calendar",
"exchange server",
"gadgeteer",
"microsoft exchange"
] | So here’s the scenario. You’re the boss and everyone needs to
kiss up to you
speak with you about important project details. You need a receptionist, or a creative employee who will
build a calendar display the lets people check if you’re free to chat
. It works by querying a Microsoft Exchange server for the guy’s calendar. The hardware within doesn’t deal directly with the full Exchange API, but relies on a server-side script that feeds it info on request. This is a nice touch since you can do a lot of filtering on the server and keep it simple with the embedded electronics
Speaking of embedded hardware, this uses Gadgeteer modules. You probably don’t remember, but these are
Microsoft’s electronic modules aimed at C# and .NET
programmers. It uses the main board, and LCD, USB host, and Wifi modules. This is the first project we remember seeing since the hardware was announced.
We wonder if this will change the boss’ behavior? Will he start scheduling creatively so that he gets more time without interruption? | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "671505",
"author": "Velli",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T19:22:32",
"content": "“You made the enclosure out of CARDBOARD?!? The last guy made his out of STONE. YOU ARE FIRED!!!”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "672429",
"au... | 1,760,376,846.577576 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/06/make-your-next-enclosure-out-of-stone/ | Make Your Next Enclosure Out Of Stone | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"enclosure",
"limestone"
] | Sure, a laser-cut plywood enclosure adds a lot of maker cred, and custom plastic or cast aluminum enclosure belies an engineering and design prowess. [ardiyno] didn’t want one of these run-of-the-mill enclosures, so he
made one from scratch
out of limestone.
The stone [ardiyno] used comes from the southern bit of his native Netherlands. It’s a very nice limestone, easily carvable and capable of very fine detail as seen in [ardiyno]’s
scary/creepy carved limestone bookends
.
Inside the enclosure, [ardiyno] has a calendar/clock/environmental sensor displaying the current date, time, relative humidity, and light level on twelve 14-segment displays. [ardiyno] admits the enclosure is a bit oversized for how much space his project takes up, but the extra space is meant for future internal expansions.
After the break, you can check out [ardiyno]’s method of using a screw driver to carve the limestone. Normally, we’d call foul over someone abusing tools, but the limestone is so soft (the pyramids were made out of limestone using soft copper tools), there’s most likely very little damage to the screwdriver.
via
reddit
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfAY-7QhcuA&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5F0SzxqSWU&w=470] | 17 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "671430",
"author": "eric",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T18:25:17",
"content": "According to Red Green, “Any tool is the right tool”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "671437",
"author": "plfx",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T18:30:0... | 1,760,376,846.65109 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/06/automatic-wakeboarding-in-a-pond/ | Automatic Wakeboarding In A Pond | Brian Benchoff | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"wakeboard",
"wakeboarding",
"water skiing"
] | [Rick] sent in an awesome project he and his uncle [Charlie] have been working on for this summer. It’s a
completely automatic wakeboarding system
that tows [Charlie] and company from one end of his backyard pond and back again.
The entire system is supported by two towers at either end of the pond. Strung between these towers is a 420 foot cable that pulls the rider from one end to the other before stopping, and automatically continuing in the opposite direction. Apart from stopping and starting the motor attached to the cable, no user input is required. This means anyone lucky enough to make it to [Charlie]’s farm can wakeboard all afternoon without a break.
[Rick] posted a few short videos covering the internals of the system. From what we can see, the guys are using a
LabJack U3-LV
data acquisition unit to grab the speed, direction, and position of the rider. This data is sent to a laptop that controls the motor suspended on one of the towers.
There are a few more videos of this incredibly fun toy available after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2sSfGgBgIs&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmRLNRK6cMU&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEoASC7qC28&w=470] | 24 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "671325",
"author": "Xeracy",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T17:11:35",
"content": "upsides to not living in an urban area…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "671327",
"author": "travisdeyle",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T17:13:07",
... | 1,760,376,847.024555 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/06/visual-rain-sensor-so-you-never-have-to-look-outside/ | Visual Rain Sensor — So You Never Have To Look Outside | Mike Szczys | [
"News"
] | [
"meter",
"rain",
"rain gauge",
"vu"
] | Now you can
find out how hard it is raining outside
without leaving the confines of your mancave/womancave. Pictured above is the sensor portion of what [Frapedia] calls his visual rain sensor.
Most rain gauges just use a graduated cylinder to capture water as it falls from the sky. That will give you a reasonably accurate measure of how much it rained, but it tells you nothing about how hard it rained. The measurement made here is based on sound. The harder it rains, the lounder the sound will be from water hitting an up-turned metal bowl. The unit above turns the system on when water bridges the traces, then a microphone is used to monitor the sound from the bowl. This is visualized by a VU-meter chip on a column of LEDs mounted inside the house.
After the break you can see the project box that houses the status display. We say it’s too small an needs to be replaced with
a much larger LED meter
. | 21 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "671251",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T16:22:29",
"content": "In Vancouver, the virtual rain sensor is just a switch permanently stuck in the “on” position.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "671256",
"autho... | 1,760,376,847.087778 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/06/pneumatic-car-launcher-is-actually-more-than-just-a-hackers-fantasy/ | Pneumatic Car Launcher Is Actually More Than Just A Hacker’s Fantasy | Mike Szczys | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"car launcher",
"pneumatic",
"stunt"
] | So if you had to launch a car through these goal posts how would you do it? Certainly not with a slingshot (although we might have gone with a steam-powered catapult a-la an aircraft carrier). That maroon car with the white stripe is
about to make the flight
thanks to a very powerful pneumatic launcher.
We don’t usually attend the demolition derby, so this sort of thing is new to us. And we were even more surprised to find that this isn’t strictly a novelty act. The system is actually
how some of the more dangerous automotive stunts are done
for the movies. This launch sends the car in a graceful arc that is right on target and reminds us of the cliffhanger stunts from
The Dukes of Hazzard
(TV, not the recent movie). But if you’re a director looking for a horrific car accident, the rig can be altered to send the car spiraling through the air. Sounds like the record is nearly eight turns while airborne.
We don’t have any extra cars to launch, so we’ll stick to
making the confetti fly
. | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "671192",
"author": "ibster",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T15:41:06",
"content": "Reminded me of a Top-Gear episode.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "671299",
"author": "tony",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T16:51:09",
... | 1,760,376,847.427833 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/06/building-a-diy-gps-cube/ | Building A DIY GPS Cube | Brian Benchoff | [
"gps hacks"
] | [
"gps",
"oled"
] | Originally, [Karman] wanted to build a speedometer for his bike. Feature creep makes fools of us all, so after a month of work [Karman] had a
GPS-enabled cube
that tells him his current latitude and longitude, current time, course, direction and speed.
[Karman]’s GPS cube uses a
cheap GPS module
, Arduino Mini Pro, a magnificent OLED display, and a LiPo battery salvaged from a first gen iPod nano. Surprisingly, the build is very clean – there are no wires, headers, or random epoxy globs sticking out everywhere. The entire build is just a bit larger than one cubic inch, allowing [Karman] to carry around the power of a GPS device in his pocket.
The code for [Karman]’s GPS cube uses the TinyGPS library for Arduino, that has a few great functions that track the number of satellites visible and report the current time. Now all that’s left to do is fabricate a case for this awesome little project. As always, video demo after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaPWv66W1TY&w=470] | 30 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "671107",
"author": "ino",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T14:30:58",
"content": "that’s really nice !",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "671118",
"author": "Mark",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T14:37:39",
"content": "That’s a fun p... | 1,760,376,847.218073 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/06/electronic-bike-derailleur/ | Electronic Bike Derailleur | Brian Benchoff | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"bike",
"derailleur"
] | [Nabil] sent in an awesome
electronic bicycle derailleur
. Now, instead of pulling a steel cable with a shifting mechanism, [Nabil] can change gears electronically. As a bonus, the derailleur can be controlled by a small bicycle computer, so he’s always in the right gear.
The new electronic derailleur is controlled by a pair of servos with push buttons in the handle bar. This allows [Nabil] to automatically trim his chain, completely eliminating chain rub.
This electronic shifter is part of [Nabil]’s much large
bike computer project
. In addition to electronic control of what gear the bike is in, [Nabil] will be adding a GPS, accelerometer, an altimeter and a heart rate monitor and pulse ox meter. That’s an impressive bit of kit, and we cant wait to see the entire project finished. You can pick up the current version of the design
over on GitHub
and follow all the updates on
[Nabil]’s blog
. | 38 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "671040",
"author": "Alexander",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T13:36:36",
"content": "This is really cool, Imagine the possibilities, especially in electric bike applications.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "671069",
"author": "St... | 1,760,376,847.381024 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/06/outdoor-stereo-helps-your-neighbors-learn-to-issue-noise-complaints/ | Outdoor Stereo Helps Your Neighbors Learn To Issue Noise Complaints | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"amp",
"amplifier",
"battery",
"bluetooth",
"lawnmower",
"speakers",
"stereo"
] | Backyard parties are going to rock over at [Effin_dead_again’s] house. That’s because
he just finished building this outdoor stereo
. It carries its own power supply so you can take it on the road with you, and we don’t think you’ll have trouble hearing it with the 240 Watt amplifier hidden inside.
He shared
the equipment details in his Reddit conversation
. A 12V lawn mower battery sits in the base of the wooden enclosure. One of the commenters mentioned the dangers of hydrogen off-gassing from that power source, but [Effin_dead_again] thought of that and included venting around the lid. The subwoofer is an 8″ Alpine, and speakers are out of a Hyundai car. The head unit has Bluetooth built in for easy connection to your smart phone. It of course has the ability to play CDs and MP3s too, and we’d bet you can tune the radio if there’s an antenna connected.
Need similar power but a bit more portability? Check out
this stereo built into a cooler
. | 23 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "670944",
"author": "danman1453",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T12:22:30",
"content": "Looks like a nice build. I am working on a work site version with some protective covers over the speakers. Do you have anything set up to run the system from wall power? Or, is the fun over when the ba... | 1,760,376,847.151954 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/06/arduino-rover-doubles-up-on-obstacle-avoidance/ | Arduino Rover Doubles Up On Obstacle Avoidance | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"autonomous",
"rangefinder",
"rc",
"rover"
] | [Eduard Ros] wrote in show off
his first attempt at building an autonomous rover
(
translated
). As with many of these projects, he started with the base of a remote control toy truck. This solves so many mechanical issues, like steering, locomotion, and power source.
He just needed a way to control the vehicle. The
recent LayerOne badge hacks
either did this through the wireless controller protocol or by adding an Arduino directly to the vehicle. [Eduard] chose the latter, and also included obstacle avoidance sensors in the process. We’ve seen quite a few that use these ultrasonic rangefinders. He decided to go a different route by adding two of them rather than scanning by mounting one on a servo motor.
The video after the break shows the vehicle successfully navigating through a tight space. This makes us wonder how much data can be processed from the stationary sensors? We’re not familiar with how wide the horizontal sensitivity is on the devices. If you have some insight, please share you knowledge in the comments section. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "670899",
"author": "DarwinSurvivor",
"timestamp": "2012-06-06T11:26:51",
"content": "I find it interresting that he decided to run it in reverses (as a rear-steering setup). I can see how it would make the programming easier since the camera is AT the pivot, but I don’t think it wou... | 1,760,376,847.526187 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/05/retrotechtacular-the-mother-of-all-tech-demos/ | Retrotechtacular: The Mother Of All Tech Demos | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"arpanet",
"Douglas Engelbart",
"mother of all tech demos",
"retrotechtacular"
] | Most bits of a computer we take for granted today – the mouse, hypertext, video conferencing, and word processing – were all invented by one team of researchers at Stanford in the late 60s. When the brains behind the operation, [Douglas Engelbart], showed this to 1000 computer researchers, the demo became known as The Mother of all Demos. Luckily, you can check out
this demo in its entirety
on YouTube.
Even though [Englebart]’s demo looks incredibly dated today, it was revolutionary at the time. This was the first demonstration of the computer mouse (side note: they call the cursor a ‘bug’), a chorded keyboard, and so many other technologies we take for granted today. During the presentation, [Englebart] was connected to the
SDS 940
computer via the
on-line system
30 miles away from Stanford. Yes, this pre-ARPANET, what is normally cited as the precursor to the Internet.
Sadly, most of [Englebart]’s researchers became disillusioned with the time sharing /mainframe paradigm shown in this demo. Those researchers wanted a more decentralized means of computing, so they went off to Xerox PARC where they helped create the first personal computers. Still, most of the ideas from 1968, such as the mouse, hypertext, and word processing, were in those little Xerox boxes.
On a more philosophical note, [Englebart] began his demo with the question, “If, in your office, you as an intellectual worker were supplied with a computer display, backed up by a computer that was alive for you all day and was instantly responsive to every action you had, how much value could you derive from that?” In the 44 years since this Mother of all Demos, we’ve gotten to the point where we already have a computer on our desks all day that is able to do any task imaginable, and it certainty improved our quality of life.
There are a few great resources covering the Mother of all Demos, including the
Douglas Engelbart Institute’s history page
and the
Stanford Mousesite
. Looking back, it’s not only amazing how far we’ve come, but also how little has actually changed. | 30 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "670414",
"author": "rue_mohr",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T23:24:07",
"content": "“was instantly responsive to every action you had”Nope we’re not there yet.Or maybe the definition of instantanious went from a minute to half a second…:)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"rep... | 1,760,376,847.593503 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/05/homemade-silicon-carbide-led/ | Homemade Silicon Carbide LED | Mike Szczys | [
"chemistry hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"homemade",
"led",
"SiC",
"silicon carbide"
] | Here’s an LED indicator which was
made at home out of a Silicon Carbide (SiC) crystal
(
Internet Archive Mirror
). The concept is simple, but a bit of trial and error goes into getting that tiny amber spot to light up.
The guesswork comes in finding the right piece of crystal. First [KOS] broke it into tiny pieces, then he started poking the chunks with electrified probes to see if he could get some light out of them. Once an active area was found he needed a base for the crystal. The image above shows the two nails which he used. This provides a large mounting area that also acts as a heat sink to make sure the LED won’t burn itself out. There’s a solder blob which he kept molten with his iron until the crystal could be pushed into place. That holds it securely as the pin which serves as the cathode is positioned.
The whole setup is soldered to some protoboard and is ready to use. This is the second time we remember seeing this technique used to fabricate LEDS.
The first time was an accident
. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "670363",
"author": "Dan B",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T21:48:36",
"content": "Reminds me of the old crystal radios I used to play with.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "671280",
"author": "PI",
"timestamp": "2012-... | 1,760,376,847.481355 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/05/blu-ray-cnc-looks-great-for-branding-and-engraving/ | Blu-ray CNC Looks Great For Branding And Engraving | Mike Szczys | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"blu-ray",
"cnc",
"cutter",
"engraver",
"laser",
"optical drive"
] | [Nav] got the bug for a tiny little laser cutter. He pulled off the build, and has just finished the second rendition which makes some nice improvements. He’s was hoping for a laser cutter, but we think
this really shines when it comes to branding objects
like the scrap wood seen above.
This joins a long line of optical drive parts builds. For instance, we saw this
plotter that used the lens sleds from some CD-ROM drives
. You may think that [Nav] doesn’t need to worry about the Z axis since this is a laser but you’d be wrong. The focal point of the light needs to hit at the right place to cut efficiently, and this is often the trouble with laser cutters. As material is burned away the laser becomes less efficient if you don’t adjust the lens for vertical position. That’s why we think it’s best as an engraver, but
the original build writeup for his cutter
does show some success cutting letters in dark paper.
Check out a clip of this design being burnt into the wood after the break. | 10 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "670294",
"author": "atomsoft",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T20:46:32",
"content": "nice!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "670323",
"author": "conundrum",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T21:06:33",
"content": "Great hack, reusing... | 1,760,376,847.638279 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/05/open-source-graphics-card/ | Open Source Graphics Card | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"graphics card",
"open source",
"ORSoC"
] | Even though NVidia and ATI have been open-source friendly for a while now, there still isn’t a true open-source graphics card. [Anton] and [Per] are trying to fix that by building his own graphics card around an FPGA. The project
is called ORSoC
, and it’s available on opencores.com.
The guys are building the ORSoC graphics card around a
Digilent Atlys
FPGA dev board. So far, he can draw lines, textured triangles, bitmap or vector fonts, and throw a few 3D meshes up on the screen. This project isn’t intended to run advanced OpenGL or Steam on Linux, but for all the work that into this graphics accelerator, it’s an amazing piece of work.
There are a few demos after the break; a cube rotating in 3D and a demo drawing and translating polygons and a few textures. The ORSoC is a bit slow, but that’s an artifact of the build not being optimized for the FPGA the team is using. If you’d like to test this graphics card, there’s
a Git available
. As a bonus you don’t even need an FPGA to play around with this project. There’s also a software emulation of all the functions. Very neat.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiielWxDH24&w=470]
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0b91_pnmSs&w=470] | 31 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "670187",
"author": "charliex",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T19:27:12",
"content": "that’s hot.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "670202",
"author": "plfx",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T19:35:43",
"content": "I like this projec... | 1,760,376,847.710662 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/05/large-scale-arduino-controlled-greenhouse-does-some-serious-farming/ | Large-scale Arduino Controlled Greenhouse Does Some Serious Farming | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"controller",
"garden",
"greenhouse"
] | [Instrument Tek] isn’t messing around with a hobby-sized greenhouse. In fact if it were any bigger we’d call it a commercial operation. But what interests us is
the professional-quality greenhouse automation he built around and Arduino board
.
The greenhouse is about what you’d expect to see at a nursery, except the footprint is somewhere around 10’x10′. It’s a stick-built frame with walls made of poly. Professional greenhouses monitor and regulate temperature and humidity and this one does just that. The video after the break starts off by showing the controller box. It has temperature, humidity, and light sensors that allow the Arduino to judge growing conditions. If it gets too hot, some slats are opened and a fan exhausts air from the structure. If it gets to cold, a series of light fixtures are energized. They contain heat lamps, as this setup is in northern Alberta, Canada and it can get quite cold some nights. The drip system is also automated, with a solenoid to turn water on and off.
In addition to that 3:26 show-and-tell, we’ve embedded a 27-minute video that shows
how to build the controller box
. So you can
start you plants indoors on the rack
, then populate the greenhouse when they get large enough.
[Thanks Ricardo] | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "670092",
"author": "Kyle",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T18:15:31",
"content": "Is it just me, or is the Arduino Mega overkill here? He has 3 digital outputs, serial TX/RX and 2 analog inputs. Wouldn’t an ATtiny8 w/ a shift register or an ATtiny 48 suffice?",
"parent_id": null,
"... | 1,760,376,847.898845 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/05/home-automation-with-rc-wall-plugs-and-raspberry-pi/ | Home Automation With RC Wall Plugs And Raspberry Pi | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"home automation",
"mains",
"outlet",
"radio control",
"raspberry pi",
"remote control",
"RF"
] | [Jake] took some cheap hardware and figured out a way to use it as a huge home automation network. He’s chose a Raspberry Pi board to connect the radio controlled power outlets to his network. He wrote about his project in two parts, the first is
hacking the RC outlet controller
and the second is
using the Raspberry Pi to manipulate it
.
These RC outlets are a pass-through for appliances that connect to mains (lamps, consumer electronics, christmas trees, etc). Often the protocol used by the cheap-as-dirt remote is difficult to work with, but [Jake] really hit it out of the part on this one. In addition to simulating button presses for up to fifteen devices on the remote, he replaced the DIP switch package. This lets him change the encoding, essentially allowing the one device to control up to 32 sets of outlets. Theoretically this lets him command 480 devices from the Raspberry Pi. Since that board is a web server it’s just a matter of coding an interface.
Some of the inspiration for this hack came from
the whistle-controlled appliance hack
. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "670022",
"author": "Fractal",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T17:06:53",
"content": "Excellent, someone’s done it, and neatly. Doing exactly this has been my recommendation for people wanting to control mains voltages with microelectronics, as it keeps them safe from the HV stuff, and havi... | 1,760,376,847.757747 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/05/tearing-apart-a-hot-glue-gun-for-a-3d-printer/ | Tearing Apart A Hot Glue Gun For A 3D Printer | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"cnc",
"hot glue",
"reprap"
] | If you’re building a 3D printer, the most complicated part is the extruder. This part uses a series of gears to pull plastic filament off of a spool, heats it up, and squirts it out in a manner precise enough to build objects one layer at a time. [Chris]
made his own extruder
out of a hot glue gun and made it so simple we’re surprised we haven’t seen this build before.
The basic operations of a plastic extruder – pushing a rod of plastic through a heated nozzle – already exists in a hot glue gun available for $3 at WalMart. To build his printer, [Chris] tor apart the hot glue gun and mounted the nozzle on a piece of plywood. The hot glue sticks are fed into the nozzle with the help of a 3D printed gear and a stepper motor driver.
After the break, you can see [Chris]’s hot glue gun RepRap printing a 10cm cube. It’s not fast, but the quality is exceptional, especially considering he made it out of a hot glue gun.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03llBA5-yuU&w=470] | 42 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "669968",
"author": "wetomelo",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T16:24:26",
"content": "I had this idea in my mind for so looong time, finally somebody build it!. The pros are:1. Hot glue is cheap2. Easy to find everywhere3. Hot glue guns are cheap to and easy to modify4. Used pieces can be ... | 1,760,376,848.266864 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/05/update-many-improvements-to-optical-sensor-based-piano/ | Update: Many Improvements To Optical-sensor-based Piano | Mike Szczys | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"keyboard",
"optical",
"piano",
"reflectance",
"sensors"
] | [Sebastian] wrote in to update us about the optical sensor project he started a couple of years ago. You’ll find
his most recent update here
, but there are four different post links after the break that document various parts of his progress.
You may not recall the original project, but he was
looking to add resolution and sensitivity
to the keystroke of an electric keyboard. With the sensors built, he started experimenting with using the force data to affect other parts of the sound. His post back in January shows this bending the pitch as the keys receive more force from the player.
In March he installed the sensor array in an old piano. The video he posted where he plays the piano, but we hear the sound generated from the sensor inputs. We’ve embedded it after the break.
Last week he published two posts. They cover a redesign of the sensor boards, and the panelization work he’s done to help bring down manufacturing costs. The base unit was redesigned to use an AT90USB microcontroller which consolidates the separate chips used in the previous version.
Progress updates:
http://sebion.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/polyphonic-aftertouch/
http://sebion.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/epick-goes-oberdaempfer/
http://sebion.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/235/
http://sebion.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/motherboard-the-next-generation/ | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "670332",
"author": "sebion",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T21:15:17",
"content": "Just for clarification: It’s only the action of an old piano that I salvaged. The rest of it has been trashed away ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2... | 1,760,376,848.188505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/05/chibikart-step-by-step-lets-you-build-your-own-tiny-wheel-racer/ | Chibikart: Step-by-step Lets You Build Your Own Tiny-wheel Racer | Mike Szczys | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"electric",
"kart",
"motor"
] | [cHaRlEsg] posted
a rant
, then posted full instruction on
how to build this electric go-kart for yourself
.
Now the rant calls this an unobtainium-free sibling to the Chibikart. We’re sad to report that the unobtainium he’s talking about are the hyper-awesome
hand-wound hub motors that powered the original kart
which left us dumbstruck after seeing it for the first time. But look, few mortals have the skills and tools necessary to manufacture those circular marvels of modern engineering.
So you’ll just need to settle for stuff you can buy to assemble the tiny kart seen here. It’s all-electric, using two DC motors to power the rear wheels. You can catch it racing around the hallways in the video after the break. The only thing we can see missing from the equation (other than red shells and the like) is a helmet and bumpers (you’ll see why at the end of the clip). | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "669799",
"author": "soopergooman",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T14:31:23",
"content": "MY FATHER IS A MASTER ELECTRICIAN, BET HE COULD MAKE THOSE MOTORS. I WANT ONE OF THESE AND NOW HAVE THE PLANS, THANK YOOU. MY CPS LCK BUTTON IS MESSED SORRY FOR YELLING.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,376,848.071305 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/05/this-is-not-real-lifelike-renderings-from-eagle-files/ | This Is Not Real: Lifelike Renderings From Eagle Files | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"eagle",
"kerkythea",
"photo-realistic",
"render",
"sketchup"
] | Look at it. Just look at it! This board is a lie. It doesn’t exist (at least not what’s seen in the image here). Instead this is
a lifelike rendering made from Eagle CAD files
.
We’ve already seen that it is rather easy to pull Eagle CAD files into Google SketchUp
thanks to the EagleUp package
. You’ll get a 3D model that looks quite nice but it’s hardly photo-realistic. This process starts exactly the same way. But you’re going to want to process the SketchUp file one more time.
A program called Kerkythea
does this for you. It’s an open source project aimed at producing realistic renderings. It has a plugin which will process any SketchUp model and apply the textures and shadings that look so wonderful in the image above. It’s not a one-click process, but reminds us of the mountain of options you’d find in a program like Blender3D. You’ll need to map out settings for each different material you’d like to map, but the guides found at the link above do a good job of showing how it’s done. | 20 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "669719",
"author": "Rob Wentworth",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T13:21:37",
"content": "Great for making vaporware to show to Venture Capitalists. :-D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "669782",
"author": "DiegoB",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,376,848.327134 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/05/simple-power-adapter-thumbs-its-nose-at-proprietary-connectors/ | Simple Power Adapter Thumbs Its Nose At Proprietary Connectors | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"ac",
"power adapter",
"time-lapse"
] | [Mike Worth] wanted to use his camera for some time-lapse photography. Since it’s used to take many pictures over a long period of time, he doesn’t want to deal with batteries running low. But there’s no standard power jack on the side; instead the official charger consists of an adapter that is inserted in place of the batteries. Rather than break the bank with the special cable, [Mike]
made his own battery compartment A/C adapter
.
You can see that it is made up of two parts. The first is a standard wall wart that outputs the correct voltage and has an acceptable current rating. The other part is the adapter cable that connects to the camera on one end, and has a barrel jack on the other. [Mike] rolled some paperboard around a pencil until it matched the diameter of a AA battery. Once of the cylinders has a thumb tack for the negative lead, and the other uses a screw and washer for the positive side. He soldered some wire to these and he’s in business.
He must be snapping photos frequently enough to avoid the auto-shutoff feature. That or he’s disabled it with the use of
some custom firmware
. | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "669672",
"author": "mikejworth",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T12:24:49",
"content": "Hi, this is Mike Worth. Just to clear up a couple of things; the stock wall wart actually gives 5V rather than the desired 3V, there are a couple of diodes included to drop this voltage down a bit and I... | 1,760,376,848.146882 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/05/open-hardware-moodlamp-with-atmega/ | Open Hardware Moodlamp With ATmega | Caleb Kraft | [
"home hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"mood lamp"
] | [Daniel Andrade] has
built a pretty cool mood lamp circuit
. He was initially inspired by
[Toon Beerton’s] Ikea lamp
, but found he just didn’t have the knowledge to proceed with the PIC processor. He rushed out and bought an arduino to begin learning. Once he figured out how to properly make a mood lamp function, he created a custom circuit to utilize an ATmega chip instead of his whole arduino. He’s now on his second revision of the circuit and is sharing all the files with whoever would like to download them.
His circuit utilizes a 3wRGB LED and any ATmega 8/168/328. He has left some space for expansion on the board as well just in case you’d like to add sensors of some kind (he mentions a temp sensor). | 8 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "669717",
"author": "manekinen",
"timestamp": "2012-06-05T13:20:13",
"content": "Rly? Mega8 @ 16MHz for driving a LED? This can be done with attiny4… please :/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "669724",
"author": "daniels... | 1,760,376,848.538518 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/04/bike-alert-tells-drives-to-back-off/ | Bike Alert Tells Drivers To Back Off | Mike Szczys | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"bicycle",
"bike",
"led",
"range finder",
"tail light",
"ultrasonic"
] | Bicycle commuters are often in a battle with drivers for space on the road. [Hammock Boy] does all of his commuting on two human-powered wheels, and is quite interested in not getting hit by a car. He decided to ply his hobby skills to build a device that helps keep him safe. It’s not just a tail light, it’s
a sensor that shines brighter the closer a car is to the back of the bike
.
The sensor portion is the ultrasonic range finder seen in the center of the protoboard. Surrounding it is a set of LEDs. Each is individually addressable with the whole package controlled by an Arduino. The sketch measures the distance between the back of the bike and whatever’s behind it. If there’s nothing, one Red led is illuminated. If there is an object, the lights shine brighter, and in different patterns as the distance decreases.
Certainly the next iteration could use a standalone chip without the need for the whole Arduino. This could even work with two battery cells and no voltage regulator. We also think the use of any other color than Red LEDs is suspect but we do love the concept. | 79 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "668723",
"author": "giacomo",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T22:15:06",
"content": "“Oh, I wonder what pattern will show up if I get REALLY close?”Nice project. For version 2.0 I’d try to design the LED pattern to imply “back off” rather than “stare at the pretty lights!”. A car horn that... | 1,760,376,848.713868 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/04/color-multiplexing-through-fiber-optics/ | Color Multiplexing Through Fiber Optics | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"fiber optic",
"multiplexing",
"rgb"
] | If you want to go high bandwidth, fiber optics is the way to go. From trans-oceanic cables to the yet-unseen ‘fiber to every home,’ fiber optics allows a lot more bandwidth than a copper cable. In low-bandwidth applications, fiber optic cable transmits data using one color of light. There’s a way to get
more bandwidth out of a fiber optic cable
, as [Shahriar] found out while experimenting with an RGB LED.
For his experiment, [Shahriar] used a BlinkM programmable RGB LED and a
Sparkfun color sensor
. In fiber optic lines with one light, it is possible to send many simultaneously using PWM, but noise becomes a problem at high data rates. Using an RGB LED, [Shahriar] sends three levels of Red, Green, and Blue to transmit 9 bits at a time – perfect for sending a byte with a parity check in one quick light burst.
[Shahriar]’s technique is exactly how the pros pump massive amounts of data through a single fiber optic cable. All the tools, code, and MATLAB functions are available on [Shahriar]’s site, ready to be used by anyone wanting to experiment for themselves.
In the video after the break, [Shahriar] breaks everything down, including the tools, theory, and actual circuits. It’s an amazing video demo, so thorough we’re wondering if [Shahriar] has any teaching ambitions.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7HICe0MKB0&w=470] | 24 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "668676",
"author": "alvieboy",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T21:22:33",
"content": "This technique is older than I am.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength-division_multiplexingIt’s a nice experience, but TFA makes it look like it’s something new.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth":... | 1,760,376,848.391859 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/04/tunes-in-the-icebox/ | Tunes In The Icebox | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"ipod",
"music",
"refigerator",
"speakers"
] | A couple of years back [Bryan’s] iPod went on the fritz. It wasn’t completely broken, as long as he kept it really cold it still worked. So what was he to do with the crippled device? We’ve all heard of elevator music. [Bryan]
decided to invent refrigerator music
.
First he needed some speakers. A trip to the Goodwill store netted him a pair for under $5. They need A/C power, and the project depends on sensing when the door to the refrigerator is open. He killed two birds with one stone by adding a light socket outlet adapter. This provides a place to plug in the speakers’ power adapter, and it only gets juice when the door is opened. The gimpy iPod just constantly loops through the tracks stored within, but you’ll only hear it when the door is open and the speakers receive power. Of course the iPod will eventually run its own battery down so [Bryan] ran an extension cord out the side of the door to a wall outlet. This interrupts the door seal and we wish there were another way to keep it contained within. | 29 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "668610",
"author": "ferm",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T20:27:36",
"content": "use power from the fridge light inside….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "668612",
"author": "Alexander",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T20:29:11",
... | 1,760,376,848.603474 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/04/new-stm32-discovery-board-can-now-be-programmed-on-linux/ | New STM32 Discovery Board Can Now Be Programmed On Linux | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"CodeSourcery G++ Lite",
"discovery board",
"linux",
"stlink",
"stm32",
"stm32f0"
] | Last Wednesday I posted
a video review of the new STM32F0-Discovery board
which is built around an ARM Cortex-M0 chip. I speculated that it should work with the open source project aimed at programming these discovery boards. I tested it out and a connection could be made, but no code could be flashed. So I spent a few hours over the weekend and added support.
My updates are already in
the stlink repository
. After cloning the code, you can use three commands to compile the software (./autogen.sh, ./configure, make). That’s assuming you have all of the necessary dependencies (I had to install libusb-1.0-0-dev) and that you add the udev rule suggested in the documentation (also found in the repository). The program st-util connects to the board and provides a listening port for an ARM debugger (I’m using arm-none-eabi-gdb from CodeSourcery G++ Lite).
When I first started testing, the chip id was reporting as 0. It turns out the register address polled for this information was wrong. After finding that in the almost-900 page reference manual I went through the painstaking process of finding the hex values necessary to properly memory map the device. From there I also updated the blink example to generate an ELF file compatible with the Cortex-M0 chip. So out of the gate you should be able to use an ARM cross compiling toolchain to compile the example, connect to the board with this utility, then use the debugger from the toolchain to connect and flash that example to RAM.
There’s lots more to be done. To fully utilize the chip it is necessary to use a startup file and linker script when compiling. I’ve done nothing in this area, but I hope to work on some tutorials as I get further along. Of course if you have your own successes developing for this board using a Linux machine
we want to hear about it
! | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "668515",
"author": "Matt Williamson",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T19:21:03",
"content": "Nice! I just got mine in the mail 10 minutes ago and I’m in the middle of trying to get it up and running on OS X.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,376,848.763852 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/04/tracking-small-changes-in-video-to-see-someones-pulse/ | Tracking Small Changes In Video To See Someone’s Pulse | Brian Benchoff | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Software Development",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"motion detection",
"siggraph"
] | [Gil] sent in an awesome paper
from this year’s SIGGRAPH
. It’s a way to detect subtle changes in a video feed from [Hao-Yu Wu,
et al.
] at the MIT CS and AI lab and Quanta Research. To get a feel for what this paper is about,
check out the video
and come back when you pick your jaw off the floor.
The project works by detecting and amplifying very small changes in color occurring in several frames of video. From the demo, the researchers were able to detect someone’s pulse by noting the very minute changes in the color of their skin whenever their face is pumped full of blood.
A neat side effect of detecting small changes in color is the ability to also detect
motion
. In the video, there’s an example of detecting someone’s pulse by exaggerating the expanding artery in someone’s wrist, and the change in a shadow produced by the sun over the course of 15 seconds. This is Batman-level tech here, and we can’t wait to see an OpenCV library for this.
Even though the researchers have shown an extremely limited use case – just pulses and breathing – we’re seeing a whole lot of potential applications. We’d love to see an open source version of this tech turned into a lie detector for the upcoming US presidential debates, and the motion exaggeration is
perfect
for showing why every sports referee is blind as a bat.
If you want to read the actual paper,
here’s the PDF
. As always, video after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONZcjs1Pjmk&w=470] | 30 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "668442",
"author": "regulatre",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T18:18:40",
"content": "Absolutely Fascinating!Something similar was simulated in the movie “The Recruit”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "668458",
"author": "compukidm... | 1,760,376,848.879179 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/04/making-flex-sensors-on-the-cheap/ | Making Flex Sensors On The Cheap | Brian Benchoff | [
"Parts"
] | [
"anti static bag",
"flex sensor",
"velostat"
] | When [Michelle] was making a sign language translation glove, she needed a bunch of flex sensors. These flex sensors cost about $10 a pop, meaning her budget for the project was eaten up by these bendy potentiometers. Since then, [Michelle] figured out a great way to make
extremely inexpensive bend sensors
using anti-static bags and masking tape, allowing her to start her project once again.
The build works by sandwiching Velostat plastic bags – the same electrically conductive bags all your components arrive in – between layers of masking tape. A jumper wires is attached to a strip of Velostat attached to a piece of masking tape. Between two of these anti-static/masking tape assemblies, another piece of Velostat is placed. After laminating all these pieces together, [Michelle] had a primitive yet very functional flexible potentiometer.
After attaching one of these flex sensors to an analog input of her dev board of choice, she had a wonderful and inexpensive flexible sensor. You can check out this sensor in action after the break. | 17 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "668348",
"author": "Smeeg",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T17:22:38",
"content": "YouTube link for those who detest Vimeo:http://youtu.be/WZYpGrRibKk",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "668626",
"author": "Zee",
"timesta... | 1,760,376,848.814258 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/04/potting-electronics-with-silicone/ | Potting Electronics With Silicone | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"potting",
"silicone",
"tegaderm"
] | If you want to improve the reliability of your electronics, just cover them in silicone or epoxy. Potting, as this technique is called, protects your project from impact and loose wires, but most of the time ends up as a gloppy mess. [Charles] figured out an awesome way to
make pro-looking potted electronics
using silicone and a few supplies from the emergency room.
On one of [Charles]’s trips to the ER, a nurse put
Tegaderm
on a wound and he noticed his skin could breathe. Figuring Tegaderm would also allow silicone to breathe, he asked for a sample and went back to the lab. After putting a few globs of silicone on a PCB, [Charles] wrapped the whole thing in Tegaderm. Much to his surprise, the silicone cured and made a smooth, glossy protective covering on his board.
[Charles] put up a
Picassa album
of his Tegaderm/silicone potted electronics, and we’ve got to say they’re looking very professional. This technique could also be applied to [Charles]’
glass PCB touch sensor
, allowing for the creation of clear (or at least tranlucent) PCBs.
After the break, you can check out [Charles] potting his ATtinyISP board in silicone with Tegaderm. One word of warning, though: don’t use a silicone that uses acetic acid to cure –
that’s a death sentence
to electronics. Luckily, there’s an easy test to see if your particular brand of silicone produces acetic acid while curing. Just squeeze a bit of silicone on a piece of scrap, and if it smells like vinegar after a while, don’t use it. | 32 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "668261",
"author": "sureshotstudio",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T16:34:12",
"content": "http://academy.cba.mit.edu/2012/students/bas.withagen/cl08asgn.htmlsame thing only using molds.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "668264",
"a... | 1,760,376,848.959 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/04/book-scanner-kits-now-available/ | Book Scanner Kits Now Available | Caleb Kraft | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"books"
] | [Daniel Reetz] wants you to be able to scan books. This has been a goal of his for quite some time, and now he’s
bringing a kit into play
. We’ve
always liked book scanners
here, many of us have extensive libraries or even peculiar selections we would like to share. [Daniel] is starting off with a short run of these scanners. Once all the bugs are worked out, there should be plenty available for everyone. The kit includes the frame, LED lighting, bicycle levers, and cables. You have to add glass, books, and a camera.
Of course, if you still want to design and build your own, there are TONS of variations available in the forums at
DIYbookscanner.org
.
[via
Adafruit
]
[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/29184137] | 28 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "668253",
"author": "Nuno.S.Almeida",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T16:26:00",
"content": "$600 for a few pieces of wood and screws is a bit too much, imho.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "668490",
"author": "eo",
"t... | 1,760,376,849.027866 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/04/wi-fli-copter-broken-harvest-the-parts/ | Wi-Fli Copter Broken? Harvest The Parts! | Caleb Kraft | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"heli",
"rc",
"wi-fli"
] | [Nick] was somewhat disappointed when the Wi-Fly helicopter he bought his son broke in less than 10 minutes. The main gear that turns the rotor split in half, rendering the copter WiFi enabled trash. [Nick] however decided that he didn’t want to waste an opportunity and harvested the receiver parts. To test them out, he wired them up to the controller for an R/C truck. This gave him a WiFi truck with a nifty android interface. It actually works pretty well, as you can see in the video below. [Nick] points out that, while this works fine, he could ultimately repurpose this fancy little WIFI controlled 3v switch to whatever he wants. He mentions garage doors and lights (and terminators), so this might be an opportunistic way for him to get into some fun home automation. | 10 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "668101",
"author": "Alex Rossie",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T14:36:05",
"content": "Fixing the main roto would have been fairly simple.But I guess this way he and his son get to have some fun.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "66811... | 1,760,376,849.079583 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/04/whats-inside-a-lightning-arrestor/ | What’s Inside A Lightning Arrestor? | Caleb Kraft | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"high voltage",
"lightning"
] | What
is
inside one of those things? The folks over at Northstreetlabs have set out to answer just that question. You’ve seen these things before, and if you’re uneducated on the subject like myself, you just assumed they were there to stop a possible connection from a power line to the pole/building to which it is attached. Apparently that is part of their purpose. When presented with lightning, however, they turn to conductors allowing the lightning to pass to ground.
You can see their teardown in video form,
as well as an explanation of how exactly they work on their site
. | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "668041",
"author": "fartface",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T13:47:31",
"content": "And they explode quite violently when hit with a mazzive strike.I was 1200 feet away from a substation when it was struck with a really fat lightning bolt. Most everything looked like it exploded, but l... | 1,760,376,849.179025 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/04/bill-porter-repairs-a-science-museum-exhibit/ | [Bill Porter] Repairs A Science Museum Exhibit | Caleb Kraft | [
"Uncategorized"
] | [
"exhibit",
"museum",
"phosphorescent"
] | For those who are unfamiliar, “Freeze Frame” is the name of a common display in science museums. It is a small dark room with a single wall covered in phosphorescent material. Opposite of this wall is a flash on a timer. You enter the room, strike a pose and wait for the flash, then view your shadow preserved on the wall behind you.
[Bill] was saddened to see the display at his local science museum had been decommissioned long ago. All that was left was a dark room with a phosphorescent coated wall. Some industrious employees had rigged up some LED pens for people to “draw with light”, but in [Bill’s] opinion this wasn’t as impressive.
He promptly volunteered to rebuild the display
himself and we commend him, both on the fantastic job he did as well as his service to his local community. Great job [Bill], keep up the good work. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "668004",
"author": "barryronaldo",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T12:58:40",
"content": "Bill as usual does a great job getting this thing patched up for a new generation of learners :) Keep up the good work, sir!As a side note, I haven’t seen one of these in years and think that kids wo... | 1,760,376,849.127622 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/04/waterproofing-an-rc-plane/ | Waterproofing An RC Plane | Brian Benchoff | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"easystar",
"remote control",
"seaplane"
] | A few years ago, the EasyStar RC plane took the remote control community by storm, launching dozens of clone ready to fly planes that found their way onto many fields, rooftops, and trees. [hammydude] wanted to take his EasyStar with him while also playing around with his jetski, so he did the reasonable thing: he
waterproofed his remote control plane
.
The EasyStar is made of foam, but that doesn’t mean it’s ready to land on a lake. To prevent any damage to the electronics, servos, and pushrods, [hammy] slightly modified the fuselage of his plane and potted the electronics in silicone glue. Now this excellent RC plane is capable of landing on calm water with a slow self-destruction.
[hammy] has flown his EasyStar seaplane in salt water, but that is a terrible environment for the exposed brushless motor. Before packing it in for the day, [hammy] pours a bit of fresh water over the motor and throttles up for a minute or two. This seems to be good enough for the bearings in the motor; in the video after the break, you can see [hammy] submerge his plane in the water and take it for a short test flight. There’s some great in-flight shots taken from the EasyStar – surely an awesome way to enjoy a trip to the shore.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpcEO7z8KxM#t=2m34s&w=470] | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "667973",
"author": "SpydaMonky",
"timestamp": "2012-06-04T12:09:53",
"content": "I would never do that, very cool though! I don’t think I could trust a rubber band to seal my electronics during a full submersion!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,376,849.324519 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/03/hackerspace-intro-foothills-community-workshop-in-granite-falls-nc/ | Hackerspace Intro: Foothills Community Workshop In Granite Falls NC | Caleb Kraft | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"hackerspace",
"north carolina"
] | [Rich Goldner] sent in this walkthrough of the Foothills Community Workshop in Granite Falls N.C. Taken during their open house, [Rich] gives us the grand tour showing off the different areas including the HAM station, electronics station, collective work areas, the machine shop, and wood shop.
Though you can see some of the areas are still being put together, their space looks really cool. They have about 3,500 square feet in an old mill. They started with four very enthusiastic individuals who rented the space and set out to build a workshop. Since then, they’ve added 17 more people. Not too bad considering the town population there is only about 5,000. | 24 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "667513",
"author": "Hitek146",
"timestamp": "2012-06-03T22:32:23",
"content": "Nice to have all of that room to work with. The electronics bench sure seems quite minimal, though. One oscilloscope for the whole place? Really?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,376,849.38372 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/03/76101/ | One Console To Rule Them All | Caleb Kraft | [
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Nintendo Wii Hacks",
"Playstation Hacks",
"PSP Hacks",
"Xbox Hacks"
] | [
"console",
"retro"
] | [Bacteria] retro console modder extraordinaire,
is back at it with a rather massive project
. “Unity”(originally Dubbed Alpha Omega), this will be a single unit that can play games from 20 different console systems. It will run from one power supply, have one video output, and strangely enough, one controller.
[Chris Downing] was nice enough to tip us off to a video of the Unity controller in action. The controller isn’t quite as bulky as we would have assumed with the extensive list of consoles it has to support, but that could be, in part, due to the fact that you actually swap out the brains for the controller for each system’s compatibility.
Unless we missed something in the extensive thread, the following game systems have already been assimilated:
Sega SMS – done, not added into system yet
Nintendo NES – done, not added into system yet
Mattel Intellivision
Nintendo GameCube (and GBA via GBA Player)
Amiga CD32
Philips CD-i
Playstation 2 (also plays Playstation 1 games)
with these remaining on the list:
SNK NeoGeo
Sega MegaDrive
Amstrad GX4000
Nintendo 64
Sega Saturn
Sega DreamCast
ColecoVision
Nintendo SNES
NEC TurboGrafx/PC Engine
Atari 7800 (also plays Atari 2600 games)
Atari Jaguar | 30 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "667476",
"author": "solderguy",
"timestamp": "2012-06-03T20:24:07",
"content": "First!Also, that looks amazing! Too bad he doesn’t sell those, I would get 3!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "667480",
"author": "HaDAk",
"t... | 1,760,376,849.449753 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/03/hackaday-links-june-3-2012/ | Hackaday Links: June 3, 2012 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"apple",
"apple II",
"attiny",
"attiny85",
"cross stitch",
"cyberpunk",
"quadcopter"
] | When pigs fly…. close enough.
There are too many jokes to be made about this one. It’s a
quadcopter made out of a dead cat
. [Bert Jansen], the artist behind this, calls him Orville. He died from natural causes, and what better way to remember a feline friend that liked chasing birds?
Refurbishing an Apple ][
That thirty year old computer in your parent’s attic isn’t going to clean itself, is it? [Todd] put up a series of videos tearing down
a 1982 Apple ][ plus
, cleaning everything along the way, and doing a very nice demo of AppleSoft BASIC. This is where the revolution started, people.
Ohm sweet Ωhm
Cross stitch isn’t for grandmothers anymore. Adafruit put up a
cross stitch tutorial
to go along with their
resistor color code cross stitch kit
. Now down to Hobby Lobby to find black cross stitch cloth and make the ‘ol skull ‘n wrenches.
Welcome! To the world of yesterday!
Boing Boing found an amazing
cyberpunk photo spread
that appeared in the Mondo 2000 ‘zine back around 1992 or 1993. Even when keeping in mind that this is a self-parody, it’s still incredible. Hackers have laser pointers? And pagers?
Making Arduino projects smaller
[Scott] caught wind of a way to
shrinkify Arduino projects
, so he turned an Arduino protoboard into an
ATtiny85 programmer
. As a neat bonus, [Scott] can use the attached breadboard to build circuits around the ’85. | 30 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "667440",
"author": "nah!",
"timestamp": "2012-06-03T19:47:30",
"content": "the cat is simply gross",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "667474",
"author": "Haku",
"timestamp": "2012-06-03T20:20:42",
"content... | 1,760,376,849.664329 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/03/copying-complex-objects-in-wood/ | Copying Complex Objects In Wood | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"copy carver",
"duplicarver",
"pantograph",
"router"
] | [Matthias], eminent woodworker he is, designed and built
an awesome machine
to make copies of just about any object imaginable. With a few scrap 2x4s, and a few bolts, screws, and skateboard bearings, you too can copy anything into a solid block of wood.
The theory of operations for [Matthias]’ copy carver is mounting a router and ‘follower’ to the same piece of wood. Put that on an XY table with a rotation axis, and just about any object can be copied in wood or plastic. It’s not too dissimilar to a
Dulplicarver
, a routing machine meant to copy everything from gun stocks to guitar and violin bodies.
So far, [Matthias] has copied a
rotary phone
and a
sadly non-functional wrench
. It’s the perfect follow-up for [Matthias]’
3 axis pantograph router
that can copy and enlarge any random flat object you can throw at it.
via
Make | 9 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "667302",
"author": "Johnny O. Farnen",
"timestamp": "2012-06-03T17:03:54",
"content": "Ugh. I am old. I had to explain to my kids why this rotary phone constitutes a complex object…“But Daaaad, it has no buttons or screens!”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []... | 1,760,376,849.596257 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/03/piping-micrometer-data-to-a-vga/ | Piping Micrometer Data To A VGA | Caleb Kraft | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"micrometer"
] | [sspence] found himself in need of
a way to push the data from his digital micrometer to a VGA panel
for easy display. His micrometer had a data port, so he figured he could plug it into a micro controller and have that push data to a VGA. The micrometer spits out a 52 character data stream in reverse order, so he had to reassemble it in the correct order in software. After a bit of reverse engineering the funky data stream, he had an Arduino pulling the serial data. All that was left was the addition of a VGA shield for output.
He wanted to extend this a bit further though, so he added a foot switch and finger switch to allow for taking multiple measurements and display an average. In the end, he was left with a nice huge display for his micrometer that gave him exactly what he wanted.
We expect that someone will ask why he chose to use an arduino and a shield instead of designing a custom circuit with less components and cost. Our guess would be that his goal was to “generate bin numbers for gear sets” and he just needed an upgraded tool. His goal wasn’t to research design and implement the most efficient circuit. That being said, if anyone feels like designing a smaller package for this, feel free to share with the rest of us! | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "667266",
"author": "joe",
"timestamp": "2012-06-03T16:02:33",
"content": "It’s extremely sad that the HAD editors have to pre-emptivly counter Arduino hating trolls.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "667305",
"author": "... | 1,760,376,849.712909 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/03/building-an-rgb-mood-lamp-using-an-ikea-mylonit/ | Building An RGB Mood Lamp Using An IKEA Mylonit | Caleb Kraft | [
"home hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"ikea",
"rgb mood lamp"
] | [Toon Beerten] had been experimenting with LED lamp construction. He had already built a pretty neat pyramid of LEDs as a mood lamp but wanted something a little higher quality for his living room. He ran out and picked up an IKEA lamp, which you can see above. From the store, the lamp can only display one color, and has a clear construction. [Toon] wanted RGB and an opaque finish, so
he sanded the lamp and built a custom circuit
.
He tore out the lamp circuit and replaced it with his own, consisting of a 3W LED, a heatsink, and a PIC 16F628 (and the supporting components). The main circuit actually fits underneath the lamp pretty well. You can download the full schematics and code from his site if you’d like to replicate it.
As you can see in the video, the effect is quite nice. | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "667215",
"author": "Bogdan",
"timestamp": "2012-06-03T14:08:30",
"content": "This project inspired me to go directly to ikea and buy a mood lamp (unfortunately a different model). My receipe was similar: lamp, RGB led, 5V smps, AVR controller, rotary encoder lots of effects.",
"... | 1,760,376,849.760405 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/02/pcb-manufacturing-tutorial/ | PCB Manufacturing Tutorial | Brian Benchoff | [
"how-to",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"etched PCB",
"etching",
"pcb",
"toner transfer"
] | There comes a time in every maker’s career where solderless breadboards won’t do, perfboard becomes annoying, and deadbug is impossible. The solution is to manufacture a PCB, but there’s a learning curve. After learning a few tricks from
[Scott]’s awesome DIY PCB guide
, it’s easy to make your own printed circuit boards.
There are a few basic steps to making a PCB. First is designing the board in Eagle or
KiCad
. The next step, putting the design into copper, has a lot of techniques to choose from. Photo transfer, direct printing, and CNC milling have huge benefits, but by far the most common means hobbyists produce boards is with toner transfer using
a laminator
.
Unless you’re doing SMD-only circuits, a drill is required. Most people can get away with a Dremel or other rotary tool, but Hackaday has a
favorite drill press
that is perfect for drilling holes in FR-4. In
part two
of [Scott]’s tutorial, he goes over solder masks, silk screens before jumping into vias. These small bits of copper conducting electricity through a circuit board are
extremely
hard for the garage-bound builder to achieve on their own, but there are a few solutions – copper rivets (anyone have a US source for these?) and copper foil can be used, but sometimes the most effective solution is just hitting the board with a lot of solder and heat.
Thanks
[Upgrayd]
for the title pic. | 28 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "666682",
"author": "charliex",
"timestamp": "2012-06-02T18:26:09",
"content": "the link on my blog is wrong, but these are super easy to use. there are a few places that carry them stateside.http://charliex2.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/lpkf-easycontac-test/http://www.lpkfusa.com/store/... | 1,760,376,849.825701 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/02/manga-guide-to-smd/ | Manga Guide To SMD | Caleb Kraft | [
"how-to"
] | [
"manga",
"smd",
"smt",
"surface mount"
] | For those that have always felt a bit treppidatious when approaching SMD, you can relax. Here’s a
simple guide to walk you through your first shaky steps into surface mount devices
. Distributed freely under the creative common license, the Manga Guide to SMD is an 18 page comic that has a goal of making SMD producers out of all of us. There’s a good visual explanation of what SMT is and why we use it, as well as a thorough walk through of how to solder the tiny devices with your soldering iron. They don’t go into dealing with a small reflow oven in this issue.
If this fits well with your learning style, you might also be interested in
the Manga Guide to Electricity
. | 22 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "666683",
"author": "Rob Wentworth",
"timestamp": "2012-06-02T18:29:50",
"content": "The linked web page is SO SLOW, I think the web server is about to fall over. We need a mirror ASAP, I think…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6... | 1,760,376,851.5718 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/02/charting-the-efficiencies-of-boiling-water/ | Charting The Efficiencies Of Boiling Water | Brian Benchoff | [
"cooking hacks",
"green hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"electric kettle",
"natural gas",
"water"
] | Water takes a lot of energy to heat up. If you’d like evidence of this, simply jump into a 50° F swimming pool on Memorial Day. Despite the difficulty of heating water, that simple act accounts for a lot of industrial processes. From cooking a steak to running a nuclear reactor, there isn’t much that doesn’t involve heating water.
[Tom Murphy], Physics prof at UCSD decided to test out exactly
how efficiently he could boil water
. Armed with a gas stove, electric kettle, microwave, and a neat laser pointer/photodiode setup on his gas meter to measure consumption, he calculated exactly how much energy he was using to make a cup of tea.
The final numbers from [Tom]’s experiment revealed that a gas stove – using a pot with and without a lid on large and small burners – was about 20% efficient. A gas-powered hot water heater was much better at 55% efficiency, but the microwave and electric kettle had a miserable efficiencies of around 15 and 25%, respectively. There is a reason for the terrible inefficiency of using electricity to heat water; if only the power from the wall is considered, the electric kettle put 80% of energy consumed directly into the water. Because the electricity has to come from
somewhere,
usually a fossil-fueled power plant that operates at around 30% efficiency, the electric kettle method of turning dinosaurs into hot water is only about 25% efficient.
The take-home from this is there’s a lot of power being wasted every time you run a bath, make some coffee, or wash the dishes. We would all do better by decreasing how much energy we use, much like [Tom]’s efforts in using
5 times less power
than his neighbor. Awesome job, [Tom]. | 32 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "666613",
"author": "Yorkshire",
"timestamp": "2012-06-02T16:31:04",
"content": "As a tea drinker and a Yorkshireman, I approve of any efforts to make the preparation of my favourite beverage as cheap as possible.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,851.810398 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/01/electronic-bracer-wraps-a-lot-of-features-around-your-arm/ | Electronic Bracer Wraps A Lot Of Features Around Your Arm | Mike Szczys | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"bracer",
"cuff",
"gps",
"wrist"
] | [Stephanie] just finished up her wearable project which puts a lot of information where a wristwatch would normally be found. She calls it the
Integrated Sensors Electronic Bracer
. We had to look up what a bracer is; the name originates with archers and it was a leather wrap used to protect the wrist. This does that, but we don’t think you’ll want the bowstring frequently hitting the electronic components hidden within.
There is a nice finished leather cover which wraps around the unit, leaving just a few holes for key components. Above you can see the parts undressed, with an Arduino compatible board in the middle. It provides a user interface with the OLED display and three input buttons. The array of sensors found on the device include a GPS module to display position data, humidity sensor, magnetometer, luminance sensor, and galvanic skin response.
The opposite side of the bracer has an opening secured by a couple of elastic cords. [Stephanie] mentions that this works, but she’s not happy with the look of it and hopes to make some leather-based improvements.
[via
Adafruit
] | 29 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "665639",
"author": "B",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T17:16:25",
"content": "Okay. Why?Is this “Because wearables?” I suppose that’s fine all by itself, but it’s an odd collection of sensors…was this to solve some particular desire? It’s be nice if she said…",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,376,851.875898 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/01/adding-voice-labels-to-real-life-objects-for-the-visually-impaired/ | Adding Voice Labels To Real Life Objects For The Visually Impaired | Caleb Kraft | [
"handhelds hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"accessibility"
] | [Matt Oppenheim] wrote in to share his work with us. He has been modifying the interfaces of electronics for the visually impaired.
It started off with cassette decks
. As [Matt] points out, many people who are visually impaired use cassettes for their audio books and newspapers. [Matt] added some touch sensors to the buttons so that he could have something announce what each button was as the user felt them. This allowed them to quickly learn the layout of the device.
After finding that the simple interface on the cassette player was learned very quickly, thereby making his addition no longer needed, he decided to go after something a little more complex. [Matt] set out to modify a digital radio with many more buttons that are less touch friendly. As you can see in the video after the break, he was able to pull this off quite nicely.
The link above shows how he did it with his android phone in conjunction with an IOIO board. If you wanted to replicate this with an arduino, he has also
published an entire build for you to follow
. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "665597",
"author": "dave",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T16:49:11",
"content": "From your friends at Menocu. Fabulous House of the Future!http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/28344ab514/mr-show-house-of-the-future-from-mrshow_fan",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,851.513093 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/01/braintap-gaming-with-arthritis-in-mind/ | BrainTap, Gaming With Arthritis In Mind | Caleb Kraft | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"final project"
] | As a final project in their 3rd year of the University of Technology Sydney, [James] and a few classmates put together this interesting game. Called
BrainTap, it is described as a game
targeted at the baby boomers focusing on fine motor skills and memory.
The game plays similar to the common game “simon”. The box lights up a series of LEDs in a pattern, then you have to repeat the pattern back with the corresponding buttons in the glove. There is vibration feedback in the glove as well as the lights and sounds you see in the video. Though they do mention arthritis in their title, we don’t think our grandmas with arthritis would enjoy those hand motions much. We, however, might spend hours doing this instead of more important things.
We particularly like the visual construction of the game box. The case was designed in CAD, 3d printed, then sanded smooth and painted with automotive paint to get that perfect finish. Great job guys. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "665736",
"author": "Bill",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T19:17:59",
"content": "“Baby boomers”? The oldest of us are 64, and the youngest are 45-50 depending on where you feel like putting the boundary between us and GenX. Maybe our parents can use this sort of thing, but if you tell u... | 1,760,376,851.418212 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/01/3d-mapping-of-huge-areas-with-a-kinect/ | 3D Mapping Of Huge Areas With A Kinect | Brian Benchoff | [
"Kinect hacks"
] | [
"Kinect",
"KinectFusion",
"Kintinuous",
"reconstructme"
] | The picture you see above isn’t a doll house, nocliped video game, or any other artificially created virtual environment. That bathroom exists in real life, but was digitized into a 3D object with a Kinect and
Kintinuous
, an awesome piece of software that allows for the creation of huge 3D environments in real time.
Kintinuous is an extension of the
Kinect Fusion
and
ReconstructMe
projects. Where Fusion and ReconstructMe were limited to mapping small areas in 3D – a tabletop, for example, Kintinuous allows a Kinect to me moved from room to room, mapping an entire environment in 3D.
The paper for Kintinuous
is available
going over how the authors are able to capture point cloud data and overlay the color video to create textured 3D meshes. After the break are two videos showing off what Kintinuous can do. It’s jaw dropping, and the implications are amazing. We can’t find the binaries or source for Kintinuous, but if anyone finds a link, drop us a line and we’ll update this post.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqp3bWqxDsc&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggvGX4fwT5g&w=470] | 45 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "665496",
"author": "warspigot",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T14:41:35",
"content": "It’s spelled “Kintinuous”; you left out one u. That might make it easier to find.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "665546",
"author": "Bri... | 1,760,376,851.648995 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/01/how-to-make-a-whamola/ | How To Make A Whamola | Jeremy Cook | [
"Featured",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"bass guitar",
"instrument",
"music",
"whamola"
] | If you’ve ever wanted to combine the extreme note-bending capability of a trombone with the obvious awesomeness of a bass guitar, maybe a
whamola like this one
could be for you! I’d never heard of one until recently, and haven’t picked up my bass in years, but my much more musically inclined cousin and I decided to build one.
It should be noted that this instrument is quite prone to string breakage if the handle is used too forcefully, so caution should be used both when building and playing. As with many hacks an old piece of equipment, a bass guitar in this case, was partially sacrificed to make it.
The build itself,
outlined here
for the main assembly, or
this post
for mounting the electronics, was quite simple. It took an afternoon of milling machine and miter saw work to get the 1 3/8 inch square piece of wood cut to size. Cavities for the electronics and a slot for the handle axis (components for a screen repair tool and a bolt) were cut with the milling machine – a router could also be used. It turned out to be a ton of fun to play, especially with an amp and distortion pedal. Check out the video after the break to see us playing it, as well as one of the whamola going together!
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbad7tfKJEw%5D
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hptT-uzpSX4%5D | 15 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "665469",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T13:58:53",
"content": "… and now, ladies and gentleman, I give you Les Claypoolhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd_wc-8azd8&feature=related",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6669... | 1,760,376,851.699953 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/01/yet-another-pcb-quadcopter/ | Yet Another PCB Quadcopter | Caleb Kraft | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"quadcopter",
"quadrotor"
] | Like most people out there, we’re fascinated by these little buzzing and hovering quadrotors. We’ve really enjoyed the recent trend of miniaturizing them and using PCBs as the frame itself. As [scolton] points out in his instructible, his isn’t the first, the smallest, or the lightest, but
he does have some great information
and a few tricks up his sleeve that make this a fun project to check out. The 4pcb measures 6.5 inches from motor shaft to motor shaft diagonally. It weighs 138 grams and, with its current batteries,can fly for roughly 8 minutes.
A nice thing about the 4pcb is that it includes brushless motor drivers into the design. Apparently that isn’t very common. What we really like though is the massive amount of reference material [scolton] provides. Not only could you download everything necessary to recreate his work, he links to so many other projects and resources you could probably expand in any direction your heart desires. If you’re considering a quadcopter build in the near future, you might want to bookmark this one. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "665430",
"author": "slightlyMad",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T13:01:10",
"content": "are they LEGO props?? wow… just wow..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "665433",
"author": "slightlyMad",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01... | 1,760,376,851.742646 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/01/the-dronitar-a-scrap-made-motorized-sitar/ | The Dronitar; A Scrap Made Motorized Sitar | Caleb Kraft | [
"classic hacks",
"green hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"guitar",
"scrap",
"sitar"
] | This peculiar instrument,
called the Dronitar
, is completely made from scrap. Interestingly, it sounds pretty good. You can hear the dronitar in action in the video after the break.The call this a “2 stringed” instrument,and most who are instrumentally savvy will find a bit of confusion here. They are referring to the string that you play as well as a small string that is struck against the other by a motor to create the droning effect. The result sounds very much like a sitar mixed with a bit of surfer rock styling. You’ll note that they’re even using a second motor as the pickup! | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "665343",
"author": "em2thrasher",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T11:12:29",
"content": "Sounded like he was trying to play Miserlou at the beginning.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "665392",
"author": "Eirinn",
"tim... | 1,760,376,851.463414 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/02/eastons-robot-arm-takes-2nd-place-in-the-international-science-and-engineering-fair/ | [Easton’s] Robot Arm Takes 2nd Place In The International Science And Engineering Fair | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"prosthetic",
"Prosthetic arm",
"robot"
] | Here we see [Easton LaChappelle] getting a congratulatory handshake from
the robotic arm he built
. This project is aimed at human prosthetics, and we’re happy to report that [Easton] won second place in Electrical and Mechanical engineering division of this year’s International Science and Engineering Fair (
PDF listing the winners
).
In the video he gives us a great look of the state of the project. Since we
checked in with him last
he’s added a body for the arm to mount to. The arm now has shoulder movement, which uses geared DC motors along with some potentiometers for orientation feedback. For the elbow he wanted to have the same setup but ran into trouble mounting the potentiometer. His solution was to use some shapelock to mold a bracket (shapelock is
the plastic you melt in water to form any shape
). In addition to the aforementioned joints, the wrist, fingers, and hand have all seen improvements in how they are supported and in their performance.
We think this is amazing work for anyone, especially a 16-year-old High School student. Great job [Easton]! | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "666573",
"author": "chris",
"timestamp": "2012-06-02T15:19:07",
"content": "it’d be nice to see this linked up to a wiimote, or even a kinect, and have it mimicking the operator’s movements",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "666594... | 1,760,376,852.018357 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/02/shoulder-robot-for-the-forever-alone/ | Shoulder Robot For The Forever Alone | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"marionette",
"shoulder",
"telepresence"
] | Don’t have anyone to share activities with? Forget Siri, she’s just a disembodied voice in a box. You need to
get yourself a shoulder-mounted robot pal
.
The idea behind this design actually has something to do with telepresence. Let’s say you and your best friend want to go check out the local Hackerspace. The problem is that you met your best friend on the Internet and they live thousands of miles away. Well just strap on your shoulder robot and have your friend log on. There’s a camera to give him or her feedback, and twenty degrees of freedom lets them control the torso, arms, and head of the bot in a realistic and creepy way. This works much like a marionette, with motors pulling wires to actuate the robot’s movements. You can get a very brief look at this in the clip after the break.
[via
Technabob
] | 46 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "666505",
"author": "adefe",
"timestamp": "2012-06-02T13:22:11",
"content": "Really?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "666521",
"author": "Jeff Jukes",
"timestamp": "2012-06-02T13:52:37",
"content": "Interesting idea! I... | 1,760,376,852.099902 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/01/visualizing-sound-without-a-computer/ | Visualizing Sound Without A Computer | Brian Benchoff | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"laser",
"phosphorescent"
] | [Emre] sent in a cool art piece he’s been working on that
visualizes your voice
without the use of a microcontroller.
The project is called Visible Voice only consists of a laser, mirror, audio speaker and a phosphorescent disk. The laser shines onto a mirror mounted on the speaker and is reflected onto the disk. When an audio signal is played through the speaker, the light bounces off the mirror and produces a waveform on the disk. Think of it as the lowest tech way of building a model of a CRT; the laser is the electron gun and the speaker is a deflection coil.
Right now, [Emre]’s project displays a waveform along a circular path on the slowly rotating phosphorescent disk. Anyone wanting to copy this project could use a moving belt of the same material giving a much more linear (and straighter) waveform trace.
After the break you can see [Emre]’s friend [Ivan] testing out the glowing laser waveform visualizer. | 22 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "665875",
"author": "tim",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T22:33:10",
"content": "Thats freaking awesome! I made something like this when I was younger. I basically glued some small mirrors to two speakers then pointed a laser that bounced off of both of them then played music through the s... | 1,760,376,852.154984 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/01/building-a-quiz-show-style-buzzer-system/ | Building A Quiz-show Style Buzzer System | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arcade button",
"led",
"quiz buzzer",
"sounds"
] | Theses are
the team buzzer boxes
which [Philippe Chrétien] built for his mother. She’s a big fan of quiz shows (we’re thinking Jeopardy and the like) and he thought she’d enjoy a proper setup for home gaming.
Each unit consists of an arcade button and one LED, both housed in a project box. He uses telephone wire to connect each buzzer to the base unit. We like that idea since we’ve got a lot of old telephone cable lying around and our RJ-45 crimp includes an RJ-11 slot. This is perfect for making our own cables.
The base unit houses an Arduino board which polls the buttons to see which is pressed first. The LED on the appropriate buzzer box is illuminated so the players know who got in first. One special feature of this setup is the ability to choose from 30 different buzzer sounds.
There are several other quiz buzzer projects kicking around Hackaday if you’re interested. One of our favorites is
this system which uses plastic bowls as the buttons
.
[via
Adafruit
] | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "665900",
"author": "pff",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T22:51:13",
"content": "pretty sure the standard way is flip-flops to lock other players out and prevent race conditionspolling buttons is obviously still rediculously fast but never the less gives an advantage to the player based on... | 1,760,376,852.399818 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/01/scratch-build-garden-nursery-uses-arduino-monitoring/ | Scratch-build Garden Nursery Uses Arduino Monitoring | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"garden",
"seed",
"sprout board"
] | Starting your garden indoors helps to ensure large yields. This is because the plants get a head start before it’s warm enough for them to be put in the ground. But the process involves a fair amount of labor, ensuring that the lights are turned on and off at the right times each day, and that the temperature for germination and growth, as well as humidity, hit a certain target. It’s obvious that a bit of automation would be nice, and
this Arduino-based garden nursery
does just that. One of the things that sets this project apart is that it shows you how to go from an empty room to the bounty of plant starters seen here.
For the most part the equipment is what you’d expect, seed trays and covers, tray warming mats, and fluorescent light fixtures. the whole thing is given a small footprint thanks to an adjustable shelving unit. The Arduino is used in conjunction with
a Sprout Board
to add connectivity for switching the lights and warming mats. This is just a matter of driving a relay to switch mains voltage and can take any number of forms, including
this home automation project
we saw the other day.
[Thanks Tom] | 17 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "665817",
"author": "lolz",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T21:00:34",
"content": "Garden? Heh. Heh.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "665909",
"author": "n0lkk",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T23:01:22",
"content": "S... | 1,760,376,852.456833 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/01/making-color-matched-perler-bead-art/ | Making Color Matched Perler Bead Art | Brian Benchoff | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"crafts",
"Perler",
"perler beads"
] | You may remember Perler beads from first or second grade; these small plastic beads are placed into a peg board and then ironed to produce a solid multicolored piece of plastic. Recently, Perler beads have seen somewhat of a revival due to a few people creating 8 and 16-bit video game sprites in plastic, but there’s still the enormous effort of color matching beads to make a passable Sonic or Mega Man.
[Jon Wilson] sent in an awesome
bead pattern generator
that takes those color images of video game sprites – and just about any other picture – and translates them into Perler bead patterns. One awesome feature is color matching; [Jon] found the RGB values of every color of Perler beads and his program chooses the closest match from the original image.
[Jon] started on a GUI app for his bead pattern generator, but because his kids aren’t into beads anymore the GUI is still unfinished. There is a command line Python script that takes an image and shoots out a PDF of the bead pattern, which should be more than enough for all but the most complicated design. | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "665762",
"author": "ematson5897",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T19:47:36",
"content": "I had an idea this morning. Could these be melted down to use for 3d printing? They’re dirt cheap and would provide a limitless supply of colors",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": ... | 1,760,376,852.502733 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/06/01/nes-controllers-for-any-bluetooth-application/ | NES Controllers For Any Bluetooth Application | Mike Szczys | [
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"bluesmirf",
"bluetooth",
"controller",
"nes",
"snes"
] | [Dustin Evans] wanted to used his original NES controllers to play emulated games. The problem is he didn’t want to alter the classic hardware. His solution was to use the connectors and enclosure from a dead NES to
build a Bluetooth translator that works with any NES controller
.
Here he’s showing the gutted half of an original NES. Although the motherboard is missing, the connectors for the controllers are still there. They’ve been rewired to an Arduino board which has a BlueSMiRF modem. The controller commands are harvested by the Arduino and sent to whatever is listening on the other end of the Bluetooth connection. He also has plans to add a couple of SNES ports to the enclosure so that those unaltered controllers may also be used.
In the video after the break [Dustin] walks us through the hardware setup. He then demonstrates pairing the device with an Android phone and playing some emulators with the pictured controllers. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "665879",
"author": "AC",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T22:35:22",
"content": "YES! That Nintendo joystick was awesome back in the day!Using it was the only way I could get through that battletoads level where you were holding on to the big roller thing that looked like a lawn mower in t... | 1,760,376,852.355901 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/layerone-badge-hacking-twofer/ | LayerOne Badge Hacking Twofer | Mike Szczys | [
"cons"
] | [
"badge",
"badge hacking",
"el wire",
"IMU",
"layerone",
"ping",
"rangefinder",
"ultrasonic"
] | Here’s a pair of LayerOne Badge hacks that actually included the RC as intended by the badge designers.
First up, we have
the autonomous RC car built
by [Arko]. He calls it Stanley Jr. as an homage to the Stanford DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle. It uses an Arduino shield to add a servo with an ultrasonic rangefinder on it. The lets the vehicle drive a bit, stop and scan the horizon, then drive some more. The hope is the rangefinder will keep it from running into anything. There’s a quick test run embedded after the break.
On the right is the badge hack which [Zjpahle]
finished up after the contest was already over
. He also chose to go with an Arduino shield, this time it’s an IMU board. But he added a standalone Arduino board to the vehicle which drives some EL wire (ground effects) and adds IR sensors to the front of the car. The IR sensors are for obstacle avoidance, and the IMU lets him tilt his badge for direction control.
We looked at the winner of the badge hacking competition on Wednesday. That hack didn’t involve the car, but
used the badge as a Morse Code beacon
.
[Thanks Charliex] | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "665076",
"author": "mostlymac",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T03:28:00",
"content": "At first, I thought the object on top was a small boombox for the RC. Then I read the article and found out it was an ultrasonic rangefinder. But how cool would it be to have an RC complete with miniatur... | 1,760,376,852.540507 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/catch-neighborhood-speeders-with-your-webcam/ | Catch Neighborhood Speeders With Your Webcam | Mike Szczys | [
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"python",
"speed",
"webcam"
] | [John] is keeping the neighborhood safe by keeping an eye out for speeders. Well, he’s really keeping a webcam out for speeders. His technique doesn’t use radar or lasers. He’s
processing webcam frames in Python to calculate speed
.
It comes down to some basic image manipulation. He firsts gathers the images necessary to make the calculations by using a motion-detecting webcam program called YawCam. The images are analyzed to establish which parts have changed between frames; this gets rid of all the stationary objects. Now the frames can be compared to establish the distance in pixels. By calibrating the shot through measurements of the target area, this data can be directly converted into actual distance. It is then compared with the timestamps from each frame to arrive at speed. This can be used for vehicles on the street like we see above, or more whimsical measurements like pet turtle progress. | 54 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "664911",
"author": "asheets",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T23:08:16",
"content": "I’ve been looking for something like this. I’m am going to blatantly copy it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "664917",
"author": "Skitchin",
... | 1,760,376,852.672401 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/robot-arm-provides-haptic-feedback-from-the-virtual-world/ | Robot Arm Provides Haptic Feedback From The Virtual World | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"haptic",
"haptic feedback",
"robot arm",
"servo",
"virtual"
] | [Diego] wrote in to let us know about
the haptic feedback arm project
with which he’s hard at work. He calls it the Vimphin, which is uses the beginning letters from the words: Virtual Manipulator Physical Interface. Instead of a claw, the robot arm has a hand grip that lets you easily move it around. That is unless the virtual model of the arm encounters a dense substance, and then it’s going to be more difficult to move.
The test arm seen above includes several high quality robotic servo motors. You probably know that servo motors have feedback circuits that let them sense their position, and this is what is used to detect when a user moves the arm. This movement is tracked in the virtual 3D environment seen on the screen. In this case, the base of the robot is sitting in a pool of water. When the end of the virtual arm is in open air it’s pretty easy to move. When it dips below the water line the motors are used to increase resistance, simulating movement through a denser substance.
This sounds like a great piece of hardware to have around when
the OASIS
is finally developed. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "664888",
"author": "Nova",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T22:34:17",
"content": "pretty cool, you could even use this to tell things aside from density. Things like geometric shapes or even more complex, the -flow- of simulated water or maybe the twisting of a tornado. Granted it has to b... | 1,760,376,852.581805 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/attiny85-sketch-flashing-rig/ | ATtiny85 Sketch Flashing Rig | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"attiny85",
"AVR",
"boarduino",
"isp",
"programmer"
] | We’re happy to see Arduino enthusiasts championing the use of smaller hardware when the need for a full-blown ATmega-based board just isn’t there. [Chris] has been doing just that, using ATtiny85 chips in his projects. But he’s tired of hooking jumper wires to flash the sketches. He finally got around to
etching this ATtiny85 programming adapter
.
If the project is not pin hungry,
an ATtiny85 can run Arduino sketches
without the need to port the code. The best news is that the Arduino board you used to prototype the project can be used as the programmer for the standalone chip. Here that’s a Boarduino, and [Chris] laid out a double row of female pin headers for quick plug-in. To the right you can see the DIP socket for the target chip. Although this works perfectly well, we would have liked to also see the inclusion of a 2×3 AVR ISP programming header which could be used with the full range of AT chips. | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "664848",
"author": "Jarel",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T21:58:56",
"content": "*yawn*I don’t mean to be rude, but how many permutations of using Arduino as an ISP do we need to see?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "664897",
... | 1,760,376,852.721442 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/hackerspace-intros-freeside-hackerspace-in-atlanta-georgia/ | Hackerspace Intros: Freeside Hackerspace In Atlanta Georgia | Caleb Kraft | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"atlanta",
"freeside",
"southeast tour"
] | When I announced that I would be traveling through some areas of the southeast this summer, [Slade] from
Freeside Atlanta
emailed me to set up a stop at their hackerspace. I am very happy he did too, because this place was really cool. [Steven Sutton] agreed to walk us through the facility and did a great job of being the tour guide.
Freeside Hackerspace is a 5,500 square foot facility that feels like it just goes on and on. We were greeted with a nice clean work area up front that had 3d printers, collaborative spaces, electronics workstations, a classroom, and project storage. As we moved further back, we found the bar and lounge area complete with kegerator, giant cnc cut pterodactyl, projection system, and several comfy looking sofas.
After we passed through a pair of doors labelled “workshop”, we were greeted with an area more suited to manufacturing filled with lathes, workbenches, all the power tools you could imagine, and even two auto bays. If you have a project in mind, they’ve got the space and tools to make it happen.
I’m still in South Carolina, and would love to visit some more hackerspaces if they fall into our path. If you know of one that is along our route back. let me know. We’re currently in Hilton Head South carolina, but our trip back will take us to Beufort SC. Then, we’ll pass through Franklin NC,Chattanooga TN, Nashville TN, and Paducha KY before we finally head home. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "664806",
"author": "Drew T",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T20:40:47",
"content": "I wonder if that sweet sweet DeLorean is still hanging around those premises. I never really used the facility since we had the Invention Studio at Tech, but I’m glad to see these places popping up and brin... | 1,760,376,852.947232 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/all-in-one-all-grain-brewing-for-your-kitchen-counter/ | All-in-one All Grain Brewing For Your Kitchen Counter | Mike Szczys | [
"Beer Hacks"
] | [
"all grain",
"brewing",
"coutertop"
] | All grain brewing is a labor and equipment intensive endeavor, but it produces the highest quality beer compared to partial mash or extract brewing. [Jeff Karpinski] started out with the latter two methods, but as his enthusiasm for the hobby mounted he found himself brewing all-grain batches with just an electric kettle. He developed the system seen above as
an easy method of automating the all grain process
, and he managed to make it tidy enough to do in the kitchen.
All-grain brewing usually involves five or ten gallon (or more) boils. This type of volume is usually what demands that the brewing process move out of the kitchen. But since [Jeff] is the only beer drinker in the house he limits his sessions to three gallons. This means all of the equipment takes up less room. Here he’s got a five-gallon bucket, cooler, and brew kettle on just one small piece of the counter. In between the kettle and bucket you can see the controller box he built. This is responsible for switching power to the heating element in the brew kettle, and the electric pump in the bucket. The bucket has a permanent counterflow chiller which brings the wort down to a suitable temperature before pitching the yeast. It’s pretty amazing how well contained the liquid is from start to finish!
[Thanks ScottInNH] | 10 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "664748",
"author": "clipless03",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T19:07:04",
"content": "I’ve been spending too much time on Homebrewtalk. I saw the photo come across my rss reader and I knew right away that it was JKarp’s.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{... | 1,760,376,852.765762 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/kilonode-how-to-test-a-huge-xbee-mesh-network/ | Kilonode: How To Test A Huge Xbee Mesh Network | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"digi",
"kilonode",
"knode",
"module",
"rack",
"RF",
"xbee"
] | So let’s say that you’re a developer on the Xbee team. You need to test the extremes of what the RF radio modules can do when in a large network. But in addition to numerous nodes, you also need to test the effects of distance on the radios. Since it’s not reasonable to distribute hundreds of the devices (each with their own power source) throughout town, you build a test setup like
the 1 kilonode Xbee rig
which the project manager, [Jared Hofhiens] is showing off.
He’s holding one blade from the rack-mounted system. Each of those squares is an Xbee module, there’s 32 etched onto the board. On the edge furthest from him there are a set of connectors which mate with the rack connectors, hooking the blade up to a set of terminal servers. These servers allow developers to ssh into individual modules. On the near side of the blade there’s a set of attenuation adjustment circuits. They allow adjustments of 0-40 dB of attenuation in 10 dB increments to adjust how strong the RF signals are, simulating distance between modules.
Thirty-two of these cards are mounted in the three racks seen above to make up the 1024 module node. We really appreciate this look behind the scenes and think you’ll enjoy the video tour after the break. If it leaves you wanting more check out
how one company builds cloud storage
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeSvAn-YRSE
[Thanks Chris] | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "664686",
"author": "Kyle",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T18:26:33",
"content": "That is is cool",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "664719",
"author": "griffon",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T18:46:15",
"content": "Wow. That is co... | 1,760,376,852.882276 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/3d-printing-the-new-frontier-of-piracy/ | 3d Printing, The New Frontier Of Piracy? | Caleb Kraft | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks",
"News"
] | [
"3d printing",
"copyright",
"legal",
"piracy",
"theft"
] | We’ve all heard the countless arguments about piracy in digital media. However, it appears that 3d printing or other rapid prototyping systems are
bringing legal issues to a more physical world
. The story goes like this: [Thomas] bought a 3d printer. He’s a big fan of warhammer figurines. He spends tons of time creating some custom warhammer figures, and uploads them to thingaverse. Games Workshop, the owners of Warhammer, unleashed the lawyers and had the items removed.
There are so many angles to this story, the mind boggles. If I were an artist, and someone else was uploading copies of my work, essentially stopping my revenue, it would suck. Then again, if I were lucky enough to have a fanatical fan base that spread the love for my product with excitement and zeal, I might want to encourage them. Neither of those thoughts however, cover the legal issue at the base here. We don’t have an answer for you. Sorry. You’ll probably be seeing this issue pop up more and more often in the future.
We
encourage you to make our logo
. Though we haven’t bothered to ask our lawyers. | 89 | 41 | [
{
"comment_id": "664611",
"author": "andar_b",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T17:07:05",
"content": "“He spends tons of time creating some custom warhammer figures, and uploads them to thingaverse.”My understanding says that if it’s more than 30% different from anything they’ve released, and doesn’t carry... | 1,760,376,853.143838 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/dot-matrix-printer-spits-out-any-tweet-mentioning-kwf/ | Dot Matrix Printer Spits Out Any Tweet Mentioning @KWF | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"beaglebone",
"dot matrix",
"twitter"
] | Earlier this month, [Kenneth] picked up an old dot matrix printer at the Silicon Valley Flea Market and subsequently found two cases of tractor feed printer paper. It’s a marriage made in heaven for a
dot matrix twitter printer
.
[Kenneth] used a
BeagleBone
– a tiny single board computer running Linux – to connect to the Internet and fetch any new tweets mentioning KWF every minute or so. The BeagleBone spits out these tweets over the USB port which is connected to the ancient printer by means of a cheap adapter cable.
Interestingly, [Kenneth] wrote the code for this project as a shell script. A lot of effort went into scrubbing the input of any escape characters, but he still implores his admirers to not attempt to break his project.
In case you’re wondering, at couple Twitter accounts announced this post’s headline to the Twitterverse when this story was published. This should have immediately sent [Kenneth]’s printer into motion, recording that harsh mistress that is sending a build log of a Twitter connected device into Hackaday.
After the break you can see [Kenneth]’s demo. Be sure to share this post on Twitter! | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "664951",
"author": "Jedi",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T00:19:25",
"content": "i guessi’m too retarded to find the webcam feed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "667373",
"author": "Standard Mischief",
"timestamp": "2012-06-03... | 1,760,376,853.466801 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/the-biggest-cnc-machine-can-build-a-house/ | The Biggest CNC Machine Can Build A House | Brian Benchoff | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"EEW Machinebau",
"gigantic",
"HSM-Modal"
] | If it’s true that those with the biggest toys win, a few lucky engineers over at EEW Maschinenbau in Germany just earned a gold medal; they have access to
a gigantic CNC machine
that is large enough to machine a house.
This machine was originally built to manufacture molds for fiberglass wind turbines that are over 50 meters in length. Because building a 50-meter-long CNC machine wasn’t overkill enough, engineers at EEW Maschinenbau settled on a design that is
151 meters long, or almost 500 feet.
Of course the HSM-Modal, as this machine is called, can only make parts 151 meters long in the x dimension. The y-axis has a span of 9 meters while the z-axis goes from 0 to 4.25 meters off the ground. Large enough to build cars, ship hulls, and even houses out of a single block of material.
There’s a bunch of technical documentation on the
EEW website
and
a PDF
going over the specs. Not only can this gigantic mill machine molds much like an embiggened desktop CNC router, this thing can do drilling, sawing, grinding, plasma cutting, and even extrusion just like a Makerbot.
If you’ve got the cash, EEW Maschinenbau will build you one of these gigantic machines. We can’t imagine how much that would cost, though.
via
the Adafruit blog | 34 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "664538",
"author": "chango",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T15:18:22",
"content": "This needs a giant paste extruder and 100 tons of chocolate.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "664563",
"author": "JB",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,376,853.583659 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/data-logging-directly-to-google-docs-google-drive/ | Data Logging Directly To Google Docs (Google Drive) | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"data logging",
"google docs",
"google drive",
"HTTP",
"pic"
] | [Emanuele] is
using Google Docs to log his temperature sensor data automatically
(
translated
). We can see a few benefits gained by using this system. One is that you don’t have to visit the site of the logging hardware to harvest the data, another is that Google will automatically graph the data for you. Of course this means you need some way to connect your logger to the Internet, but we’ve seen buckets of different techniques for doing so. In this case, [Emanuele] is using PIC hardware that has a NIC on the board. But the technique could be used from a computer just as easily as from a microcontroller.
The meat and potatoes of the hack is sniffing out the HTTP header and syntax for writing to cells on a Google Docs (soon to be Google Drive) spreadsheet. After making a new spreadsheet and copying the URL and key from the address bar, he loads up the page using a header-viewer web service. With all the pertinent info in hand he crafts about a dozen lines of code to assemble the HTTP packet, and rolls the timestamp and temperature reading into it dynamically. See the system in action after the break. | 15 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "664508",
"author": "tw",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T14:39:52",
"content": "Why did he have to “sniff out the HTTP header”? When I worked with google spreadsheet (back when it was docs), I just used the published docs and called curl.https://developers.google.com/google-apps/spreadshee... | 1,760,376,853.422872 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/triangle-grid-led-display/ | Triangle-grid LED Display | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"plasma",
"processing",
"rgb",
"triangle"
] | [Dearmash] put together this
RGB LED display using triangles for each pixel
. It’s an interesting deviation from the traditional grid layout. There are two video demos after the break. The first is a plasma-style pattern generated in Processing. The second is a spinning color wheel which would be perfect if synchronized with your Photoshop color spinner.
So the physical build is done, and now [Dearmash] is looking for a purpose for the device (isn’t that always the way it happens?). He mentions that the triangular layout looks cool, but makes text display almost impossible. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make this work? Right off the bat we could see side-scrolling a font similar to
the Metallica logo’s
M and A. Bu there must be some way to group these pixels together into readable characters. If you always use an upward and downward pointed triangle on the same row as a pixel it makes a parallelogram which would be used to display italicization characters. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "664512",
"author": "Steve",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T14:44:52",
"content": "You could use it to build and Interociter",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "665637",
"author": "dearmash",
"timestamp": "2012-06-01T17:1... | 1,760,376,853.276933 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/led-bicycle-hack-makes-sure-youre-seen-at-night/ | LED Bicycle Hack Makes Sure You’re Seen At Night | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"bike",
"led strip",
"light"
] | The bicycle tail and head lights that we’re accustomed to are small add-on modules. This take on the idea uses strips of
LEDs to protect you from behind
. They’re very bright, matching the pair of LED headlights that are attache to the handlebars.
Apparently [A.Davis12] had some LED strips laying around. There’s not what we’re used to seeing, but they have a similar footprint so you should be able to substitute the kind that come on a spool and may be cut to length. The majority of the build time was spent integrating the lights and their control wires with the frame of the bike. The frame already has holes in it for feeding the control wires for brakes and gear shifting inside the tubing. It sounds like it was a pain, but eventually he managed to get all of the routing done. Two red strips are zip-tied to the back of the seat stays. They are powered by a lithium battery inside the project box which mounts under the back of the saddle. A flip switch on the case lets you turn them on without stopping.
[Thanks Arpad] | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "664445",
"author": "fartface",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T13:09:23",
"content": "Not bright enough. If it is not blinding the Car drivers and making them swerve off the road in the daytime, it’s not bright enough to get the attention of the chick doing her makeup and texting.I want ... | 1,760,376,853.213095 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/31/dollar-store-arc-reactor-build/ | Dollar Store Arc Reactor Build | Mike Szczys | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"arc reactor",
"dollar store",
"ironman"
] | Some people have a real knack for sourcing parts at the dollar store. [James] is one of those people, having built this
Arc Reactor replica using mostly dollar store goods
.
The light source is an LED disk light that was removed from its enclosure. A sink strainer, the plastic holder from a package of sewing pins, and some wire mesh go together to make the first layer of the bezel. The push-pin holder is what has the ring of narrow rectangles around the bright center. It was painted black and attached to the sink strainer which provides the concentric holes in the center of the device.
For the detail around the outside [James] went with some clear-plastic drinking cups. By cutting off the top centimeter of each and stacking three together he gets the clear base he was after. The rest of the parts were gathered from his electronics supplies. DIP sockets straddle the drinking glass rims, and are wound with copper wire for the look seen here.
We put this near the top of the dollar store builds along with
this Blade Runner umbrella
. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "664383",
"author": "bigdeal",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T11:11:58",
"content": "I have respect and admiration for people who manage to build good looking things, in particular with non-expensive material. Congrats!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,376,853.365237 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/remote-shutter-module-uses-lcd-screen-for-setup/ | Remote Shutter Module Uses LCD Screen For Setup | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"lcd",
"optoisolator",
"remote trigger",
"rotary encoder"
] | Here’s a
full-featured remote shutter project
which [Pixel-K] just finished. It seems that he’s interested in taking time-lapse images of the cosmos. Since astrophotography happens outside at night, this presented some special design considerations. He wanted something that he could configure in the dark without zapping his night-vision too much. He also wanted it to be easily configured with a pair of gloves on.
The project enclosure is a 4x AA battery box. He removed the partitions between each cell, leaving plenty of room for the guts. Inside you’ll find a lithium battery and a micro-USB recharger board. It powers the Arduino mini pro which drives the 1.8″ LCD screen and actuates the optoisolator which is responsible for triggering the camera. On the right you can see the clear knob of the clickable rotary encoder. All of the user settings are chosen and selected using just this one knob.
He’s already tried it out on a 6-hour shoot and had no battery life problems or other issues. | 5 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "664100",
"author": "HAD",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T02:08:50",
"content": "Looks like somebody went on a shopping spree at Adafruit and Sparkfun.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "664155",
"author": "Arthur",
"tim... | 1,760,376,853.324576 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/a-personal-manufacturing-stack-exchange/ | A Personal Manufacturing Stack Exchange | Brian Benchoff | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"cnc",
"mill",
"router",
"stack exchange"
] | Over on Stack Exchange, there’s a proposal for a new CNC/3D printer site. It’s a
personal manufacturing stack exchange
, and hopefully we’ll see some awesome discussion when it’s eventually created.
Stack Exchange is already well-known for hosting
the
most useful programming site
as well as awesome sites/forums covering everything from
LaTeX
to
grammar
. The proposed Personal Manufacturing site is sure to provide a ton of advice and discussion covering the hardware, software, electronics, and toolchains of CNC routers, RepRaps and mills.
The personal manufacturing stack exchange hasn’t been created yet – a few more people still need to commit to use it. Once that’s done, though, we’re sure to see a lot of very helpful advice and discussion from the Stack Exchange community.
Kudos to [Michael] for sending this in. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "664050",
"author": "dext0rb",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T00:11:31",
"content": "No mention of Stack EE?http://electronics.stackexchange.com/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "664186",
"author": "Galane",
"timestamp": "2012-0... | 1,760,376,853.518127 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/pimp-my-scooter/ | Pimp My Scooter | Mike Szczys | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"amplifier",
"lcd",
"party",
"pc",
"scooter",
"stereo",
"video"
] | [Glen] built
this shiny party machine
out of a pretty sad-looking scooter. We’d bet you’re wondering why we think it’s a party machine when it looks so common? The only real giveaway in this photo is the custom exhaust, but hidden in the body of the beast is 720 Watts of party power plus a whole bunch of extras.
When he gets where he’s going, [Glen] parks his ride and lifts up the seat to unfold the entertainment. Attached to the underside of the saddle is a 720 Watt audio amplifier. It drives one big speaker under the seat, as well as two tweeters and two mid-range speakers that were fitted into the front console. But these days a party isn’t a party without some video, and that’s why you’ll also find a 7-inch LCD screen suspended from the upright seat. Tunes and videos are supplied by an iPod touch up front, or the PC he built into the ride. All it’s missing is a gaming console!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCG-Klv4ziU | 18 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "663964",
"author": "jordan",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T22:16:02",
"content": "wowzers",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "663988",
"author": "Sven",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T23:02:10",
"content": "This certainly is a hack... | 1,760,376,853.638435 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/video-review-stm32f0-discovery-board/ | Video Review: STM32F0-Discovery Board | Mike Szczys | [
"Featured",
"Reviews"
] | [
"arm",
"cortex m0",
"discovery",
"st-link",
"stm32",
"stm32f0"
] | The STM32 Discovery boards are nothing new, we’ve looked at them several times. But the newest sibling in the line might be just the thing to make the leap from your steadfast 8-bit projects. We got our hands on it and recorded a video review.
The STM32F0-Discovery gives you a programmer and ARM Cortex-M0 chip all on one convenient board. The top portion is the ST-Link V2 programmer, and includes jumpers and a programming header which let it easily program off-board chips.
The included microcontroller is an STM32F051R8T6 which includes 64kb of program memory and 8kb of RAM. Coming in at $1.80-3.77 in single units and in a hand-solderable LQFP package this raises an eyebrow for our future projects. It has an 8 MHz internal oscillator with 6x PLL which means you can run at 48 MHz without an external crystal (check out
[Kenneth Finnegan’s] PLL primer
if you don’t know what this is).
The only thing holding us back is the development environment. ST provides everything you need if you’re on Windows, but we want a Linux friendly solution. We know other Discovery boards have worked under Linux
thanks to this project
. This uses the same ST-LINK V2 so it should work as well. If you want one of your own head over the ST page to see if
they’re still giving away samples
. There should be a button labeled “Register for your FREE KIT”. | 31 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "663930",
"author": "MobileWill",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T21:21:18",
"content": "I just got one last Tuesday at one of their free seminars they are doing. They provide breakfast, lunch and a some hands on demos. Oh and don’t forget the sales pitch of some of their products.",
"p... | 1,760,376,853.888785 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/morse-code-beacon-wins-the-layerone-badge-hacking-contest/ | Morse Code Beacon Wins The LayerOne Badge Hacking Contest | Mike Szczys | [
"cons"
] | [
"arduino",
"badge",
"beacon",
"cw",
"layerone",
"morse code"
] | Ham skills prevail in this year’s LayerOne badge hacking contest. [Jason] was the winner with
this Morse Code beacon hack
.He got a head start on the competition after seeing
our preview feature on the badge hardware development
. It got him thinking and let him gather his tools ahead of arrival.
The hardware is segregated into two parts of the board. The lower portion is a take on the Arduino, and the upper portion is a wireless transmitter meant to control some cheap RC cars. [Jason] figured this was perfect for conversion as a CW beacon (continuous wave is what Morse Code is called if you’re a ham). The first issue he encountered was getting the badge to play nicely with the Arduino IDE. It was setup to run Slowduino firmware which uses the internal oscillator. [Jason] soldered on his own crystal and reflashed the firmware. He found that the transmitter couldn’t be directly keyed because of the shifting used in the RC car protocol. He cut the power to the transmitter, and found that it could be more accurately keyed by injecting power to one of the other pins. Check out the video after the break for a better explanation of his technique. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "664329",
"author": "PJN",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T09:10:59",
"content": "I still don’t understand what it does. Where does the CW source come from?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "664468",
"author": "Jason",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,376,853.771605 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/one-enormous-breadboard/ | One Enormous Breadboard | Jesse Congdon | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"breadboard",
"freakin huge",
"large"
] | [Franklyn] wrote in to tell us about the
The Hack Factory Big Board project
. The Twin Cities Maker group, a Minneapolis/St Paul based hackspace, set out to provide an education tool to help students make the leap from schematic diagrams to bread board connections. Naturally their conclusion was to create a humungous 10x scale bread board. The board features scaled up yet fully functional capacitors, resistors, a dip switch, and the jumbo-est LEDs we’ve seen in a long while.
Like its 0.1″ pitch counterpart, passive components can be thrown in 1″ pitch breadboard to create a myriad of analog circuits. The Twin Cities folks even tossed together an optical theremin using a scaled up photoresistor. Beyond analog circuits the board can also demonstrate various ICs using either a custom breakout board featuring an 8-pin DIP socket or a vacuum formed Atmega 328 which boasts an internal Arduino Uno. The cool thing about the giant 28-pin DIP is that it does not necessarily function as a microcontroller. Instead the UNO will be loaded with chip emulation programs geared towards the lesson at hand, jumpers select programs to teach debouncing, logic, flip-flops, and a whole slew of other basic concepts.
We are a bit concerned that the next logical step is a gigantic soldering iron, but at least we finally have something to interface to the huge
liquid crystal display
. If you still want more giant circuit stuff check out this
555 footstool
.
Check out a quick intro video after the jump!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jteXBscz0_M&w=470] | 16 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "663826",
"author": "Mike Szczys",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T19:15:26",
"content": "That’s super fun. Nice work!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "663835",
"author": "karlexceed",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T19:28:51",
"con... | 1,760,376,853.826741 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/caltechs-manipulator-arm-equipped-robot/ | CalTech’s Manipulator-arm Equipped Robot | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"arm",
"caltech",
"manipulator",
"nasa",
"rover"
] | [Justin] wrote in to tell us about
the rover
which his CalTech team has entered in
NASA’s Exploration Robo-Ops Competition
. Their time to shine is later this week, but you can see some of the test footage after the break.
The operator pictured above is using a controller which is a scale model of the manipulator arm, with two cameras giving feedback. One of those monitors shows a feed from the arm itself, providing a view of the gripper. The other feed is a wide shot of the working area from the body of the robot. The arm has six degrees of freedom actuated by servo motors. The controller is a replica of the arm laser cut from acrylic. At each joint there’s a potentiometer whose value is used to establish the position of the frame.
At first we thought that this would be more fatiguing and less convenient than using a gaming controller. But as we look at the dexterity of the arm it becomes obvious that joysticks and buttons would just make things more difficult. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "663828",
"author": "coraydayday",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T19:16:30",
"content": "Most awesome CLAW game ever.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "664070",
"author": "Diego Spinola",
"timestamp": "2012-05-31T01:01:01",
"... | 1,760,376,853.931912 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/hackerspace-introduction-7hills-makerspace-in-rome-georgia/ | Hackerspace Introduction: 7hills Makerspace In Rome Georgia | Caleb Kraft | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"georgia",
"hackerspace",
"makerspace",
"rome",
"southeast tour"
] | This place served as a very strong reminder that not all hackerspaces are the same. Housed in a masonic temple,
7hills makerspace
is quite different. They are fairly new, having just built out the location in January. I didn’t have a visit planned, and just happened to get lucky enough to catch [John Grout] there doing some screen printing. He agreed to give us a tour on the spot, and I think he did a fantastic job.
The space had most things you could think of aside from the messier and larger manufacturing tools. They had 3d printing, a music editing station, video editing station, electronics stations, a lounge, electronics lab, screen printing and vinyl cutting equipment, and more stuff that I can’t even remember. While they may not have a full sized lathe or welding/grinding equipment, there was a table saw and a few other pieces of equipment tucked away outside the main hall. You also get a glimpse of the robotics arena that is currently being housed there from the local school robotics program.
[John] showed us something that was a new idea to me, but a very good one. They had a project that they called the
“hello world of making”
. It is a flashlight that involves making a custom circuit board, soldering, 3d printing a case, and laser cutting and engraving the sides of the case. This gives you an introduction to many of the processes in the space.
[John] had a project there that he was willing to show us. This is a sanitation system that would ensure people sanitized their hands before entering or leaving a room in a hospital. This is a subject we’ve
actually seen before
as it is a common concern. | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "663789",
"author": "n0lkk",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T18:40:42",
"content": "Looks like a nice space in an interesting location. The location would be an interesting side story, but I can’t find one on their home page.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
... | 1,760,376,854.092645 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/opencv-knows-where-youre-looking-with-eye-tracking/ | OpenCV Knows Where You’re Looking With Eye Tracking | Brian Benchoff | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"eye tracking",
"eyewriter",
"opencv"
] | [John] has been working on a
video-based eye tracking solution
using OpenCV, and we’re loving the progress. [John]’s pupil tracking software can tell anyone exactly where you’re looking and allows for free head movement.
The basic idea behind this build is simple; when looking straight ahead a pupil is perfectly circular. When an eye looks off to one side, a pupil looks more and more like an ellipse to a screen-mounted video camera. By measuring the dimensions of this ellipse, [John]’s software can make a very good guess where the eye is looking. If you want the extremely technical breakdown,
here’s an ACM paper
going over the technique.
Like the
EyeWriter project
this build was based on, [John]’s build uses IR LEDs around the edge of a monitor to increase the contrast between the pupil and the iris.
After the break are two videos showing the eyetracker in action. Watching [John]’s project at work is a little creepy, but the good news is a proper eye tracking setup doesn’t require the user to stare at their eye.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B5JolF2N6s&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8edm_LGQWDA&w=470] | 35 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "663653",
"author": "RobinJood",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T16:33:07",
"content": "It’s pretty cool and I’ve thought about making similar.There’s quite a few posts on stackoverflow that discuss tracking the pupil with opencv.I was thinking about making an app that moved the mouse point... | 1,760,376,854.002414 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/gpu-programming-for-easy-fast-image-processing/ | GPU Programming For Easy & Fast Image Processing | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Software Development"
] | [
"GLSL",
"graphics processing",
"NVIDIA",
"opengl"
] | If you ever need to manipulate images really fast, or just want to make some pretty fractals, [Reuben] has just what you need. He developed a
neat command line tool
to send code to a graphics card and generate images using pixel shaders. Opposed to making these images with a CPU, a GPU processes every pixel in parallel, making image processing much faster.
All the GPU coding is done by writing a bit of code in
GLSL
. [Reuben]’s command line utility takes that code, sends it to the graphics card, and returns the image calculated by the GPU. It’s very simple for to make pretty
Mandebrolt set images
and
sine wave interference
this way, but [Reuben]’s project can do much more than that. By sending an image to the GPU and performing a few operations, [Reuben] can do very fast edge detection and other algorithmic processing on pre-existing images.
So far, [Reuben] has tested his software with a few NVIDIA graphics cards under Windows and Linux, although it should work with any graphics card with pixel shaders.
Although [Reuben] is sending code to his GPU, it’s not quite on the level of the
NVIDIA CUDA
parallel computing platform; [Reuben] is only working with images. Cleverly written software could get around that, though. Still, even if [Reuben]’s project is only used for image processing, it’s still much faster than any CPU-bound method.
You can grab a copy of [Reuben]’s work
over on GitHub
. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "663601",
"author": "Headbonk",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T15:36:58",
"content": "I saw a code fragment once that claimed to be a bit-slice DES cracker for GPU. There was no support code, so I had no idea how to try it out. I wonder if this could be a good starting point.",
"parent... | 1,760,376,854.364692 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/brewing-beer-with-lego/ | Brewing Beer With LEGO | Brian Benchoff | [
"Beer Hacks"
] | [
"beer",
"brewing",
"fermentation",
"homebrew"
] | [Matt] sent in a set of YouTube videos walking us through his
LEGO Mindstorms controlled brewery
.
[Matt] is using a
RIMS brewing setup
that recirculates and heats the mash to extract more starch from the grain. This results in a
Maillard reaction
in the mash and creates a richer, maltier flavor.
To control his RIMS setup, [Matt] is using a LEGO Mindstorms brick with a few LEGO temperature sensors attached to his plumbing. The LEGO provides all the temperature and pump control for a proper RIMS setup, perfect for the homebrewer who doesn’t want to bother with an Arduino or other microcontroller board.
As a small aside, the astute Hackaday reader will note our
beer hacks category
is woefully underpopulated. It’s nearly summer now and the perfect time to start brewing. If you’ve got a beer hack, be sure to
send it in
.
After the break you can see all of [Matt]’s RIMS/LEGO brewery videos, or you can check out his
YouTube channel
.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8GbAQcJekE&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wx_NwaWyUg&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI1gDL_nrVQ&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkr98ma2k-M&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgklKKwmSto&w=470] | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "663545",
"author": "skitzo2000",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T14:35:29",
"content": "This is an awesome post. There are a lot of active forums for beer making, but not a lot of people documenting the process in a way that makes it easier to understand RIMS systems. I’d love to see som... | 1,760,376,854.309913 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/edwardian-laptop-from-a-steampunk-master/ | Edwardian Laptop From A Steampunk Master | Brian Benchoff | [
"laptops hacks"
] | [
"laptop",
"steampunk",
"steampunk laptop"
] | After receiving a Marconi from [Admiral Aaron Ravensdale] informing us of the completion of
an exquisite steampunk laptop
, we were simply delighted. [The Admiral]’s computational device, or Uhlian Calculator as is the preferred nomenclature, is a remarkable combination of design and function suitable for any remarkable gentleman bent on the domination of the fast approaching electrical frontier.
[Ravensdale]’s new steampunk laptop is built off his first laptop, an old Toshiba Satellite 1100. Not a speed demon by any means, but the quality of this build is phenomenal. The hinged keyboard tilts up into an ergonomic position when the laptop is opened, reveling a set of six LED jewels for the power, battery, and hard drive lights. To the left and right of the screen, a pair of miniature brass horns contain a set of stereo speakers.
The keyboard is an awesome modification of the stock keyboard very reminiscent of [Admiral Ravensdale]’s
previous keyboard steampunkification
.
[The Admiral] put up
an Instructable
going through the many hours he put into this fine piece of craftsmanship. There’s also a video showing the keyboard lifting mechanism and skeleton key power switch available after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVe5tcg1tyI&w=470] | 30 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "663498",
"author": "Burkley",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T13:19:40",
"content": "The brass horn speakers are incredible",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "663500",
"author": "Rob Wentworth",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T13:21:18",... | 1,760,376,854.269914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/ian-lesnets-guide-to-the-bay-area-maker-faire/ | [Ian Lesnet]’s Guide To The Bay Area Maker Faire | Brian Benchoff | [
"News"
] | [
"Bay Area maker faire",
"maker faire",
"Maker Faire 2012"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39xX4xi0Uh8&w=470]
It may be a week after the fact, but former Hackaday alum and inventor of the Bus Pirate [Ian Lesnet] made
a great guide to the Bay Area Maker Faire
.
The San Francisco-area Maker Faire attracts 100,000 makers, tinkerers, hackers, and general geeks to a bazaar of DIY and generally cool stuff. All the regulars were there, including [Jeri Ellsworth] and her
Commodore 64 bass keytar
along with a huge assortment of cosplayers including a
steampunk Boba Fett
and a
couple space marines
. Outside the building there was a
40-foot steamship
and the amazing DeLorean hovercraft of [Matthew Riese].
During his interviews with fellow makers, [Ian]’s most received advice is, “take it slow.” There are thousands of builders in the bay area during Maker Faire, and it’s very easy to get very overwhelmed.
In case you’re wondering, [Ian] also picked up a ton of awesome schwag from all the vendors at the Maker Faire. Radio Shack had a box filled with random components,and [Kenneth] from Texas Instruments gave [Ian] a TI Launchpad, a capacitive test booster pack, and the king of all freebies, a
Chronos watch
.
After the break you can check out a few of the video project interviews [Ian] put up. Very awesome work from literally thousands of makers.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qkT9hLQPy0&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39xX4xi0Uh8&w=470] | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "663485",
"author": "akismet-d4f06bf8cb803502684f1683ad779e95",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T13:00:10",
"content": "Awesome! I saw all the cool new stuff at DP’s desk including the power supply breakout. Got a sticker too. There are some more pics over at 43oh, if anyone is interested.ht... | 1,760,376,854.411308 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/30/3d-printing-ice-sculptures/ | 3d Printing Ice Sculptures | Caleb Kraft | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"ice sculpture"
] | [Jared Kotoff] asked an interesting question on Facebook. He asked if we had ever seen 3d printing in ice before. Though we couldn’t find anything in our archives, he managed to find a project that
makes 3d printed ice sculptures
. To do this, they actually print two materials inside a chamber that is -8 degrees Fahrenheit. The first material is Shortening Methyl Esther (SME) that is used as a scaffold or mold. The second material is just water, but the tip is heated to 68 degrees to keep it from freezing in the nozzle. They do two passes of water for every layer of SME, and scan with a laser and perform corrections after every five layers.
Once the print is completed, the sculpture has to be scraped clean of SME and then soaked in kerosine to remove the last of it. There are several pictures at the linked article, but sadly no video. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "663426",
"author": "knightvoyager",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T11:11:38",
"content": "degrees celsius?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "663432",
"author": "jow",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T11:25:10",
"content": "kerosine ... | 1,760,376,854.462769 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/29/how-anodization-is-used-to-make-pretty-ipod-colors/ | How Anodization Is Used To Make Pretty IPod Colors | Mike Szczys | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"aluminum",
"anodize",
"anodizing",
"bill hammack",
"Engineer Guy",
"sapphire"
] | What do those colorful iPod Nano cases have in common with sapphires? In both substances the color is not on the surface, but integrated in the structure of the material. As usually, [Bill Hammack]
unveils the interesting concepts behind coloring metal through anodization
in his latest Engineer Guy episode.
We’re not strangers to the anodization process. In fact we’ve seen it
used at home to change the color of titanium camping utensils
. [Bill] explains what is actually going on with the electrochemical process; touching on facts we already knew; like that the voltage range will affect the color of the annodized surface. But he goes on to explain why these surfaces are different colors and then outlines how anodized metals can be dyed. That’s right, those iPod cases are colored with dye that will not wash or scratch off.
Pores are opened when the aluminum goes through anodization. Those pores are filled with dye, then the metal is boiled in water which closes them, sealing in the color. Pretty neat! | 26 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "663092",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T00:12:53",
"content": "That is very “next”! :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "663098",
"author": "Techartisan",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T00:22:41",
"content": "Give... | 1,760,376,854.637104 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/29/using-spy-bi-wire-with-the-msp430-launchpad/ | Using Spy-Bi-Wire With The MSP430 Launchpad | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"launchpad",
"msp430",
"MSP430F4152",
"sbw",
"spy-bi-wire",
"ti"
] | [Suraj] has been working with some larger MSP430 chips with won’t fit on the Launchpad board. But that’s okay because he built a shield and wrote a guide about
using the Spy-Bi-Wire protocol for programming the chips
.
SBW is a four-wire interface. In the past
we’ve used all of the board’s programming connections for in circuit programming
, but the chips that support SBW only need a connection to the SBW and TEST pins (of course the other two connections are for voltage and ground). This shield brings the four pins together into one male pin header. In the image above [Suraj] is using the technique to program an MSP430F4152. His guide is Windows-based, but looking back, [Sprite_TM] shows
how to use SBW when debugging in Eclipse
. | 10 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "663049",
"author": "Harry",
"timestamp": "2012-05-29T23:03:59",
"content": "Have used SBW via Launchpad before it became mainstream :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "663074",
"author": "thirty3mm",
"timestamp": "2012-05... | 1,760,376,854.512415 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/29/failed-kayaking-data-logger-is-something-we-want-to-see-succeed/ | Failed Kayaking Data Logger Is Something We Want To See Succeed | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"flex sensor",
"kayak",
"paddle"
] | How can your love of hobby electronics and your participation in the Canadian National Kayaking Team be combined? Why not use your technical know-how to provide a performance edge? [Geoff Clarke] decided to
rig up a paddle for data capture
to see if they could learn anything.
Here you can see that a series of flex sensors were applied to one of the business ends of the paddle. These are connected to a microcontroller which is constantly monitoring them and dumping the data onto an SD card. The design will provide about nine minutes of data before the storage is used up. That sounds like a number that might need improving. We could see this being useful to log a series of practice runs on the same course, but with different athletes. By graphing and comparing the data, you should be able to make observations about how the paddle is being held and when force is applied that could help the rest of the team improve.
But we’re way ahead of ourselves. The rig was given a premature test-run and the flex sensors were destroyed by the salt water. We wish this had worked out and hope that [Geoff] will give it another try after rethinking the water proofing. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "663035",
"author": "siberiandingo",
"timestamp": "2012-05-29T22:31:54",
"content": "I hate having to pull the “shoulda coulda” card but somestain gaugesepoxied or polyurethaned on the surface of the paddle would work better.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []... | 1,760,376,854.576561 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/29/physical-email-box-mail-flag-and-all/ | Physical Email Box — Mail Flag And All | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"email",
"mailbox",
"pop",
"python",
"servo",
"smtp"
] | We gave you a side view because we really like the red new-mail flag. Sure it works the opposite of how USPS boxes do (where the flag tells the letter carrier there is outgoing mail to be picked up) but it’s still a fun touch. What you can’t see here is that
this physical email box
has a character LCD screen to read your messages and a set of buttons on the top to send back replies.
[Eraclitux’s] project puts an Arduino, LCD, a few buttons, and a servo motor inside of a metal project box. It connects to his computer and takes commands over the USB cable. The Python script is where most of the magic happens. This is a good reference project if you’re interested in using POP and SMTP packages to interface your Python scripts with an email server. You’re pretty limited on responses, with preprogrammed messages to reply “Yes”, “No”, or “Read”. But it’s journey that matters, not the destination. | 18 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "662993",
"author": "coraydayday",
"timestamp": "2012-05-29T21:11:47",
"content": "I want one!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "662994",
"author": "coraydayday",
"timestamp": "2012-05-29T21:13:04",
"con... | 1,760,376,854.693476 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/29/new-ioio-in-the-works/ | New IOIO In The Works | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks"
] | [
"ioio"
] | There’s
a new version of the IOIO on the way
and we think you’re going to like the goals this redesign aims to achieve. If you’re not familiar,
the IOIO is an Android accessory board
. It connects to the phone via USB and is aimed at making it easier to build your own hardware peripherals for the handhelds. Just look around here for a while and you’ll find a bunch of projects that are built around this board (for instance:
adding MIDI control to your phone
).
With [Ytai’s] announcement that the second generation IOIO is in the works he touches on price and functionality improvements. Certainly the $50 cost of the original board is pretty low, but if you’re just planning on hacking for giggles it’s a roadblock. Although no number has been quoted, the plan is to make the new rendition more affordable. As for functionality, the next generation will be a USB On-the-Go device. This means it can be a master when connected to the phone, or a slave when plugged into a computer. There are also a smattering of electrical design improvements. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "663281",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "2012-05-30T06:18:41",
"content": "Pretty low? The price was the biggest problem with the first one. It costs more than my phone did and it costs more than buying an embedded platform",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,376,854.733208 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/05/29/webkit-on-chumby-lets-developers-avoid-flash/ | WebKit On Chumby Lets Developers Avoid Flash | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"chumby",
"webkit"
] | [Huan Truong] was looking for an Internet interface for one of his projects. In this case it’s a temperature logger, but it could be just about anything. He decided to give the Chumby a try, but was turned off by its use of Flash as the app framework. He decided to open up more options by
running WebKit via his custom Chumby’s firmware
.
In the video after the break he shows the boot sequence and demonstrates his first app. The device runs through a screen calibration as it powers on. When the app comes up it looks and responds much more like an Android or iPhone app than the Chumby interfaces we’re accustomed to. This technique gives you pretty wide range of app development languages. That’s because all the Chumby really cares about is the index.cgi file that serves as the interface. Development and debugging can be done on a desktop (not that it couldn’t before but Flash development under Linux was always a pain).
It looks like
this idea isn’t new
, but we don’t recall seeing any other projects that used WebKit as an alternative Chumby interface. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "662951",
"author": "st2000",
"timestamp": "2012-05-29T20:06:19",
"content": "I’m confused. Did Huan somehow get Qt applications to run on a Chumby?It sounds like he got WebKit to run. But I think WebKit is specifically/only an internet browser. And that there is a port of WebKit ... | 1,760,376,854.910166 |
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