url stringlengths 37 208 | title stringlengths 4 148 | author stringclasses 173
values | publish_date stringclasses 1
value | categories listlengths 0 12 | tags listlengths 0 27 | featured_image stringlengths 0 272 | content stringlengths 0 56.1k | comments_count int64 0 900 | scraped_comments_count int64 0 50 | comments listlengths 0 50 | scraped_at float64 1.76B 1.76B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/13/nes-controller-is-a-slick-way-to-carry-around-your-portable-os/ | NES Controller Is A Slick Way To Carry Around Your Portable OS | Mike Nathan | [
"computer hacks",
"News",
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"flash",
"linux",
"nes",
"sd card",
"usb"
] | [Oliver] had an old NES controller laying around, and without any other use for it, he decided to
repurpose it as a portable storage device.
He gutted most of the controller, removing the plastic standoffs, leaving the D-pad and remaining buttons intact. He crammed a 32 GB flash drive inside, along with the guts from an SD card reader. Using a Dremel he cut several openings into the controller, one for the flash drive and SD card reader’s USB ports, as well as for the SD card itself. When the physical modifications were finished, he installed a small Linux distro on the flash drive, which can be run by any PC that supports booting from USB.
While some might argue, we think it’s a neat way to reuse an old gaming peripheral that he might have otherwise thrown out. The portable OS is something that would certainly come in handy, though we can’t wait until the
Raspberry Pi is finished
– it would be awesome to have a complete computer packed in there too. | 14 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "507704",
"author": "Hackerspacer",
"timestamp": "2011-11-13T22:57:24",
"content": "Konami code should act as a reboot button.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "507705",
"author": "Japa",
"timestamp": "2011-11-13T22:57:48",... | 1,760,377,030.108813 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/13/chicken-light-keeps-up-egg-production/ | Chicken Light Keeps Up Egg Production | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"atmega328",
"chicken coop",
"eggs",
"light",
"relay"
] | It turns out that as the days get shorter, chickens lay fewer eggs. But you can trick them into keep up production using artificial light. [Jpitz31] decided to
build his own timed coop light
to bridge the gap until the days of plentiful sunlight return.
He already had an LED camping light to use, but needed to find a way to power it and to switch it on and off on a schedule. He chose an ATmega328 for the latter, as he had a bunch of extras sitting around. As for power, there isn’t AC available where the coop is, so he opted for a 12V lead-acid battery with hopes of adding solar charging features in the future.
Switching is handled by a relay, with accurate time kept by a DS1307 real-time clock (it’s the red PCB seen above). Everything fits nicely on the board, and we have a couple of feature suggestions for future improvements. The linear regulators will eat up some extra power so moving to a switching regulator will help save juice. Also, it would be very easy to add a light sensor so that the light will only be on when the ambient light drops to a preset level. This way he won’t need to mess with the schedule as the length of the days change. | 10 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "507651",
"author": "Markp",
"timestamp": "2011-11-13T21:08:53",
"content": "I’d have thought a light sensor would make more sense as the days get progressively shorter.Can’t say I’m a fan of artificial lighting for chickens, it shortens their life span and I’d rather have fewer eggs... | 1,760,377,030.455349 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/13/colornode-a-drop-in-ge-color-effects-led-controller/ | ColorNode: A Drop-in GE Color Effects LED Controller | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"GE color effects",
"jeenode",
"led"
] | [Paul] was looking to spice up his holiday decorations this year, so he picked up some GE Color Effects lights
and started hacking away.
We’ve already seen how
hacker-friendly these LED bulbs are
, which is why [Paul] decided to give them a try. His ultimate goal was to synchronize several sets of lights from one location, which would unfortunately require that he run wires from his control board to each of the strings.
He then decided to go a different route, and build his own control board that would work as a drop-in replacement for GE’s controller circuitry. He wanted to retain the wireless control aspect of the lights, so he picked up some RFM12B wireless modules which happen to be well-supported by the folks at
JeeLabs.
He modified their
JeeNode board
design to fit it in the Color Effects electronics enclosure, paring it back to the minimum components necessary to control his lights.
The hardware side of the ColorNode is complete, but the software is a work in progress. [Paul] says that once he gets things wrapped up, he will make the code available on his site. | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "507739",
"author": "Joe Banks",
"timestamp": "2011-11-14T00:26:31",
"content": "Very cool hack! Please post a video and github code when you get it finished!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "507812",
"author": "bean",
"ti... | 1,760,377,030.006479 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/13/sous-vide-with-racing-stripes/ | Sous Vide With Racing Stripes | Brian Benchoff | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"sous-vide"
] | We’re not going to question the logic that went into putting
racing stripes on a slow cooker
, but [Evan]’s sous vide machine is the most professional one we’ve seen.
After [Evan] found a
cooking book
that went into the physics and chemistry of making a meal, he wanted to make some really good meals. Sous vide spoke out to him and [Evan] committed himself to building an immersion cooker.
After trolling around on the Internet, [Evan] came across
a little gem
on Make. The Make build was cheap – it was built around an off-the-shelf PID controller and thermocouples. [Evan] though about building his own PID controller, but time is money and he couldn’t beat the commercial version in features.
The enclosure was the most time-consuming part of [Evan]’s build. It’s a 1/8″ sheet of aluminum cut and bent to the correct size. The sharp edges were filed down and joined with epoxy; definitely not the ‘normal’ way of building an enclosure. The color scheme is borrowed from
this Renault
– French cooking inspired by a French car.
As for [Evan]’s results, he cooked a 5oz filet marinated in garlic, thyme, olive oil, salt and pepper.
This dish
was flanked with some roasted Yukon Gold potatoes and sautéed broccoli. Our mouth is watering just looking at the picture, so we’re betting [Evan] did an
excellent
job. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "507601",
"author": "Mikey Sklar",
"timestamp": "2011-11-13T19:40:07",
"content": "Sweet build. I like the racing stripe enclosure for the controller. What’s the bath enclosure made out of?I sous-vide daily with a open hardware kit (the yatc2http://screwdecaf.cx/yatc.html). I’d like ... | 1,760,377,029.889849 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/13/rebuilding-a-bridgeport-mill/ | Rebuilding A Bridgeport Mill | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"bridgeport mill",
"cnc",
"tool hacks"
] | It looks like the Internet’s resident steampunker is moving up a century or two. [Jake Von Slatt]
rebuilt the CNC portion
of a Bridgeport Series II mill so it can interface with a computer. It’s a feat even more impressive than
moving the mill
into [Jake]’s garage.
The first step of the build was tearing out the BOSS 5 industrial microcomputer and replacing it with a Win XP laptop running
ArtSoft’s Mach 3
. This allows G-code to be displayed directly on the screen. The old power supply for the mill did give [Jake] a few problems. The
Gecko stepper drivers
that replace the old electronics couldn’t handle the voltage of the old power supply. That can be dealt with by
opening the transformer
and removing a few turns of wire.
[Jake] has been
sending in a few of his hacks
as of late, so it’s good to see Hack a Day has another fan, especially one of [Mr. Von Slatt]’s caliber. There is a problem with the mill modifications though – [Jake] hasn’t figured out how to program it. If any HaD readers would like to chime in on the best way to program G-code for the mill, feel free to leave a message in the comments. | 40 | 29 | [
{
"comment_id": "507518",
"author": "David Li",
"timestamp": "2011-11-13T16:34:24",
"content": "Use NX7?It’ll cost you though.Or you can learn how to program in g-code..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "507519",
"author": "Monty Werthington",... | 1,760,377,029.961854 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/13/a-kinect-primer/ | A Kinect Primer | Jeremy Cook | [
"Kinect hacks",
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"Kinect",
"linux",
"microsoft"
] | Yes, the Kinect is over one year old now, and after some initial unhappiness from [Microsoft], it’s become a hacker’s best friend. [Eric] decided to celebrate this with an
Article all about how it works
. If you’re new to this piece of hardware and want to get into working with it, this should be a good hacking introduction. If you’ve been reading [HAD] lately, you will have noticed this information being used to
“build a Kinect bot for 500 bones.”
Some interesting facts in this article include that the Kinect measures 307200 distance point, known as a “point cloud” in the gaming area. From this, it’s able to construct a 3D image of the environment around it and allow interaction. Such interesting hardware didn’t take long to hack after Adafruit announced a $3000.00 bounty to open it up to the masses. This only
took four days
to do, making one wonder why, with their incredible resources, [Microsoft] wouldn’t either more effectively lock it down or officially open it to be hacked and modified to begin with. Our vote would be to officially open it up, but no one consulted us on the decision. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "507491",
"author": "blue carbuncle",
"timestamp": "2011-11-13T15:02:27",
"content": "I think Microsoft has learned a lot from their earlier errors and from how people view the walled garden of Apple. The Kinect was an interesting project overall and I am glad they released it as “u... | 1,760,377,030.053935 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/11/steampunk-wings-bigger-heavier-and-steampunkier/ | Steampunk Wings: Bigger, Heavier, And Steampunkier | Mike Szczys | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"archangel",
"gears",
"mdf",
"steampunk",
"wings",
"wooden gears",
"xmen"
] | This
pair of backpack-mounted wings
was conceived after seeing the Angel/Archangel character in the movie X-Men: The Last Stand. They measure 14’6″ inches across, but they fold up so that the wearer can actually get around in them. The mechanism is built from MDF, using several layers of gears cut from the material as well as pieces that act as the skeleton for the appendages. This makes them look and work well, but adds a lot of weight as the project comes in at about 25 pounds.
The steampunk wings
we saw a few days back were partly inspired by this set. But this pair is more true to the Steampunk concept, relying on pneumatics instead of electricity for motion. A pair of pneumatic rams originally made to cushion the closing of screen doors let the wearer automatically extend the unit. As you can see in the video after the break, this happens quickly and gracefully. They do have to be folded back up by hand, and we’d bet you need a second person to assist with this, but we could be wrong.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKd49mAtgp4&w=470] | 18 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "506188",
"author": "M4CGYV3R",
"timestamp": "2011-11-11T23:38:09",
"content": "Needs a butt ton of brass/fake patina paints. Otherwise, awesome.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "506197",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"... | 1,760,377,030.407956 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/11/lufa-open-source-usb-stack-now-for-nxp-arm-processors/ | LUFA Open Source USB Stack Now For NXP ARM Processors | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers",
"News"
] | [
"arm",
"AVR",
"cortex-m3",
"lufa",
"nxp",
"usb"
] | Looks like the Lightweight USB Framework for AVRs
(LUFA) has just been ported for ARM microcontrollers
. NXP recently released a package for their LPC Cortex M3 family of ARM controllers. You won’t find a reference to LUFA on their nxpUSBlib description page (which we think is kind of sad), but if you grab a copy of the beta code the Version.h header file shows that it is indeed a port of the project. This is
further backed up by the LUFA creator
, [Dean Camera], who consulted with the NXP team doing the work.
The package provides an open-source USB stack that you can use in your projects as a USB host or USB device. We’re advocates of open source packages like this one as it makes it much easier for hobbyists to get help using the tools, and it allows the community to give back through bug fixes and feature additions.
We’ve highlighted a few LUFA projects, like
this keyboard remapper
and
this AVR programmer
. We’re looking to seeing the first set of NXP LUFA projects roll through!
[Thanks Johnny] | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "506140",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2011-11-11T22:17:07",
"content": "Another option is the NXP LPC 1342 which has on-chip USB HID.If you want to use USB for something low-bandwidth, this is a great option since it saves a few precious KB for program memory. The best part is ... | 1,760,377,030.156911 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/11/ipad-2-gets-a-home-in-hacked-idj-live-console/ | IPad 2 Gets A Home In Hacked IDJ Live Console | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks",
"iphone hacks",
"ipod hacks"
] | [
"iDJ Live",
"ipad",
"ipad 2"
] | [DJ FileSpnR]
did a number on this IDJ Live hardware
to make room for an integrated iPad. Those that have seen the hardware before may not even recognize it. In stock condition the controller has two turn-table actuators with cross-fader control in between them. The iPad perches on top like a book, making it a fairly bulky setup.
In its hacked format, the device is much more mobile. The physical turntables have been removed, and the center console was moved to one side. This leaves just enough room to fit the iPad 2 (the original iPad is probably too thick for this to work). A cresent of the original turn table bezel has been retained to clamp the iPad in place, and to protect the dock connector at the same time. Now the touchscreen serves as turntable control, with physical sliders to the right which mange the cross-fading.
Check out the video after the break where the DJ explains his alterations and demonstrates the finished project.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3xzU0R7jek&w=470] | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "506041",
"author": "roboman2444",
"timestamp": "2011-11-11T20:29:12",
"content": "physical turntable things are much much easier to scratch on than an ipad…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "506064",
"author": "xeracy",
... | 1,760,377,030.356118 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/11/thailand-residents-use-hacks-to-make-the-best-of-a-horrible-situation/ | Thailand Residents Use Hacks To Make The Best Of A Horrible Situation | Mike Szczys | [
"News"
] | [
"disaster",
"flood",
"thailand"
] | Thailand is dealing with horrible flooding right now. Despite the hardship, people still need to get around and go on with life so many have come up with clever hacks to make this disaster more manageable. [Jan] wrote in to let us know about
this collection of flood-related hacks
which he’s put together. They are wide-ranging, and many brought a smile to our faces, starting this the plastic-bag enclosed cars (not pictured).
We pulled out three of them to highlight above. On the top left is a canine life vest fashioned out of empty drinking bottles mounted on some type of harness. We hope the pets can stay out of the flood waters but this is a nice precaution. Speaking of precautions, the rubber-ducky to the right of that image is an electrical hazard detector. Float it in the water and an alarm and LED will go off if AC current is detected. Finally, the image on the bottom shows a bridge constructed in front of a shopping center by turning carts on their backs and lining the pathway with wooden pallets.
There are several floating and amphibious vehicle hacks in the collection. So far we haven’t seen any
drill-powered trolling motors
though. | 24 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "505939",
"author": "Grovenstien",
"timestamp": "2011-11-11T16:47:05",
"content": "My favourite has to be the motorised swan!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "505950",
"author": "Pharaoh Tech",
"timestamp": "2011-11-11T17:... | 1,760,377,030.21605 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/11/led-strip-and-uc-add-some-flash-to-your-tail-lights/ | LED Strip And UC Add Some Flash To Your Tail Lights | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"brake lights",
"juke",
"led strip",
"nissan"
] | [Dave] spiced up his new 2012 Nissan Juke with a little tail-light amendment. You can see that outlining the rim of the light enclosure is a series of dots. This is
an LED strip that he added to augment the brake lights
. It’s glued in place, and features side emitting LEDs so that the light will be focused behind the car.
To control the strip he’s using an ATtiny85 microcontroller. It’s the chip on the right, and an optoisolator next to it protects it from the 12V vehicle power which drives the strip (via a MOSFET), and acts as a trigger when the brake pedal is pressed. He wrote a few effects into the firmware. When the lights are turned on, the strip fades up to 75% over about eight seconds. When the brake pedal is pressed they go to 100%. Check out the video after the break (it seems a little weird to us, as the video runs 18 seconds but the audio keeps going… YMMV).
We’ve seen a couple of tail light concepts that flash the brake lights when you stomp on the pedal. Unfortunately the Juke (and all other cars as far as we know) don’t have functionality built-in to sense when you’ve really given the brake a sudden jolt. It makes us wonder if this info could be gleaned from the CANbus?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTQ5jPtHvq8&w=470] | 30 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "505868",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2011-11-11T15:09:46",
"content": "No “video after the break”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "506061",
"author": "Mike Szczys",
"timestamp": "2011-11-11T21:00:32",
... | 1,760,377,030.6036 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/11/150-cnc-mill-is-a-tad-slow-but-very-solid/ | $150 CNC Mill Is A Tad Slow But Very Solid | Mike Nathan | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cheap",
"cnc",
"diy"
] | Like just about everyone else out there, [Adam] thinks that CNC machines are pretty cool – so cool that
he decided to build one of his own
from scratch.
The CNC machine was constructed mostly out of MDF and scrap wood, with drawer slides used for smooth gantry movement. An off-brand rotary tool was used to do the actual cutting, and [Adam] picked up a few Sparkfun stepper motors to drive the machine.
The assembly was completed without too much trouble, but [Adam] says that programming the mill was a long and frustrating process. Cutting was rough and not very accurate at first, but little by little he got things working pretty well. As you can see in the video below, while the cuts look great, improvement came at the expense of speed. He says that the machine could use a redesign to speed it up, which he’ll get around to if some free time comes his way.
It’s not the absolute
cheapest CNC build
we’ve seen, it’s pretty darn close. With a few tweaks, it could definitely be a solid budget-friendly contender.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fOgRPG1IdI&w=470] | 19 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "505799",
"author": "Kyle",
"timestamp": "2011-11-11T14:05:01",
"content": "This is darn near exactly like the one I built a while back.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "505846",
"author": "Grovenstien",
"timestamp": "2011... | 1,760,377,030.534818 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/10/rgb-upgrade-for-ikea-single-color-fiber-optic-lamp/ | RGB Upgrade For Ikea Single Color Fiber Optic Lamp | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"fiber optics",
"ikea",
"lamp",
"strala"
] | Five bucks will buy you a STRÅLA lamp from Ikea. It’s a battery operated hanging lamp that pipes the light out through multiple branches of fiber optic bundles. But you’ll only get white out of this, which is pretty boring. [Boris] decided to
swap out the stock LED for an RGB unit
and drive it with an Arduino.
The lamp nucleus is just a couple of pieces of plastic which can be popped apart to reveal the shard of PCB hosting one LED. The body of that diode is flat on the top, and [Boris] filed down his replacement to match the form factor. There are only two conductors in the wire that runs between that PCB and the battery pack, so he replaced them with four conductors (R,G,B, and GND). His prototype uses the Arduino’s PWM capabilities to control the colors, but [Boris] recommends transitioning to a simple chip like a PIC 12F675 or one of the smaller ATtiny microcontrollers after you’ve got the bugs worked out.
See how this turned out in the clip after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7X_gqVrlv0&w=470] | 23 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "505301",
"author": "pall.e",
"timestamp": "2011-11-10T22:06:56",
"content": "I saw these at Ikea this weekend and was thinking about the exact same thing. Glad to see it can be done pretty easily.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": ... | 1,760,377,031.280644 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/15/audio-output-selection-courtesy-of-the-internet/ | Audio Output Selection Courtesy Of The Internet | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"ethernet",
"relay",
"shield"
] | [Peter] was tired of crawling behind his desktop computer to switch between headphones and speakers. We feel his pain, as the headphone port on our computer speakers has its own demonic hum rendering the jack useless to us. His solution was to
build this output selector board, then control it via the network
.
A relay is responsible for routing the single input to one of two outputs. One output is wired to the normally closed pin on the relay, the other to the normally open pin. The important thing here is to make sure you have a separate audio ground so as not to pick up noise from the rest of the hardware.
What you see above is only the switching circuitry. This is where [Peter] went a little overboard, using an Arduino along with an Ethernet shield to drive the relay via a transistor. For this particular application there must be an easier way. But if you’re working on home automation from your smart phone, this might be just the thing to make your audio setup browser-controlled.
[via
Build Lounge
] | 37 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "509317",
"author": "Hackerspacer",
"timestamp": "2011-11-15T19:08:43",
"content": "Isn’t it possible to just use an Arduino and ethernet shield to accomplish this? Why involve a relay at all? Just use the Arduino to buffer and “stream” the inputs? The voltage range and sampling rate... | 1,760,377,031.218151 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/15/colorhug-a-reasonably-priced-completely-open-color-calibration-tool/ | ColorHug: A Reasonably-priced, Completely Open Color Calibration Tool | Mike Nathan | [
"computer hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"color calibration",
"ColorHug",
"monitor calibration"
] | [Richard] wanted to create a color profile for his computer monitor, but he wasn’t thrilled with the existing color calibration offerings he found for sale. Color calibration tools can be somewhat costly, but even more troubling to [Richard] was the fact that they are all closed source. Closed hardware and closed software can be a drag, especially when manufacturers drop support for a product, so he set off to
design his own open-source monitor calibration tool.
Once his ColorHug sensor is placed against a monitor, it begins sampling colors from the screen, creating an ICC color profile from the data it gathers. The sensor is a Linux-only tool at the moment, but he has created a live CD from which a color profile can be created, then subsequently used in Windows or OSX.
While ColorHug doesn’t sport all the features of its commercial competitors, its color sampling rate is second to none, and since the software is open, anyone is free to implement any sort of functionality they wish.
[Richard] is currently selling finished ColorHug modules to anyone interested in giving them a test drive, but you can always build your own from the plans found at
ColorHug’s Github repository.
[via
Adafruit blog
] | 27 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "509215",
"author": "Just me",
"timestamp": "2011-11-15T16:28:03",
"content": "Seems interesting. How the device is calibrated? I’m student in university that does research on colors and it would be nice to know if open source and hardware is able to measure colors accurately. Though... | 1,760,377,031.391658 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/15/solder-reflow-toaster-oven/ | Solder Reflow Toaster Oven | Brian Benchoff | [
"cooking hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"reflow",
"reflow oven",
"smdsoldering",
"toaster oven"
] | [Sebastian] needed a small solder oven so he bought himself a
small toaster oven
(Spanish,
Google Translate
). It’s not the kind of thing we’d make our breakfast in now, but for soldering it’s a very nice oven.
After a little bit of research on Google, [Sebastian] discovered that the best technique when dealing with reflow ovens and solder paste is following a specific temperature curve. Ideally, Tin/Lead solder needs to preheat from room temperature to 150 degrees C, then level off so the flux can activate. After that, a quick jaunt above 183 degrees C makes the solder flow. To get his toaster working optimally, [Sebastian] stuck a thermistor in the toaster and measured the temperature profiles of different ‘modes.’
The correct temperature curve was calculated using different heater elements and [Sebastian] was off to the races. He did have a few problems on his first few boards – solder bridging, mostly – but that’s not the fault of the oven. An
LCD display
(
translate
) was added recently so accurate real-time temperature monitoring is available. | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "509208",
"author": "Dangger",
"timestamp": "2011-11-15T16:18:19",
"content": "Would a small convection fan help keep the temperature from stratifying and constant? A digital PID and thermocouple would be nice to dial in the perfect temperature.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": ... | 1,760,377,031.026662 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/15/the-origin-of-the-arduino/ | The Origin Of The Arduino | Jeremy Cook | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"ivrea",
"origin",
"processor"
] | If you ever wondered how the Arduino came into being, check out [IEEE Spectrum’s] article entitled “
The Making of Arduino
.” From it’s humble origins in Northern Italy, the Arduino, as shown by a large number of projects featured at [HAD], has become the go-to processor for DIY processing power. It’s cost (around $30) and ease-of-use are some of the biggest factors allowing it to become such a huge success.
One thing that interests many people about the Arduino is that it is totally open source, licensed under the
Creative Commons License
. This was quite innovative in itself since the CCL was generally applied to works of art like music and writing. Despite the fact that [Banzi] and his team decided to literally give the design away, 0ver 250,000 of these boards have been sold worldwide not including their many clones.
If you’re wondering how it got the name “Arduino”, it’s named after a bar named “Bar Di Re Arduino” in the Northern Italian town of Ivrea. | 17 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "509133",
"author": "Miros2424",
"timestamp": "2011-11-15T14:20:26",
"content": "Just to let you know, “Bar Di Re Arduino” means “The bar of the king Arduino” whoever he was.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "509146",
"author":... | 1,760,377,031.44547 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/14/build-your-own-stereolithographic-3d-printer/ | Build Your Own Stereolithographic 3D Printer | Mike Szczys | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"sla",
"stereolithograpy"
] | [Andy’s] 3D printer build
uses lasers to create objects from goo
. The Stereolithographic process uses resin that is cured by UV light to create the finished product. A single laser mounted to a CNC gantry is able to precisely target a point on the surface of the resin to begin the printing process. As the layers are built up, the stage, which is mounted on the Z axis, slowly sinks into the resin vat. So basically you’re printing from the bottom up but the laser never moves up or down. There’s a time-compressed video of an object being printed embedded after the break. It illustrates the process better than we can describe it.
We think [Andy] really went all out with his write-up of the build process. The quality he achieves in his prints is quite excellent, but you must consider the cost versus an extrusion-based 3D printer. One liter of the UV resin he prints from can cost over $200.
If this sounds familiar it’s because we got a sneak peek at it back when
we looked in on his Delta robot work
.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV0BpoRTv38&w=470] | 26 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "508693",
"author": "Regulus",
"timestamp": "2011-11-15T00:24:18",
"content": "3D printing is so darn cool.When can we buy this in a department store?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "508822",
"author": "Tim",
"... | 1,760,377,031.08961 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/14/nixie-clock-exhibits-well-fabricated-metal-bezel/ | Nixie Clock Exhibits Well Fabricated Metal Bezel | Mike Szczys | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"nixie",
"nixie tube"
] | [Matt Evans] achieves
a total win with his Nixie clock
. Not only does he have the benefit of the retro display hardware, but he really catches our eye with the enclosure he built for it.
The project had its genesis when he came across a set of the Nixie Tubes in a surplus store. This was back in 2007, and with parts in hand he built the high-voltage driver circuit and a control board. The thing kept time, but was housed in a temporary case that was a bit rough looking. There it sat, waiting to become the focus of his attention once again.
When it did finally come time to build a proper case [Matt] started with a small sheet of recycled copper. He made the cutouts and bends by hand. He mentions that it’s a little uneven; maybe, but we don’t think it detracts from the design. Some black screen (like would be used on a porch door) covers the openings, giving texture and contrast to the facade.
We love the look, and the ATmega48 with a clock crystal for the RTC functions should make this a reliable time source. | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "508670",
"author": "Per Jensen",
"timestamp": "2011-11-14T23:56:26",
"content": "WOOOOOW! – That’s what i call handiwork! – That guy has his hands screwed right on, beautiful handmade case. Those special Nixie sockets and tubes come from an old Hewlett Packard Digital Multimeter or ... | 1,760,377,031.143061 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/14/ft-2232-bridges-python-and-i2cspi/ | FT-2232 Bridges Python And I2C/SPI | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"ft-2232",
"ftdi",
"i2c",
"mpsse",
"python",
"spi"
] | You might already have the hardware on hand to easily
interface I2C and SPI devices with Python scripts on your computer
. The board seen above is an FT-2232 breakout board. These chips are often used to facilitate JTAG programming via USB, but they have other features that might be useful to you as well. The chip has a Multi-Protocol Synchronous Serial Engine (MPSSE) which can speak the I2C and SPI protocols, you just need to know how to active them in your code.
[Craig] makes this easy with his MPSSE Python wrapper. Simply install his module, and you’ll be able to import all the commands you need. He demonstrates reading the data out of a 1 MB SPI flash memory chip. This could be used for a lot more, including debugging peripherals à la the Bus Pirate, or reprogramming chips to add to your projects (we’re thinking font arrays and sprites for displays, or look-up tables).
If you’re not aware, these FTDI chips were the go-to for USB support for a long time. We’ve got a guide for
bit-banging using this hardware
. Lately more chips have become available with USB hardware built-in. They’re quite useful and cost-effective, especially with the availability of open-source stacks like
the LUFA project
. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "508626",
"author": "jc",
"timestamp": "2011-11-14T22:45:48",
"content": "Next up: a 7805 stabilizes voltage.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "508650",
"author": "sokrasins",
"timestamp": "2011-11-14T23:21:37",
"conten... | 1,760,377,031.328236 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/10/20-kilovolts-replaces-push-pins-on-this-bulletin-board/ | 20 Kilovolts Replaces Push Pins On This Bulletin Board | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"bulletin board",
"electrostatic",
"high voltage"
] | Electrical Engineers don’t need push pins. That’s because they know how to control electrons! [Sven] put his knowledge of these subatomic particles to use when
building his high voltage bulletin board
. It uses a set of vertically strung wires to keep paper pinned against the board. The wires have high voltage at low current travelling through them. They’re in front of the board, but not touching it, and the board is serving as a ground plane. In this way an electrostatic charge pushes (or should that be pulls?) against the paper to keep each sheet right where he places it.
In the video after the break [Sven] gives us a tour of the hardware at work here. It starts with a 12V psu which feeds a buck converter. The regulated feed is patched into a high voltage supply which was designed as a CCFL driver. Finally, a voltage doubler is used to reach the final voltage, measuring about 20 kV per wire.
Don’t worry, [Sven] says the bare wire is “almost completely safe” because of the low current being conducted.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwHZ2C7zDmo&w=470] | 89 | 30 | [
{
"comment_id": "505263",
"author": "PaulGranis",
"timestamp": "2011-11-10T21:12:21",
"content": "“almost completely safe”Got to love qualifiers when talking about safety. There’s only a 0.001% chance it could turn little Billy into an instant cooked Billy meal.Great project though. New spin on old ... | 1,760,377,031.564997 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/10/toilet-buddy-helps-cover-up-bathroom-noises/ | Toilet Buddy Helps Cover Up Bathroom Noises | Mike Nathan | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"ir sensor",
"light sensor",
"propeller",
"Toilet Buddy"
] | When it comes to bathroom etiquette, [Nick] and the crew at Gadget Gangster are nothing less than proper gentlemen. Inspired by a Japanese toilet that automatically plays a “courtesy flush” noise in an effort to conserve water while masking sounds,
they created the Toilet Buddy.
While the Toilet Buddy does nothing to cover up any aromas, it does provide some sound cover for those louder times. Not only that, it also helps serve as a reminder for other bathroom courtesies as well. When mounted on the tank lid, the Toilet Buddy alerts the last occupant to put the seat down and shut off the lights before leaving the bathroom. Built with a Parallax Propeller board, it uses IR and ambient light sensors to determine the position of the toilet seat and the status of the bathroom lights, playing an audio notifier when necessary. Now if it only sprayed air freshener automatically!
[Nick] points out that the Toilet Buddy is not limited to bathroom duty, and can be used in a variety of projects where light/motion sensing is required. Be sure to check out his writeup for some usage suggestions if you’re thinking of building one.
In the meantime, continue reading to see a video of the Toilet Buddy in action.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/31743453 w=470] | 26 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "505227",
"author": "Tinkering Engineer",
"timestamp": "2011-11-10T20:13:38",
"content": "Ok, let’s be honest. There’s only one use for this, and it’s evil.People are going to use it to play messages such as, “I see you had corn for dinner last night,” and “Whoa! You really should ge... | 1,760,377,031.719022 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/10/hackaday-links-november-10-2011/ | Hackaday Links: November 10, 2011 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"document scanner",
"go bag",
"haptics",
"macro lens",
"midi",
"msp430",
"photography",
"radio repeater",
"ti launchpad"
] | Experimentations with haptics
[Chris] sent in two videos (
1
,
2
) documenting his experiments with haptic feedback. He’s recording the position of a DC motor and can either play it back or send it to another motor. It’s very similar to the
kissing robot
we saw earlier this year, but we’re not making any judgments.
Mobile Emergency Repeater go bag
[Nick], a.k.a. [KF5JAK] sent in a few pics of his emergency/disaster relief amateur radio
go bag
. With a 3G connection via a cell phone, the MER can be used with
EchoLink
.
Launchpad MIDI booster pack
Earlier this month
we lamented the dearth of add-ons for the TI Launchpad. The folks on the
43oh forums
just came out with a
MIDI booster pack
. Time to dust off that old Radio Shack keyboard, we guess.
Macro photography with OH GOD WHARGARBL
You know camera lenses work both ways, right? [Karl] has been experimenting with
this very idea
by mounting a camera lens backwards and running a few wires so it’s electrically connected as well. Check out an
example shot
.
Keeping tabs on your kids’ homework
[Janis] doesn’t live with his kids but he wanted to keep track of their homework. He set up a
document scanner
that sends those worksheets straight to his email inbox. All he has to do is annotate them and send them back. This guy’s doing it right. | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "505202",
"author": "Alex",
"timestamp": "2011-11-10T19:31:01",
"content": "Love the Echolink go-bag. I can see it being very useful in SAR efforts and emergencies that are not large scale. That being said, I don’t see it being very useful in a widespread emergency… It relies on cell... | 1,760,377,031.817611 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/10/jarvis-opens-the-door-at-p-space/ | Jarvis Opens The Door At P-Space | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackerspaces",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"electronic strike",
"p-space",
"rfid",
"xbee"
] | It seems like every Hackerspace should have some type of kludged together access system on their entry door. [Vasilis] wrote in to share the
system called Jarvis that controls access to P-Space
, a Hackerspace in Patras, Greece. It’s an RFID-based system that offers a few nice features.
They already have a server running the webpage, so basing their entry system off of a computer was an easy option. You can get in one of two ways; by presenting your valid RFID tag to a reader at the front door, or by ringing the bell and having a member inside press the Big Button of Doom (BBoD) which is a wireless controller.
The BBoD has an Xbee module inside which lets it send an unlock command back to the computer. The remote is powered by two AA batteries, and since it’s never on unless the button is pressed the team estimates these batteries should last around one year.
There’s even a feedback system. The computer posts the last few events to the webpage. So you can go online and see when the BBoD was used, or who’s tag has recently unlocked the entrance to tell if your friends are there. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "505197",
"author": "Dimitris Tzortzis",
"timestamp": "2011-11-10T19:21:37",
"content": "To put it simply:http://youtu.be/WVzp4MJRKHc?t=4s",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "505259",
"author": "ty",
"timestamp": "2011-11-10T... | 1,760,377,031.766839 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/10/bullhorn-mod-lets-you-disperse-angry-crowds-to-the-dulcet-tones-of-kenny-g/ | Bullhorn Mod Lets You Disperse Angry Crowds To The Dulcet Tones Of [Kenny G] | Mike Nathan | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"audio input",
"line in",
"megaphone"
] | [Randy] had a cheap megaphone, and like most models in this price range, it didn’t have an audio input jack on board.
He wanted the ability to pipe both music and audio from an external mic
through the megaphone, and in a brief tutorial, he shows how he modified his bullhorn to do just that.
Most megaphones carry their electronics near the built-in mic, just outside the battery compartment. Removing the screws from the cap in [Randy’s] model revealed a circuit board and a couple of wires connecting it to the on board mic. His megaphone happened to play some canned music from a secondary circuit board, and he spliced in an audio jack with a built in cutoff switch between that and the main PCB. He also added a resistor in between his jack and the microphone circuitry to attenuate the line level signal properly. Once he reassembled everything, and then tested his input using a portable audio player, slowly ramping up the volume to the desired level.
It’s not every day that you require the ability to blast music through a bullhorn, but [Randy’s] modification is a great addition when you do need it. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "505141",
"author": "KanchoBlindside",
"timestamp": "2011-11-10T17:43:58",
"content": "Amateur!I would have gone the route of Captain & Tennille.More stopping power, like an unjacketed .40 wadcutter.(secretly copying this awesome mod for my own Radio Shack late 1980s-era bullhorn",
... | 1,760,377,031.862534 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/10/rfid-reading-and-spoofing/ | RFID Reading And Spoofing | Brian Benchoff | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"rfid",
"rfid spoofing",
"security"
] | Locks are always temporary hindrances. After deciding to open the RFID-secured lock in his department, [Tixlegeek] built a device to
read and spoof RFID tags
(French, Google translate
here
).
The system is built around an ATMega32 microcontroller with a 16×2 LCD display. A commercial RFID reader module takes care of all the sniffing/cloning duties, and a small modulation circuit handles pumping those bits over to a lock. Right now, the spoofer can only handle reading and spoofing 125kHz RFID tags with no encryption or authorization. A tag that’s more complex than the
duct tape RFID tag
doesn’t work.
[Tixlegeek]’s little project does open up a few interesting avenues of exploring stuff that’s
most certainly illegal
. A smaller version of the project could be emplaced near a door or other RFID reader and left to crack a lock with a 32+62 bit password at 125 kilohertz. It wouldn’t be the fastest safecracker in the business, but it would work automatically as long as there is power.
If you’ve got any other ideas on what [Tixlegeek]’s RFID spoofer could do, leave a note in the comments. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "505111",
"author": "wirespeed",
"timestamp": "2011-11-10T17:16:02",
"content": "Are you making the code or schematics available as opensource ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "505144",
"author": "Tixlegeek",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,377,032.006412 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/10/rgb-laser-projector-is-a-jaw-dropping-build/ | RGB Laser Projector Is A Jaw-dropping Build | Mike Szczys | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"blu-ray",
"diode",
"dvd",
"money case",
"projector"
] | We can think of no better way to describe
this laser projector project
than Epic. [C4r0] is a student at Gdansk University of Technology and he’s been working on this projector for at least a couple of years. It uses several different laser diodes pulled out of DVD burners, Blu-Ray drives, and entertainment equipment (the green diode is from a disco laser).
In order to direct the beams he built a series of brackets that hold
dichroic filters
which reflect some wavelengths of light while allowing others to pass straight through. Each diode also needs a driver, most of which he built from scratch. And once the hardware has been designed and tested, what does one do with it? If you’re [C4r0] you build it into a money case with professional-looking results.
Don’t miss the video demo after the break. And make sure you have a rag ready to wipe up the drool before you look at his forum post linked above.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx6HQ6KuvfU&w=470]
[Thanks Kodex] | 45 | 29 | [
{
"comment_id": "504980",
"author": "EllisGL",
"timestamp": "2011-11-10T14:13:16",
"content": "I’m thinking rear projection…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "504981",
"author": "Grovenstien",
"timestamp": "2011-11-10T14:14:21",
"conte... | 1,760,377,031.957285 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/09/talking-digital-calipers-make-engineering-more-accessible/ | Talking Digital Calipers Make Engineering More Accessible | Mike Nathan | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"accessibility",
"atmega",
"digital calipers"
] | The team over at NerdKits recently put together a device aimed to help make
the process of measuring things more accessible
to those with disabilities. [Terry Garrett] is a Mechanical Engineering student, and as anyone who is in the field knows, it’s a discipline which requires taking tons of measurements. Since [Terry] cannot see he was often asking classmates to assist in measuring items during labs, but when he got a job at a nearby design studio, he knew he would have to find a way to take those measurements on his own.
Enter NerdKits.
[Humberto] wrote in to share how he and his team built a set of talking digital calipers to assist [Terry] in his daily tasks. They based the design off a previous project they worked on, getting digital readout data from a set of calipers. The DRO information is fed into an ATmega382p, which pieces together pre-recorded sound bites to announce the size of the object being measured.
As you can see in the video below, the system looks to work very well, and [Terry] is quite pleased with his new talking tool. We love seeing these sorts of hacks, because they truly make a difference in people’s lives – excellent job!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I82T4nipb9o&w=470] | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "504148",
"author": "Godi",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T15:13:30",
"content": "Somebody accidentally the whole CSS!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "504155",
"author": "tjb",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T15:25:40",
"content":... | 1,760,377,032.299075 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/09/kitchen-hacks-what-would-you-cook-if-you-had-a-sous-vide-this-large/ | Kitchen Hacks: What Would You Cook If You Had A Sous-Vide This Large? | Mike Szczys | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"chest cooler",
"kitchen hacks",
"sous-vide"
] | We’ve seen no shortage of temperature controlled immersion cooking devices, called Sous-Vide, around here. But this one probably has the capacity of all of them combined! Flickr user [RogueGormet] isn’t writing about the build, but
his Large Form Water Oven build photo set
speaks for itself.
We’d wager that the donor vessel is a 16-gallon chest cooler. He cut the lid into two sections, sealing off the insulated cavity with High Density Polyethylene (the stuff those white cutting boards are made out of). This gives him a place to mount the heating element, with a box for the PID controller riding on top. A submersible pump keeps the liquid moving to help regulate the cooking temperature throughout.
What do you put in one of these? Right off the top of our heads we’d think he had something like a pig roast planned. But it could just as easily be a Turkey, or other large hunk of meat. What would you use it for?
If you don’t need quite as much capacity you might make
some alterations to your slow cooker for your own immersion cooking
. | 33 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "504097",
"author": "sqkybeaver",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T14:07:55",
"content": "that’s party size, would work well with the 5gal margarita machine!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "504108",
"author": "Sheldon",
"timestam... | 1,760,377,032.497222 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/08/counterfeit-electronics-in-military-weapons/ | Counterfeit Electronics In Military Weapons | Caleb Kraft | [
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"fakes",
"scams"
] | Boeng and the US military found some systems on new P-8 Posiedons to be defective. The culprit:
counterfeit electronics
. These are scrap parts from 80s-90s electronics that have been re-branded and sold to the government as new. Many of the parts have been linked to dealers in China, but the Chinese government feels no need to pursue this(according to the article).
There is an amendment to a defense operation bill in the works that requires all parts from china to undergo rigorous inspection and testing before installation. Regardless of your stance on military action or military spending or whatever political aspect you want to connect this with, we can all agree that dangerous things designed to destroy stuff and kill people should not have defective electrics, right?
[via
Adafruit
] | 152 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "503536",
"author": "Doc",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T23:11:40",
"content": "I’d rather they pass a law requiring all parts for military equipment be manufactured in the US. It’s stupid for the US government to be supporting Chinese companies (which in turn support the Chinese militar... | 1,760,377,032.895701 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/08/personal-flight-from-the-steam-age/ | Personal Flight From The Steam Age | Mike Szczys | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"halloween",
"halloween costume",
"steampunk",
"wings"
] | From a small-sized backpack these wings slowly grow
to full size in a Steampunk costume that hearkens back to DaVinci flight designs.
The mechanism that unfolds the wings was fashioned from parts of a baby gate and an old back massager. The massager features a pair of orbs that are meant to move slowly up and down your back. This is what accounts for the slow unfurling of the wings. After a bit of prototyping with Popsicle sticks [Dannok] and his daughter figured out the best arrangement for the pivoting skeleton. From there, the slats from the baby-gate were used to build the frame, then covered with fabric to finish the wing element for this Halloween costume.
A 12 volt gel battery powers the device, which is activated with a brass pull-chain meant for a light fixture. Once full extended, as seen above, the wingspan is eight feet. Don’t miss the pair of videos we’ve embedded after the break which show the workings of the device.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/31606243 w=470]
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/31508406 w=470] | 22 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "503498",
"author": "Davidb",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T22:08:21",
"content": "The wings open too slowly. I’d try using compressed air, a couple of small solenoid valves, and an air cylinder for a much faster/more impressive looking mechanism (plus you get the sound effects from the a... | 1,760,377,032.426099 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/08/making-an-rf-controlled-light-switch-work-with-ir/ | Making An RF Controlled Light Switch Work With IR | Mike Nathan | [
"home hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"ir",
"microcontrollers",
"pic",
"RF"
] | [Gary] had an RF triggered light switch kicking around, and wanted to find a way to
control his lights using a home theater remote.
The switch, which he bought from RadioShack years ago, came with a simple remote that uses two buttons to toggle the lights on and off. While you might think that switching from RF to IR control would be a step backwards, [Gary] really just wanted to consolidate remotes more than anything else.
He designed a circuit board specifically for interacting with the remote half of his RF controller. It sports a PIC16F628A micro controller, which is tasked with processing IR commands from his home theater remote and triggering the lights when requested.
The code he developed for the project is relatively simple, but very useful all the same. When his board is powered on, it stores the first IR code it receives, then retains it as long as it stays powered on. This lets [Gary] use any button on his remote to turn the lights on and off, without any IR codes permanently defined in software.
As you can see in the video below, the modified switch works just as intended, saving [Gary] from having to walk all the way to the light switch when it’s time to fire up a movie.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Q5vuHbI_4&feature=player_embedded&w=470] | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "503686",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T03:38:40",
"content": "Awesome! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now, Thanks!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "503707",
"author": "Uky",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,377,032.249167 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/08/were-gonna-let-you-finish-but-first-this-tutorial-on-arduino-interrupts/ | Beginner Concepts: We’re Gonna Let You Finish, But First This Tutorial On Arduino Interrupts | Jesse Congdon | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"how-to"
] | [
"arduino",
"interrupt",
"tutorial"
] | OK, year-old pop culture references aside [Kyle] dropped us a line to show us his tutorial on
using interrupts with your Arduino
. Given the single core nature of your average Arduino’s AVR you pretty much have two choices for monitoring occasional un-timed inputs: Either check an input at an interval (which risks missing the signal entirely) or set up an interrupt to pause the chip’s normal operation. Obviously working with interrupts saves you tons of clock cycles since you are not polling a pin over and over. [Kyle] plans on a follow up tutorial to cover timer based interrupts, which can come in handy when generating frequencies and stuff.
Looking for more Arduino Basics? How about
Basic on an Arduino
. Check out our other
beginner concepts
posts as well if you need to work on your fundamentals. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "503447",
"author": "DS",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T20:46:48",
"content": "Internet memes? In my hackaday?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "504102",
"author": "Jesse Congdon",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T14:15:23",
... | 1,760,377,032.365928 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/08/panning-time-lapse-rig/ | Panning Time-lapse Rig | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"gorillapod",
"lumex",
"time-lapse"
] | Here’s a simple camera setup that lets you
make your own panning time-lapse videos
. It uses a couple of motors driven by an Arduino to snap successive still images which can later be rolled into a video format.
[Acorv] was not thrilled with the fact that his new Lumix LX5 didn’t have a time-lapse option built-in. But luckily it does have a standard connector on top for an external flash. He saw on a forum post that someone had built a jig which mounts to the flash bracket and uses a servo motor to depress the shutter release button. He recreated that and had half of this hack done.
The panning portion is facilitated by the Gorillapod. This particular model offers a swivel feature. This is automated by connecting it to a stepper motor with a piece of string. As the stepper turns the string is wound on a spool and gradually pans the camera. Simple, and it seems to work great. Check out the video after the break to see a test which was shot at sunset on the shores of a lake.
If you have a camera which offers an IR remote shutter release
the time-lapse portion can be handled with an IR intervalometer
, making the mechanical build a bit easier.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/31732246 w=470] | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "503391",
"author": "warpist",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T19:17:33",
"content": "I don’t know if it’s because I’ve hit this similar problem, but this is a remarkably simple and therefore brill hack. bravo.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment... | 1,760,377,032.541598 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/09/pikachu-is-coming-for-you-especially-on-carpet/ | Pikachu Is Coming For You (especially On Carpet) | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"carpet",
"leg",
"pikachu",
"suspension",
"wheel"
] | If you look closely, you’ll see that Pikachu isn’t sporting a pair of funky throwing stars, but is actually suspended between there. Our furry friend is just putting a happy face on this
carpet roving robot called the Carpet Monkey V5
. It’s been in the works for years, and this is just one more stop in the prototyping process as the development of version 6 is already under way.
The project is a testament to what can be accomplished using all of the design tools at your disposal. The motive mechanism was conceived as a cross between the qualities of legs and the ease of using wheels. Each of the appendages are covered with strategically placed points meant to grab onto carpet, and allow the ‘wheel’ to grip objects as the machine vaults over them. You can see that each has a spring mechanism to further facilitate gripping with each turn of the axle. This seems to go far beyond what usually comes out of hobby robotics, and we think that’s a great thing!
After the break there’s a video showing how all the parts of these grippers are assembled. See the bot cruising around the room at about 3 minutes in.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrFenpbTKbg&w=470]
[via
Build Lounge
] | 16 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "504505",
"author": "NoX",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T23:52:26",
"content": "wheels.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "504856",
"author": "Eirinn",
"timestamp": "2011-11-10T09:25:07",
"content": "wont work."... | 1,760,377,032.5949 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/09/candy-chucker-weapon-or-advanced-halloween-delivery-system/ | Candy Chucker – Weapon, Or Advanced Halloween Delivery System? | Mike Szczys | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"candy",
"halloween",
"hard candy",
"launcher",
"pumpkin"
] | Now we know why kids in this neighborhood wear plastic Halloween masks instead of just painting their faces. They’re trying to protect themselves from the onslaught of hard candy spewing out the front of
this candy chucking pumpkin
.
The mechanism operates very much like a baseball or football throwing device. Now that we think of it, it’s also the same concept as
the chicken launcher
. There is a feed shoot that drops the projectile into the grips of two spinning chuckers. Those chuckers are built out of a couple of fans, with layers of fabric to account for different sizes and shapes of candy.
The video after the break shows some test firing. We love the sickening ‘whap!’ that the Werther’s Original (or whatever crappy Halloween offering they’re using) makes when it slams into the wall of the room.
This thing’s just begging to be mounted on a parade float, don’t you think?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTKTd5JaeJg&w=470]
[via
LVL1
] | 10 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "504454",
"author": "Slegiar",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T22:06:38",
"content": "omg thats brilliantly funny XD kids would go to that house with large opening bags and have a blast catching the flying candy i bet XD",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,377,032.941921 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/09/reverse-engineering-mykeepon/ | Reverse Engineering MyKeepon | Mike Nathan | [
"News",
"Robots Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"MyKeepon",
"Padauk",
"toys"
] | [qDot] recently got his hands on a MyKeepon toy and after messing with it a bit, decided to
tear it down to see what was inside.
He had hopes of easily modding the toy, but like most adventures in hacking, things might take a while longer than he first imagined.
In his teardown you can see the various components that make up the MyKeepon, including a trio of motors for movement, along with a series of buttons and a microphone used to interact with the toy. Of course, the part that interested him the most was MyKeepon’s circuit board, since that’s where the real work would begin.
There, he discovered two main processor Padauk processor chips, described as “Field Programmable Processor Arrays” in their data sheets. He says that the brand is well known for lifting text verbatim from PIC data sheets, so he doesn’t have a ton of faith in what’s printed there. Sketchy documentation aside, he poked around on the I2C bus connecting the two chips and was able to sniff a bit of traffic. He is documenting his findings as he goes along, which you can see more of on
his Github project site.
He has made a few simple modifications to the toy already, but there’s plenty more to do before he has complete control over it. His work is bound to make tons of MyKeepon fans happy, including our own [Caleb Kraft], whose love for the toy can be seen in the video below taken at last year’s CES.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQhMtuYZj4Q&w=470] | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "504430",
"author": "Foxdie",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T21:34:54",
"content": "I’ve already got a pre-order for one of these things just for the cuteness, if I can add functionality to it later then bonus :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comm... | 1,760,377,032.640061 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/09/hacking-a-vs200-food-sealer/ | Hacking A VS200 Food Sealer | Jeremy Cook | [
"cooking hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"food sealer",
"kitchen hacks",
"vacuum sealer"
] | This food sealer just wasn’t cutting it for [Tinkering Engineer], so he decided to
do something about it
. The issue with this sealer was that it didn’t have a mode where it could simply seal bags without pulling a vacuum on it. Going through the whole process takes a reported 40 seconds in order to evacuate the air and then seal the bag. Without pulling a vacuum, the sealing process took only 9.
After taking everything apart and looking around, a PIC microcontroller, and vacuum switch were found as well as other assorted electronics. Although the first thought was to replace the onboard PIC with an Arduino, a much simpler solution was arrived at. Two switches were added, one to disable the vacuum pump and the other to manually turn on the heater. This would allow the machine to function as originally intended or simply let bags be sealed without the vacuum function.
This hack may not be the most advanced one that we’ve ever seen, but it’s a good reminder that some projects can be done very simply if you’re willing to look around! | 22 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "504318",
"author": "Devin",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T19:22:05",
"content": "Nice work going for a more elegant solution instead of throwing an Arduino at the problem!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "504321",
"author": ... | 1,760,377,033.007277 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/09/build-a-kinect-bot-for-500-bones/ | Build A Kinect Bot For 500 Bones | Brian Benchoff | [
"Kinect hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"autonomous robot",
"Kinect",
"robot"
] | [Eric] sent in his tutorial on
building a Kinect based robot for $500
, a low-cost solution to a wife that thinks her husband spends too much on robots.
For the base of his build, [Eric] used an
iRobot Create
, a derivative of the Roomba that is built exclusive for some hardware hackery. For command and control of the robot, an EEE netbook takes data from the Kinect and sends it to the iRobot over a serial connection.
The build itself is remarkably simple: two pieces of angle aluminum were attached to the iRobot, and a plastic milk crate was installed with zip ties. The Kinect sits on top of the plastic crate and the netbook comfortably fits inside.
A few weeks ago, [Eric] posted a summary of the
history and open-source software for the Kinect
that covers the development of the Libfreenect driver. [Eric] used this same driver for his robot. Currently, the robot is configured for two modes. The first mode has the robot travel to the furthest point from itself. The second mode instructs the robot to follow the closest thing to itself – walk in front of the robot and it becomes an ankle biter.
There is a limitation of the Kinect that [Eric] is trying to work around. Objects closer than 19 inches to the Kinect appear to be very far away. This caused a lot of wall bumping, but he plans on adding a few ultrasonic sensors to fill the gap in the sensor data. Not bad for a very inexpensive autonomous robot. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "504280",
"author": "MobileWill",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T18:29:58",
"content": "You could save some money and get a used Roomba from a thrift store. My dad finds them all the time for like $10-20.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,377,033.053525 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/09/big-head-costume-would-make-max-headroom-jealous/ | Big Head Costume Would Make Max Headroom Jealous | Mike Nathan | [
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"cool",
"halloween",
"lcd",
"video"
] | [Dan Rosenfeld] does a lot of thinking in his spare time, and one thing he returns to pretty often is videoconferencing. He’s often wondered why it hasn’t caught on enough to become a ubiquitous piece of technology, and his examination of the topic in regards to eye contact and spatial awareness inspired him to create
a very unique Halloween costume.
His “Big Head” costume consists of a front-mounted 24” LCD panel that displays the wearer’s face in real time. Inside the large headpiece [Dan] installed a microphone, another LCD screen, a half silvered mirror, and a video camera – not to mention all of the power-related goodies required to keep it running. While the main LCD displays his face, the internal monitor is fed by an externally mounted camera that shows him everything going on outside the box. This image is reflected off the half silvered mirror, allowing him to gaze directly at the camera, while also seeing what’s going on in front of him.
As you can see in the video below, the effect is pretty cool, and devoid of the ‘disconnected’ look most people have when talking to others via a camera and computer screen.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4VY5dQqR-k&w=470] | 21 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "504200",
"author": "Javier Durante",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T16:35:51",
"content": "Bravo!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "504208",
"author": "George",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T16:50:43",
"content": "dan le sac Vs S... | 1,760,377,033.110205 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/09/single-column-rubens-tube/ | Single-column Rubens’ Tube | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"fire",
"propane",
"rubens tube",
"speaker",
"wave"
] | Here’s a fiery project which [Patrick] calls
his Pyro Jam Can
. It’s the simplest Rubens’ Tube build that we can think of. For the uninformed, a Rubens’ tube uses flammable gas to reveal wave forms passing through the supply vessel. In the past we’ve seen
projects with multiple columns
, which very clearly show a standing wave. But this version lacks the resolution for that, so the wave is seen as a modulated flame height.
You can see the propane feed tube coming into the can from the right. This keeps the gas flowing steadily, but a diaphram on the bottom of the can made of a latex balloon allows for modulations in flame height by pushing the gas through the aperture a bit faster than it is flowing. A speaker in the base bounces sound waves off of the diaphragm for the effect seen in the video clip after the break.
We wonder if the can will ever heat up enough to melt the balloon on the other end?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGKzmi-NL-A&w=470] | 13 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "504383",
"author": "adric",
"timestamp": "2011-11-09T20:57:19",
"content": "Wonder if it could be done as with the aperature, designed with a small lip to create Gas rings(smoke rings sorta)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "50443... | 1,760,377,033.161454 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/07/g-35-christmas-lights-do-make-a-great-led-matrix/ | G-35 Christmas Lights Do Make A Great LED Matrix | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"color effects",
"display",
"g-35",
"ge",
"marquee",
"matrix"
] | This fully-addressable RGB LED matrix was built by [John Graham-Cummings]. He didn’t start from scratch, but wisely repurposed a strand of GE Color Effect lights and
built a pleasant looking case in which to mount the G-35 hardware
.
We’ve seen this hardware
used in a similar way
before. Because each ‘bulb’ has its own microcontroller, color data is shifted in via a serial bus. Orient the modules in any pattern you choose and account for that layout in software.
Since the strings have 50 bulbs, [John] simply cut off the one on the end to form his 7×7 matrix with the remaining 49 units. A square of plywood with a grid of holes holds each in place. Cord mess is not a problem as the extra was cut out and the remainders were soldered together again. [John] uses an Arduino Pro to feed in the data, which you can see for yourself in the clip after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O97SXlcEsbE&w=470]
[Thanks Evalpix] | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "502585",
"author": "Max",
"timestamp": "2011-11-07T23:28:38",
"content": "Anyone know where we can get these in the uk? I only found one place at £100 for 36. Amazon US has them at $100 for 50.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "... | 1,760,377,033.218862 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/07/this-panavise-jr-speed-winder-should-be-in-every-makers-toolbox/ | This Panavise Jr. Speed Winder Should Be In Every Maker’s Toolbox | Mike Nathan | [
"cnc hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"makerbot",
"Panavise Jr",
"thingiverse"
] | Like many makers, [Chris] has a Panavise Jr. on his workbench that he uses for just about everything. The tiny vise is great for all sorts of tasks, and is often considered an indispensable tool. The only problem with the vise is
the amount of time it takes to open and close the thing.
[Chris] estimates that it takes somewhere between 2 and 3 million turns of the crank to move the vise’s jaws from fully open to the fully closed position. He figured that his drill is far better at mindlessly turning circles than he is, so he sat down and designed a bit in Google Sketchup to spin the vise’s crank knob.
He fired up his MakerBot and printed out his first “Speed Winder” drill bit. It was decent, but he thought it could be better. After a handful of revisions, he was finally happy with the results. He says it works great, and has posted the model on Thingiverse so that everyone can print one of their own.
Continue reading to see how [Chris] created the bit along with how much time this thing saves him.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVQegeAXqLA&feature=player_embedded&w=470] | 34 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "502549",
"author": "atomsoft",
"timestamp": "2011-11-07T22:40:39",
"content": "Excellent! Loved the video presentation and usefulness! Great work!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "507924",
"author": "Brett W. (FightCube... | 1,760,377,033.332375 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/07/ikea-wine-rack-originally-sold-as-a-mattress-holder/ | Ikea Wine Rack Originally Sold As A Mattress Holder | Mike Szczys | [
"Beer Hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"bed",
"bed frame",
"ikea",
"wine",
"wine rack"
] | [Jeremy Walworth] has been dumpster diving again. He noticed that his neighbor had a bucked of nice-looking wood out at the curb for garbage collection. He inquired about it and learned that it was an Ikea bed that had broken, and that the original hardware was still there in a separate bag. He dragged it to his lair and
built this wine rack out of the parts
.
The reused rails and hardware provide five shelves for the bottles. [Jeremy] wanted each vessel to stay in place if the shelf wasn’t full, so he grabbed a piece of mill work from the home store and cut dividers which were glued in place. Now he’s able to show off up to sixty bottles for just a couple of bucks in material expense.
It seems like Ikea is able to sell furniture for less than the cost of the materials sourced locally. We think this is a fantastic way to find parts for your own hacks, as the components that break can often be cut down to undamaged pieces. We also make sure to check the As-Is section on each visit for the ‘leftovers’ that are usually sold for pennies. Who know’s maybe you’ll find the parts you need to
build a camera mount for documenting projects
. | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "502504",
"author": "Adrian Hum",
"timestamp": "2011-11-07T22:03:16",
"content": "We live in a word that so often begs for “rebuilding the busted” its hard rubbish collection week and much to the other half’s dismay I have been pulling in timber and scraps, dusting them down and send... | 1,760,377,033.37847 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/07/hex-out-reveals-the-secrets-your-data-bus-holds/ | HEX Out Reveals The Secrets Your Data Bus Holds | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"hex",
"logic probe",
"logic sniffer",
"seven segment"
] | [Quinn Dunki] is looking to augment the tools she has available at her electronics bench and built
the HEX Out as a mock-logic sniffer
. The device reads 8 or 16-bit inputs, showing the current state of those connections on a 7-segment display. This requires that you’re comfortable reading Hex codes, but if you’re not it’s almost like studying flash cards; before long you’ll be able to read them without thinking about it.
She’s blogging about the design and build process in three parts. The link above is the first installment where she shares the development process for the top layer which hosts the display hardware. The other two parts should be up for your enjoyment in the next couple of weeks.
You’ll notice her design on this portion of the project still requires a lot of point-to-point soldering, even though she etched her own circuit boards. We didn’t look too closely, but it seems this would be worth going to the trouble of etching a double-sided board if you can.
UPDATE:
Part Two is now available | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "502497",
"author": "charliex",
"timestamp": "2011-11-07T21:54:35",
"content": "nicely done Quinn.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "502544",
"author": "Quinn Dunki",
"timestamp": "2011-11-07T22:36:48",
"content": "If s... | 1,760,377,033.263962 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/07/do-not-build-a-fully-automatic-battery-launching-air-gun/ | DO NOT Build A Fully Automatic Battery-launching Air Gun | Brian Benchoff | [
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"automatic",
"gun",
"potato gun",
"spud gun",
"weapon"
] | There’s nothing quite like [Elliot]’s cherubic sense of wonder and maniacal laughter after he tests his
fully automatic AA battery-launching air gun
. That fires 600 rounds a minute. At 200 feet per second.
We need to take a minute and say [Elliot]’s gun is
stupidly unsafe
. He used PVC pipe to hold air pressure, so that may… explode one of these days. Also, the AA batteries coming out of the end of the barrel have the same kinetic energy as a .22 rifle bullet.
The mechanics of the gun is a simple
blow forward bolt
. When he pulls the trigger, the bolt – and battery – are forced forward due to air pressure. After the bolt has cleared a plug, air is allowed to flow through the bolt pushing the battery along with it. Once the pressure in the barrel is back down to normal, a spring forces the bolt back into place and the 23 round magazine loads another battery. Simple, really. [Elliot] posted some
pics
of his gun on the spudfiles.com forum.
The gun is accurate to about 100 yards. It’s a very impressive piece of engineering for a bit of PVC pipe, but we don’t feel the need to copy this one. Check out the videos after the break to see this thing in action.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6Gs2mKNjV0&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHtL-WBSEXk&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE6W57pKEGI&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KCqgyzPuEI&w=470] | 177 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "502277",
"author": "loans",
"timestamp": "2011-11-07T17:21:25",
"content": "This could be answered by the videos but I’m unable to.watch at the moment. My question is, HOW accurate at 100 yards? It must be like artillery, at 200fps.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,377,033.981087 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/07/google-hangout-laser-turret/ | Google Hangout Laser Turret | Brian Benchoff | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"google hangout",
"laser turret",
"turret",
"webcam"
] | The guys from the House4Hack hackerspace in Johannesburg won the 2011 Google+ Hackathon with their
Friggin’ Laser Turret
. The build started off as a remote-controlled webcam that can be controlled by anyone in a Google+ hangout. On a whim, the team decided to add a laser to the build because lasers are awesome.
The inspiration for the build was to have a Google+ hangout available whenever someone is at the hackerspace. If a guest can’t grace the team with their physical presence, at least they can be there virtually. The camera is controlled by an Arduino running a bog-standard servo library implementation. The Arduino is connected to a laptop over a serial connection and is able to move left and right. To spice things up a little, the team added a 25mA laser diode to the build controlled from a digital output on the Arduino.
For winning the Jo’burg Google+ Hackathon, the guys scored themselves a Samsung Galaxy S II phone. Not a bad prize for building something cool. Check out the demo of the friggin’ laser turret after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=_wC8sB24p9c&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XZ8dmARDPo&w=470] | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "502209",
"author": "Dax",
"timestamp": "2011-11-07T16:18:38",
"content": "They need a finer level of control, so people who are using the camera can use the laser to point at things to get the attention of other people in the room.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repli... | 1,760,377,033.600004 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/07/wireless-midi-piano-glove/ | Wireless MIDI Piano Glove | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"flex sensor",
"glove",
"piano",
"pic"
] | Sometimes you just don’t have space for a baby grand. [Abdullah] got around this problem and built a
virtual wireless MIDI piano
. Unlike it’s
inspiration
, it’s not bad but we still love it.
[Abdullah] got his hands on some flex sensors and attached them to a glove. These resistive sensors are put through a voltage divider and sent to a microcontroller (a PIC16F778, we believe) and corresponding MIDI notes are chosen. These MIDI notes are sent to a computer and played over a speaker.
Right now, only a single arpeggio is coded into the microcontroller. Depending on which finger is bent shifts this arpeggio up and down the keyboard. That being said, the firmware can be easily modified to recognize
standard piano fingering
so chords can be played. The only issue is moving the hand up and down the keyboard.
[Abdullah] is planning on making his glove completely wireless with a microcontroller and battery sewn into the glove. Here’s to hoping he’ll keep us posted.
Check out [Abdullah]’s demo after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z1sgXih6fw&w=470] | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "502187",
"author": "Eirinn",
"timestamp": "2011-11-07T15:30:46",
"content": "Looks like an alien hand in the picture haha.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "953532",
"author": "Abdullah",
"timestamp": "2013-02-03... | 1,760,377,033.68524 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/08/kitchen-hacks-the-margarita-machine/ | Kitchen Hacks: The Margarita Machine | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"blender",
"cooler",
"garbage disposal",
"garbage disposer",
"igloo",
"kitchen hacks"
] | If [Paul Degenkolb] really decided to make this on a whim one day (like he says he did) we think he should quit his job and go into a full-blown state of whimsy for the rest of his life.
The Margarita Machine makes five gallons of slushy intoxicants
in a quick and relatively quiet process that will have a backyard full of guests lining up not just to imbibe, but to see what the heck you’ve come up with this time around.
It’s easy enough to see that the vessel is an Igloo cooler, but where do you get a motor and blade assembly strong enough to turn ice cubes into slush? Just hit the home center and pick out the Garbage Disposer model of your choice. With the ball-valve serving spigot closed, the disposer sucks down the liquid and ice, shooting the pulverized mixture through some PVC pipe back to the top of the cooler. This circulation helps to mix things up, but at times [Paul] uses a glass as a plunger to wrangle rogue ice cubes.
Sorry folks, doesn’t look like there’s any video of this in action.
[Thanks Brad] | 13 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "503364",
"author": "kaluce",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T18:41:01",
"content": "dude. do want.though I’m wondering if there is a cheaper motor than a disposer, and also, i wonder if you could pipe some sort of kegerator into this to keep it cool. . .",
"parent_id": null,
"depth... | 1,760,377,034.034227 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/08/arduino-based-midi-synth/ | Arduino-based MIDI Synth | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"midi",
"synthesizer"
] | [Charles Gershom] has been tinkering around with his keyboard and Arduino in order to build
his own version of a MIDI controlled synthesizer
. It looks like he’s gutted the enclosure of some commercially available MIDI hardware to use for the project. This works nicely since it gives him both the MIDI and audio jacks that he needs. The box also provides a nice control surface where a set of four LEDs indicates the synth mode currently in use. There are also four potentiometers mounted on the panel, but they’re not yet up and running.
Check out the video after the break to see what this can do so far. [Charles] shows the device synthesizing sounds coming in from the keyboard. It is also used to playback the audio from Super Mario Bros. which is fed in by a music notation program on a computer. Only one voice is playing when this happens which makes us think this can only handle one channel at a time right now (but we could be wrong).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uWM50vazeQ&w=470] | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "503424",
"author": "Harvie.CZ",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T20:06:11",
"content": "Music In – Audio Out :-) LOL",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "503435",
"author": "Charles G",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T20:23:01",
"conten... | 1,760,377,033.722564 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/08/george-foreman-seedling-starter-for-kitchen-herbs/ | [George Foreman] Seedling Starter For Kitchen Herbs | Brian Benchoff | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"farming",
"grow lights",
"horticulture",
"kitchen hacks"
] | Sometimes the best kitchen hacks aren’t about the best barbecue, the rarest steak, or the baconiest bacon. Sometimes you need a little color on your plate, son, so why not grow your own herbs in a
[George Foreman] rotisserie greenhouse
?
[Sam] first saw his barely used rotisserie as his friend was throwing it out. Like any good maker, he quickly snatched it up and began work on some modifications. After removing the fun bits like the motor, heating element, and timer, [Sam] installed two compact fluorescent light bulbs to start a few herbs off right.
Kitchen herb gardens are surprising common, so much so that
entire forums
are dedicated to the practice. [Sam] doesn’t have any soil in his seedling starter yet but when he does, we expect he’ll be harvesting a nice crop of basil, oregano or cilantro in the spring.
Of course, [Sam] could use his seed starter to grow more “unconventional” plants, but some of us have been kicked out of a dorm for growing a pomegranate seedling, so we’ll leave it at that. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "503255",
"author": "chango",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T16:19:31",
"content": "Good job recycling. I’m sure that this is an area that could be served by abandoned and surplus Ikea bits as well.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "503... | 1,760,377,035.963899 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/08/a-tesla-coil-that-delivers-shocking-candy/ | A Tesla Coil That Delivers Shocking Candy | Mike Nathan | [
"Misc Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"halloween",
"tesla coil"
] | Even though Halloween was a week ago, we are still seeing plenty of cool stuff coming our way. Take for instance
this Tesla coil that [JJ] sent us.
He got the idea to build a coil for his Halloween display about a week before the event, but he figured it would be easy enough to do since he had a lot of the parts on hand already. He originally started with some neon transformers and a primary/secondary pair he used in a previous Tesla coil build, but when things were fully assembled he wasn’t completely happy with the results.
He returned to the drawing board, winding a new primary/secondary coil pair, which performed much better. The rest of the coil was pieced together with random parts he procured at IKEA along with other items he had sitting around.
He donned a mad scientist’s outfit, and with a large set of grounded tongs acting as a Faraday cage he proceeded to electrocute trick or treaters’ candy with his Tesla coil, much to the delight of the neighborhood children.
Be sure to swing by his page to see more construction details, and for a sneak peek at the candy zapping process, check out the video below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSuD4XiC9Nc&feature=player_embedded&w=470] | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "503195",
"author": "Alex",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T15:07:50",
"content": "So that’s how they make shocktarts…..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "503201",
"author": "Genome",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T15:22:53",
"conte... | 1,760,377,035.807371 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/08/a-simple-method-for-expanding-arduino-io-capacity/ | A Simple Method For Expanding Arduino IO Capacity | Jeremy Cook | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"I/O",
"io expansion"
] | Although there are other ways to do this, [Rod] has decided to write up his method of using two Arduinos and the I2C protocol to
expand an Arduino’s IO capacity
. As seen in the picture above, you’ll sacrifice 2 analog pins, but if you happen to need IO and have an extra Arduino lying around, this could really help. [Rod] also notes that this method could be used with many Arduino’s in parallel if the situation called for it. The code for this simple hack is included as well, so be sure to check out his site if you want to try this idea.
Some other solutions for extra IO would be to buy an
Arduino Mega
with 54 digital IO pins or the
Muxshield
which gives you 48 IO (and is stackable for other shields). An advantage of using the two Arduinos, is that if they are needed to be split in the future for different projects, this could be done. It’s good to have options for your IO needs as every hack is different.
Check out the video after the break to see everything being hooked up.
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZBZ_Nco1pc&w=470&h=315%5D | 52 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "503160",
"author": "Stevie",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T14:19:24",
"content": "Shift registers",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "503164",
"author": "Ben Ryves",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T14:28:32",
"content": "According t... | 1,760,377,035.663939 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/07/hackaday-now-officially-has-a-g-page/ | Hackaday Now Officially Has A G+ Page | Caleb Kraft | [
"News"
] | [] | There was a recent
announcement that G+ opened the doors to businesses and organizations for g+ pages
. This means we can have an official G+ page with google’s blessing. We’ve
opened one up here
. We plan on having “hangouts” from time to time so people can show off what they’ve done. Don’t worry if you’re not into the g+ thing. All stories will still be published here on the site. Maybe we can take a page from
Adafruit’s book and record some online “show and tell” sessions
to share with you guys.
Of course, sometimes it can be more fun to follow the writers individually, since we are more prone to post opinions and things that aren’t official hackaday info, you can find me,(
Caleb Kraft
), pretty easily. For the others, you’ll have to search for their names. None of them are online right now so I can ask permission to link to them. | 20 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "502838",
"author": "baobrien",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T05:51:06",
"content": "I’m still waiting for them to remove their 18+ age requirement so I don’t always have to log into a fake account to check my G+ page.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,377,035.918502 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/07/announcing-our-next-theme-kitchen-hacks/ | Announcing Our Next Theme: Kitchen Hacks | Mike Szczys | [
"News"
] | [
"kitchen hacks",
"theme"
] | Here’s a theme that has the Hackaday staff quite excited; Kitchen hacks. This is a wide-ranging subject that can include anything having to do with food, food preparation, kitchen implements, and enhancements.
We’ve seen quite a few fantastic examples of this theme already. How about
a kitchen island the mixes cocktails to order
? Perhaps you’d prefer
an AI that keeps track of your shopping list
or just
a computer kiosk that’s nicely integrated
. Of course there’s already
an iPod dock for that
! You might be looking to
supe up a pressure cooker
, or add
a Sous Vide
machine to your culinary arsenal. We shouldn’t leave out
the ability to ‘print’ images on toast
.
Speaking of toast… we’re still waiting for someone to build a laser bread slicer that toasts as it goes. You get the point. Ladies and Gentleman, grab a computer, document your Kitchen hacks, and
send them our way
! | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "502677",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2011-11-08T01:09:51",
"content": "Love it.The automated cocktail island was one of my favorites. Can’t wait to see what new stuff there is!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "502809",
"a... | 1,760,377,035.713622 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/07/hacking-a-magic-wand-to-remotely-control-light-displays/ | Hacking A “magic Wand” To Remotely Control Light Displays | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"halloween",
"harry potter",
"ir",
"magic wand"
] | Hackaday reader [Kieran] volunteers at an outdoor haunted house attraction called the “Disenchanted Forest”. Attendees are lead through the haunted forest by a volunteer, who helps keep everyone on the predetermined trail. The trail is usually lit by small LED fixtures that the group constructed, but the organizers wanted to
make the lights more interactive this time around.
A fellow organizer gave [Kieran] a [Harry Potter] Magic Candle, which allows him to light the toy with the wave of his IR-enabled wand. He was told to “make it do something cool”, so he took a closer look at it to determine how everything worked.
Using an Arduino clone and some borrowed IR code he was able to get the wand to work with the forest’s trail lighting, but there was a lot of lag between waving the wand and triggering the light. Taking a second stab at it, [Kieran] was able to replicate the IR protocol used by the toy, speeding things up and increasing the wand’s range considerably. Now, the tour guides can light and extinguish the trail lighting with a simple flick of the wrist.
Take a look at the video below to see how things worked out for [Kieran], and be sure to swing by his site for more details if you have the urge to modify your Magic Candle.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=O8-z6nbsiAY&w=470] | 12 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "502157",
"author": "egasimus",
"timestamp": "2011-11-07T14:43:18",
"content": "Cool idea, actually, but the video doesn’t do justice to the concept.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "502164",
"author": "Walcarpit",
"timest... | 1,760,377,035.759293 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/06/canon-fd-lenses-on-an-eos-mount/ | Canon FD Lenses On An EOS Mount | Brian Benchoff | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"canon",
"lenses"
] | Camera lenses are expensive and if you’re like us, you can easily find
really cheap
lenses that your camera can’t use. [Sam] has a Canon EOS and a bunch of old-school FD lenses at his disposal. There’s one problem though: using these old lenses with an adapter means focusing at infinity is out of the question. Thankfully, he put up a few videos (
part 1
,
part 2
, and
part 3
) walking through the process of modifying an FD lens for his new camera.
To do the modification for the FD lens, all that’s needed is some epoxy, a screw driver, and an M42 to EF adapter. After disassembling the back of the FD lens, [Sam] mounted the M42 adapter on his camera and held the lens up to check the minimum focusing distance. A bit of grinding or a few metal shims ensure that the lens is in the right position.
The next step is making sure the aperture can still be controlled. [Sam] goes through this in
part two
of his video. A little bit of dremeling takes care of all the hard work. The lens is finally attached to the M42 adapter with a
tiny
bit of epoxy, and the conversion is complete.
While [Sam] could have put up a few close up pics of his build, he goes through every step of the process very well. Check out the embedded videos after the break.
Part 1:
[vimeo=31400082]
Part 2:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GXCKDqVtjw&w=470]
Part 3:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1OUrrV5LnU&w=470] | 19 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "501287",
"author": "Jon",
"timestamp": "2011-11-06T20:39:52",
"content": "part 2 and 3 are the same",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "501298",
"author": "Brian Benchoff",
"timestamp": "2011-11-06T20:58:08",
... | 1,760,377,036.133894 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/06/diy-spot-welder-can-join-anything-together-even-copper/ | DIY Spot Welder Can Join Anything Together, Even Copper | Mike Nathan | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"copper",
"diy",
"spot welding"
] | Hackaday reader [David] was looking for
a cheap and easy way to spot weld copper
tabs together. As he notes in his writeup, the properties of copper which are most enticing, such as high thermal capacity, make welding it all that more difficult. His home-brew method of spot welding is admittedly quick and dirty, but it does get the job done quite well.
He started off with an array of four 2.5V @ 2600 Farad ultra capacitors, which provide the high current required to do copper spot welding properly. They are wired in series and connected to his electrodes using heavy gauge wire. The graphite-tipped electrodes were an interesting DIY job themselves, cleverly constructed using copper tubing and a graphite block. The most simple/dangerous/clever part of the whole rig is his trigger mechanism, which consists of a pair of copper blocks that he bangs together manually to complete the circuit.
[David] is well aware that the setup is just a touch rough, but according to him it makes great welds, and it’s only a proof of concept at this point. He has a hefty list of improvements to make for the final version, including a different switching method among a few other safety precautions. | 35 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "501162",
"author": "Ptolom",
"timestamp": "2011-11-06T18:44:17",
"content": "That looks really useful, if a little dangerous. It’s a shame he missed out on a legitimate opportunity to use a intimidatingly gigantic knife switch though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"re... | 1,760,377,036.032475 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/06/4track-robot-gets-around-with-ease/ | 4Track Robot Gets Around With Ease | Mike Nathan | [
"cnc hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"4track",
"caterpillar robot",
"servo",
"thingiverse"
] | [Jon] has been developing
a slick little RC robot
in bits and pieces over the last year or so, which can constructed by anyone with access to a 3D printer. Servos and electronics aside, the entire thing can be put together in short order using the plans he posted on Thingiverse.
The robot makes use of four “caterpillar” type bots, which are all connected via a central frame. Once [Jon] had the general design for
a single caterpillar bot
down, he moved forward to create the robot you see above. His friend [Julián] lent a hand in the form of electronics and code, which allows the robot to be driven using a standard USB gamepad.
As you can see in the video below, the robot gets around nicely, climbing over obstacles with relative ease. While it is a bit loud, [Jon] says that’s due to the undersized servos they happen to be using at the moment. We think it looks great so far, but [Jon] already has plans to beef up the motors and add wireless control in the near future – we can’t wait to see it then!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54MXA22bOmQ&w=470] | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "501130",
"author": "Sparkinium",
"timestamp": "2011-11-06T17:25:33",
"content": "It looks very cool, but I worry about the servos, even if they’re only temporary. They’re not using smoothing to run the legs and it really looks like they’re just going to destroy their motors.",
"... | 1,760,377,036.079077 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/06/hackaday-links-november-6th-2011/ | Hackaday Links: November 6th, 2011 | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"bulletin board",
"charger",
"raspberry pi",
"robot hand",
"super capacitor"
] | Build details for Raspberry Pi prototype
With the launch of Raspberry Pi approaching the development team released
the details about the prototypes
from about five years ago. The board was originally based on an ATmega644 and built on some perfboard.
‘Zero Energy Device’ challenge
We call BS on the title of this one, but the goal of
finding devices that don’t use disposable energy sources
is a good thing in our book. For instance, can we get more stuff that uses long-life capacitors instead of batteries?
Command adhesive for mounting bulletin boards, etc.
This seems like a no-brainer, but we’ve been using nails to mount bulletin boards and white boards for year. The problem is, when you stick a push-pin in one side, the other side pops off of the nail. [Zhanx] is using adhesive from 3M Command Hooks
to keep his stuck to the wall
.
Servo-driven gripping hand
[Navic] has been hard at work on
this robot hand
. There’s few details but he shows it can grip objects under one pound and he’s been taking amperage measurement during testing.
Emergency cellphone charging
It might not have been an emergency this time, but [Chris] did figure out
a way to charge his cellphone after the snow storm
in New England knocked out his power. He connected to lantern batteries to a 7805 regulator, then patched that into a USB hub to get his phone connected. Not bad in a pinch! | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "501106",
"author": "Wouter",
"timestamp": "2011-11-06T16:27:01",
"content": "I would love to see remote controls with the IC solar cells and a capacitor. They don’t use a lot of energy per day, so it should be possible to have ‘never ending’ zap devices this way.",
"parent_id": ... | 1,760,377,035.863371 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/05/cadsofts-eagle-6-hits-beta-and-packs-goodies/ | CadSoft’s EAGLE 6 Hits Beta And Packs Goodies | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"beta",
"cadsoft",
"eagle",
"EagleCad",
"pcb",
"schematic",
"xml"
] | Version 6 of the popular schematic and PCB layout software EAGLE
is now in beta testing. The most notable change is
the migration to XML file formats
that we looked at last month.
[PT] didn’t waste any time getting his hands on the software and
giving it a thorough test drive
. The image seen above shows the files of a MintyBoost. It’s impossible to make out at this resolution, but it is indeed spitting out human-readable (well maybe) XML in the windows below instead of the ‘no trespassing’ binaries they used to use.
Earlier today when working on a feature we had to jump on a different computer that had EAGLE installed in order to look at a .SCH file. We wonder if someone will put out a rendering package that can parse the new format and spit out a quick PNG? At the very least, we expect to see some useful hacks for part replacement or pin swapping. It shouldn’t be too hard to poke around and figure out what happens when changing some of the stored values. Got anything in mind that you can do by editing these by hand?
Oh, we almost forgot! The biggest benefit you get from this is the increased version control compatiblity since programs like git will be able to perform diff functions on the files. | 27 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "500590",
"author": "UnderSampled",
"timestamp": "2011-11-05T20:25:13",
"content": "I wonder if this will allow interoperability between Eagle and open source solutions like kiCad. Maybe this will make it possible to have people collaborate using different tools. Are there any regula... | 1,760,377,036.324515 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/05/halloween-hacks-an-evil-rc-clown-car-for-terrorizing-the-neighborhood/ | Halloween Hacks: An Evil R/C Clown Car For Terrorizing The Neighborhood | Mike Nathan | [
"Holiday Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"Halloween hacks",
"powerwheels",
"remote controlled"
] | If you had a few too many trick or treaters hitting up your house this year, [phwillys] has a solution guaranteed to keep them from coming back. He was looking for a way
to scare the crap out of the trick or treaters
this past Halloween, so he constructed a remote-controlled evil jeep to terrorize the neighborhood.
The jeep was built from an old PowerWheels car, and uses a bunch of different motors to get the effect [phwillys] was looking for. He bought a linear actuator on eBay to let him steer the jeep, which is controlled using some motor controllers he had left over from another project. A salvaged car window motor was used to allow evil clown driver to turn from side to side in his seat, while a pair of car seat motors activate the giant claws built into the sides of the vehicle. The jeep’s hood was even turned into a chomping mouth with large teeth using yet another small motor.
[phwillys] also added a water sprayer to the clown’s mouth, soaking any kids in the immediate vicinity, though he was nice enough to mount a leaf blower on the opposite side of the vehicle to help blow them dry.
It really is an awesome creation, we’re sure the neighborhood kids (and parents) got a big kick out of it. Continue reading to see a short video of his scary clown car in action.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo3YHKa_hco&w=470] | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "500632",
"author": "andrew",
"timestamp": "2011-11-05T22:25:36",
"content": "This reminds me of the creepy, tricycle-riding clown in saw.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "500647",
"author": "Merijn van Mourik",
"timestamp... | 1,760,377,036.261914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/04/the-folly-of-adding-an-auxiliary-audio-input-to-a-hyundai-sonata/ | The Folly Of Adding An Auxiliary Audio Input To A Hyundai Sonata | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"auxiliary input",
"fm",
"hyundai",
"sonata",
"stereo",
"transmitter"
] | Why auxiliary audio inputs haven’t been standard on automotive head units for decades is beyond us. But you can bet that if you’re looking at a low-priced sedan you’ll need to buy an entire upgrade package just to get an audio jack on the dash. [Jon W’s] Hyundai Sonata didn’t have that bells-and-whistles upgrade so
he decided to pop his stereo out and add his own aux port
.
A big portion of this hack is just getting the head unit out of the dash. This is made difficult on purpose as an anti-theft feature, but [Jon’s] judicious use of a butter knife seemed to do the trick. He lost some small bits along the way which were recovered with a Shish Kebab skewer with double-stick tape on the end.
With the head unit out, he opened the case and plied his professional Electrical Engineering skills to adding the input. Well, he meant to, but it turns out there’s no magic bullet here. The setup inside the unit offered no easy way to solder up an input that would work. Having done all of the disassembly he wasn’t going to let it go to waste. [Jon] grabbed a nice FM transmitter setup. He wired it up inside the dash and mounted the interface parts in the glove box as seen here.
It’s nice to know we’re not the only ones who sometimes fail at achieving our seemingly simple hacking goals. At least [Jon] was able to rally and end up with the functionality he was looking for. | 48 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "499692",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2011-11-04T15:19:03",
"content": "Sucks, doesn’t it?On my old car, the only aux in was via a disc changer option. But you couldn’t just wire something into the audio line, there. Oh no. That would be too easy. The headset had to think that the... | 1,760,377,036.950403 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/04/look-its-a-helicopter-its-a-plane-its-a-rolling-robot/ | Look, It’s A Helicopter! It’s A Plane! It’s A Rolling Robot! | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"aerostat",
"ball",
"helicopter",
"plane"
] | The helicopter-plane-ball-bot sounds like a creation [Homer Simpson] would come up with, but it’s
a fairly accurate description of what this machine can do
. It was developed by researches at Japan’s ministry of defense. The single propeller lets it operate much like a helicopter. But when it needs to get somewhere quick, the body repositions itself with the propeller at the front, while those black panels function as wings. Finally, the spherical body lets it travel along surfaces, vertical or horizontal. It can even roll along the ground.
After the break you can see a flight demo video from the 2011 Digital Contents Expo. It makes us wonder about the control interface. Which part of this is the front side, and how does it know which direction the operator intends to steer it? Perhaps there is feedback on the cardinal orientation of the control unit? We don’t have the answers to these queries, but we think there’s something very Sci-Fi about it. It brings to mind the Dog Pod aerostatic defensive grid from Neal Stephenson’s novel
The Diamond Age
.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF0uLnMoQZA&w=470]
[Thanks Rob] | 27 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "499636",
"author": "Dox",
"timestamp": "2011-11-04T14:12:50",
"content": "The Diamond Age? Im thinking all it needs ia a syringe and Princes Leia is done for!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "499640",
"author": "VisceralEcho... | 1,760,377,037.197456 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/04/diy-binary-alarm-clock-small-enough-to-fit-in-your-pocket/ | DIY Binary Alarm Clock Small Enough To Fit In Your Pocket | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"clock hacks",
"News"
] | [
"alarm clock",
"altoids tin",
"arduino",
"binary clock",
"clock"
] | [linux-dude]
always wanted to have a binary clock
, but he didn’t want to pay someone else to make it for him. Additionally, he was looking for a compact alarm clock he could take on the road, rather than relying on the one in his hotel room.
Inspired by other binary clock projects he has seen over the years, he set off to build his own, which he wanted to fit inside an Altoids tin. His binary clock uses an Arduino Duemilanove (which fits perfectly in the tin) to keep time and control the indicator LEDs. The LEDs are arranged in two rows as you would expect, representing hours and minutes. A small piezo speaker serves as the alarm buzzer, which should be sufficient to wake up most people, though something bigger might be required for heavy sleepers.
We didn’t see any sort of battery pack or power plug mentioned, so we’re not quite sure how [linux-dude] keeps his clock juiced up. Additionally, the lack of an real time clock is something we’re puzzled by. While the Arduino does have a clock function that can be used, an RTC might serve him better – then again if he’s gone for just a day or two at a time, a small amount of drift may not be an issue. | 22 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "499584",
"author": "Aaron",
"timestamp": "2011-11-04T13:06:22",
"content": "“Why not just stuff a BeagleBoard in there?” he asked, and caused his comment to be deleted thereby.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "499590",
... | 1,760,377,037.130951 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/03/beer-security-system-keeps-freeloaders-out-of-your-stash/ | Beer Security System Keeps Freeloaders Out Of Your Stash | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Beer Hacks",
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"beer",
"Milwaukee Hackerspace",
"rfid",
"security"
] | The crew at the Milwaukee Hackerspace are
pretty serious about their beer.
They used to have a fridge filled with cans, available to all at the hackerspace, but they decided to beef things up and create a secured beer dispensing system.
Like many others we have seen, their kegerator is built into an old refrigerator, complete with a tap built into the door. To ensure that interlopers are kept from their precious brew, they have secured the refrigerator using an Arduino and RFID tags to grant access. They use the same RFID key fobs members carry to gain access to the space for tracking beer consumption, unlocking the tap whenever a valid tag is swiped past the sensor.
They are still in the midst of tweaking and revising the system, but it looks good so far. It’s a great way to keep uninvited guests from their beer stash, while giving them a way to track consumption at the same time. We’re looking forward to seeing more details and code once things are completely wrapped up.
[via
BuildLounge
] | 29 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "499029",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2011-11-03T22:06:48",
"content": "The use of an RFID fob is a good idea, no password to remember when your drunk.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "499050",
"author": "andar_b",
... | 1,760,377,037.348318 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/03/second-run-at-taser-gloves-uses-bug-zapper-parts/ | Second Run At Taser Gloves Uses Bug Zapper Parts | Mike Szczys | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"bug zapper",
"gloves",
"stun",
"taser"
] | [Jair2k4] ditched the Altoids tins and found a new voltage source for
this latest rendition of his taser gloves
. Regular readers will remember
his first iteration
which used wrist-mounted enclosures containing the flash circuitry from disposable cameras to shock the wits out of someone with the laying on of hands. This one is a complete rework but it follows the same concepts.
The new shock circuitry is from a bug zapper in the shape of a fly swatter. We’ve seen these handheld devices before and dismissed them as a gimmick, but [Jair2k4] got his hands on a couple of them and found out they can put out a spark of up to 2300 volts. He set to work by getting rid of the tennis-racket-style grid at the top of the handle. He soldered on some contacts which reach to the tip of his middle-finger and thumb on some rubberized work gloves. The original handle was kept as it’s a nice battery holder and works well strapped to his forearm.
Does it work? You bet – even singing his arm hair and leaving welts on his skin. See for yourself after the break. And yes, this goes on the list of
hacks you should recreate
!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo_rmQXJl90&w=470] | 31 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "498963",
"author": "Derrick",
"timestamp": "2011-11-03T20:20:29",
"content": "“hacks you should recreate” – you mean hacks you SHOULD NOT recreate?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "498973",
"author": "Tim",
"tim... | 1,760,377,037.02234 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/03/using-websocket-with-pic-microcontrollers/ | Using WebSocket With PIC Microcontrollers | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"18f4620",
"autobahn",
"pic",
"python",
"rn-xv",
"roving networks",
"websockets",
"wifi"
] | [Blaise Jarrett] has been grinding away to
get the WebSocket protocol to play nicely with PIC
microcontrollers. Here he’s using the PIC 18F4620 along with a Roving Networks RN-XV WiFi module to get the device on the network. He had started with a smaller processor but ran into some RAM restrictions so keep that in mind when choosing your hardware.
This project was spawned after seeing
the mBed feature a few days back
which combined that board along with a WebSocket library and HTML5 to pull off some pretty amazing stuff. [Blaise] doesn’t have quite as much polish on the web client yet, but he has recreated the data transfer method and improved on that project by moving to the newer version 13 of WebSockets. The protocol is kind of a moving target as it is still in the process of standardization.
The backend is a server called AutoBahn which is written in python. It comes along with client-side web server examples which gave him a chance to get up and running quickly. From there he got down to work with the WebSocket communications. They’re a set of strings that look very much like HTML headers. He outlines each command and some of the hangups one might run into with implementation. After reading what it takes to get this going it seems less complicated than we thought, but it’s obvious why you’ll need a healthy chunk of RAM to pull it off. | 5 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "499157",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2011-11-04T00:48:15",
"content": "This is interesting to see websockets get ported to multiple microprocessors already. I’ve been dealing with websockets a bit lately and think it’s an interesting, if backward, concept.I’m not sure though why... | 1,760,377,036.756307 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/03/tv-b-gone-can-double-as-a-camera-remote-control/ | TV-B-Gone Can Double As A Camera Remote Control | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"attiny85",
"AVR",
"nikon",
"remote shutter release",
"tv-b-gone"
] | [Christopher] found a way to get a bit more mileage out of his TV-B-Gone kit. The little device is intended to turn off every television in range with the push of a button. But at its core it’s really just a microcontroller connected to some infrared LEDs. Instead of sending codes to shut of televisions,
you can rewrite the firmware to send a camera remote shutter release code
.
It doesn’t take too much to pull this off. You need a way to flash new firmware to the device, and you need to know the new code timing that you want to send. Since the firmware is open source it’s easy enough to make code changes, and
there are several easy methods of flashing AVR devices
(like the tiny85 used here), including using an Arduino as an ISP.
But [Christopher] did more than just add the Nikon code for his camera. He realized that there’s a jumper to select between European or American television codes. Since he wasn’t using the foreign option, he replace that pin header with a switch that selects between normal TV-B-Gone operation and camera shutter release modes. Nice. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "498872",
"author": "Steve Hoefer",
"timestamp": "2011-11-03T18:16:24",
"content": "Great work! I have an Arduino sketch and a little shieldlet I use when I need a camera remote, but this is much slicker. And I suspect the TV-B-gone has greater range than what I hacked together.",
... | 1,760,377,037.072685 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/05/controlling-shift-registers-via-spi/ | Controlling Shift Registers Via SPI | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"larson scanner",
"led",
"shift register",
"spi"
] | Hack a Day’s very own (and very prolific contributor) [Mike Szczys] put up a great tutorial on how to
drive shift registers with an SPI interface
.
[Mike]’s earlier
tutorial of the 595 shift register
goes through the functions of a shift register pin by pin. In a 595, bits for each position in the register are sent over one at a time. Most microprocessors have an Serial Peripheral Interface, and using an SPI bus means a lot less mucking about.
An ATmega168 was used for this build, although most Atmel chips
can be made
to work as an SPI master device. There are just three wires connecting the microcontroller to the shift register – SER, SRCLK, and RCLK. Like any other shift register setup, the build can be expanded by connecting the QH’ pin of the first 595 to the SER pin of the second.
[Mike] graciously made
all the code
for his build available. The video after the break is a 16-bit binary counter, a good stopping point before [Mike] rebuilds his
Larson scanner/Cylon/Kitt
, moving away from a PWM-based build to a register-based one.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=_goH3VUTHvI] | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "500474",
"author": "Alan Kilian",
"timestamp": "2011-11-05T16:51:53",
"content": "Some friends and I built an art project using 196 shift registers to drive 343 stepper motors.It lived in the Science Museum of MN and the Exploratorium for a while:https://picasaweb.google.com/1165069... | 1,760,377,037.247212 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/05/weekly-roundup-11511/ | Weekly Roundup 11/5/11 | Jack Buffington | [
"News",
"Weekly Roundup"
] | [
"weekly roundup"
] | In case you missed them the first time, here are this week’s most popular posts:
Our most popular post is about an
octocopter that is big enough to hover a person
who is perched perilously in the center of an angry array of blades that are counting on Murphy’s law for their chance to taste a little human blood.
Next up is a post about an interesting
clock made out of Legos
that uses a mechanism similar to the one inside of a combination lock to display the time.
In third place is a post about
[Lizzie] and her ‘ball of dub’
that is hard to explain but interesting to listen to.
Next we have a post about how some
Occupy Wall Street protesters are generating electricity
despite having their generators confiscated. This one is about the hack folks, not the protest. Let’s try to keep the comments civil…
Finally, we have one about a new circuit board put out by the folks who brought us the Beagleboard.
This one is called the Beaglebone and it is packing some serious firepower for just $89!
We can’t wait to see what our readers come up with these puppies (pun intended)! | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,377,037.287492 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/04/mimicing-a-heartbeat-in-sound-and-electrical-pathways/ | Mimicing A Heartbeat In Sound And Electrical Pathways | Mike Szczys | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"electrical",
"heart",
"propeller"
] | If you set a cardiac nurse loose on a Propeller microcontroller and some parts you might not know what to expect. But we’re intrigued by the outcome of this project which looks to
mimic a heartbeat’s audible and electrical traits
. The post about the project is in four parts which are not linked to each other, but you can find them all, as well as a video segment demonstrating the rig after the break.
It seems that this was intended as a Halloween project, but we don’t see why it wouldn’t be interesting any time of year. The Propeller demo board is used to mimic a heartbeat with a pulsing LED. But that doesn’t seem all that awesome, so the sounds of a heartbeat were added to the program to coincide with the blinky light. Here’s where the medical training comes in: the next phase of the process was to lay out an array of LEDs on a breadboard in the shape of the human heart’s electrical system. Now you’ve got a pulsing LED, heart sounds, and a lighted animation showing how the electricity travels through the organ.
To add a little [Poe] to the project there’s also a CdS light sensor. As you approach the project you block some light from getting to the sensor and the heart rate increases.
We think the next logical step is to add
a heart rate sensor
, so that this can illustrate what your own heart is doing. Boom! Another project ready for the Children’s museum.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE7wxgbQS98&w=470]
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "500001",
"author": "TheYikes",
"timestamp": "2011-11-04T22:12:19",
"content": "I can see some serious real world uses for something like this. I’m definitely gonna follow it’s progress.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "500037",... | 1,760,377,037.40192 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/04/diy-drum-triggers-recreating-bonzos-vistalites/ | DIY Drum Triggers & Recreating [Bonzo]’s Vistalites | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"bonzo",
"drum trigger",
"piezo",
"vistalite"
] | [Rob] has been working on his drum trigger build, and he’s
finally decided to share it with us
. His drum heads and triggers don’t look like anything we’ve ever seen, but he’s pretty confident he has a good kit in the works.
The first unconventional of the build is the drum triggers. The triggers are piezo elements folded up or cut down to fit inside highlighter bodies. These piezo/highliter/drum triggers were filled with melted candle wax to make sure the piezo doesn’t rattle around. [Rob] seems to have taken an empirical approach to cutting up piezo elements – smaller elements are less responsive, so they’ll be used for the zones of the drum head.
[Rob]’s drum heads are made from tennis and badminton raquets. The implementation is actually kind of clever: [Rob] restrings the raquets
on the bias
to vary the feel and responsiveness of the head. Check out the Flickr photoset of the build
here
.
The ultimate goal of [Rob]’s build is a “glass” drum set certainly inspired by
[John Bonham]’s Vistalites
. Whenever [Rob] puts up a video playing
Moby Dick
on his new kit, we’ll be sure to put it up. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "500153",
"author": "mahoney",
"timestamp": "2011-11-05T03:00:58",
"content": "This is an interesting approach.I have recently converted a practise kit to electronic using an arduino to feed a yamaha qy10 synth via midi.The pads / triggers are tunable remo clones. Inside a piezo is g... | 1,760,377,037.443004 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/04/halloween-hacks-motion-sensing-fog-machine/ | Halloween Hacks: Motion Sensing Fog Machine | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"fog machine",
"Halloween hacks",
"motion sensing",
"ultrasonic sensor"
] | [monkeysinacan] wanted to
add a fog machine to his Halloween display
, but he says that the cheaper consumer-grade models are pretty unruly beasts. He cites short duty cycles and tricky fog control as his two biggest gripes with these sorts of foggers. He decided make the fogging process a little more manageable, and modified his to only generate fog when someone was walking nearby.
One obvious concern with this sort of setup is the warm-up time required to get the device ready to produce fog. If it were to only turn on when someone walked by, [monkeysinacan] would miss his mark each and every time. To ensure that his machine was accurate, he rigged it so that the heat exchanger stayed powered on, triggering the fog juice pump as needed.
To do this, he used an ultrasonic sensor similar to, but cheaper than a Parallax Ping unit. Paired with an Arduino, the sensor triggers the fog machine’s pump for 20 seconds whenever anyone gets within 6 feet of it.
While he hasn’t posted video of the modified fogger at work, it sounds like a solid plan to us. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "499934",
"author": "Mit",
"timestamp": "2011-11-04T20:38:06",
"content": "Next series of hacks please. Halloween is over.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "500011",
"author": "jeditalian",
"timestamp": "2011-11-04T22:31:45... | 1,760,377,037.974294 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/04/shutter-trigger-remote-with-some-nice-design-considerations/ | Shutter Trigger Remote With Some Nice Design Considerations | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"attiny2313",
"ir",
"led",
"remote shutter release"
] | Here are the guts of [Lukasz’s]
infrared camera remote control
. He based it off of an existing design, but looked for places where improvements could be made. He felt the ATtiny2313 was a bit wasteful in this case. But further investigation led him to see why it was chosen. If you were to drop down to an ATtiny13 the ability to connect a crystal oscillator is lost (that chip only offers a 1-pin clock signal input) and the internal RC oscillator isn’t quite up to his standards for reliable IR communications.
Instead of driving the IR LED directly from an AVR pin he used a transistor in hopes that it will allow the maximum current to flow through the diode when in use. We’re not sure if it’s necessary, but we can see how it makes sense. Power is received from an unregulated 3 volt coin cell, so maybe as that voltage drops over time this will come into play.
Speaking of that coin cell, battery life is a concern here. [Lukasz] is using the sleep functions of the AVR after three seconds of use. This should keep the cell alive for quite a long time. But his 0 volt measurement is an anomaly with the multimeter he’s using. To get a precise measurement for tiny current flow you need extra equipment, like [Dave Jones’]
uCurrent adapter
.
The schematic for this Canon camera compatible project is only provided in Eagle format so we’ve embedded an image of it after the break for your convenience. You should have no problem making this work with a Nikon if you swap out some of the code from
the TV-B-Gone shutter release
we saw on Thursday. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "499971",
"author": "Bogdan",
"timestamp": "2011-11-04T21:22:42",
"content": "What is wrong with the internal calibrated RC oscillator of an ATTINY13? Its tolerance is about 2% from 0 to 40 deg C, normal use.There are many designs using 8 pin chips that work just fine.You can also us... | 1,760,377,037.88523 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/04/camping-light-retrofitted-as-a-solar-recharging-station/ | Camping Light Retrofitted As A Solar Recharging Station | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"lamp",
"lantern",
"nimh",
"rechargeable",
"solar"
] | With grand plans of tenting out for several days at a music festival [Josh] needed a way recharge his portable devices. In the past he’s lugged around a 12V battery with him, but this year he wanted to make things easier. He ended retrofitting a camping light to
do the job with the help of the summer sun
.
The first step of the project was to source some rechargeable batteries. He toyed with the idea of Li-Ion cells but ended up going with NiMH because the charging is more forgiving and he got them at a great price. Because of the lower operating voltage (1.2V versus Alkaline’s 1.5V) he needed to squeeze two more into the lamp housing. Here you can see that he just managed to get them to fit in the wire-run area down the middle of the case.
Next comes the recharging circuit. He based his design around an ATmega44, using a voltage divider and the ADC to detect when the batteries are topped off. During the day this is connected to an external solar panel and it’s ready to charge his phone when he gets back at night. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "499947",
"author": "Wm_Atl",
"timestamp": "2011-11-04T20:57:49",
"content": "Nice project. I wonder how large a panel he is using?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "499954",
"author": "Josh",
"timestamp": "2011-11-04T21:04... | 1,760,377,037.927772 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/03/bomb-disposal-robot-with-lego-gripper/ | Bomb Disposal Robot With Lego Gripper | Brian Benchoff | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"bomb disposal",
"lego",
"robot",
"trakr"
] | [Krash] had a lot of fun
hacking up his Spy Gear TRAKR
; we’re just lucky he was able to move a suspicious Shrek doll before it detonated.
The now discontinued
Spy Gear TRAKR
serves as the basis for [Krash]’s build. This tiny remote-controlled toy transmits video back to its remote and makes us very jealous of the awesome toys our nephew has. Thankfully, the engineers behind the TRAKR made it
extremely
hackable, as
proved
by Hack A Day’s very own [Phil Burgess].
[Krash] began his build by putting a few male headers in the GPIO pins on the TRAKR’s board. After that, the
TRAKR SDK
was downloaded. He used a few
Snap Circuits
to verify his TRAKR software was working, then set off to build a Lego gripper arm. The arm is powered through an H-bridge IC [Krash] found alongside the rest of his Snap Circuits stuff.
Not a bad build for what amounts to a pile of toys. Check out [Krash]’s video of his bomb disposal bot after the break.
[vimeo=24143672] | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "498860",
"author": "allen",
"timestamp": "2011-11-03T17:52:08",
"content": "unfortunately spy gear stopped making the trakr. get ’em while you can!the “new model” is a brookstone-only wifi and apple only that is definitely designed NOT to be hacked.(that hasn’t stopped anyone in the... | 1,760,377,037.792542 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/03/video-analog-to-digital-conversion-on-the-atmega328p/ | Video: Analog To Digital Conversion On The ATmega328p | Jack Buffington | [
"News",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"3pi",
"atmega328",
"robot",
"video"
] | In this week’s video, we continue on where we left off last week with another in our series of videos where we discuss how to program for the ATmega328p processor. This week, [Jack] takes a look at the analog to digital converter and takes us through how to set things up and then how to perform a conversion using the potentiometer on the 3pi as the analog source. Playing with potentiometers isn’t the most interesting thing in the world, but after watching this video, you will be able to do things like take light readings using a cadmium sulfide cell, read the weight applied to a sensor, calculate the temperature from a resistor and a thermistor, or interface with an analog gyroscope.
If you have missed our previous videos, here are some links:
Part 1:
Setting up the development environment
Part 2:
Basic I/O
Part 3:
Pulse Width Modulation
Stay tuned for next week’s* video where we will take a look at how to interface with the 3pi’s line sensors.
Video is after the break…
* HAD is in the process of moving our secret headquarters so next week’s video may come some time later than next week. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "498814",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2011-11-03T16:44:18",
"content": "secret headquarters?Is the new place a former ICBM base?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "498818",
"author": "The cageybee",
"timestamp": "2011-11-... | 1,760,377,037.839097 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/03/halloween-hacks-a-jacobs-lantern-sure-to-win-the-carving-contest/ | Halloween Hacks: A Jacob’s Lantern Sure To Win The Carving Contest | Mike Nathan | [
"classic hacks",
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"Halloween hacks",
"high voltage",
"jacob's ladder"
] | [Matt] entered himself in a pumpkin carving contest this year, even despite the fact that his artistic skills were a bit…lacking. He knew that he had very little chance of winning the contest unless he had
a great gimmick
to make his creation stand out, so he started brainstorming.
[Matt] figured that since his design would have to be somewhat simple, he needed something eye catching that he could add to the pumpkin after it went under the knife. Like a bolt of lightning, inspiration struck, and he set off to fetch an ignition transformer along with some wire coat hanger.
He built a makeshift Jacob’s ladder that would fit perfectly inside his hollowed out pumpkin, and proceeded to carve the pumpkin with the “Caution, risk of electric shock” logo, familiar to most anyone that works with electronics. You can see the final result in the video below, which we think looks pretty neat. If he didn’t end up winning the contest, we’d be shocked!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GySz5wFzBk&feature=player_embedded&w=470] | 15 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "498763",
"author": "MrX",
"timestamp": "2011-11-03T15:20:42",
"content": "Awesome idea, great hack!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "498778",
"author": "TBO",
"timestamp": "2011-11-03T15:53:55",
"content": "Sweet!And ... | 1,760,377,038.025639 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/03/making-a-wall-power-adapter-for-a-digital-camera/ | Making A Wall Power Adapter For A Digital Camera | Jeremy Cook | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"olympus",
"wall adapter"
] | Instructables user [txoof] was unhappy with the fact that Olympus didn’t manufacture a wall power adapter for the E-510 camera and decided to do something about it. The resulting new power adapter is described in this
article
. What it amounts to is a fake battery pack made out of plywood.
A 2.5mm DC power adapter is attached as seen in the picture above and the fake battery contacts are made with a thin brass or steel plate. According to the article, a steel soda can or bean tin works well for this. Google sketchup with the
slicer plugin
is used to make slices of wood to be glued together in a “battery” shape. Alternatively, something like this would be a good project for a
3D printer
or
CNC router
.
Although there is nothing that revolutionary about this hack, it solves a problem that many people have with cameras or other electronics without a readily available wall power supply. This can be especially evident when trying to do time-lapse photography or other activities that need a long time span. For another hacked-together wooden camera project, check out this
remote trigger
built using plywood and air freshener components. | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "498703",
"author": "sp00nix",
"timestamp": "2011-11-03T14:22:00",
"content": "This reminds me of an old mod i did. I had an old JVC Hi8 camera and could not find a battery for it, so i hallowed it out and made an adapter so a Li-Ion battery from a new camera could be used to power t... | 1,760,377,038.355389 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/03/interactive-digital-fireplace-is-great-for-those-chilly-winter-evenings/ | Interactive Digital Fireplace Is Great For Those Chilly Winter Evenings | Mike Nathan | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"composite video",
"fireplace",
"Gadget Gangster",
"propeller"
] | We’ve all seen them – those fireplace DVDs that seem to pop up on grocery store endcaps and get traded in white elephant gift exchanges. If you don’t happen to have a fireplace in your home they might make a reasonable solution, but [Nick] from the Gadget Gangster thought it would be far better if you could create your own
interactive digital fireplace
instead.
Using the Gadget Gangster Propeller USB platform and ProtoPlus board, his fireplace merges various video segments together based on user input, and plays them on any TV that comes equipped with RCA jacks. The process is fairly straightforward, and involves wiring up switches along with audio and video output to the Propeller board via the ProtoPlus board. The remainder of the work is done using software, requiring the user to select and encode video segments for storage on an SD card. [Nick] does however provide a whole set of clips for download, should you want to take the quicker route.
After encoding and categorizing the video clips to coincide with the “stoke” and “add wood” user input buttons, the Propeller does the rest of the work, randomly selecting clips from the appropriate category when requested.
The result is admittedly a bit Lo-Fi, though we thinks it’s cool and prefer to call it “retro” instead. It might not be a Hi-Def fireplace recording, but it’s far nicer to snuggle up to a hand made fireplace rather than a DVD you picked up as an afterthought.
Continue reading to see a quick demo video of the digital fireplace in action.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/31155501 w=470] | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "498676",
"author": "brad",
"timestamp": "2011-11-03T13:40:06",
"content": "fireplace dvd is a reasonable solution to not having a fireplace? eh? i prefer to think of my electric heater as a reasonable solution, but hey, maybe you’re not into that whole staying warm thing.",
"par... | 1,760,377,038.297139 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/02/time-twister-is-an-ingenious-lego-clock/ | Time Twister Is An Ingenious Lego Clock | Mike Szczys | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"epaper",
"lego",
"rubiks cube"
] | Here’s
an interesting take on a Lego clock
, it uses rotating squares to change the orientation of the black and white tiles to display the needed number. As we see one of the digits cycling to the next number in the video after the break, a couple of different things pop into mind. This seems very much like a 1-dimensional Rubik’s Cube, and it also has a hint of a very large ePaper display. Those use magnetic fields to swivel microspheres that are black on one side and white on the other.
The timepiece, which was built by [Hans Andersson], is limited to displaying numbers only. If you think about it, each row is three pixels but you don’t need to have every combination of those pixels available in order to display the digits. Four sides provide enough room for the necessary combinations. This would not be true if you were trying to scale it up to include all alpha-numeric characters.
The tick of this thing certainly sounds interesting, huh?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_mA72r3ZiQ&w=470]
[Thanks Michael] | 33 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "498119",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2011-11-02T22:14:58",
"content": "What happens if the transition takes longer than 60 seconds? It looks like that is a possibility.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "498122",
"author": ... | 1,760,377,038.241756 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/02/using-your-existing-hardware-to-automate-scanning-and-filing/ | Using Your Existing Hardware To Automate Scanning And Filing | Mike Szczys | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"document scanner",
"lan",
"lua",
"server"
] | This one must have been fun to come up with because it’s got it all. There’s hardware, firmware, networking, and server scripts all working together to
create a filing, scanning document center for your business
. The best part is that [Janis Jakaitis] was tasked to do this as part of his job (we’re sure there’s a bunch of IT guys shaking their heads at this statement, but it sounds like fun to us!).
The goal was to use an existing document scanner to create PDFs which are then stored in a filing system on the network. Of course it needed to be automatic. The first big issue was that the scanner was USB only, and when connected to a USB-to-LAN bridge the buttons on the device no longer functioned. [Janis] put together an Arduino circuit that added that button, as well as a display to show the status of your scan job.
The next issue is getting the filing system to recognize the document as a unique file. The solution here is to generate a unique barcode label that can be affixed to the page before scanning. Since this is a standalone setup, it was tricky to get the label printer to spit out a unique label. He already had the Arduino working with the scanner, so [Janis] decided to use it to drive this barcode job as well. It calls to a Lua script running on the server, which then pushes the next unique code to the printer.
Tie it all together and you get the demo video after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdxwOx3m-fM&w=470] | 23 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "498052",
"author": "Zack C",
"timestamp": "2011-11-02T21:14:02",
"content": "Is the label printer that really necessary? Unless they want to reconcile the hard copy with the scanned version?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "49... | 1,760,377,038.17103 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/02/usb-and-ps2-key-loggers-and-mess-with-your-grammar/ | USB And PS/2 Key Loggers And Mess With Your Grammar | Mike Szczys | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"key logger",
"keyboard",
"ps2",
"Teensy",
"usb"
] | [Irongeek] is up to his old tricks once again with
this new key logger prototype
. It’s in the early stages, as attested by the breadboard built circuit, but [Adrian] still gives us a demo video after the break showing where he’s at right now. It comes in two flavors, the USB pass through seen above, or another that still connects to the computer via USB but functions with a PS/2 keyboard.
Aside from the obvious issue of a key logger stealing everything you type, there’s some prank value in this device too. The Teensy has more than enough processing power to watch what you typing and make changes as it goes. He shows off blatant rewrites, like changing “has” to “haz” or “you” to “U”. We think it would be better to change things like “they’re” to “their” or “it’s” to “its”. These would be very difficult to see happening and if you added randomness to how often the replacements occur, your victim would sooner come to the conclusion that they’re going crazy than that they’re the target of a little hazing. In fact, that’s probably the reason for our own grammar errors though the years; blast!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQYgUwmC_As&w=470] | 15 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "497990",
"author": "Willy",
"timestamp": "2011-11-02T20:14:35",
"content": "“watch what you typing” -> “watch what your typing”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "588608",
"author": "GrammarNazi007",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,377,038.451225 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/02/cheap-oled-display-for-your-ti-launchpad/ | Cheap OLED Display For Your TI Launchpad | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"msp430",
"oled",
"TI laun"
] | The guys over at the
43oh forums
have been working on an OLED display booster pack for the TI Launchpad. The booster pack is
now available
in the 43oh store and is pretty cheap to boot.
The
TI Launchpad
is an awesome little dev board with a ravenous fan base. We’ve seen a lot of projects on Hack a Day use a Launchpad – everything from
intervalometers
to
chicken coops
. Unfortunately, the MSP430 doesn’t have the market penetration of the ‘board that shall remained unnamed,’ so it’s not very common to see a new Launchpad “shield.”
[bluehash] on the 43oh forums has been hard at work for the past month to put together his OLED booster pack. The display is 128×64 pixels with an incredible amount of brightness that we would expect from an OLED display. The software for the display is based on the SSD1306 driver with two font packs – Courier New large and small. Not a bad little piece of kit for an under appreciated dev board. | 30 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "497943",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2011-11-02T19:18:31",
"content": "Does TI offer an IDE that runs on OSX for the 430 yet or an online IDE? Windows is a joke and that was last time i checked.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id... | 1,760,377,038.625184 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/02/chipkit-temperature-shield-supports-a-dozen-sensors/ | ChipKIT Temperature Shield Supports A Dozen Sensors | Mike Nathan | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"chipkit",
"digilent",
"lcd",
"temperature",
"thermistor",
"uno32"
] | [Will] wrote in to share a useful add-on he designed for the ChipKIT UNO 32,
a 12-port temperature sensor board.
Constructed for one of his customers, the shield accepts any 2-wire 10k thermistor sensors, outputting the readings to a small LCD screen. The screen is supported by some code put together by his associate [crenn], but you are not limited to solely displaying the temperatures there. Since this module piggybacks on top of the ChipKIT the same fashion as any standard shield, you clearly have the ability to use and manipulate the data at will. With 12 ports on board this would work well for a house-wide temperature monitoring system, or perhaps in a complex brewing setup.
Both the temperature shield and LCD boards have been released under the Open Source Hardware License, so you can easily build your own if you have the means, though [Will] has a few extras he’s willing to sell if you need one quickly. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "497920",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2011-11-02T18:39:06",
"content": "How hard would this be to use for, say, multi-point monitoring of a barrel wood smoker?Coupled with some exhaust fans this could be a killer accessory for maintaining heat zones… hmm",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,377,038.555082 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/02/occupy-rigs-up-human-power-after-generators-are-confiscated/ | Occupy Rigs Up Human-power After Generators Are Confiscated | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"generator",
"occupy"
] | Looks like New York’s fire brigade confiscated all of the gas (or bio-diesel) generators from Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park. Apparently the Fire Chief cites the generators as a fire hazard. This seems a dubious claim. One of the shots in the video after the break clearly shows fire extinguishers close at hand, but we’re no experts on fire code. We’d bet the concern is having combustibles around if the scene turns violent… or just wanting to pressure the group with the loss of a heat source.
Instead of going without, the movement received help from a neighboring protest group in Boston.
Bicycle power replaces the missing generators as volunteers pedal
to produce electricity. Students from MIT plied their skills to help design multiple charging stations that can be used by the community. It won’t be enough to provide heat for the ongoing occupiers, but it does let them charge their electronic devices which helps ensure that current information is still flowing out of this epicenter of activity.
Does anyone have any ideas for hacking up a heat source that won’t ruffle the feathers of local officials? If so, leave a comment. And if you’ve already got a post written up on the topic don’t be afraid to
send in a tip about it
.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KFpwAgVJuk&w=470]
[Thanks 1116 Birchmont] | 261 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "497737",
"author": "jefftoaster",
"timestamp": "2011-11-02T16:07:09",
"content": "Gas and a match. Juuuuuuust kidding.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "522298",
"author": "democratsarefascists",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,377,038.994744 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/02/heres-your-flying-car/ | Here’s Your Flying Car | Brian Benchoff | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"electric flight",
"flying car",
"quadrocopter"
] | We’ve seen quadrocopters galore over the past few years. We’ve never seen one big enough to lift a person
until now
.
[Thomas], [Stephan], and [Alexander] of e-volo have been working on a gigantic, human-lifting multicopter for a few years now. A few days ago, their prototype took to the air carrying a fully human pilot. There aren’t a whole lot of details on their build, but from what we can tell the flight was powered entirely by batteries.
The test vehicle looks to be a study in minimalism. The landing gear looks to be a repurposed yoga ball, and the chassis is just four pieces of aluminum tube welded into a cross. The the power plant for the prototype is four brushless motors in each quadrant of the vehicle. That’s right – there are 16 motors spinning around the pilot.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a build based on Doctor Robotniks designs. Earlier this year, some guy in China built a
very nice deathtrap
an octocopter
. The e-volo team definitely has the leg up in safety considerations – they have actual
design and engineering studies
The good news is the e-volo team wants to improve their prototype and sell it to the masses. The bad news for Americans is
the FAA hasn’t taken too kindly to electric flying machines
. The team is working on a hybrid drive version, and as long as the weight is kept down, we can always get an ultralight cert.
Check out the video of some 16-blade hovering action after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=L75ESD9PBOw&w=470] | 55 | 34 | [
{
"comment_id": "497658",
"author": "Techrat",
"timestamp": "2011-11-02T14:16:18",
"content": "How the hell is that stable? Every time the pilot shifts his weight, the thing must start tipping in one direction or the other. And if it does work, Mr. “Flying Car” Moller must be kicking himself.",
... | 1,760,377,039.255427 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/02/urine-territory-marking-now-for-humans/ | Urine Territory Marking, Now For Humans! | Jeremy Cook | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"arduino",
"foursquare",
"instructables",
"urine"
] | Although Dogs and other animals love to mark their territory with urine, this technique has been generally ignored by human beings. Despair no more, fellow homo sapiens, we have now developed the ability to
check-in on foursquare
through your information stream. This device is descriptively called “Mark your Territory.”
Although this is not currently available to buy in stores (although apparently $10,000 will get you one built), [Instructables] user [blorgggggg] has furnished
directions on building your own
. The system is powered by an
Arduino
and an Android phone. The urine tags have both a pointed end for sticking in grass and the like, and a sticky back to be used in a “more urban settings.”
The video after the break gives quite a bit of background trying to justify such a system in terms of communicating in the physical world, animals, et cetera, but it’s doubtful that this excuse will get you out of a public urination charge. You’ve been warned.
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRdfeb7vDWg&w=470&h=315%5D | 14 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "497623",
"author": "vlad",
"timestamp": "2011-11-02T13:10:43",
"content": "Seriously…?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "497646",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2011-11-02T13:54:37",
"content": "ditto.",
... | 1,760,377,038.743464 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/01/annoy-your-sound-guy-even-more/ | Annoy Your Sound Guy Even More | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"algorithmic music",
"music",
"obfuscated c code",
"programming"
] | “I can’t hear myself in the mix,” “yeah, man, I’ll be there at 8,” and “dude, we need like four more mics.” Each and every one of these words is documented in actuarial tables and doesn’t bode well for your sound tech’s risk of a stroke. Luckily, there’s an
even better way
to kill your sound guy and this time, it’s actually pretty clever.
[@dop3j0e] at the Stuttgart hackerspace Shackspace came up with the Noiseplug. It’s a very small build that could almost fit into a quarter-inch jack. It’s all SMD with a tiny
(unknown)
ATtiny9 microcontroller powered by a watch battery.
The music coming out of the Noiseplug is really interesting. All the code on the microcontroller is a
one-liner written in C
. Similar ‘algorithmic chiptune’ programs can be run on any PC: check out
these
three
examples
.
These potential entries to the
International Obfuscated C Code Contest
throw chars into an 8-bit PCM stream. Piping the output of these programs to /dev/audio would generate an actual song – written entirely in one line of C.
Of course, [@dop3j0e] could have made his Noiseplug a
little
less annoying, but sound techs are underappreciated for a reason, right?
Check out the Noiseplug in action after the break along with a few one-liner C songs.
[vimeo=31411308]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtQdIYUtAHg&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlrs2Vorw2Y&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCRPUv8V22o&w=470] | 39 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "497014",
"author": "adnbr",
"timestamp": "2011-11-01T23:06:40",
"content": "Phantom power?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "497023",
"author": "Aaron",
"timestamp": "2011-11-01T23:19:41",
"content": "He ... | 1,760,377,039.070978 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/01/halloween-hacks-a-radioactive-display-with-more-trick-than-treat/ | Halloween Hacks: A Radioactive Display With More Trick Than Treat | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"Halloween hacks",
"pneumatic",
"wifi"
] | [Shawn] was looking for a way to shake up his decorations this Halloween and decided to build
a new prop for his front yard.
He had a pair of old oil barrels in his garage and thought they would look great with a little bit of work.
He bolted the pair of barrels together, then slapped a fresh coat of black paint on them before adding a bright yellow radiation trefoil to each one. One barrel contains a pneumatic piston that opens the lid, revealing a light up pumpkin, a fog machine, and a set of water nozzles that spray the area. The second drum houses an air compressor, a wireless router, and an IP camera for recording the action. A web-enabled Arduino triggers the lid and sprayer, both of which can be controlled from the comfort of his house.
We think it’s a creative use of some old scrap barrels, but we’re hoping he doesn’t plan on wetting trick-or-treaters that pass through, as it seems like a good way to get your house egged or otherwise vandalized on Halloween. If the water sprayer were perhaps swapped out with some other cool effects, [Shawn] is far less likely to be the target of some angry, wet teenagers.
Be sure to check out the video below to see the display in action.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QQrV4XRr10&w=470] | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "496396",
"author": "Nutrino",
"timestamp": "2011-11-01T15:20:19",
"content": "Folks who spend money to dress up a certain way are probably *thrilled* to get hit with a hose. This would be a huge hit, too, with girls in prom dresses.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,377,039.452751 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/01/turning-leds-into-a-camera/ | Turning LEDs Into A Camera | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"arduino shield",
"blinkenlight",
"leds"
] | [Udo] figured out how to turn a bunch of LEDs
into a very low resolution camera
.
The build is based around [Udo]’s
Blinkenlight shield
he’s been developing over the past year. The camera operates under the idea that there’s really not much difference between a LED and a photodiode; LEDs can do light emission and detection. In actuality, the LED ‘camera’ isn’t all that different from a
linear CCD array
, the type of image sensor in flatbed scanners.
After connecting his Blinkenlight shield to his Arduino and computer, [Udo] wrote a sketch that would capture 17 values from his LED camera. These values are shot over the serial connection where high levels of light show up as smaller numbers and low light levels are understood as larger numbers.
[Udo] has been doing a lot of other cool stuff with his Blinkenlight shield, like
a persistence of vision experiment
and
pretending to be [Michael Knight]
. Check out the video after the break for a demo of [Udo]’s linear LED camera.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=3unSMko8m4Q&w=470] | 17 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "496335",
"author": "fartface",
"timestamp": "2011-11-01T14:26:28",
"content": "Common, very common in robotics circles. easier to make a Linear optical array sensor like that than trying to use a silly camera.Also brunswick does this for pin detection on bowling lanes. there is a... | 1,760,377,039.313772 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/01/looking-toward-christmas-decor-by-learning-about-dmx/ | Looking Toward Christmas Decor By Learning About DMX | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"digital audio hacks",
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"christmas",
"dmx",
"led",
"lights"
] | So Halloween finally arrived, we hope you had enough time to pull off your frightening feats in the way you had originally envisioned. Now it’s time again to look to the future and start planning this year’s Christmas decorations. Lights are always a popular theme, and this year you might want to look into DMX lighting controls and decide if that’s a route you want to take. [Akiba] has your back, he just put together a set of videos
explaining the DMX lighting protocol and how to use it with an Arduino
.
The thought here is that the Arduino can be used as a sort of DMX hub that is connected directly to a computer running open source controller hardware. It can send commands which the Arduino decodes, deciding whether to just pass them on to DMX compatible devices, or to do what it does best and control other hardware that is not normally accessible through the lighting command protocol. To the control program your four-dollar strand of LED lights looks no different from a thousand dollar stage light, making it cheap and easy to build your own entertaining holiday show right in your front yard. See the second video in this series after the break where [Akibo] details the hardware setup for his system. The other parts are available at the link above.
Be careful, this can be a consuming endeavor. Don’t believe us? Just look around and
you’ll find no shortage
of large
DMX builds just for Christmas lights
.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8lF6JYsR6Y&w=470] | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "496291",
"author": "Michael",
"timestamp": "2011-11-01T13:15:14",
"content": "Oddly enough, I spent today doing just the same thing – built a DMX Smoke Machine controller for 4 smoke machines by investigating the remote control port on each. Now I have four $100 smoke machines contr... | 1,760,377,039.363095 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/10/31/wine-o-meter-quantifies-your-bachelor-party-bad-behavior/ | Wine-o-Meter Quantifies Your Bachelor Party Bad Behavior | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"breathalyzer",
"mq-3",
"wine-o-meter"
] | [Phil] had a bunch of Shiftbrite modules set aside for an LED table project, but before he could get around to it, he decided to use them to build a prop for his friend’s bachelor party. Expecting plenty of drunken revelry, he constructed the
Arduino Wine-o-Meter
– a carnival “Test your strength” style breathalyzer.
The 25 Shiftbrite modules are lined up in a column, which is connected to an Arduino tucked away in a cardboard box. The Arduino takes readings from an MQ-3 Gas/Alcohol sensor was salvaged from another breathalyzer build [Phil] put together. While
it has been noted in the past
that this sensor is pretty inaccurate, it seems to serve his purposes quite well. Since his game is based on measuring the players’ blood alcohol content in relation to one another rather than obtaining an exact BAC reading, the poor calibration of the device should affect everyone equally.
It looks pretty cool, and we imagine that it will ensure that the party stays lively throughout the wee hours of the night. Check out the video below to see [Phil] walk you through a demo of his Wine-o-Meter.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5NVRG9T6J8&w=470] | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "495884",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2011-11-01T00:14:43",
"content": "You can get just as accurate a drunk-o-meter by sticking a ruler in the toilet the morning after, although you won’t be having (heaving) as much fun.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies... | 1,760,377,039.403964 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/10/31/do-you-know-what-youre-doing-when-integrating-pc-side-apps-with-usb-microcontrollers/ | Do You Know What You’re Doing When Integrating PC-side Apps With USB Microcontrollers? | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"atmega32u4",
"hid",
"usb",
"windows"
] | The advent of integrated USB peripherals in microprocessors (PIC, AVR, etc.) has certainly taken a lot of the work out of developing USB devices, not to mention reducing the silicon parts in these designs. But do you know what you’re doing when it comes to controlling them with user-friendly applications? [Simon Inns] is lending a hand with this in his recent tutorial. He shows how to
use USB capable AVR chips along with your own Windows applications
.
After the break you can see the video from which the above screenshot was captured. That’s a development board of his own making which hosts an ATmega32U4, as well as a USB-B port, LEDs, potentiometer, and a few switches. Taking a closer look, we love the breadboard friendly headers he used on the bottom of the board to break out all of the pins.
His demo shows the Windows app turning LEDs on the board on and off, as well as ADC data displaying the current potentiometer position with the onscreen dial. His code package includes the hardware design, firmware, and app software needed to follow along with what he’s doing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CgSLAkTgWk&w=470] | 20 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "495903",
"author": "biomed",
"timestamp": "2011-11-01T01:29:48",
"content": "Astonished that there’s not yet much reaction to this, Biomed points out that this leads to USB interfaced AVR devices of ANY sort. Weather stations, robots, test bench equipment, you name it. Here we have ... | 1,760,377,039.510977 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/10/31/salvaged-flight-stick-controls-av-system-triggers-emergency-party-system/ | Salvaged Flight Stick Controls A/V System, Triggers “Emergency Party System” | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"Emergency Party System",
"flight stick",
"ir",
"x10"
] | After seeing a writeup online that demonstrated how to build an “Emergency Party Button”, [spikec] knew that he
had to have one of his own.
He happened to have a USAF B-8 stick grip from an A-10A aircraft laying around, and figured it would be perfect for controlling the A/V system in his basement.
The control stick was mounted to the top of a cheap cigar humidor, and crammed full of any electronic component he could get his hands on. It contains not one, but two Arduinos. The first is tasked with reading the flight stick’s inputs and the IR control of his various appliances, while another triggers the overhead lighting in his bar along with the X10 controlled Emergency Party System. He contemplated combining all of the functionality into one device, but splitting the tasks in two was easier for this self-declared electronics novice.
The various buttons on the control stick can be used to power all of his A/V appliances on and off, control volume levels, and select which songs stream from his digital jukebox. If the action ever starts to wind down, a quick turn of his “arming” key and the flick of a switch sends his basement into full-on party mode, which includes more lighting and lasers than any one person should be allowed to own.
[spikec] says that his wife’s eyes were rolling like “uncaged gyros” when he unveiled his controller for the first time – a sign of a job well done. Don’t take our word for it though, check out a video of his control stick and Emergency Party System in action after the jump.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2mLSjXG348&w=470] | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "495824",
"author": "Maxzillian",
"timestamp": "2011-10-31T21:35:07",
"content": "Party mode: Holy. Crap.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "495828",
"author": "jameth",
"timestamp": "2011-10-31T21:36:39",
"content": "Co... | 1,760,377,039.564219 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/10/31/3g-connected-hotspot-hangs-out-at-your-house/ | 3G Connected Hotspot Hangs Out At Your House | Mike Szczys | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"home hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"3g",
"antenna",
"hotspot",
"modem",
"rounter",
"wifi"
] | [Drug123] made the most out of this inconspicuous gray box on the gable end of his father’s home. It
serves up a 3G Internet connection
that was otherwise unavailable..
The project idea was sparked by the absence of wired or fiber optic broadband in the community where his dad lives. He knew some neighbors were using 3G connections, but he couldn’t get it to work inside the house. So he set about developing an external installation that would both communicate with the cellular network, and provide a WiFi connect to it. Hardware for that is relatively expensive; a USB 3G modem and a WiFi router with a USB port.
The box itself is made of plastic, but even without the Faraday cage effect that would have been formed by using a metal housing, the 3G modem’s internal antenna just doesn’t do the job. You can see that [Drug123’s] solution was an external antenna which is mounted at the peak of the roofline. Inside the box there’s an exhaust fan to cool things off when they get too hot, as well as some power resistors which provide a heat source on the coldest nights. The low-cost build certainly fits the bill, and it’s not too hard on the eyes either. | 22 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "495811",
"author": "Besser Wisser",
"timestamp": "2011-10-31T21:16:12",
"content": "Idea is good. But I reckon he will need to do the system after the first thunder storm.The system is bound to get fried as it lacks lightning protection.Adding that – then it for sure is value for mo... | 1,760,377,039.628355 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/01/simple-earphone-repair-saves-a-big-chunk-of-cash/ | Simple Earphone Repair Saves A Big Chunk Of Cash | Mike Nathan | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"earphones",
"repair",
"shure",
"Sugru"
] | [Spode] has been rocking out with a pair of Shure E4C earphones for about six years now, and he has no intentions of buying another set any time soon. The earphones cost him £200, so when the right channel started acting up,
he decided to fix them
rather than toss them in the trash bin.
His
first attempt
was successful, but just barely so. He ended up damaging the earphone case pretty badly, and in time the same problem reappeared. Undeterred, he opted to fix them once again, but this time around he did things differently.
Upon disassembling them, he found that his repair job had become frayed over time. [Spode] desoldered both drivers from the wires and cut them back a bit to expose some nice clean (and structurally sound) cable. He spent a little more time carefully soldering things back together to mitigate the chances of having to repair them again before replacing both earphone shells with a bit of black Sugru.
Having saved himself £200, [Spode] is quite happy with the repair. We probably would have tied an underwriter’s knot in each cable before soldering them to the drivers in the name of strain relief, though the Sugru should help with that. | 26 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "496977",
"author": "Sea Shadow",
"timestamp": "2011-11-01T22:12:45",
"content": "I too have a pair of E4Cs and I love them dearly. I have had the same concern, as the original strain reliefs have long since worn away. Glad to see someone has already repaired their set successfully... | 1,760,377,039.690718 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/01/say-hello-to-our-little-friend-the-beaglebone/ | Say Hello To Our Little Friend, The BeagleBone | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"am3358",
"arm",
"beagleboard",
"beaglebone",
"Cortex-A8",
"html5",
"ti"
] | Small and more powerful… what more can you want? This is the
newest BeagleBoard offering, called the BeagleBone
. It’s packed with some pretty intriguing features, but let’s take a tour of the hardware first.
Like its predecessors, the BeagleBone sports an ARM processor. This time around it’s a TI AM3358 ARM Cortex-A8. It will ship with a 2 GB microSD card and has an Ethernet port and USB connection. The dual pin headers on either side of the board are designed to receive ‘Capes’ for expansion. Currently a DVI cape is in the works, with HDMI and others to follow.
Linux is running on board and one of the best features we see in the video after the break is the browser-based programming interface. When connected to a network, the BeagleBone serves HTML5 web pages. One of these is an IDE that lets you write and execute code directly from your browser.
Now,
can we finally have our open-hardware set top box
(hopefully running XBMC)?? At an MSRP of $89 this should be able to give AppleTV 2 a run for its money as an easy way to get your television some network connectivity.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEnOWR-GXjk&w=470]
[Thanks NsN via
Linux for Devices
] | 57 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "496921",
"author": "that1guy",
"timestamp": "2011-11-01T21:20:35",
"content": "This could be the perfect hardware-based Ambilight clone.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "496922",
"author": "NegativeK",
"timestamp": "2011-... | 1,760,377,040.101208 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/11/01/the-rube-goldberg-of-car-audio/ | The Rube-Goldberg Of Car Audio | Mike Szczys | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"car audio",
"cypress",
"head unit",
"PSoC"
] | [Anthony Pray] had his car stereo stolen. When thinking about replacing it he realized the he and his wife never used it for anything other than an Auxiliary connection to play songs from their cellphones. So instead of buying a head unit he pulled an unused home audio amplifier out of a dark corner of his house and wired it to the car speakers. Problem solved, except that the under-dash installation meant the only volume control is on the phone playing the audio. He decided to
build a wireless audio controller
that would let him send commands to the phone without quite as much distraction from the road.
The device you see above is his creation. What a beauty. But seriously, it’s so random and hacked together how can you not love it? And, it works!
The frame is made from plastic coat hangers, and the wheel is an old RC control knob. There’s even a play/pause feature built from the clicking properties of a retractable ball-point pen. A Cypress PSoC board reads the knob and pen positions, then pushes commands via a Bluetooth module in order to control the phone. He recorded a testing video (after the break) which gives you a better look at the functionality of this setup.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVg_7Ihc_Y0&w=470] | 14 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "496866",
"author": "Tom the Brat",
"timestamp": "2011-11-01T20:11:34",
"content": "Marvelously mad!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "496874",
"author": "st2000",
"timestamp": "2011-11-01T20:18:27",
"content": "Several... | 1,760,377,040.010824 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.