Posted May 8th 2008 8:53PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks
Been looking for some extra range for your R/C projects? [Tron]'s
managed to control his planes from 9.8Km using this kit at 868Mhz. I don't know if I'd have the patience to fly the plane for that long, but this beats the pants off of just about everyone else home R/C gear.
Posted May 8th 2008 6:00PM by Eliot Phillips
Filed under: misc hacks
[Romado12187] just posted a walkthrough of his
mechanical dry erase board project on Instructables. It was on display in the Microsoft booth last weekend at Maker Faire. Unlike [sprite_tm]'s version
we covered earlier, this one is built more like a traditional pin plotter. The construction was done entirely in [Romado12187]'s dorm room and uses plywood and PVC pipes for the majority of the frame. The mechanical components were purchased from
SDP/SI and the controller hardware are
Phidgets. He included a joystick, but it also has a C# command line program for control. [Romado12187]'s write up also has a lot of improvements to help make your first attempt better than his; buying a premounted board and being very exact in calculating motor power are recommended. Catch a video of the plotter in action after the jump.
Continue reading Mechanical white board
Posted May 5th 2008 10:20PM by Eliot Phillips
Filed under: misc hacks
We saw a lot of interesting gear at Maker Faire last weekend and thought we'd highlight some of those projects this week. [Josh Boughey]'s
Stribe was originally inspired by the
monome 40h. It features of 16 columns of 64 LEDs for a total of 1024 individually addressable lights. Even with all those LEDs, PWM control means it can run off of USB power. 8 spectrasymbol
softpots are used between the columns for user input. It's really quite an amazing feat for being [josh]'s first board design. All of the circuit designs and firmware are available. Check out Flickr for
more photos from this weekend.
Posted May 3rd 2008 10:57PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks
[sudija] wrote up a nice
instructable on adding bluetooth audio output to a tomtom gps unit. It's not too technically advanced, but you'll have to add an audio jack if your gps lacks one. This looks like a great way to turn a cheaper unit into something suitable for a motorcycle rig.
Posted May 2nd 2008 7:35PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks
[Ned] sent in his
USB temperature sensor. This little guy has a PIC controller, FTDI usb serial interface and a dallas temperature sensor. He managed to keep the cost very low - including the PCB.
Posted May 1st 2008 11:26PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks
Despite the resemblance to an alien robot that might rebuild your house from scratch,
this is actually the first mod for a solar yard lamp that I've seen. By adding a brighter LED, a couple of tubes, a laser printed transparency and a lens, you end with with a relatively inexpensive image projector that can project custom graphics from odd locations. [
via]
Posted Apr 30th 2008 10:32PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks
[Ryan] sent in [Bill]'s
project to build his own JAMMA arcade game console. It's actually a take off from one of [Ben Heck]'s
how-tos, but I thought it might interest people who think that they can't pull off any of the projects we feature on their own. We definitely like to show off some original, complex hacks, but success stories can be just as inspiring.
Posted Apr 29th 2008 9:09PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks
[Yuri] spent some time building a computer controlled, arduino interfaced beer brewing rig. A cooler serves as a mash tun, while the arduino controls a steam source that's used to raise the temperature of the mash as desired. A java app talks to the arduino to set the temperature parameters and monitor the steam boiler. You can catch a nice
video walkthrough of the setup, see some
screen shots of his java interface.
Posted Apr 28th 2008 8:44PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks, peripherals hacks
Whenever [sprite_tm] sends in his
latest project, it's like getting a Christmas present and a night off. He put together a whiteboard, x/y stepper system, serial interfaced microcontroller and added a webcam with perspective correction for the online view. Me? I'm tempted to build one of these for leaving notes for the wife when I'm out.
Posted Apr 27th 2008 11:27PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks, transportation hacks
This one's In honor of my
new project bike. [wildwestsyndey] converted his Suzuki DR 350 from the stock carbs to EFI using the
megasquirt EFI controller and a custom machined throttle body. You can find a few pictures of the conversion
here. To handle the ever annoying need for a high pressure fuel pump, he adapted an in-tank scooter pump with a machined mini-reservoir to fit in-line with the original tank. For more motorcycle builds, check out the megasquirt
success stories forum.Posted Apr 26th 2008 11:03PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: laptops hacks, misc hacks
Certain OS installers cough*osx*cough don't like the on-board displays on some machines. [Ziddan]
posted a paperclip based work around for them on the eeeuser forums (originally posted by [mugan] on insanelymac). Apparently by shorting the pins, the video card will report that there is an unknown external display attached.
Posted Apr 25th 2008 11:20PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks
There's nothing quite like a nice, simple hack.
This serial servo controller uses a PIC12C671 and a pair of resistors. Leaving out the power supply, that's the lowest part count I've ever seen.
Posted Apr 24th 2008 9:35PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks
When I built
my LumenLab projector, I used a thermal switch to run the fan.
This simple control circuit looks like a nice alternative. The circuit is a simple adjustable temperature triggered Fet. If you know the resistance needed, you can replace the potentiometer with a cheap resistor. (You'll want to use a DC fan)
Posted Apr 22nd 2008 9:17PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: misc hacks
[everett] sent in
his final project for his mechanisms class. In an attempt to create his own bolt on X gene, he built a wrist mounted hand activated flame thrower: The Pyro System. The wrist mount has an igniter and a nozzle for dispersing fuel. When he flexes his hand back, a switch actuates a servo on the fuel and fires the igniter. Quick disclaimer: Don't try replicating this one! If you want to skip the movie clip, skip 33 seconds into the video.
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