[Mark] couldn't resist sending this in, and I can see why. It turns out that this is made from off the shelf parts, but the functionality is awesome. The pilot wears a video headset - igoggles, etc, and has a gyro/accelerometer sensor mounted on it that outputs commands to the R/C transmitter. On the plane, a servo pan tilt camera matches position based on the viewers head motions. Just about all the components are listed in the credits at the end, but you can use any RF camera and a transmitter with enough channels to run the extra servos.
OBD-II became the mandatory I/O diagnostic port on cars starting around 1996 in the US. Considering that the interface consists of a couple of I/O lines, serial/usb adapters have been ridiculously expensive for quite a while - especially newer USB versions. [Renan] sent in this PIC18F2450 OBD-II interface. The designer says he can provide boards for just over $6 and programmed PICs if there's interest. The chip is a few dollars, and everything else is pretty cheap too. Need to work on your car? This thing will cost $15 or so. I think I just might have to burn out a board on my mill later.
This is almost a lack of hack, but it bugs me. In 2006, Toyota changed the video interface on the Prius LCD display. The new system uses GVIF (Gigabit Video InterFace) rather than RGBs as before. So far success has been limited to some early commercial devices. Considering the number of guys that like to hack their cars, I'm hoping to see some diy solutions developed. The industry seems to be pushing GVIF in the same manner as HDMI for home theater - it even supports HDCP. Unfortunately, it seems that multiple displays are still the best option for now.
[fbz] wanted to make sure that everyone knows that RFID Guardian has released the latest version of their design. I had a hard time finding a good shot of the hardware, so I went with the Nokia phone control application. There's a short explanation of the project here. I'd point at the use examples on the site, but it seems that their MYSQL server is running out of memory. After seeing this talk at shmoocon last year, and a bit more reinforcement at defcon, there are definitely some good uses for the guardian. (Once you get past the slow start, Major's intro is funny as hell. - jump past the first 8 minutes or you'll be bored.)
I came back from a quick road trip with a trunk full of hackable hardware. After grabbing a little caffeine this morning, I thought we'd try something different for those slow Sundays. I'm going to come up some interesting hacking kit, point out a few classic hacks for it, and challenge you guys to come up with something better. Every so often, we'll be sending some of said hardware to the most worthy of commenters. Read on to check out our first 'Hackit' challenge.
I'm more into this one just for the simple USB plug than the joke that it's used for. I've seen similar on extra small USB flash drives, but those are generally pre-etched. The idea is to use a piece of proto board to make a USB plug an mount a superbright LED on it. Pie indeed.
[Mr G] in London sent in his pin sentry hack. He wasn't pleased that the device looks like an old calculator, so he rigged up a SMS board to send him his pin on demand. He multiplexed the output of the display driver to the SMS board. When he authenticates from his phone, the board sends a message with the latest code.
[John] sent in this setup that he hacked together for Halloween. He used a MacBook Pro with built in camera, a projector, a bed sheet, a kid friendly laser pointer and a hacked together combination of PySight and PyGame. The result was a fairly easy game of shoot Marshie. Nice!
Our friend [Rich Mogull] has been flipping the switches on Leopard's new firewall and scanning it to see what's actually going on. There is some good and some bad. The new application signing is a mixed bag. It breaks Skype and a commenter pointed out that automatically trusting Apple installed apps like NetCat isn't a good idea either. You can roll your own firewall using user friendly tools like WaterRoof since ipfw is still included.
[Jim Fong] sent in this demo of his version of the UHU servo motor controller. [Uli Huber] has actually shipped over 2500 controllers for the servo. He doesn't charge much for the chips, and only asks for something like a token beer in return for his work. I used [Jim]s boards in my mini mill controller, so I know he does good work. This servo controller really is a big deal. It can handle high power, and servo motors are *the* way to build a fast milling/robotics setup.
If you're into Cons, you might be interested that the first round of Shmoocon tickets went up for sale today - looks like they're already out, so keep your eyes open if you want to go. It's a decent con that takes place in DC. I know that I'm planning to be there.
Happy Halloween! I'm in the mood for an extra, and I've got some stuff that's been turning to zombies from the tipline. Pictured above is a nice simple LED pumpkin sent in by [John]- perfect for the hacker with less than stellar art skills. Let's not forget [mastershake]s Hack-A-Day pumpkin from last year. Where's the THAD pumpkin you promised? [Wolfgang] sent in these mini pumpkin bots - they look like toys, but they're made from XBox parts and radio control cars. Last year Max sent in his talking Halloween basket. (I always wanted to strap that voice module to a co-workers chair...) [Brandon] built a budget (~$150) guitar hero controller out of a Gibson Epoch guitar from target. This scanner cam has been around for a while, but I admire how he keeps fine tuning and tweaking the design. Thanks to [Loopymind] for passing it along. I keep getting emails telling me that Google Earth has a flight simulator. Yes. We all know about it.
[Jared]s been taking a bit of a hiatus, but he assures me that he's gearing up for a bunch of new projects. The first sign that he's awakened from his slumber is his latest take on the Ion Cooler. This time he's built a CPU specific version. The cooler is made from off the shelf materials - heap pipe heat sink, copper pipe, tack nails, acrylic and even the ion generator are easy to get. It's an interesting way to cool your PC if your comfortable with 10,000 volts or so next to your CPU.
[Andy] sent in this pdf (mirror) describing a simply diy UWB Radar project. It's not intuitive, but by using a wide frequency range for low power, short distance purposes, the system should avoid interfering with other radio systems. The paper has a complete circuit schematic, and offers some suggestions for adding communications to the signal. Unfortunately, to really tune the thing, you'll need a kick-ass oscilloscope.
[Jose] thinks that the Little Sound DJ is too expensive and hard to find. Now he's trying to build an inexpensive USB programmable GameBoy cartridge. Currently he's working with a LPC2148 development board. It's not quite clear where he's going with this. He certainly wants to add USB programming, but it seems that he's trying to hack a mp3 decoder in there as well. [update: yes, I know how to spell cartridge!]
The response to the soldering How-To was fantastic. You guys seem to want more and we're looking forward to bringing you more How-Tos in the near future. If there's a specific topic you'd like to see, let us know and I'll see what we can do.
[justin] suggests picking up a flux pen with your next electronics order. I'll probably take him up on that idea. [xrazorwirex] suggests using a pure form of alcohol like everclear for cleaning boards. I keep a few bottles of tape head cleaning solution - it won't leave residue like rubbing alcohol and you don't have to be 21 to buy it. [MattS] suggests cutting your leads and then soldering to prevent corrosion later on. This usually isn't a problem for small projects, but it's a good idea for anything that'll see a less than ideal environment later on. [Josh Malone] is fond of his Hakko 936 soldering iron. I have to agree with everyone that a temperature controlled iron is the way to go. I was very happy with my Tenma which lasted well over 10 years. [David Moisan] suggests buying purpose made soldering sponges from MCM to preserve the plating on your soldering tip. Considering the varied contents of kitchen sponges, this is definitely a good idea. [Forrest M. Mims III] freaked me out a bit when he commented on the post - he notes that he taught his son to solder when he was 4 years old! I'm a bit more conservative, but lets be honest - I learned how to solder from his books when I was a kid.
