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Open source logic analyzer
Posted: February 28th, 2010, 6:28pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Hackaday alum [Ian Lesnet] has been working in cahoots with a dedicated team of developers to produce the OpenBench Logic Sniffer. This caseless logic analyzer can operate at 100MHz and sample 32 channels at once. Better yet, a digital oscilloscope add-on is in the works. The pre-order comes in at $45, that’s a lot of [...]
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112-LED coffee table
Posted: February 28th, 2010, 5:27pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Joe] tipped us off about his 112 LED coffee table. This 12-ups the LED matrix from Friday and 31-ups the Shiftbrite table. Driving this grid is an ATmega328 in i2c slave mode. It listens for display data from a second ATmega328 and uses that to set the array of TLC5940 driven LEDs appropriately. Separating the [...]
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Extreme piano transplant
Posted: February 28th, 2010, 4:27pm EST by Mike Szczys
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We always wondered what happens to ancient pianos when the internals can no longer be kept in a playable condition. [Jean Philippe Roch] gutted his elderly upright and fit a Korg Triton inside. After the break you can watch a few videos including a slide show of the work log. [Jean] separates the Korg keyboard [...]
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Fix 0LBA and BSY HDD errors
Posted: February 28th, 2010, 3:26pm EST by Jakob Griffith
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One of the worst moments almost every hacker has experienced is a hard drive inexplicably dieing. And of course, its at the most inopportune time and you’ve had no chance to backup! Recently there has been an influx of Seagate hard drives (specifically the 2700.11s) kicking the bucket with firmware errors 0LBA and BSY. The good [...]
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Thwart robbers with an old smoke alarm.
Posted: February 28th, 2010, 9:26am EST by Mike Szczys
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[Anders] tipped us off about his hack that re-purposes a smoke alarm as a burglar alarm. Unfortunately, he came home in the middle of a burglary but wanted to be ready the next time someone tries to break in. By cleverly patching into the test button on an old smoke detector he created a circuit-trip [...]
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Two input devices made with common items
Posted: February 27th, 2010, 12:29pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Here’s two input devices you can easily build with materials you already have on hand. To the left, [John] built a 3×3 keypad matrix from paper and tinfoil. The rows and columns are made up of strips of tin foil on the front and back layers of paper. The layers are separated by spongy double-stick tape. [...]
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WRT54GL, meet Alice
Posted: February 27th, 2010, 11:26am EST by Jakob Griffith
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When it comes to routers, there is one that is hacker’s favorite, the WRT54GL. But a slightly lesser known company, Pirelli with their “Alice Gate2 plus Wi-Fi”, seems to be a popular choice among our Italian friends. [Esteban] has done everything from installing serial and parallel ports, to unlocking firmware while installing Debian. Our personal favorite [...]
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Yet another pong-clock
Posted: February 26th, 2010, 6:33pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[PT] let us know that Adafruit Industries has just release a pong clock kit. The $80 price tag might seem a bit steep but it does come with a custom-ordered KS0108 display in order to get white on black like the classic video game, as seen after the break. Also included is the laser-cut case, [...]
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Lower productivity by using a rotary num pad
Posted: February 26th, 2010, 5:33pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Maximilian Ernestus] sent us a quick little demo that shows him using a rotary phone dial as a num pad. We’re often frustrated when notebooks and netbooks prohibit us from using our mad 10-key skills (alternate key mapping doesn’t count). This makes coding and using GnuCash undesirable on small form factor portables. Instead of fixing the [...]
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10×10 LED matrix
Posted: February 26th, 2010, 2:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[KopfKopfKopfAffe] just finished a 3-year labor of love resulting in this 10 by 10 LED Matrix. This trumps the Shiftbrite table from earlier today by bringing an actual 100 LEDs to the display. These LEDs cost much less than the Shiftbrites, but since they don’t have their own on-board controller this project requires much more [...]
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Drilling perfectly centered holes
Posted: February 26th, 2010, 1:00pm EST by Jakob Griffith
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If you’ve ever been caught in the situation of needing to drill a clean straight hole down the center of a bolt or rod, you’ve probably tried and ended up with a broken bit or tilted hole, and a ton of cursing to boot. [Vik] let us know about this nifty trick for drilling ‘down the [...]
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Cooling LEDs by heating the water saves on electricity
Posted: February 26th, 2010, 11:37am EST by Mike Szczys
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[Matthias] swapped out his twin-tube florescent aquarium lights for LEDs. By running tank water through the aluminum LED mounts he’s transferring excess heat into the water in the tank, in turn saving some of the electricity that would have been used to heat the tank. Couple this with roughly 35 Watts saved by moving away [...]
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Nokia USB cable is USB-to-FTDI in disguise
Posted: February 25th, 2010, 5:02pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Jethomson] worked out a way to use a Nokia USB cable at a USB to Serial cable. He was able to pick up one of these cables for less than $3 delivered. A little probing worked out which conductors go with the appropriate signals and from there he developed a way to protect the 3.3v [...]
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Python IR tracking for the handicapped
Posted: February 25th, 2010, 4:02pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Techb] had a friend who was paralyzed after an accident and could no long use a computer. He rigged up an amazingly simple mouse interface using python to implement infrared tracking. The controller was built from an old hat by adding an IR LED and wireless mouse modified so that the button could be clicked [...]
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RoboThespian: Chuck E. Cheese entertainment comes home
Posted: February 25th, 2010, 11:07am EST by Mike Szczys
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Remember your eighth birthday party when the animatronic band at Chuck E. Cheese sang happy birthday just for you? Now you can enjoy this any day of the year with RoboThespian. The complete animatronic platform has been modeled in Blender 3D. Animating the robot is as easy as producing an animation from its digital model. [...]
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Shiftbrite coffee table
Posted: February 25th, 2010, 9:57am EST by Caleb Kraft
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Here’s a project we’ve been wanting to do for a while. Over at macetech.com they’ve posted an LED coffee table that uses a 9×9 RGB LED grid. For the LEDs, they used the shiftbrite modules we’ve seen before. The table is capable of displaying pre written patterns as well as accepting patterns from a computer [...]
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10-bit rotary precision for servos
Posted: February 24th, 2010, 3:57pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Antonb] added 10-bit encoding to a standard servo. He’s removed the potentiometer, separated its shaft and used it to rotate a small magnet. By sandwiching an AS5040 rotatory encoder IC into the servo’s housing he can now measure the precise orientation of the servo horn. This is made easier by his tiny breakout board for [...]
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A second life for dead hard drives
Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:30pm EST by Caleb Kraft
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[AndyUU1CC] has put together directions on how he built an Iambic Paddle out of some old hard drives. The iambic paddle is a device for telegraphy. More specifically, it is that piece that you always see people clicking with their finger when they send a telegraph. We hadn’t seen an iambic or “dual lever” style [...]
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Bring the crane game home
Posted: February 24th, 2010, 11:39am EST by Mike Szczys
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Everyone’s familiar with the quarter gobbling crane games. More often than not there’s a child nearby begging a parent for more quarters so they can try their hand at the toy-snatching claw. [Marc.Cryan] put his quarters to a better use by building a home version of the crane game. [Marc] installed a gantry in an archway [...]
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Oscilloscope doubles as a serial terminal
Posted: February 24th, 2010, 7:10am EST by Phil Burgess
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PC-based USB oscilloscopes are fast becoming all the rage. [Matt Sarnoff’s] Terminalscope takes the reverse approach, adapting an oscilloscope into a full serial terminal. You may have seen something similar before in the Dutchtronix/SparkFun O-Clock, but [Matt’s] project goes one further by adding a PS/2 keyboard port for full bidirectional serial communication, and with much sharper display resolution to boot. The [...]
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More cellphone controlled door locks
Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 5:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Tom Lee] and his colleagues just moved to a new office. The doors are setup like a security checkpoint with electronic strikes and buttons on the inside to allow entry. The button simply completes a low-voltage circuit, activating the strike which made it quite easy to patch into. They build an interface board with a [...]
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Add pause button to the Atari 2600
Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 3:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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We’re sure that if there had been a pause button on the Atari 2600 people would never have moved on to next-generation systems. Now you can dig the gaming relic out of the closet and pause your Atari games for some good old om nom nom.This hack is from the same person who pulled off [...]
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Precision grinder is a thing of beauty
Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 2:13pm EST by Mike Szczys
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This beautifully crafted grinder would make any machining enthusiast salivate.It features a fixture for holding your work at any angle or orientation to the grinding wheel but the slotted bed also allows for other attachments to be used. Two of the examples shown in this highly detailed (machine porn) writeup include sharpening bits and light [...]
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Looping foot pedal
Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 1:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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This guitar pedal can record, playback, and modify samples. [Colin Merkel], also know for his work on electronic door locks, built this to replicate some guitar effects he heard in recordings. By tapping the button at the bottom with your foot the device begins recording. Another tap stops the recording and starts the loop. That’s [...]
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Serial communication with cell phones
Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 12:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Hackaday alum [Will O'Brien] has been doing some cellphone integration work. He recently picked up some Motorola c168i cellphones from eBay. It turns out there is a serial port that uses TTL communication with a standard head-phone jack as an interface. [Will] soldered up a connector and used a USB to FTDI cable to interface [...]
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DIY aluminum heat sink casting
Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 11:00am EST by Mike Szczys
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[Peter Wirasnik] has been casting his own aluminum heat sinks. He’s working on capturing the heat from a car’s exhaust system and turning it into electricity, kind of like the candle generator. In the photo above a standard heat sink is bolted to one side of a Peltier cooler with [Peter's] own casting on the [...]
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Building the yellow submarine
Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 9:19am EST by Mike Szczys
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Submarine builds are always fun but frequently produce headaches when it comes to keeping the water out. [Jason Rollette] built this ROV to explore a shipwreck in Lake Michigan. The main structure is PVC and various bilge pumps are used for propulsion. An AVR ATmega32 controls the on board electronics with an Ethernet tether to [...]
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Controllable LEDs spice up the living room
Posted: February 21st, 2010, 11:01am EST by Mike Szczys
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[Sprite_tm] brings us another great hack by lighting up the living room. Unsatisfied with just replacing incandescent bulbs with an LED alternative he went with strips of LEDs to illuminate the length of a wall. Starting with a seven-meter strip of the lights, he cut it down to fourteen pieces in order to make the [...]
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Steorn Orbo motor replica
Posted: February 21st, 2010, 8:55am EST by Mike Szczys
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Reader [Hjhndr] ran across an interesting set of tests and wanted to know if they’re brilliant or just a load of bull. We’re not making the call on that, but the tests on a Steorn Orb motor replica are worth looking at.Keep in mind, people used to think the earth was flat and scientists of [...]
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RFID tracking system
Posted: February 20th, 2010, 6:21pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Nicholas] built an active tracking system using RFID tags. The system’s tags operate in the 2.4 GHz band and are used to track either people or assets. The readers are on a mesh network and can triangulate the location of any tag for display on a map. His system is even set up to show [...]
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Sausage Gun 19mm
Posted: February 20th, 2010, 4:00pm EST by Caleb Kraft
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If you are anything like us, you find yourself needing, on occasion, to fling sausages at high velocity. [F00] sent in his solution, the SG19. While the details are glazed over pretty quickly, we get the point. This is basically a smaller diameter spud gun, meant to shoot sausage. While it may not be remarkable in its [...]
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Rube Goldberg FTW
Posted: February 20th, 2010, 2:15pm EST by Mike Szczys
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This video was on its way to a links post until we saw the game of chess right in the middle of it (bishop to H5). [Tom] and [Ben] put their Master of Manufacturing Engineering degrees to use by jam-packing every conveyance method possible into a Rube Goldberg machine. There’s violin bows, a polo mallet, [...]
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High speed video from cheap digital camera
Posted: February 19th, 2010, 4:19pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Some researchers from Oxford University have come up with a way to produce high-speed video from a one mega-pixel camera. They’re calling the method Temporal Pixel Multiplexing. This method adds a digital micromirror device in line with the camera lens. These chips house over a million mirrors and can be found in home theater projectors. [...]
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Basement fusion reactor
Posted: February 19th, 2010, 3:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Do you ever wonder what projects your neighbors have going on in their basements? [Will Jack's] neighbors might be surprised to find he’s building a fusion reactor. The first step toward completing a Farsworth-Hirsch Fusor is up and running. The picture above shows heated plasma contained in a magnetic field. Next he just needs to [...]
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Update: most interesting game in 64 pixels
Posted: February 19th, 2010, 1:35pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Brad] has continued working on the Super Pixel Bros game. We saw a glimpse of this a few months ago but he’s added a lot since then. The game now has enemies; one type is similar to Bullet Bill, another type drops from the sky and walks toward you, kind of like a Goomba. Game [...]
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Flexi Knobs
Posted: February 19th, 2010, 11:55am EST by Mike Szczys
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These boxes, called Flexi Knobs, work like a wireless Atari paddle and mouse rolled into one. Each has a rotary encoder that can also be clicked like a button. On the inside is a wireless optical mouse which controls an on-screen cursor which matches the color of the knob. In the video after the break [...]
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Glove mouse
Posted: February 19th, 2010, 10:02am EST by Caleb Kraft
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[thetanktheory] sent us his glove mouse modification. He has gutted his mouse and mounted the parts on a glove. This is interesting, as he doesn’t have to place his hand on the mouse any more, he just plops it down on any surface and starts mousing. He claims that it is helping his twitch reactions [...]
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Cannihilator can crusher
Posted: February 18th, 2010, 4:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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This box will crush your cans and deposit them in the bin below. Branded the Cannihilator, [Jeff Walsh] built this with his two sons, [Jake] and [Ryan]. Early hacking eduction is important if they want their future projects to be regular Hackaday features. The crushing power is provided by a solenoid pneumatic ram. As seen in [...]
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Sukhoi Su-27 Jet build throws down
Posted: February 18th, 2010, 2:10pm EST by Mike Szczys
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This no model, but a fully functioning RC jet. The Sukhoi Su-27 was the Soviet Union’s counterpart of the F15 and this 1/6.5 scaled version measures eleven feet long and is fully controllable. As if the 80-page build log wasn’t enough, the flight video after the break is nothing short of jaw-dropping. The test flights [...]
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Lathe modification
Posted: February 18th, 2010, 1:00pm EST by Caleb Kraft
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The folks over at NerdKits got a shiny new Smithy 1220xl lathe/ mill. They found, however that adjusting the Z axis wasn’t as accurate as they desired. They decided to resolve this by installing a digital caliper and an LCD interface to display the adjustments. The writeup is quite detailed and the results seem to [...]
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Reboot Life in a heartbeat
Posted: February 18th, 2010, 12:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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This hoodie senses your heartbeat and uses it to control Life. Conway’s Game of Life, popular in all kinds of electronics projects, uses a grid of cells coupled with a set of rules to mimic the life and death of simple organisms. This iteration displays the game over your own heart, then taps into your [...]
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Build your own hub motor
Posted: February 18th, 2010, 11:00am EST by Mike Szczys
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Hub motors put the power inside of the wheel. [Teamtestbot] goes deep into the hows and whys of building these motors, from parts, to windings, to the math behind the power ratios. The working example puts an electric motor inside the rear wheel of a Razor scooter. Past projects used belts to transfer the work [...]
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Transparent rubber enclosures
Posted: February 12th, 2010, 6:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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This clear rubber puck serves as the enclosure for a diy mp3 player. The wires encapsulated in the rubber are just there for looks but the utility of using this material as a case is fascinating. Alas, there’s no details on the material other than that it’s clear rubber. Update: [Reboots] picked up on some [...]
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Internet controlled scrolling numitron
Posted: February 12th, 2010, 5:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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How’s this for a first microcontroller project: a ticker that pulls messages from the Internet and scrolls them on a set of numitrons. [David Barton] built this using an mbed microcontroller. Tapping an ethernet library he got this to pull data from his server by connecting directly to the cat5 cables. The display consists of [...]
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Spectrum analyzer wedged into a cellphone
Posted: February 12th, 2010, 3:41pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Miguel A. Vallejo] wanted a portable spectrum analyzer for the 2.4GHz ISM band. No problem, there’s modules for that are easy to interface with a microcontroller and LCD screen. But carrying around a black project box doesn’t exactly scream ‘cool’ so he fit his spectrum analyzer inside of a cell phone. This made a lot [...]
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Precision Erector Set connects multiple cameras
Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Check out the exoskeleton that [Curt von Badinski] built for filming driving scenes. This extremely configurable wrap-around frame resembles a children’s toy from the past but allows an almost unlimited set of configurations. Five cameras simultaneous capture the driving scene. The current setup is used to shoot the television show 24. [Thanks Robert] [...]
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Chip and pin broken and other security threats
Posted: February 12th, 2010, 12:56pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Another exploit has been found in the Chip and PIN system. The exploit is a man-in-the middle attack that wouldn’t take too much know-how to pull off. You can watch the BBC report on the issue or check out the paper (PDF) published by the team that found the vulnerability. A stolen card resides in [...]
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Teletype machine from an electric typewriter
Posted: February 11th, 2010, 5:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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This project, by an unknown hacker, patches into an electric typewriter and uses it as a Teletype. An AVR ATmega168 microcontroller patches into the key matrix of the typewriter which allows it to artificially type. Now, data can be sent over a serial connection to the AVR for output on the typewriter. We’re not quite sure [...]
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Keyboard Keepalive
Posted: February 11th, 2010, 3:23pm EST by Caleb Kraft
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We’re not going to debate the necessity of this one. [Todd] plays online games that will log you out after a few minutes of inactivity. To resolve this, he has created a circuit that mimics keyboard activity at a preset interval. While he notes that there is software for this, he points out that many [...]
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Dexterous hexapod clarification
Posted: February 11th, 2010, 2:20pm EST by Caleb Kraft
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This tip was submitted by [Mike], with the original information seen in this post. When I passed the story along to our writer [Mike Szczys] I didn’t send along the entire email conversation. This bot is noteworthy because it has taught itself to walk. In the build log you can learn about how it has [...]
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HUD for real life capture-the-flag
Posted: February 11th, 2010, 2:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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If you’ve played any of the Splinter Cell games you’ll remember the PDA that [Sam Fisher] carried around with him. What if you could have one of your own when playing capture-the-flag? [Brad] has created the ZephyrEye as an electronic command and communications device for real-life games. Each player carries around their own unit. The ZephyrEye [...]
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Veteran robot features eight legs and BeagleBoard
Posted: February 11th, 2010, 12:31pm EST by Mike Szczys
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This spider-bot was built by [Zhanx] during his deployment in Iraq. He didn’t have prior hardware building experience and started out on this project when he received an Arduino to play with in September. Must be a fast learner! The parts are laser-cut from ABS plastic and connected to 24 servos. He sourced an SSC-32 [...]
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Use an analog oscilloscope to display digital logic
Posted: February 11th, 2010, 11:30am EST by Mike Szczys
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[Mike Bradley] wanted to use his oscilloscope to display 8 channels of digital signals. Alas, the analog unit didn’t have this capability. Not to worry, he threw together an adapter module that does the trick. Using a PIC 18F26K20 microcontroller he inputs four or eight channel digital logic (at 5V) and filters the output to [...]
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Arduino helps you ski Copper
Posted: February 11th, 2010, 9:57am EST by Mike Szczys
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[Dwight's] been working on a long-term project to add a status board for the ski runs at Copper Mountain ski resort. The board will feature an 8×8 LED module for each run that displays a green O for open trails, a green G for groomed trails, and a red X for closed trails. He’s also [...]
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RGV laser
Posted: February 10th, 2010, 6:36pm EST by Jakob Griffith
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[Carl] sure has come a long way with laser modifications, now introducing his portable RGV Full Colour Laser. Although it feels just like yesterday when he showed us his green spiro and his Lego diffraction grating projector. But enough of the past, the RGV laser is built using a White Fusion Mixing Kit and his own [...]
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PicAxe LEGO tank
Posted: February 10th, 2010, 5:36pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[TomTheGeek] built a LEGO tank with a PicAxe controller. Locomotion is supplied by a Lego Power Function motor controller. He cut an LPF extension wire in half so that he could patch into the PWM signals without altering the motors themselves. You can make out the control circuitry and a small breadboard in the tank’s [...]
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USB host mode for Droid
Posted: February 10th, 2010, 2:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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There’s a simple hack to use your Motorola Droid phone as a USB host. It is a hardware-only hack that doesn’t require you to crack open your phone, root it, or even to change firmware (although device drivers in the stock Android image may be quite limited). The dongle above is used as a key [...]
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Dexterous hexapod rocks an Atom processor
Posted: February 10th, 2010, 12:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Matt Bunting's] hexapod caught Intel’s eye (and their wallet). This coordinated little bot runs Ubuntu on an Atom Z530 processor, popular in netbooks like the Dell Mini 10, and uses a webcam to coordinate and monitor its motion. Intel picked up two of them from [Matt] to exhibit at trade shows. As you can see, [...]
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The day after Arduino
Posted: February 10th, 2010, 10:31am EST by Caleb Kraft
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There will come a day in every budding hacker’s life that they realize that plopping an entire arduino in their project and leaving it there is a bit of a waste. [Domiflichi] realized this, and has shared his next steps with us. He takes us through the process of removing the ATMega chip and breadboarding [...]
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CueCat, meet Arduino
Posted: February 10th, 2010, 9:29am EST by Caleb Kraft
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Have you ever felt like you needed a portable barcode scanner around the house? No? Well, [Mkanoap] did, so he made one. He has hooked his CueCat up to his Arduino to capture barcode data and store it on an SD card. He is using it as an inventory tool for his personal library. Where [...]
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Wireless painting
Posted: February 9th, 2010, 3:32pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Tom Shannon] uses science as part of his art. One of his methods when painting is to use this radio controlled paint pendulum. He gave an interview at his studio, which we’ve embedded after the break, and goes into detail about this device. It has six different reservoirs that hold the paint colors. Each gravity-fed [...]
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TPM crytography cracked
Posted: February 9th, 2010, 1:25pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Trusted Platform Module based cryptography protects your secrets as well as your government’s secrets. Well, it used to. [Christopher Tarnovsky] figured out how to defeat the hardware by spying on its communications. This requires physical access so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds, but this does reach beyond TPM to many of the [...]
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Old-time music player is brand new
Posted: February 9th, 2010, 1:07pm EST by Mike Szczys
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This looks like a home entertainment center of yore but something’s not quite right. Where is the turntable used to play the music? It turns out that this Danforth Standard Digitrola is digital and doesn’t rely upon wax for an input. [Jonathan Danforth] built it as a show piece and it exhibits fine craftsmanship. A [...]
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Porta Touch: portable multitouch
Posted: February 9th, 2010, 11:03am EST by Caleb Kraft
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We just found this great portable multitouch rig called the portatouch. Made by a user at the NUI group website named [portatouch], this system uses a stripped down LCD as the display with IR LEDs edge lighting a touch surface in front of it. A camera mounted below the LCD picks up the reflections of [...]
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‘tiny’ power supply monitor
Posted: February 9th, 2010, 7:17am EST by Mike Szczys
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[Manekinen] built a power supply monitor based around an AVR ATtiny13. Voltage and amperage are displayed on a 16×2 LCD character display (we’re not sure what the third number is… samples per second?). This is no small feat considering that the tiny13 is an 8-pin chip. He makes it happen by using the pins for [...]
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Modded C64 eye candy
Posted: February 8th, 2010, 5:00pm EST by Phil Burgess
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“Everyone needs a hobby,” they tell us. For the blogger mysteriously identified only as “R,” that hobby would be an almost fanatical nostalgia for the Commodore 64 computer. At first we thought this was a fan community site, but apparently it’s all the work of a single person. [R] has tweaked, extended, repackaged and resurfaced this 1980’s [...]
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GuruPlug, the next generation of SheevaPlug
Posted: February 8th, 2010, 3:42pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Meet GuruPlug, an all-in-one server that is now available for pre-order. This is the next generation of the popular SheevaPlug that features some added goodies. The base model sells for the same $99 and appears to have the same specs as the original but for $30 more, the GuruPlug Server PLUS moves to 2 Gigabit [...]
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ez430 home automation
Posted: February 8th, 2010, 2:07pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Oliver] has been doing some work to use his TI ez430 Chronos wristwatch for some home automation. He’s working with a RF controllable lightbulb adapter which operates in the 433 MHz band. A dirt-cheap breadboard-friendly transmitter is available from Seeed Studios and he uses this in conjunction with a computer and an Arduino. Before the [...]
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Built-in hex editor unlocks plasma TV features
Posted: February 8th, 2010, 12:46pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Nick] tipped us off about a guide to unlock extra features on Panasonic televisions. The hack works on the G10 models of plasma TVs and uses the service menu to gain access to the EEPROM memory. With a few quick steps you can change some data with a built in hex editor, unlocking several new [...]
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‘Mod in the USA’ N900 PUSH competition
Posted: February 8th, 2010, 8:54am EST by Jakob Griffith
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Just when you think you’ve heard all you can about the N900 PUSH competition, we have some more news for you. The original PUSH competition was only for UK members, but now Nokia has introduced the ‘Mod in the USA‘ N900 PUSH competition. Similar to the original, anyone (within region) can submit a cool mod, hack, [...]
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FAT support for any microcontroller
Posted: February 7th, 2010, 7:18pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Rahul Sapre] sent us a guide to porting EFSL to any microcontroller (PDF). The Embedded Filesystems Library adds FAT support to C compiled microcontrollers. It is targeted at the AVR line of chips but can be adapted to any architecture that works with a C compiler. [Rahul's] guide will take you through the process of [...]
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Hackaday links: February 7, 2010
Posted: February 7th, 2010, 6:05pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Bot gives head to passersby This free range robot was spotted at this year’s Kinetica Art Fair. You can place your hand above it and it will stop and pour you a beer. That’s if you consider 7/8 of a glass of head ‘a beer’. Photo booth adds fun – consumes floor space Face it, photo booths are [...]
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Putting on a show in the rain
Posted: February 7th, 2010, 2:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Let’s face it, walking around in the rain sucks. [Matth3w] is trying to add a little whimsy to an unpleasant experience by adding an LED matrix to his umbrella. The array contains 80 LEDs that are individually addressable. This is a mutiplexed array that relies on a MIC2981 source driver for the eight rows (or [...]
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Performance oddities
Posted: February 7th, 2010, 12:20pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Mario the Magician] wrote in to let us know that he makes Hackaday a priority every morning with his coffee. Well, so do we. He also included a link to his homepage when submitting this revelation. The juicy details that are as much of a fix as the caffeine in the coffee are missing from [...]
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ExoPC shows off some guts
Posted: February 7th, 2010, 10:52am EST by Caleb Kraft
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The folks over at Engadget have posted some pictures of the ExoPC’s insides. With the recent return of the tablet craze (remember xp tablet edition?) we’re seeing tablets everywhere. This one has some promise on the hardware side, sporting a 1.6GHz processor and 2GB of RAM. Unfortunately we’ve heard using solely a tablet interface with [...]
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Altoids upstaged by gift card tins
Posted: February 7th, 2010, 8:41am EST by Phil Burgess
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Nothing Earth-shattering here. Just, dare we say it, really cute! The venerable Altoids mint tin has become an icon of the maker culture. Browsing through past articles on Hack a Day, Adafruit or Instructables, you’ll find project after project for which these pocket-sized enclosures provided just the right fit. Eminently practical, affordable, but the aesthetics have occasionally left something [...]
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Running bleeding edge on Nexus One
Posted: February 6th, 2010, 4:32pm EST by Mike Szczys
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We like to run the newest software available. We often encounter problems and things that don’t work because of this, but with open source that just give you the opportunity to contribute and make the package better. Now you can take the fun and daring of bleeding edge to your phone by installing the latest [...]
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Interfacing with an analog joystick
Posted: February 6th, 2010, 2:10pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Firestorm_x1] put together a tutorial about interfacing an analog joystick with a microcontroller. These analog sticks are easy to find; he got his from Goodwill but we’ve got a couple in our junk box right now. The stick uses variable resistors to report its position so it’s just a matter of reading and interpreting that [...]
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Update: Adafruit Eagle library, now with Arduino
Posted: February 6th, 2010, 1:10pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Adafruit Industries has just added an Arduino shield footprint to their EagleCAD library. If you don’t know, the Arduino headers use non-standard pin spacing. Learn to deal with it, there’s too many Arduino shields in production to have any hope for a change in the future. This footprint should make it a lot easier to [...]
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Hardware based randomness for Linux
Posted: February 6th, 2010, 11:27am EST by Mike Szczys
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True randomness can be hard to come by in the digital world. [Andy Green] is making it easier to get true entropy by using this random USB dongle. The Whirlygig uses a CPDL to gather data from a set of of oscillators. The oscillators have a constantly fluctuating frequency due to temperature changes; if they [...]
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Pre-spun hard drives
Posted: February 5th, 2010, 3:07pm EST by Mike Szczys
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This device is lovingly called the SPINmaster. [Linux-works] built it to spin up multiple hard drives before the motherboard starts up. It detects the power-up from the PSU and uses a relay to hold the motherboard in reset, indicated by the red LED. Each of four relays then spins up a hard drive and illuminates [...]
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Pipe heating with an ATMega8
Posted: February 5th, 2010, 2:00pm EST by Caleb Kraft
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[Viktor] wanted a system to keep his pipes from freezing. The common method of using heat tape works pretty well, but can be wasteful. Many people just turn it on for the entire winter. [Viktor] wanted to automate the heat tape’s power so that it only activated during times that the pipes could actually freeze. [...]
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Repurposing a click wheel
Posted: February 5th, 2010, 12:46pm EST by Mike Szczys
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We think the click wheel is the biggest contributor to the success of the original iPods. The devices were a brick with a monochrome screen but the user interface was slick and easy to use. [Jason] decided he wanted to add a click wheel to his own project. After using a logic analyzer he discovered [...]
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Arduino to Nintendo DS interface
Posted: February 5th, 2010, 11:33am EST by Mike Szczys
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[Hounjini] was poking around at the Game Boy Advanced bus of his Nintendo DS lite and figured out how to use it to connect an Arduino to the DS. For testing he’s soldered an IDC plug to the cartridge cover pin interface but this only requires four connections. The Arduino can both send and receive [...]
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Antique Jukebox Audio Streamer
Posted: February 5th, 2010, 10:18am EST by James Munns
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Reader [Jimmy] sent us some info about his recently completed antique radio to audio streamer conversion. The electronics from the original radio were too far gone to repair, but he took the time to pull apart modern components to provide a polished looking finished project without losing the antique feel. We like it, but we [...]
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Ask a winner updates day 5: Answers
Posted: February 5th, 2010, 9:14am EST by Jakob Griffith
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Not too long ago we asked our readers what they would like to hear about from the PUSH N900 winners and their hacks. We got some silly questions, and some serious, we asked both and now the PUSH teams have answered. The day has passed, the party is gone, and all that’s left is the final [...]
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Guitar Hero as an instrument or midi controller
Posted: February 4th, 2010, 3:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Robert] wrote a program using Max/MSP that lets him make music with his guitar hero controller. There’s another video after the break where he walks through the various features but here’s the gist of it. This works on Mac and Windows and allows a sort of ‘live play’ or midi mapping mode. In the midi [...]
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Battery holder reuses blister pack
Posted: February 4th, 2010, 1:34pm EST by Mike Szczys
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In need of a portable power supply, [Alastair] threw some batteries into an Altoids tin. The problem was he didn’t have a holder for these size A23 cells. Inspiration struck and he realized the blister pack they came in fits them snuggly and just needs some conductors to complete the circuit. He pulled some battery [...]
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Propeller takes Step-a-Sketch to a new level
Posted: February 4th, 2010, 12:10pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[Mpark's] propeller controlled Etch-a-Sketch is well built and very accurate. He was inspired by the Step-a-Sketch project and he’s carried that design through to a stunning conclusion. The driver board was built around a Parallax Propeller P8X32A microcontroller. But this isn’t just a serial controller board for connecting the hardware to a PC running CNC [...]
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Winners of the N900 PUSH Showcase tickets.
Posted: February 4th, 2010, 9:40am EST by Jakob Griffith
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Like all great things, they must come to an end. As such, at 10am PST, this morning – our N900 Push competition came to a close. We had some really awesome answers, some really round about, and of course the obligatory – really bad ones. For those that are just on the EDGE of your [...]
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The mechanical diode
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 4:10pm EST by Mike Szczys
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A diode allows current to travel in only one direction. With that in mind, [Alex] built a mechanical diode that will only allow gear rotation in one direction to be transmitted through the system. But wait, by connecting two of these devices together he’s built something of a mechanical rectifier. An electrical rectifier converts alternating [...]
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Leapfrog Didj: Followup
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 3:00pm EST by James Munns
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Yesterday we mentioned the Woot! sale of the Didj, and we had some comments and emails from readers who had purchased one. We couldn’t resist either, and ordered a couple to take apart and modify. We will probably be following the work laid out by [Claude Schwarz], who seems to be one of the leading [...]
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Print your own pizza
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 2:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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If you think there’s never enough computerized numerical control in your life perhaps the pizza plotter should be your next project. This is a large 2-axis machine that shoots pressurized sauce onto a pizza crust. It’s a food-grade RepStrap and appears to use a garden sprayer as a reservoir. They learned their lesson when a [...]
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Lego spider-bot
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 1:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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[MkMan's] LEGO spider robot combines pieces from a Mindstorm kit with a few milled plastic parts. The legs are a locomotive concept called a Klann Linkage. They operate in pairs and convert the rotational force from one motor into movement for two legs. Here, a total of four rotating gears moves eight legs, besting the [...]
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Amplifier built inside a 9v battery
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 11:51am EST by Mike Szczys
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It’s pretty creative to use a 9v battery as an enclosure. That’s what [Osgeld] did when building this amplifier. There are several advantages; they’re easy to find, it keeps a bit of the dead battery out of the landfill, and this method provides a built-in connector for a 9v power source. In this case the [...]
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Ask a winner updates day 4: Answers
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 10:00am EST by Jakob Griffith
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Not too long ago we asked our readers what they would like to hear about from the PUSH N900 winners and their hacks. We got some silly questions, and some serious, we asked both and now the PUSH teams have answered. Solderin Skaters are really making progress. They’ve gotten their printed circuit boards and mounting equipment [...]
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PHP runtime rewritten, by Facebook?
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 9:00am EST by Jakob Griffith
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Yes, its true. Facebook has completely rewritten the PHP runtime to make it faster and more efficient, and its completely open source. Named HipHop, its described as a source code transformer, changing PHP into optimized C++ which is then compiled using g++. Thus keeping the best aspects of PHP while taking advantage of the performance [...]
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Foil impressioning defeats security locks
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 7:16am EST by Mike Szczys
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Apparently it’s been around for fifteen years but using foil impressions to pick locks is new to us. This is similar to using bump keys but it works on locks that are supposedly much more secure. This method uses a heavy gauge aluminum foil to grab and hold the pins in the correct place for [...]
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USB HDD enclosure to DVD connector
Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 3:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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This is a “why didn’t I think of that?” idea. [Alec] needed a way to connect an IDE DVD drive using USB. Rather than order a connector he pulled the circuit board out of an old USB hard drive enclosure and connected to his DVD drive. Bang, recognized and running. This will prove extremely handy if [...]
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Our favorite XBOX to HTPC hacks
Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 2:00pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Let’s face it, the original Xbox is ugly. It might have looked cool when it first came out but now most would be embarrassed to display that old beast with the rest of their entertainment hardware. This is unfortunate because the old girl still has some life in her. If you have tools, time, and [...]
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Minneapolis Hackerspace: Twin Cities Maker
Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 1:00pm EST by James Munns
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After announcing the grand opening of a St. Louis Hackerspace, we received a tip that another group of our readers had an event coming up. Twin City Maker of the Minneapolis/St.Paul area are hosting a Maker Faire and art show next weekend. Unfortunately, we don’t have any writers in that neck of the woods, so there wont [...]
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Beginner concepts: 555 push button toggle
Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 11:27am EST by Mike Szczys
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PIC, AVR, and Arduino are ubiquitous in projects these days and a lot of the time it’s easy to over-complicate things with their use. In this case, [Tod] wanted to use a momentary tactile switch to turn something on and off. Instead of going with a microcontroller he built the circuit around a 555 timer. [...]
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Icosatetrapedal robot
Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 9:53am EST by Caleb Kraft
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24, Icosatetrapeds have 24 legs. This robot, built by [Monica Anderson] back in 2005 has 24 pneumatic soft legs. The motion is fantastic, like watching some kind of sea creature walk. Though it only goes about 1 meter per minute, we just couldn’t stop watching. The compressors were scavenged from some military equipment designed for [...]
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Game controllers using USB host shield
Posted: February 1st, 2010, 2:41pm EST by Mike Szczys
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Circuits@Home has put together some libraries that make it easy to use gaming controllers with an Arduino. They interface through the USB host shield. This means that PS3 controllers connect via USB through a cable or a dongle. With the Wii remote things get a little more interesting. A Bluetooth dongle is used to make [...]
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Snow blower robot
Posted: February 1st, 2010, 10:11am EST by Caleb Kraft
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For those of us who are stuck in the middle of a cold and snowy winter, this project will seem like a stroke of genius. [Jimmy Bui] has put together this robotic pushing platform. While it is seen in the video (on the linked page) pushing a snow blower, it seems to be simply bolted [...]