zedomax.com &#187; Circuits

Looking for a great Christmas gift for your whiz kid? Here’s a great DIY that shows you how to make a solar powered ball robot. Of course, there exactly isn’t a kit for this but all the parts are easily findable so it might actually work better than any other gift you can buy off the shelf.

This technology of using minimal electronics and simple mechanical design is call BEAM robotics.

The Miniball itself was originally invented by Richard Weait of North York, Toronto.The Miniball is a amazing robot – it uses a simple circuit and the robot itself proves to be very capable, rarely getting stuck. The Miniball is mechanically complex and electronically simple. (But don’t worry – the mechanical part is still pretty easy)

In this case, we aren’t going to build the original Miniball, but a smaller, more basic wannabe version. This robot is extremely simple and can take a beginner less than 2 hours to build.

Robot DIY – How to Make a Solar Powered Ball Robot!

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DSLR DIY – How to Make an Intervalometer for Canon or Nikon!

max — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:30:54 +0000

Intervalometer can be used in DSLR photography to take time-lapse shots. You can buy one of these Intervalometers off the shelf for anywhere between $60 to $200+ but if you got some programming and soldering skills, you might be interested in learning to make one yourself.

Circuit schematics, code, and whole bunch of images are included in this DIY to help you make the intervalometer for your Canon or Nikon DSLR camera.

This instructable is teaches you how to make an intervalometer that can be used with virtually any camera. It has been tested with Canon and Nikon cameras, but making adapter cables for other cameras is just a matter of figuring out the camera pinout.
It’s also available as a kit so you might want to go that route if you are not familiar with programming an AVR.

This intervalometer has the following features:

Intervalometer mode with options to change delay time and exposure time

Sensor mode with built in light sensor and connector for external sensor input

Manual mode allows intervalometer to act like a simple remote cable

Integrated 2×12 LCD display

Fully optically isolated interface to camera

Total package is roughly 1″ x 2.5″ x 3″ finished

Electronics small enough to fit in a mint box

Source code is available for download so that you can change programming as desired

Available as a kit from www.ottercreekdesign.com

DSLR DIY – How to Make an Intervalometer for Canon or Nikon!

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DIY Accelerometer Controlled Marble Maze!

max — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:20:46 +0000

DIY Accelerometer Controlled Marble Maze!

Here’s a rather very interesting DIY project that involves a marble maze controlled by a wireless accelerometer housed in a Wii Steering Wheel unit. Brilliant!

I purchased the Wii steering wheel unaware that an additional button is mounted to the back for the “B” controller input. At first I considered removing this button to prevent users from getting confused but decided to utilize it instead. During testing I found it awkward and difficult to hand off the controller or put it down without the maze going crazy as it continued to follow the accelerometer’s measurements. I decided that a “dead-mans” switch would be a useful addition so that the maze would only accept input when the button is held down. This allowed the controller to be handled without causing the maze to move unless desired.

via hackedgadgets

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Earthquake DIY – How to Make a Seismic Earthquake Detector/Reflector!

max — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:23:18 +0000

Here’s a rather cool device you can make to let you know when there’s an earthquake anywhere around the world using Arduino and RSS feeds from USGS.gov.

Basically, the device will simulate the intensity of earthquake’s magnitude through vibrations. For seismic scientists and reporters who specialize in earthquakes, this could be pivotal in launching an emergency campaign.

As a Californian who witnessed one of the biggest SF Bay Area earthquakes in 1989 (and lived through it), I can see the value of this gadget. Plus, most big earthquakes hit after a series of small/medium ones, meaning this could potentially alarm people of upcoming earthquake too. I still remember the day when my parent’s house rocked back and forth about 1-2 feet like if I were on a boat or something for full 20 seconds. I didn’t know it was an earthquake at the time until afterwards, that was not a lot of fun as I immigrated to the US like 3 months before it.

Even today, I know there’s another big earthquake coming to San Francisco Bay Area, my prediction is around 2070 though, I think they hit this area every 90 or so years.

This project has two strands, a software and a hardware component. The aim is to build a device which responds to earthquakes being reported in near-real time via the USGS RSS feeds. The device responds by illustrating the magnitude of the reported earthquake via two fairly chunky vibration motors of the kind used in video game controllers. The device is connected to a PC via a virtual com port over USB (thanks to an on board Arduino). On the PC, an application sits there checking the RSS feed periodically and when a new event it posted to the RSS feed, the desktop app parses the data out of it and presents the magnitude of the quake to the Arduino which interpreters this as rate at which to activate the vibration motors.

Earthquake DIY – How to Make a Seismic Earthquake Detector/Reflector!

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RFID Hack – How to Make an RFID Music Selector!

max — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:00:59 +0000

For RFID modders, here’s a great DIY to refer to, an RFID application that involves selecting your favorite music using RFID modules! I know some of you are working on RFID projects, this one should be very helpful indeed.

The RFiDJ project is my first attempt at an application in Imperceptible Computing. After work I like to listen to music/radio for a bit to unwind. This usually involves logging into my HTPC and selecting a playlist. For this project I attempted to change how I interact with my music and HTPC. Using RFID tags and photo frame coasters I am attempting to simplify the interface to my music.

RFID Hack – How to Make an RFID Music Selector!

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Sonar DIY – How to Make Sonar-Like Radar Visualizer for an Ultrasonic Scanner!

max — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:52:13 +0000

Good morning! Here’s a rather interesting DIY that shows you how to make a sonar-like radar visualizer for an ultrasonic scanner. Now, I think this could easily be applied to other types of scanners including infrared, radio, etc…etc… Great!

First things first, we need to build our circuit. This is the easy bit! We’ll be using the Arduino to control a servo that will rotate our sensor around 180 degrees. The Arduino will then send the value from the sensor along with the current angle of the servo to the serial port.

Sonar DIY – How to Make Sonar-Like Radar Visualizer for an Ultrasonic Scanner!

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LED Hack – How to Make a Remote-Controlled RGB LED Mood Light!

max — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:34:41 +0000

Like LED hacking? Here’s another rather interesting LED hack involving a remote-controlled RGB LED mood light. Awesome!

With this thing I can control the colour of a bright light into many different colours using the three fundamentals colours : red green and blue. Adding them toghether with different intensity can yeld very great a range of colours from the visible spectrum.

Also check out our Top 30 LED DIY projects here.

LED Hack – How to Make a Remote-Controlled RGB LED Mood Light!

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Radar/Laser Detector DIY – How to Make a LIDAR Gun Simulator!

max — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:29:24 +0000

With advances in radar/laser detectors that can detect cops from miles away, police officers have been using radar/laser guns that are more sophisticated so they cannot be detected with some of the older radar/laser detectors.

By learning how to make a LIDAR gun simulator, you will be able to actually test whether your current radar/laser detector can detect them all, perhaps saving you some money in the future from getting tickets.

Of course, my advice is just to drive slow enough that you don’t get tickets. In my experience, cops don’t give you a ticket unless you are going at least 15MPH above speed limit and perhaps driving a bit crazy such as weaving in and out of lanes or cutting off other innocent drivers for no reason.

Also, don’t forget you can get PhantomAlert, which is a software add-on for your GPS and lets you know where the cops are.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Radar/Laser Detector DIY – How to Make a LIDAR Gun Simulator!

Circuit DIY – How to Make PCB with an EAGLE schematic!

max — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:57:59 +0000

Here’s a great tutorial showing you how to make a PCB with an eagle schematic. I am sure most of your PCB experts know how to do this but for those of you dummies who can’t, this is invaluable free lessons.

In this instructable, we’ll make a printed circuit board from that schematic

I guess I should say that we’ll make a PCB DESIGN ; making the physical board is a different task, and there are a lot of tutorials on the net (and even some instructables) on making the board after you have the design.

Circuit DIY – How to Make PCB with an EAGLE schematic!

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Palm Pre Hack – How to Mount a Custom Palm Pre Touchstone Mount for your Car!

max — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:33:48 +0000

Here’s a rather cool DIY that shows you how to mount a custom Palm Pre Touchstone Mount for your car. I think this goes well with Sprint’s on-board voice directions GPS program although I still prefer GoogleMaps as it seems more accurate.

So you’ve been dying to get a Touchstone and put in in the car. You get one only to find out it doesn’t work in the car! As a former professional car audio installer, I’ve got that problem solved and here’s how.

via palmpre-hacks

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Palm Pre Hack – How to Mount a Custom Palm Pre Touchstone Mount for your Car!

GoogleMaps Hack – DIY Exercise Bike uses GoogleMaps as Virtual Map!

max — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:08:28 +0000

Here’s a rather cool hack where the hacker uses his bike as a GoogleMaps Virtual Map. Using Vuzix iWear as display device while he’s cycling (around the world) on GoogleMaps, this simple hack shows how far GoogleMaps Street View can be applied for adding a little fun to your next workouts.

It’s still in the works but kudos for what he has done so far! Brilliant hack!

Pragmatically explained, it means that I don’t have to sit in the darkness or stare at my garage door while I’m huffing away. Hopefully once this is done, I’ll be able to spend a few nights a week pedalling away downstairs and work my way across the US or Australia over the course of the year. The irony of this project is, well, while it’s supposed to help me entain myself while using the exercise bike, the project itself has been keeping me from exercising. Oh well.

GoogleMaps Hack – DIY Exercise Bike uses GoogleMaps as Virtual Map!

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LED Hack – How to Make (Google)Voice Activated LED Signs!

max — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:07:48 +0000

Here’s a really cool hack that uses GoogleVoice to translate voice into words and to his LED sign. This should save a lot of time anytime you want to change the message on your LED sign. Brilliant!

I made the LED sign following instructions from this tutorial on Nerdkits.com. The hardware is some LED’s, a nerdkit, a piece of cardboard and a bit of wire that I got from some Cat 5 cable laying around. I cut out the cardboard and printed a grid to help me lay out the LED’s. I think mine were 1 cm apart. The soldering took forever and it was the first real time I did any soldering so it looks kinda crappy. Oh well. It works. The sign itself is powered by a 9 volt battery and receives data from my laptop through the serial port via a USB adapter. All that stuff was included in the Nerdkit when I bought it. The microcontroller is running code from the tutorial I mentioned earlier. One of these days I’m going to make an enclosure for this thing.

LED Hack – How to Make (Google)Voice Activated LED Signs!

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DIY Servo Robot!

max — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:40:28 +0000

Here’s a really cool DIY Servo robot built with *very* expensive servos, at $200-300 each! Of course, you can buy a similar consumer product like G-Robot from Japan here too.

First post here but figured I would share my most recent work; an RX-64 servo based custom humanoid robot named Giger. This bot was designed in Autodesk Inventor, and machined from 5052 alloy aircraft aluminum using a Sherline 2000 CNC and some work from Big Blue Saw. He stands 62cm tall, weighs about 5kg and uses a total of 16x RX-64s and 8x RX-28s. Video shown is rough initial progress, walking gait still needs a lot of work and the IMU data needs to be integrated for dynamic balancing.

via engadget

Watch the video of this DIY Servo Robot:

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DIY Servo Robot!

X-Men Hack – How to Make a Handheld Flame Thrower!

max — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:39:26 +0000

Check out this awesome hack that involves a handheld flame thrower. There’s some schematics and build details here. The X-men-like handheld flame thrower uses hand gestures to control the amount of flame you want. I think this is way cool that you can build such a dangerous device but just make sure if you are going to build one, you know exactly what you are doing as even small mistakes could possibly burn your hand off. (so have a fire extinguisher nearby)

Prometheus is version 3 of the Pyro System. This is the culmination of about 6 months of thought and 2 months of building during whatever spare time I could find. This is just a basic demo video. I’ll be uploading a detail video with some design and component discussion later.

X-Men Hack – How to Make a Handheld Flame Thrower!

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Lock Hack – How to Make a “Secret Knock” Detecting Door Lock!

max — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:30:32 +0000

Here’s an awesome lock hack that uses Arduino to create a door lock that can detect your “secret knocks” to open the door. I like everything except that people might be able to hide nearby and hear your “secret knock”. Regardless of practicality, this is a really awesome hack, perhaps the best door lock hack I’ve seen in awhile.

Seeeeecret knocks? And if we could detect a secret knock, shouldn’t it unlock a door? If you can’t tell by looking this was cobbled together from spare stuff around the lab, it’s not much more than a piezo speaker, a tiny gear reduction motor, and an Arduino. And PVC pipe.

See video of the secret knock detecting door lock in action here:

Lock Hack – How to Make a “Secret Knock” Detecting Door Lock!

via gizmodo

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Light Hack – How to Add Auto-Off Switch to a Tap Light!

max — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:35:03 +0000

You know those cheap tap lights you can get? Well, the here’s how to add an auto-off switch so you can use it as a bright night light that shuts off automatically or even a reading light. Whatever the case, adding an auto-off switch will make your battery on the tap light last much longer too.

My wife always forgets to turn lights off and I knew I had to install these in our closets with a auto-off feature!

Light Hack – How to Add Auto-Off Switch to a Tap Light!

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Telephone DIY – How to Make an Auto-Dial Telephone for Your Grandparents!

max — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:02:15 +0000

My grandmother has alzheimer’s, she probably can’t remember me by now (which is very sad indeed) but for those of you lucky enough to have grandparents that have not reached that stage yet they have hard time using their hands or simply remembering numbers, you might want to consider making them one of these cool DIY auto-dial telephone’s for their birthday or any other special occasion.

Of course, don’t forget, you can also buy one of these auto-dialer telephones here if you don’t want to make one yourself.

On a side note, you can also probably turn any cellphone into an easy, auto-dialer phone by hacking the GUI for phones like the new Palm Pre or perhaps even an iPhone.

Video of DIY Auto-dial telephone in operation:

Telephone DIY – How to Make an Auto-Dial Telephone for Your Grandparents!

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Another Cool DIY Segway!

max — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:21:12 +0000

Here’s another really cool DIY Segway. Of course, if you want to build one yourself, don’t forget to check out this blog post on how to make your own segway here. (and custom segway mods here)

The frame was modeled in CAD and then welded together. For propulsion [Mark] has installed two 750 Watt motors which will use sprockets and chains to turn the wheels. The machine balances based on data from both a gyroscope and an accelerometer, with the entire packaged tied together using an Arduino.

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Another Cool DIY Segway!

Amp Hack – How to Make a Stereo Vacuum Tube Amp!

max — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:00:08 +0000

Thinking about building yourself one of these cool Vacuum Tube Lamps? I think these are more artistic than anything. Who cares how it works, it “looks” great. I WANT ONE!

The basic circuits are rather similar, but the new project has a number of differences. Most notably it is easier and less costly to build. The rather large output transformers used in the original project have been replaced by ones that are considerably less weighty and less costly. This alone makes for a $40 to $50 savings. A number of circuit refinements have been included as well. One area of particular note is the higher gain of this new tube amp.

Amp Hack – How to Make a Stereo Vacuum Tube Amp!

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DIY iPhone Rockband-Playing Robot Fingers

max — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:20:41 +0000

Feelin’ lazy? Don’t want to actually play iPhone games yourself? Well then, you can make yourself one of these DIY iPhone Rockeband-playing robot fingers that will take all that hard work and hand-eye coordination out of the equation!

The iPhone touch screen isn’t like most PDAs. It uses a capacitive touch screen. More info about that HERE. It would seem that the iPhone is looking for a finger sized touch, from living flesh. According to the link, the screen actually looks for changes in electrical current. I had some conductive foam laying around, its usually used for shipping sensitive electronics. If I put my finger behind the foam and pressed on the iphone screen, it works. If I used something non conductive, like a plastic pen, the foam would do nothing to the screen. My solution to this was to put thin copper wires into the foam (I also used these wires to attach the foam to the servos) the other end of the wires were wrapped around the handle of an exacto knife. When the Robot is playing the game I touch the handle of the exacto and the robot fingers are able to press the screen.

DIY iPhone Rockband-Playing Robot Fingers

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PIC DIY – How to Make a Simple LED Binary Clock!

max — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:17:26 +0000

If you seen these cool binary watches, you might want to consider learning the inner-workings by building yourself a simple LED binary clock such as this one using PIC microcontroller. Of course, this would mean you would first have to learn how to program a PIC first but you can use a simpler microcontroller like CUBLOC or BASIC STAMP, both of which you can program in BASIC language, probably the easiest and simplest programming language for starters.

This second version is based around a PIC16F628A running at 4MHz to control the display, it also uses a DS1307 realtime clock chip to do the timekeeping. Every second the DS1307 sends a pulse to the PIC chip, the PIC then reads the internal time from the DS1307 over the I2C bus and then displays the time in binary on the LED display.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

PIC DIY – How to Make a Simple LED Binary Clock!

Lifesized DIY Guitar Hero Controlled with Soccer Balls!

max — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:46:56 +0000

Check out this life-sized DIY Guitar Hero that can be controlled by soccer balls. (and probably any other kind of ball from what I can see)

This DIY Guitar Hero project was created using Arduino and projectors, certainly a really cool project they have done here.

An experiment to create a giant (three stories high!) guitar game controlled with footballs. Football Hero is played by a team of insanely gifted young freestyle footballers. The game is programmed with the Kasabian track Underdog.

Watch the video below for the DIY Guitar Hero in action!

via hacknmod

Lifesized DIY Guitar Hero Controlled with Soccer Balls!

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Circuits DIY – How to Make a Massive 30kV Voltage Multiplier!

max — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:50:48 +0000

30 microwaves were used in this circuits DIY project where the creator shows you how to make a massive 30kV voltage multiplier from scrapped microwave parts. This might be useful if you have a need for some serious voltage power for building projects like a high voltage plasma ball or even a high voltage chair. Also see this DIY on how to make high voltage supply in 5 minutes.

Circuits DIY – How to Make a Massive 30kV Voltage Multiplier!

There is a high voltage transformer, capacitor and diode in every microwave. During my days at the dump I demolished a total of almost 50 microwaves for the transformers. Of course I also took the capacitors and diodes, but didn’t have any purpose for them yet. Now I used them to create this cascade. Loud bangs during flashovers and a few nice pictures.

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Kinetic Energy Powered DIY Clothing!

max — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:57:13 +0000

Who said fashion and smart electronics don’t mix well together?

Check out this awesome women’s garment that lights up when some kinetic energy is applied. Brilliant.

I can see in about 5 to 10 years when all fashion designers in New York start using more cool things like this. Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, we’ll just wait.

Designer Site

via craftzine

Kinetic Energy Powered DIY Clothing!

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Xerox Circuit Ink!

max — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:14:27 +0000

Here’s another reason you read Zedomax.com and get the news faster than watching that damn, old HDTV and slow, mainstream media. Xerox has developed a new ink that lets you “print” your circuit boards on paper. Not only will this make DIY PCBs obsolete, you can now make circuit boards that are flexible as paper. WOW!

Xerox researchers have invented a kind of ink that can conduct electricity and be used to put electronic circuits on top of plastics, film, and textiles. That means in the coming years we’ll be able to wear or bend our electronics. You could even print out your electronic gadget on plastic sheets, as if you were printing a document.

via gizmodo

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Xerox Circuit Ink!

Webcam DIY – How to Make a DIY Webcam-Based Laser Distance Finder!

max — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:37:54 +0000

Check out this great DIY that shows you how to make a DIY webcam-based laser distance finder. This is great for implementing distance-sensing projects along with a live webcam.

The author also included some Visual Basic code you can use to implement on a Windows-based program. I am sure you can easily hack the code to use elsewhere with other projects out there.

Miniature robotic rotorcraft for example can carry about 100g of payload. It is possible to perform machine vision tasks such as obstacle identification and avoidance though the use of a webcam (or mini wireless camera interfaced to a computer via USB adaptor). Better yet, two webcams can provide stereo machine vision thus improving obstacle avoidance because depth can be determined. The drawback of this of course is the addition of the weight of a second camera. This page describes how a mini laser pointer can be configured along with a single camera to provide mono-machine vision with range information.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Webcam DIY – How to Make a DIY Webcam-Based Laser Distance Finder!

Halloween DIY – How to Make a Spooky Tesla Spirit Radio!

max — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:28:11 +0000

Here’s a great Halloween DIY involving a spooky tesla spirit radio. Using some basic circuitry, the tesla spirit radio can tell a lightning storm coming from hundreds or miles away or even detect ghosts within the range of your house during Halloweens so you can get ready with a gun in hand if zombies decide to raid your house. Learn how to make the Spooky Tesla Spirit Radio here.

The Spooky Tesla Spirit Radio is a crystal radio circuit in a jam-jar. It makes fun spooky sounds by responding to input from several types of electromagnetic sources. This non-powered radio plugs right into the computer sound-in jack, and makes use of audio software for real time sound effects.

In the accompanying movie, I show how the Spooky Tesla Spirit Radio reacts to many frequencies of light, sound, vibration, radio frequencies, RF pulses, magnetic fields and more!

Halloween DIY – How to Make a Spooky Tesla Spirit Radio!

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Nintendo DS Hack – How to Make a Nintendo DS Bluetooth Module!

max — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:30:16 +0000

For those of you looking to connect bluetooth devices to your Nintendo DS (for whatever reason), there IS a way. It’s not easy but you can do it following this great articles on how to make a DS Bluetooth adaptor.

In our design, we use a tiny ATmega168 microcontroller to make the Nintendo DS speak to the RN-41 Bluetooth SMD module by Roving Networks. Using this piece of hardware the Nintendo DS can scan its neighbourhood and establish connections to other Bluetooth devices (supporting SPP). The module can also be remotely connected to, allowing for a range of interesting applications. We also developed a software library for the Nintendo DS, making it easy to use this new Bluetooth interface.

Nintendo DS Hack – How to Make a Nintendo DS Bluetooth Module!

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PIC Hack – How to Make a Gear Clock!

max — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:40:44 +0000

Check out this awesome cool Gear Clock my friend Alan from HackedGadgets made! The Gear Clock features CNC, laser-cut gears coupled with a PIC 16f628A microcontroller and a stepper motor. Brilliant, I WANT ONE!

The heart of the clock is a PIC 16f628A microcontroller (PDF). This microcontroller has an internal oscillator however an external 20MHz crystal oscillator is being used since it will have to accurately keep track of time for weeks and months. The microcontroller is interfaced to two buttons and one motor.

PIC Hack – How to Make a Gear Clock!

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Arduino Hack – How to Make a Brain-controlled Device!

max — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:54:19 +0000

By using the Star Wars Force Trainer toy, these guys hacked it along with Arduino to control sound. I think this is actually a great way to make a brain-controlled device of all sorts.

Hacked EEG wireless headset produces a pure musical tone when a user concentrates. When not concentrating the user heres a combination of voices – one must find the right tone in their mind among chaos . Connected to Ardunio Nano, and running PD on a connected laptop to generate music. Toy parts for less than $150.

The brain-controlled music device:

The original Star Wars Force Trainer Toy:

Arduino Hack – How to Make a Brain-controlled Device!

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iPod Hack – How to Make a iPod Touch Controlled Wifi RC Car!

max — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:00:47 +0000

John Boiles, a software engineer, has just finished making his really cool WiFi RC car that uses a Linksys router (attached to the RC car) and his iPod Touch as control. You can learn how to make one of these awesome iPod Touch controlled WiFi RC Cars here.

I don’t want to take anything away from John but a little suggestion, instead of mounting the whole Linksys router, you might do better using a WiFi module for embedded processors. (or just strip the plastic off Linksys at least)

Brilliant project though, making use of WiFi is ideal I think due to its range, add a WiFi repeater and go even further.

iPod Hack – How to Make a iPod Touch Controlled Wifi RC Car!

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Motion Detector Hacks – How to Add Motion Detectors to Motion Props!

max — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:48:47 +0000

FreeWebs.com has some great tutorials on how to add motion detectors to motion props. You might also be interested in the Motion Detector Alarm System I made couple years back. These motion detectors are usually rather simple consisting of ON or OFF signal but very useful in various different projects.

Motion Detector Hacks – How to Add Motion Detectors to Motion Props!

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Halloween DIY – How to Make a Halloween Pumpkin with Capacitive Touch Sensor!

max — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:20:42 +0000

Check out this great DIY showing you how to make a Halloween Pumpkin with a capacitive touch sensor to control the glow of the LEDs. Watch video for a demo!

Capacitive proximity sensors work because people are mostly water, and water is a very polar molecule, and is easily turned to align with any applied electric field. In fact, water has a “permittivity” (dielectric constant) that is about 80 times better than air! When a given voltage is applied between the two plates of any capacitor, an electric field is created between the plates. In the region where there’s a dielectric, the electric field is actually smaller than it is in air (for water, just 1/80th of the field strength), so your first instinct might be to think that the capacitance decreases as well. However, because the applied voltage must manifest as a product of electric field and distance, the electric field strength in the non-dielectric regions actually goes up substantially. Overall, the energy stored in the electric field per unit volume of space has to do with the square of electric field strength, so all in all, the stored energy and capacitance both increase when a dielectric is inserted.

Halloween DIY – How to Make a Halloween Pumpkin with Capacitive Touch Sensor!

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Weight Hack – How to Make Smart Bathroom Scale that Logs Your Weight!

max — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:28:58 +0000

In these days of high tech gadget, I have no idea why every bathroom scale doesn’t come with an SD card slot so it will automatically record your weight over time but here’s a great hack showing you how to make a smart bathroom scale that does all.

On this project I hacked a digital bathroom scale, for write (log) my weight variations over time, on a memory SD Card. I write the information (time date + weight) on a comma separated values (.CSV) file so I can quickly build a graph using OpenOffice, Gnuplot or some other capable program.

If anyone want to build a scale like this one, I can help, my e-mail is: casainho@gmail.com. I can also build a personalized system, please contact me for price and details. I would like to see this project grow, I would like to be able to buy on the market an Open Hardware and Open Source scale like this one – please contact me if you ave any ideas.

Weight Hack – How to Make Smart Bathroom Scale that Logs Your Weight!

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DIY LED Pocketwatch!

max — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:03:01 +0000

Here’s a guy who turned his inherited pocketwatch (from his grandfatheer) and turned it into a work of art, an LED pocketwatch! I like this idea very much, turning something old into something new. I am sure his grandfather is very proud of him, great stuff. via hackaday

Things that go bang in the night!

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DIY LED Pocketwatch!

Things that go bang in the night!

David Allen — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:00:06 +0000

Life it scary enough so the last thing that someone is going to need is to hear are strange sounds coming from inside cupboards or walls, but it would be seriously funny too, wouldn’t it?

Place this tiny device somewhere out of sight and preferably out of reach too, to make your target victims life a total misery.

Your Highly Tested EvilTron Sounds Are:

•Something unsettling creaking

•Unidentifiable scratching sounds

•Gasping last breath

•Sinister child laughing

•Eerie whispering of ‘hey, can you hear me?’

•Random Mode

The ThinkGeek EvilTron Features:

•Fiendishly small

•Six scary sound choices (5 sounds plus a random option)

•Battery included (lasts 1 month+ of continuous use)

•Embedded Rare-earth Magnet for easy hiding

•Single push button to change sounds

•Please note: after removing battery tab you may need to push down slightly on the magnet to re-seat the battery correctly (you may even hear a small click)

Priced at $9.99

Source [Think Geek]

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DIY CNC Router!

max — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:43:33 +0000

Check out this awesome DIY CNC Router! – link

CNC routers are way cool, especially DIY CNC machines like this one that does laser-perfect drilling, a great way to make custom parts for sure.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY CNC Router!

Arduino Hack – How to Make an NES USB Flash Drive! (with NES security)

max — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:23:23 +0000

Here’s an awesome NES hack that involves a retro-NES controller hacked as an NES USB Flash drive, also with added NES security that can only be unlocked using the NES controller itself, how brilliant!

At first, I simply wanted to turn the controller into a flash drive and be one of the thousands of videos and blogs of people turning everyday objects into external memory, but ever since I got my first arduino working, I’ve been itching to do something different. I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to add a security feature that required someone to enter the classic contra “30 lives” code before they could access the data?

Arduino Hack – How to Make an NES USB Flash Drive! (with NES security)

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Halloween DIY – How to Make a Pumpkin that Honks!

max — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:31:13 +0000

Here’s a fun Halloween DIY that shows you how to make a pumpkin that HONKS! It would be even cooler if the pumpkin honks when people are near by using sensors, still a great idea for gadgetizing your pumpkin, bravo!

Control board showing the two 555 timers, two MOSFETs, pot to control horn blast timing and other discrete elements. The first 555 timer starts when the red button is pushed and it turns on the red 12v bulbs through the 1st MOSFET (P10NK60ZFP). After 1 second this timer stops and cascades a pulse to the 2nd 555 timer which repeats the process turning on the horns through the 2nd MOSFET and relay.

Halloween DIY – How to Make a Pumpkin that Honks!

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DIY – How to Make an Alti-Variometer!

max — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:23:37 +0000

Here’s a cool DIY tool for para-gliders and alike, learn how to make an Alti-Variometer. I’ve actually seen a para-glider who crashed into a tree by the highway the other week. If he had landed on the highway, I am sure he could have easily crashed onto on-coming cars. Perhaps this Alti-variometer could have prevented him going awry in the first place.

[Vlad-Andre] used some of his free time to build an alti-variometer. He does some para-gliding near restricted air space and wanted a backup altitude warning that would help keep him below the mandated altitude. His solution uses the SparkFun Weather Board in conjunction with their BlueSMiRF dongle to measure altitude and transmit it via Bluetooth. From there, he wrote a program to grab the transmitted data with his cell phone and display the information. His application also has the ability to set altitude warnings and log changes over time.

DIY – How to Make an Alti-Variometer!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Multi-Touch Hack – How to Make Your Own Multi-Touch LCD!

max — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:30:48 +0000

Here’s a really awesome multi-touch hack that shows you how to make your own multi-touch LCD with some LEDs.

Flat multitouch LCD monitor which only uses light emitting diodes as optical sensor elements. The sensor resolution is 48 × 32 LEDs. Instead of the high number of LEDs the power consumption is about 3W at a frame rate of 10 Hz.

Multi-Touch Hack – How to Make Your Own Multi-Touch LCD!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Electricity DIY – How to Make a Motion-Activated Mini Tesla Coil!

max — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:03:41 +0000

Here’s a rather interesting DIY motion-activated mini tesla coil. It seems to work pretty well, this could be one of the best Halloween tricks you could implement to your trick-or-treaters. (via make)

Electricity DIY – How to Make a Motion-Activated Mini Tesla Coil!

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Arduino Hack – How to Make a pH Meter!

max — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:57:17 +0000

Here’s an awesome Arduino hack that shows you how to make a pH meter. I was thinking that this could be great for automating the pool maintenance where you have to check the water’s pH level among other things. That could be a LOT of money, automated water stabilizer!

Now, I gave you a great idea for a niche business, someone go please make it! (well, I guess there’s such thing as automatic pool cleaner already, oops!)

For example, it is necessary control the pH of an aquarium. Some species of fish can not live out of a range of pH. So, we need read it and make the write correction of the pH. Other areas or applications where is important to know the pH are hydroponic, fermentation processes like beer and wine production, environmental monitoring of soils, water of rivers, lakes, and rain, sewage treatment tanks, monitoring of solution and buffers in laboratories of chemistry, and etc.

Arduino Hack – How to Make a pH Meter!

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Rock Hack – How to Make a “Rock” Radio!

max — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 06:04:53 +0000

Here’s a really cool “rock” radio that will go well with your outdoor patio/deck. I find this so creative and original, I give it my “best hack” of the week award. (if there’s such a thing)

My ROCK Radio. The number two in my cement-audio-series. It started of being a very nice rectangular brick shape. Then I found out that a thick layer of cement shields the radio from actually receiving radio waves. With my “Now it doesn’t work anyway” philosophy, I took a big hammer and created this Flintstones look, and the radio works!

Rock Hack – How to Make a “Rock” Radio!

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Ethernet Hack – How to Make a Remote Garage Monitor!

max — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:57:41 +0000

Are you one of those people who forget to close your garage door before leaving on a vacation to another country?

Well, do not worry as there’s a cool hack that shows you how to make a remote garage monitor so you can check it anywhere including your iPhone or Palm Pre.

Also, you can probably add a simple relay and open/close the garage door remotely.

Problem: My garage is detached from my house, difficult to see if the doors are open from the house. Or maybe I am in a hurry to ride to work and forgot to close the door.

Solution: Parallax BS2 based monitor. I can check the status of my garage doors form the web, and with a plugin to Nagios I get paged if it open more than 15 minutes.

Ethernet Hack – How to Make a Remote Garage Monitor!

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How about an Atari Punk Console?

David Allen — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:00:09 +0000

For anyone not in the know, the Atari Punk Console is one of those noise makers that brings back the old sounds of the yesteryear that become so popular from the Atari 2600 video games machine, you know the ones, bleeps and beeps.

Surprisingly there are quite a few of these lurking around the internet, but this one is a nice version that offers the all of the beeps and bleeps that you could ever want.

Priced at $45

Source [Techna Bob]

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

How about an Atari Punk Console?

Circuit DIY – How to Make a Tilt Measuring Inclinometer!

max — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:08:23 +0000

Here’s a really cool DIY that shows you how to make a tilt measuring inclinometer. I do highly like how Nicholas Kwan didn’t use an accelerometer but used cheaper, basic circuit parts. This could be the “alternative” way to put an accelerometer function in your projects without spending much money but with a LM555 timer chip.

The idea behind this was to design a capacitor using a petri-dish and aluminum foil covering half the petri-dish and using water as the dielectric. Because the capacitor had only half the water to fill it and only half of petri dish had aluminum, the capacitance across the capacitor would be different with different angles. When the dielectric between the capacitor plates is 100% water, the inclinometer’s angle is treated as zero degrees. When none of the water is between the plates and is all of it is between the plastic sides, then it is considered to be at 180 degrees. The capacitance is used by a LM 555 Astable circuit, which in turns generates a frequency for the microprocessor. The microprocessor measures the frequency in Hertz, converts it to an angle in degrees through a pre-generated lookup table arrived at experimentally, then displays it on a 4-digit 7-segment display.

Circuit DIY – How to Make a Tilt Measuring Inclinometer!

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Twitter Hack – DIY Home Automation with Twitter!

max — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:36:15 +0000

Here’s a great example of someone who used Twitter to control his home appliances. Of course, this is completely do-able with some meticulous planning. I do see more and more automation DIYs using Twitter as communication platform for their projects, very useful indeed for our cluttered world. You will have to add some security measures to protect against hackers though.

The one thing lacking in most of these devices was 2-way communication between Twitter and the device. In all of the examples I could find the device is sending an update to Twitter but is never performing an action based on a Twitter message.

With http://twitter.com/MattsOffice you can send a command by placing a keyword in a @reply message. Valid keywords are “light”, “bright”, “dark”, “temp”, “hot”, “cold”, “lcd”, and “view”. For example, to retrieve the temperature of my office I just need to update my Twitter status with a simple question like “@MattsOffice What is the temperature?”.