As a resident of San Francisco, I can say how much I hate tow trucks since they towed my car without warning. It just happens that tow trucks “wait” around parking lots to tow cars.

Okay, that said, here’s a cool DIY air suspension system made for tow trucks, I hope it doesn’t make it to the market, I really don’t like technology improvements for tow trucks. I think people in tow trucks are one of the “lowest” grade jobs out there along with parking meter people. Don’t get me wrong, tow trucks are just really “bad” in San Francisco.  If they start doing things more “legally”, I’d have to change my mind though, but that’s not going to happen in this bad economy-era.

Gadget Freak James Kinney was looking for a way to take the pressure off the back end of a tow truck when it’s carrying a heavy load. If you can equalize the pressure of the truck bed so all the weight is not on the back end, there will be less stress to the truck’s suspension system. Kinney developed the air suspension system, called the Mechatronic Microcontroller, in his mechatronics’ class at Colorado State University. The gadget uses a resistive touchscreen from an electronic Sudoku game to select the ride height of the tow truck’s bed to make it level, thus spreading the stress of the towing weight evenly across the truck’s suspension.

via make

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Remember the Automatic Ball Throwing Machine for your dog?  Well, get one of these Robotic Dogs and you will have a complete dog throwing/fetching automation.  Why not?

This robot uses an Acroname CMUcam2+ for its eye and an Acroname BrainStem GP 2.0 microcontroller for its brain. It chases down a bright pink ball (which I made with a styrofoam ball and neon pink acrylic paint), grabs it with its dual-servo pincher, and brinks it back to its home base by homing in on another bright pink target (conveniently mounted over the iSight camera on my Mac).

via hackedgadgets

Check out this Duck Cam, a walking Polaroid camera that captures pictures and prints them out for ya.

video after the jump.

Continue reading ‘DIY Duck Cam is a walking Polaroid Camera!’

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Ha, this has to be the most technologically advanced light bulb that consumers can buy right now.  It’s basically got LEDs and a microcontroller to control the whole schbang.

EvoDim allows for maximum energy conservation by allowing the user to cycle the bulb through three different output settings (250 Lumen, 750 Lumen, 950 Lumen) simply by rapidly switching the bulb on and off. The EvoLux R effortlessly goes from a room filling light all the way to a night light with a turn or flip of a switch. There is no need for a dimmer switch as EvoDim turns every fixture into a dimmable fixture instantly. Watch a demo of EvoDim Technology Below

via engadget

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Here’s a fun little DIY homemade gate controller for all you DIYers!

here are the gates i put in when we had are first child so she would not run out on the road i had this idea i would put motors on them this was not as easy as i thought
i started with a 12v window motor
with a rightangle drive but you can not drive the motor backwards so i could open the gates with out power you need to put a clutch in line

via hackedgadgets

Lol, this little Sim Unlock Card fits between your SIM card and the phone.  There is even a microcontroller on the freakin’ thing, which probably does the unlocking job.

It supposedly works for many phones as listed on the product site at usbfever.com.

This SIM unlock is made of a very thin piece of FPC (0.10mm) with a Microcontroller mounted on, that goes between your Operator’s SIM card & the phone’s SIM socket.

Because of it’s very thin & slim design it fits into almost all phone’s on the market and can also be easily removed again. It’s got Gold Immersion and makes perfect contact with the card and the socket at ALL times.

Cutting of your Operator’s SIM card is required but kept to a minimum. (there are products on the market claiming that no cutting is required to use them, however they don?t give a reliable connection between the phone and the SIM card so that in certain cases it might not work at all or you might get problems during usage)

This SIM unlock  is a revolutionary do-it-yourself Plug & Play card for unlocking Mobile Phones without the risk of damaging the phone or voiding it’s warranty.

This SIM unlock is inserted into the mobile phone in parallel with your Operator’s SIM card and enables you to use your card on phones locked to another provider..

No more Test-Point. No more opening phones.. No more waiting for logs.. No more Server delays & errors.. No more Cracks & illegal hackings.. No more damaged phones.. No more lost warranty because of phone modifications..

[via] boingboing

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Remember I did a G-Force Meter couple years ago? Here’s another cool DIY G-Force meter. The only difference it that it uses 7-segment display and a PIC18F series microcontroller.

After seeing so many applications using acceleromters making a simple project of my own with this cool sensor just seemed natural.
The main application of the accelerometer is either for sensing tilt or sensing acceleration. For this application A G-Force meter for my car will be made to see how many “G’s” I pull while driving.

via HackedGadgets

Related:

How to make a G-force meter in 1 minute!

Wow, check out this GIANT volume meter! So cool lookin’~

Looks like it’s some type of microcontroller with bunch of replays… Looks pretty simple to build… (the controls i mean)

“Volumen”, a giant graphic equalizer built by Argentinian artist, Sergio Avello relays the ambient urban noise levels around the Redgaleria in Buenos Aires. Pretty intense way of visualizing the constant buzz of the city, plus nice shots of the internal circuits at the below link.

via Make

Check out the Atmel AVR temperature controller hack, although I made a better one last year that can be controlled via ethernet, the case looks awesome!

Wine doesn’t like subzero temperatures, and during wintertime, my “winecellar” got pretty cold.
There was an electric heating element, but the thermostat was broken, so it was either full burn or nothing.

That’s how the temperature monitor/controller came to be.
It was an obvious task for a small processor and I’ve always wanted to test the Dallas temperature sensors.

So, I designed this little device which could monitor the temperature and control the heater.

via Aboutmicrocontroller.blogspot.com