All right, the dragon fly is finally available at my favorite store, Radio Shack!
We’ve been secretly collecting some toys from Radio Shack, this WILL make us happy again.

via

video via pcworld blog

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Wow, check out how you can use your computer FAN as a generator to power your cellphone and other small electrical devices!

via dabomb.tv

Here’s an update of controlling 3 stepper motors using a CUBLOC CB280 module. Although you can move the motors simultaneously, there are a lot of applications you can use it for.  Sorry about the video, my video camera needs head cleaning.

We’ve been messing around with some industrial stepper motors at work. These Xylotex stepper motors are pretty cool.

We have an example here for interfacing with some CUBLOC modules.

We got the 3-axis stepper kit so we will have a 3 stepper motor update soon too.

Here’s a nice little RC buggy for future reference on RC mods…

This was probably the most important thing to achieve. The R/C vehicle that I’m using has 2 servos, one to move the position of the front wheels and therefore controls steering and the other controls a mechanical speed controller (push it forwards and you go forwards, backwards and you reverse with an zone in the middle of not moving).

Servos are driven by a PWM signal which allows accurate positioning of the servo “arm”. Now I’m using a gumstix connex 200xm and a STUART waysmall board, the gumstix has 2 methods of producing a PWM signal, either through its hardware onto GPIO 16 (Jonathan Brandmeyer has a driver here however 16 isn’t avaliable on the waysmall board) or by the mpwm driver produced by Pascal A. Brisset which allows the signal to be produced on any GPIO.

Check out the update on CNC milling machine with cool software update with Mach3 CNC
software. Now Garrett’s CNC milling machine runs much faster with the Mach3!

We’ve been playing around with Mach3, which supports Modbus I/O. This example uses one
modbus output on a CUBLOC module to control the spindle motor through an SSR4. Cool dude…

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This is the most awesome wheelchair ever!

Josep Mora, designer from Barcelona, adapted this Segway for people with reduced mobility. He added a hand break to keep the vehicle standing on its own when stopped, a folding handle bar and a folding ramp to put the vehicle in the trunck. Watch the video.

via freshcreation

Here’s some cool looking homemade brushless motors made using some PC Hard drive parts and
power tools…. wow!

My first home-built outrunner motor from hard drive stators (Western Digital Caviar). Motor designation is 280-10-6 as it has a 28dia x 10mm long stator. I used 6 windings of 3-strand 0.35mm wire with a delta connection and a distributed winding pattern. It spins 12,300 RPM @ 23.3A with a 8×4 Graupner SLIM prop.

This 350-20 is the biggest motor I’ve built so far. The 12-tooth, 35mm stator is from a power tool and the 14 magnets are 20×6x2mm. This motor has a nominal rating of 600w, but can safely be pushed to 750W for short durations. A similar motor powers a friend’s Smith Miniplane built to the original SIG plans and gives it vertical performance.

I just ran into this balancing bot kit. Kinda pricey but cool that you can get one.
(Can we get some samples?)

Now, you can build your balbot using this kit instead of starting from scratch!

The BalBot Advanced kit includes everything the Basic kit does, PLUS the BrainBoard microcontroller board, 2 forward-looking infrared distance sensors, a programmer, serial cable, C-compiler, and more (see kit contents below for details)!

In short, the BalBot Advanced kit includes all the parts* you need to build a fully autonomous, self-balancing robot! It also includes everything you need to write your own custom C code, and program the bot with it. Programming skills are required to develop your own robot behaviors, or to add on accessories. Basic assembly skills are required. Soldering is NOT required.

Now you can buy balancing-bot kits