Comments on: Design Challenge mini-extra

By: grim factor

grim factor — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 02:15:46 +0000

^^ you need to use limited current either through a properly sized resistor or a regulator circuit or they will go runaway and suck a LOT of current and burn out rather quickly, same as an LED.

time to read up on some basic electronics!

By: Spork

Spork — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 08:14:52 +0000

Has anyone else here tried the laser thing? I have harvested 4 lasers from different drives and run them from 3.0v batteries (to test) and also from a pair of AA batteries. They seem to go dead after about a minute of use with either battery type. is 3v too much?

By: brian

brian — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 01:19:11 +0000

Okay, so on the DVD laser, would it still pop balloons if you put a collimating lense on it and fired it from 100ft?

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 23:08:25 +0000

There is a good working mirror at: http://www.vilos.com/lasers/lasers-howto.html

By: phx

phx — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:07:59 +0000

if you paste the link in to google and click on the ‘cached’ link below the search result, you can see the page, sans images. thanks google.

By: brian

brian — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:48:09 +0000

THe site is down again. I have some extra bandwidth on my webserver if anyone can get me the pages/images to put up the mirror. Or, if someone else has a mirror location, that would be great. Sounds like a really cool hack.

By: strider_mt2k

strider_mt2k — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:40:01 +0000

Yup, and i shot 'em a tip about the rats with LEDs in 'em too.

-waddya gonna do?

By: ed3

ed3 — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:26:28 +0000

farris – Nevermind… Read the rest of your post… Duh (someone one to delete this and the other one??)

By: ed3

ed3 — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:24:44 +0000

farris - You mean the episode with Vexcon exterminators?? I think their logo is very similar, but isn't Hackaday.

http://www.vexconinc.com/

By: mastershake916

mastershake916 — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:45:30 +0000

I’m confused, what happened?

By: Eliot Phillips

Eliot Phillips — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:09:16 +0000

I’m originally from Nebraska so a friend pinged me to let me know about the story. I actually emailed WOWT to say I’d be happy to comment. Well, the segment aired and was really light on information. Probably because Hack-A-Day was nowhere to be found. They didn’t show us once. They just used us for their stupid ad. That, my friends, is what a #1 Google rank gets you.

By: farris

farris — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:54:40 +0000

No mention of the tip that I sent in about the episode of Dirty Jobs on Discovery Channel where the crew member is seen wearing an HAD shirt repetitively.

In case your wondering, its the bit where they go to the monkey sanctuary in Africa. The guy is a little bit hefty, and wearing a black shirt, with a "Skull-and-Cross-Wrenches" logo on it.

Oh well... my tips go unannounced...

By: Eliot Phillips

Eliot Phillips — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:54:17 +0000

I think tuning to SciFi is worse than turning off.

By: spugman

spugman — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:47:16 +0000

That Shower button is cool but if you use an external USB number pad instead of a mouse, you could use the left and right for the next and previous buttons. just a thought. and if you were really looking for something to do you could take apart an old keyboard and do the same :D