[drj113] posts his cool word clock. After seeing a similar clock on an industrial design website, he set out to make his own version. He made custom pcbs with the toner-etch method. The front is a solid piece of copper clad board and the light shines through the etched areas. It’s powered by a PIC microcontroller and uses approximately 120 ultra bright LEDs. [drj113] has all of the circuit board diagrams, silkscreens, etch negatives, and code on the intructable so you can build your own.
Where would be the best place to test out an unhackable netbook? The NSW department of education in Australia thinks that college is perfect . They plan on distributing netbooks, preloaded with Windows 7,and iTunes. They also have bios level tracking and security, allowing them to be remotely shut down on command. With 20,000 of these in circulation, we would think that we’ll see someone proving the “unhackable” statement wrong. We can only hope.
[via slashdot]
How many times has this one happened to you? Just coming home from work, you walk in from the garage, settle down, and pick up the newspaper. But wait, did you remember to shut the garage door?
Presenting the open garage door indicator. [xjc2010] chose the simplest circuit possible, using only a switch to turn on and off the setup, an LED acting as the signal, and a transformer/resistor combo to drop the voltage to an acceptable LED friendly 2.8 volts. We don’t like how he strung wire all over his house to place the beacon, and would have preferred something wireless in one way or another, but for under 6 bucks this gets the job done quickly and cheaply. Now if only we could get it to remind us if we turned off the oven while on vacation.
[thanks Craig]
The amount of detail [Doug] put into his Dr. Frankenstein MAME cabinet is outrageous! Usually we’re more interested in the guts, but in this case the real story is the cabinet itself. Painted to resemble weathered metal, the effect of dripping water is visible on every rivet. There are illuminated portals on either side: one shows the monster, the other shows the bride and the good doctor. Sprinkled throughout the case are analog dials, lamps, and other laboratory bits. [Doug] tops off the design by concealing the power switch inside a book of Frankenstein’s lab notes which is tucked away behind the door beneath the controls. A lovely build for a creepy house.
[via Boing Boing and Steam Punk Workshop]
Related: Cocktail Cabinet, Mini Mame
We love our AVR Dragon programmer. It is a small board with a lot of functionality: in-circuit serial programming, JTAG, debug wire, and high voltage serial programming. Unfortunately, out of the box it is not quite ready for action. The Dragon ships with an unpopulated prototyping area and missing a pin header for the HVSP. For most people this means soldering on pin headers and a ZIF socket then jumpering between the various programming headers and the header for the socket. Tired of working with jumper wires, [Jussi] designed a small PCB to make the connections (original link in Finnish). Continue reading “AVR Dragon Wiring Alternative”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46RycwjIvs8]
[casafear1] has put out this video detailing how to build the “ground-breaker”, a zombie escaping from the grave. It is a simple frame for the arms and shoulders, with a couple pneumatic pistons to make it jerk as though it were pulling itself from the grave. He goes into a decent amount of detail explaining the physical construction, offering several tips to prolong the life of this prop. Unfortunately, he doesn’t enlighten us as to his control scheme. Is it manually controlled? Is it automated? Does it get activated by passers by or is it always going?
Last year, we posted most of the Halloween projects after Halloween. This year we would like to try to get you those ideas and inspiration far enough ahead of time to help you put them to use. Send us your favorite Halloween projects so we can get them published.
[via Makezine]
SLI, for those who don’t know, is the process of taking two Nvidia graphics cards and allowing them to work in parallel to render to a single monitor. In theory this doubles the power, getting more FPS for video games. Great right? Except due to encryption, only a limited amount of motherboards can actually support SLI.
That is, until now. Russian hackers at xDevs discovered that the newer encryption is based around string identifiers. This can be modified within the operating system itself, so in theory any motherboard could work. Be wary, this could brick your system; but if successful, you’ll have more power without shelling out for an officially SLI supported motherboard.
