PID Sous-Vide Slow Cooker – Bon Appétit!

slow cooker (Custom)

In search of a perfectly-cooked brisket, [Aaron] recently completed this DIY  PID-controlled sous-vide slow cooker. Sous-vide (French for “under vacuum”) is a cooking technique in which foods are typically vacuum-sealed and then cooked in a relatively low temperature water bath for an extended period of time. This is done to minimize temperature gradients throughout the food to ensure even … [Read more...]

Xbox 360 briefcase is ready to go wherever you do

portable_xbox

Hackaday forum member [azazelcrey] recently wrote in to share his portable Xbox 360 build. This is not his first attempt at constructing one of these, as he completed his first portable console a few years back. This time, he has taken what he learned from the first go round, making his newest creation a bit cleaner and more compact. He sourced an LCD monitor with built-in speakers to use as … [Read more...]

Hacking automated hand sanitizers with Ben Heck

benheck_sanitizer

If you have visited a hospital any time recently, you probably noticed quite a few automated hand sanitizer dispensers scattered throughout the hallways and in each patient's room. Since hospital-acquired infections are a growing problem, there has been a push for all personnel to use these hand sanitizers regularly to lessen the likelihood of spreading disease. In the most recent episode of … [Read more...]

Chill your phone for longer battery life?

phone-chilling-setup

The first specs we look at when choosing a cellphone are the battery life numbers. We know that eventually we're going to see performance loss, and [Dr. West] wanted to see if there's a way to delay the inevitable. What he found is that ambient temperature affects the battery throughout its life. He set out to build a phone chiller to slow the degradation of the battery. The research that he … [Read more...]

TI adds some Linux support for Evalbot – we’ve got hardware coupon codes for you!

In case you missed it, Texas Instruments sells a little robot called the Evalbot as a development platform for ARM Cortex-M3 microcontrollers. Since its release we've seen a few hacks on the hardware; the image above is a proof of concept for developing for the device under Linux. We have criticized TI in the past for not natively supporting Linux with their IDEs. We're not sure how it will play … [Read more...]

Retake on a Wii remote controlled balancing robot

wii-mote-controlled-balancing-robot

[Tijmen Verhulsdonck] built his own version of a Wii remote-controlled balancing robot. He drew his inspiration from the SegWii, which was built by [Ara Kourchians]. The body is built using one of our preferred fabrication methods; threaded rod makes up a rail system, with three sheets of hard board serving as a mounting structure for the motors, electronics, and battery. This does away with … [Read more...]

Cocktail cabinet to be proud of

cocktail-cabinet-build

At a glance you might think it's the real thing, but if you look closer you'll see that The Distraction Contraption is an extremely well-executed cocktail cabinet recreation that hosts a MAME setup. [Sam Freeman] took pictures of the entire build process and has posted them, along with captions, as a Flickr collection. The project started after some inspiration from this diminutive cocktail … [Read more...]