Counterfeit electronics in military weapons

morefake

Boeng and the US military found some systems on new P-8 Posiedons to be defective. The culprit: counterfeit electronics. These are scrap parts from 80s-90s electronics that have been re-branded and sold to the government as new.  Many of the parts have been linked to dealers in China, but the Chinese government feels no need to pursue this(according to the article). There is an amendment to a … [Read more...]

Personal flight from the steam age

steampunk-wings

From a small-sized backpack these wings slowly grow to full size in a Steampunk costume that hearkens back to DaVinci flight designs. The mechanism that unfolds the wings was fashioned from parts of a baby gate and an old back massager. The massager features a pair of orbs that are meant to move slowly up and down your back. This is what accounts for the slow unfurling of the wings. After a … [Read more...]

Making an RF controlled light switch work with IR

ir-rf-light-switch

[Gary] had an RF triggered light switch kicking around, and wanted to find a way to control his lights using a home theater remote. The switch, which he bought from RadioShack years ago, came with a simple remote that uses two buttons to toggle the lights on and off. While you might think that switching from RF to IR control would be a step backwards, [Gary] really just wanted to consolidate … [Read more...]

Beginner concepts: We’re gonna let you finish, but first this tutorial on Arduino interrupts

kanyed

OK, year-old pop culture references aside [Kyle] dropped us a line to show us his tutorial on using interrupts with your Arduino. Given the single core nature of your average Arduino's AVR you pretty much have two choices for monitoring occasional un-timed inputs: Either check an input at an interval (which risks missing the signal entirely) or set up an interrupt to pause the chip's normal … [Read more...]

Panning time-lapse rig

panning-time-lapse-rig

Here's a simple camera setup that lets you make your own panning time-lapse videos. It uses a couple of motors driven by an Arduino to snap successive still images which can later be rolled into a video format. [Acorv] was not thrilled with the fact that his new Lumix LX5 didn't have a time-lapse option built-in. But luckily it does have a standard connector on top for an external flash. He … [Read more...]

Kitchen hacks: The Margarita Machine

the-margarita-machine

If [Paul Degenkolb] really decided to make this on a whim one day (like he says he did) we think he should quit his job and go into a full-blown state of whimsy for the rest of his life. The Margarita Machine makes five gallons of slushy intoxicants in a quick and relatively quiet process that will have a backyard full of guests lining up not just to imbibe, but to see what the heck you've come up … [Read more...]

Arduino-based MIDI synth

arduino-based-midi-synth

[Charles Gershom] has been tinkering around with his keyboard and Arduino in order to build his own version of a MIDI controlled synthesizer. It looks like he's gutted the enclosure of some commercially available MIDI hardware to use for the project. This works nicely since it gives him both the MIDI and audio jacks that he needs. The box also provides a nice control surface where a set of four … [Read more...]