Auto-Focus assist hack keeps improving

[Adrian Onsen] keeps making improvements on his auto-focus assist hack for DSLR cameras. The module seen above is version 3.0, which makes a few changes to the previous hardware and also presents a much more finished look.

With version 2 [Adrian] was using a defocused laser to illuminate dark subjects so the DSLR auto-focus could be used. It worked, but … Read the rest

Simple low toner workaround squeezes out a few extra pages when your printer refuses

low-ink-hacking

[Andrew] was getting ready to print out an assignment when his Samsung printer suddenly started blinking a red error light at him. Unable to find any documentation explaining the issue, he called Samsung directly and found that it was indicating the toner cartridge was nearly empty.

He held down the button that prints a test page, which came out just … Read the rest

A doorbell pleasing to both the ears and eyes

campanello-doorbell

When [David] moved into his new house, one of the things he noticed was that his doorbell was pretty lame. Coming from a home equipped with a solenoid and chime bell, his new wireless solid state doorbell sounded terrible to him.

Crummy sound aside, the doorbell hardly ever worked properly, but alas, other projects cropped up and years went by … Read the rest

C bit field structures for microcontroller multitasking

So you’re getting better at programming microcontrollers and now you want to do several things at once? You know better than that, microcontrollers are only capable of processing one thing at a time. But if you’re clever with your coding you can achieve something that behaves as if several things are going on at once. The most common way to … Read the rest

Kitchen Hacks: Sous Vide builds don’t need to cost an arm and a leg

It’s not that we haven’t seen inexpensive Sous Vide builds. It’s just that we enjoy the fact that [Kelvin's] Sous Vide machine gives new life to unused things. The cooking vessel is a crock pot which he acquired for just $3. He housed it in a large Styrofoam box which he got for free through his local freecycle program. … Read the rest

The Picture Post – Observe Your World in Extreme Slow Motion

The “Picture Post”, a tool for a program going on through the University of New Hampshire, is a method of taking what amounts to extreme time-lapse photography. The purpose of this project is to observe the world around you with a 360 degree view taken at a regular interval.

The setup is quite simple consisting of a 9 inch … Read the rest

Musical greeting card with minimal parts

We’re all familiar with those musical greeting cards. Give the Hallmark store $10, and you have a card with a microcontroller inside that plays one of several songs available. [Jarv] was playing around with translating MIDI tracks to square wave songs with an Arduino earlier, so he decided to see how cheaply he could reproduce these musical cards. The resulting Read the rest