Adding heat sinks to a Raspberry Pi

[Michael Dornisch] was surprised to find that the main processor of the Raspberry Pi reaches about 56 degrees Celsius (about 133 degrees F) while streaming video over the network. He thought it might help the longevity of the device if he was able to cool things off a bit. But why stop with just the processor? He added heat sinks Read the rest

Adding an OLED to a LEGO set

Sure, as a very powerful and influential LEGO dictator you’re more than able to make the trains run on time, but how do you make your LEGO citizens realize the benefits of living under your regime? With an OLED LEGO train schedule, of course! [Dan] over at Adafruit put together a great guide to interfacing a very small OLED … Read the rest

Bench supply built in a power strip

Back in his college days [Print_Screen] grew tired of always building a power supply on his breadboard. To make prototyping quicker he came up with the bench supply that is build into a power strip. This one is using linear regulators for power, and create much less noise on the lines than a supply made from a switch-mode PSURead the rest

Salvaged robot arm used for light painting and pen plotting

The members of Shackspace got their hands on an antiquated robot arm. It’s a Mitsubishi Movemaster RM-101 and was probably manufactured in the mid 1980′s. There’s almost nothing out there that tells you how to use the thing, and so they set out to figure out how to control the hardware.

This is a great example of how an Read the rest

Maker Faire NC 2012: Electrical Vehicles

lab306-fox

Although I had no idea what to expect at the NC Maker Faire, I was pleasantly surprised to see several well made electrical vehicles. One of note was [Lab306]‘s Fox body electric Mustang. Although it would have been impressive by itself, it was made by a high school class and has been featured in several publications. Be sure to … Read the rest

Building a bench supply without altering the ATX psu

[FozzTexx] has been using a bench supply he made from an AT PSU for years. He put a lot of work into that one, removing unnecessary wires, mounting banana plug jacks on the metal case, and adding an on/off switch and labels. But if it ever dies on him it will be a major pain to do all that work … Read the rest

Bike cross country in your basement with Google Streetview

Biking cross-country is a worthwhile pursuit, but then you’ll have to deal with terrible drivers, rain, bugs, and heat. [Jeff Adkins] over at lowendmac has a neat solution to exploring the country via bicycle without ever leaving the safety and air conditioning of your basement.

For his build, [Jeff] used a magnetic reed switch attached to the frame of his … Read the rest