Automated Doors for Theatre Effect

Door Actuator

For a theatre production, [Jason] needed a way to automatically open and close doors as a special effect. His solution, hosted on Github, lets him remotely control the doors, and put them into a 'freak out' mode for one scene in the play. Two Victor 884 motor controllers are attached to an Arduino that controls the system. A custom controller lets [Jason] actuate the doors remotely, and LEDs … [Read more...]

Finding the cheapest board house

PCB

The prices for custom made circuit boards has never been cheaper, but surprisingly we've never seen a comparison of prices between the major board houses. [Brad] took the time to dig in to the price of 10 boards manufactured by Seeed Studios, OHS Park, and BatchPCB. He made some pretty graphs and also answered the question of where you can get your circuits made cheaply. [Brad] got the prices … [Read more...]

Ask Hackaday: What’s an easy way to build a potentiometer for a soldering iron?

We think this is resistor is in-line with the DIY potentiometer. Shouldn't this be a part with a much higher power rating?

[Lee] wrote in to share the work he's done in building a controller for his soldering iron. The idea started when he was working with an ATX power supply. He figured if it works as a makeshift bench supply perhaps he could use it as the source for an adjustable iron. To get around the built-in short-circuit protection he needed a potentiometer to limit the current while allowing for adjustments. … [Read more...]

MIT Media Lab’s month in Shenzhen

mit-media-lab-month-in-shenzhen

When you've got a month worth of blog postings it's pretty difficult to choose one photograph that sums it all up. This one shows the tour group from MIT Media Lab in ESD garb ready for their tour of Okano SMT and Speaker Factory. It was part of a tour of Shenzhen aimed at bringing graduate students up to speed on what it means to manufacture products in the city. Luckily, Freaklabs member … [Read more...]