This GPS Logger Is So Small…

April 24, 2013 by Mike Szczys 50 Comments

small-gps-logger

How small is it? Two things should give you a good sense of scale, the SD card slot on the lower right, and the slide switch on the upper left. This minuscule module is an all-in-one GPS logger which [J3tstream] built.

Main system control is provided by a Teens 2.0 board. If you look really closely you’ll see the SD card slot is actually a breakout board which mounts on top of the Teensy’s pinheaders. Also on the board is a PA6B GPS module with a few passive components to support it. The back side of the board hosts a Lithium Ion battery from an old phone. Note the mangled pin header which works as connectors for the battery. [J3tstream] even built a charger into the project. He’s using an LTC4054 chip to handle the charging. We were a bit confused at first because we didn’t see a way to connect external power. But he goes on to explain that the USB port on the Teensy board is used for charging. Just plug in USB and press the button to get things started.

Acrobatic Tricopter Inspired By The Oblivion Movie Trailer

April 24, 2013 by Mike Szczys 28 Comments

tricopter

There have been a ton of commercials for the new [Tom Cruise] movie called Oblivion. One of the main points in every clip we remember seeing is the Top Gun meets Star Trek vehicle he does some tricks in. [James Cotton] loved that footage and ended up building his own RC version of the vehicle.

Three propellers give it lift, with directional control facilitated by servo motors which can pivot the motors attached to the two orange propellers. This design produces remarkably responsive controls as shown in the video after the break. That being said it’s still not immune to operator error. At the end of the clip [James] crashes it hard, stripping out the gears on the servo motors.

He has a few things in mind for the future of the device (and he’ll have plenty of time to plan while he waits for replacement servos to arrive). The aircraft should be able to carry a camera long with it. He discusses the issues involved with where the camera ends up pointing based on what the tilting motors are doing. But we figure he could always build a base that lets the camera pan and tilt separately from the chassis.

You can find a few tricopter projects around here but we’ve always like the one made of cardboard.

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Rattle Generator Is A New Type Of Dynamo For A Bicycle

April 23, 2013 by Mike Szczys 81 Comments

rattle-generator-bicycle-spokes

This project is in one of our favorite categories; the kind where asking “why?” is the wrong question. [Berto A.] built the device after observing some power generation by placing a large magnet next to a mechanical relay coil and quickly clicking the relay’s lever. From this humble beginning he built up the RattleGen, a bicycle spoke driven generator.

To get the most power possible he searched around for a massive relay and found one which was originally meant for telephone exchanges. He cut the case open and strapped a big bar magnet to the side of the coil. Next he fabricated an arm which will press against the relay’s lever. To that he added a small wheel which is pressed each time a spoke from the bicycle passes by it. This repeated clicking of the relay lever generates a current (and a rattling sound) that is harvested by the joule thief circuit built on some protoboard. An LED is illuminated, with excess current stored in the capacitor bank. Don’t miss the build and demonstration video after the break.

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OTM-02 Is A 3D Printed Wristwatch

April 23, 2013 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

We love looking at roll-your-own wristwatch projects. Getting a project small enough to carry around on your wrist is a real challenge. But we think the OTM-02 wristwatch really hit the form factor right on the mark.

OTM stands for Open source Time Machine. It’s the work of [Hairy Kiwi] and he managed to bring the guts of the watch in at a thickness between 6.5 and 7mm. That includes the LCD, PCB, piezo diaphragm, and the battery. The PCB itself is a four-layer board built on 1mm thick substrate. It’s running an EFM32 (ARM) microcontroller which comes with hardware USB support. The little door sitting open on the side of the 3D printed enclosure provides access to the micro USB connector which can be used to charge the 150 mAh battery inside. That may not sound like much juice, but if you set the display to show minutes only [Hairy] calculates a battery life approaching 175 days. If you just have to have the seconds displayed you can expect about two weeks between charges.

Like the name says, this project is Open Source.

[Thanks Liam]

What Are The Best Hacking Documentaries?

April 23, 2013 by Caleb Kraft 103 Comments

Continuing with our series of best and worst portrayals of hacking, we’re gathering our resources to bring you the top 10 Hacking Documentaries. Again, we feel the strongest resource is the hacking community, so lets hear what you think should qualify. While it would be fantastic to only have documentaries, if there is a hollywood movie that you feel fits, go ahead and let us know. If you’re up for a challenge, find us something dealing with hardware hacking instead of computers/phones!

Just for reference, here were the top 10 worst portrayals of hacking in movies as well as part 2. What you see above were the top 10 best, though admittedly I screwed up #4.

Console Radio Given New Life With A WiFi Router Retrofit

April 23, 2013 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

tube-radio-wifi-router-retrofit

[Craig] did a great job of restoring the case of his antique console radio. But he wanted to bring the guts up to modern standards. The fix ended up being rather easy when it comes to hardware. He based his internet radio retrofit around a wireless router.

We laughed when we heard that he removed about eighty pounds of original electronics from this beast. He then cut a piece of MDF to serve as a mounting platform for the replacement hardware. The WiFi router takes care of audio playback from several sources and offers him the ability to control the stereo from a smart phone or a computer. It has a USB port to which he connected a hub to make room for the USB sound card and a thumb drive which holds his music library. The black box in the upper right is an amp which feeds the NHT stereo speakers housed in the lower half of the cabinet.

It doesn’t make use of the original knobs like the recent tube-amp conversion we looked at. But [Craig] did add some LEDs which illuminate the dial to help keep that stock look.

20 Pounds And A Gut Feeling Yields A Configurable Rubidium Atomic Clock Source

April 22, 2013 by Mike Szczys 62 Comments

So you see an image like this and the description “Aircraft stable oscillator” on an eBay listing for twenty pounds (about thirty bucks), what do you do? If you’re [Alecjw] you buy the thing and crack it open to find an atomic clock source inside. But he really went the distance with this one and figured out how to reconfigure the source from the way it was set up in the factory.

First off, the fact that it’s made for the aerospace industry means that the craftsmanship on it is simply fantastic. The enclosure is machined aluminum and all of the components are glued or otherwise attached to the boards to help them stand up to the high-vibrations often experienced on a plane. After quite a bit of disassembly [Alec] gets down to a black box which is labeled “Rubidium Frequency Standard”… jackpot! He had been hoping for a 10 MHz signal to use with his test equipment but when he hooked it up the source was putting out 800 kHz. With a bit more investigation he figured out how to reconfigure the support electronics to get that 10 Mhz source. We think you’re going to love reading about how he used a test crystal during the reconfiguration step.

Once he knew what he had he returned to the eBay seller and cleared out the rest of his stock.

[Thanks DIY DSP]