Laser Etching an iPhone 5

March 2, 2013 By 33 Comments

Laser Etched iPhone 5

CrashBangLabs in Regina recently got their hands on a laser cutter. The Full Spectrum cutter was donated by a local company, who were upgrading to a larger machine.

With no laser cutting experience, [Brett] decided that his first project would be laser engraving his iPhone 5. This is a bit of an ambitious first project, since the power and speed would have to be set correctly to get a good contrast level, and you only have one try to get it right. Also, using too much power might have turn the phone into a laser etched brick.

[Brett] used an older aluminium iPod for testing. Once the laser speed and power was dialed in, he loaded up the artwork for the real thing. The cutter did a pretty good job at etching the art, but as the etching started it became clear that an alignment error had occurred. Fortunately [Brett] decided to not interrupt the cutter, and ended up with a good looking phone, with a slight alignment issue.

After the break, check out a time lapse of the laser cutter doing its thing.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: iphone hacks, news Tagged With: , , ,

Hacking a Ham Radio

February 28, 2013 By 37 Comments

Hacked Ham Radio

For Christmas, [Lior] received a Baofeng UV5R radio. He didn’t have an amateur radio license, so he decided to use it as a police scanner. Since the schematics were available, he cracked it open and hacked it.

This $40 radio communicates on the 136-174 MHz and 400-480 MHz bands. It uses a one-time programmable microcontroller and the RDA1846 transceiver. With the power traces to the MCU cut, [Lior] was able to send his own signals to the chip over I2C using an Arduino. He also recorded the signals sent by the stock microcontroller during startup, so that he could emulate it with the Arduino.

Once communication was working on an Arduino, [Lior] decided to get rid of the stock microcontroller. He desoldered the chip, leaving exposed pads to solder wires to. Hooking these up to the Arduino gave him a programmable way to control the device. He got his radio license and implemented transmission of Morse Code, and an Arduino sketch is available in the write up.

[Lior] points out that his next step is to make a PCB to connect a different microcontroller to the device. This will give him a $40 radio that is fully programmable. After the break, check out a video of the hacked radio in action.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: radio hacks Tagged With: , ,

Uzebox Coding Challenge

February 28, 2013 By 9 Comments

Uzebox Coding Challenge 2013

The 2013 Uzebox Coding Challenge is currently underway. This competition runs until June 1st, with registration open until April 1st. The Uzebox is an open source, 8 bit game console that uses only two chips: an ATmega644 microcontroller and a AD725 RGB to NTSC converter. We’ve featured it a few times in the past.

The competition rules are pretty loose: build a game or a useful piece of software that runs on the Uzebox, and fits in 61 kB. Entries will be judged on game play, originality, graphics, sound, completeness, and technical prowess. There’s prizes for the top six entries, including a few Uzeboxes and cash.

If you don’t have an Uzebox, check out the Uzem emulator. This lets you emulate the Uzebox hardware on Windows, Mac, or Linux. The emulator also has an internal GDB debug server to help with development. The low cost console can be built for about $30, and a number of kits are available.

Thanks to [Ben] for sending this in.

Filed Under: contests Tagged With: , ,

Reading Sensors with Scratch

February 24, 2013 By 2 Comments

Scratch + Arduino

Scratch, a graphical programming language developed by MIT’s Media Lab, is an excellent tool for teaching programming. [Daniel] created an Arduino Sensor Shield to interface with Scratch, allowing for real-world input to the language.

This board is a derivative of the Picoboard, which is designed for use with Scratch. Fortunately, the communication protocol was well documented, and [Daniel] used the same protocol to talk to the graphical programming environment. The shield includes resistance sensing, a light sensor, a sound sensor, and a sliding potentiometer.

The main goal was to create a board that could easily be built by DIY etching. This meant a one sided board with as few jumpers as possible. The final design, which can be downloaded and etched at home, is single sided and uses only one jumper. Detailed steps on testing the board are provided, which is very helpful for anyone trying to build their own.

This board is perfect for educational purposes, and thanks to [Daniel]‘s optimizations, it can be built and tested at at home.

Filed Under: Arduino Hacks Tagged With: , , ,

Automated pH Control

February 23, 2013 By 22 Comments

pH Controller

Controlling the pH level of a solution is usually a tedious task. Adding an acid or base to the solution will change the pH, but manually monitoring the levels and adding the correct amount isn’t fun. [Reza] rigged up an automated pH controller to keep a solution’s pH steady.

The build uses an Arduino with a LCD shield, screw terminal shields, and [Reza]‘s own pH shield attached. A peristaltic pump is used to pump the pH down acid into the solution. This type of pump isolates the fluid from the pump parts, preventing contamination of the solution. The pump is controlled using a PowerSwitch Tail, allowing the Arduino to control the flow of fluid.

An Omega pH probe is used to read the pH level. [Reza]‘s open source firmware has support for calibrating the probe to ensure accurate readings. Once it’s set up, the screen displays the pH level and the current state of the system. The pump is enabled when the pH rises out of the desired range.

After the break, check out a video walk through of the device.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: chemistry hacks Tagged With: , ,

Hacking a Coffee Machine for a Better Brew

February 14, 2013 By 32 Comments

Coffee Machine

Senseo coffee makers are automated brewers that use coffee pods. [Ronald] had one, but wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the coffee it produced. His solution was to hack it apart and build his own automatic coffee machine with the innards.

The coffee brewing part of the system is controlled by an ATmega8. This reads the temperature using the NTC sensor from the original machine and actuates the various parts of the Senseo machine, and the added grinder. The timing was all done by trial and error, optimizing for the best cup of coffee.

Keeping with the trend of adding Raspberry Pis to everything, [Ronald] connected one to this build for remote control. He runs a very hacked version of LCD2USB which deals with communicating with the RPi. An Apache web server hosts a PHP script to provide a user interface, which runs a C program to tell the system to start brewing.

Unfortunately, [Ronald] didn’t give us a link to his web interface, so we can’t remotely brew him coffee. However he did provide all of the source for the project in his write up.

Filed Under: home hacks, Raspberry Pi Tagged With: , , ,

Minecraft for RPi Released

February 11, 2013 By 12 Comments

Minecraft for RPi

Mojang, the folks behind Minecraft, have officially released Minecraft: Pi Edition. This free version of the popular game is optimized to run on the Raspberry Pi hardware, and has an API that exposes the game’s internals to a variety of programming languages.

Mojang intends this release to be an educational tool for teaching and learning programming. Since the API provides instant feedback in the game, it could be an interesting way to make learning to code fun for people of all ages.

Having access to the API on a RPi also means that the game can be connected to the real world. For example, using Python and the RPi.GPIO, pins on the GPIO header can be used for output or input. This creates a slew of possible hacks that interface with the game.

Any ideas on what you’d like to do with Minecraft on a RPi? Let us know in the comments. Also, we coincidentally just printed a minecraft pick on our 3d printer. There’s a time lapse video of it after the break!

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Raspberry Pi Tagged With: , , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »