Ask Hackaday: What to do with a home intercom system?

intercom

[Kyle] just moved into a new home, a 1970s abode that was very modern for its time. When the house was built, a home intercom system was installed. Of course this intercom system was eventually disconnected, but now [Kyle] would like to find a use for it. The intercom system is a wonderful piece of engineering from the late 60s and early 70s. The base station has an FM radio, a mono input (for … [Read more...]

Ask Hackaday: We might have some FPGAs to hack

rear

[Chris] is an IT guy for a medical clinic up in Alaska, and until very recently the systems he monitored, fixed, and beat with a wrench included over 100 Pano Logic "Zero Client" thin clients. Pano Logic just went out of business and all support for these little boxes have been cut off, leaving [Chris] with a hundred or so very interesting pieces of hardware. The idea behind these "zero … [Read more...]

Ask Hackaday: How do you give a project away?

lcr

A few weeks ago, we caught wind of a DIY version of 'smart tweezers' from [Kai]'s workbench that are able to measure SMD resistors, caps, and inductors. At that time, [Kai] hadn't quite finished the software portion of his build, leaving him with a pile of parts and non-working PCBs. The code is finished now, meaning [Kai] has a very capable and very inexpensive version of LCR meter tweezers. … [Read more...]

Hackaday’s official Kickstarter policy

kickstarter-600

we don't have one... yet. We're getting inundated with campaigns on crowdfunding sites like kickstarter and indiegogo. Sometimes they're really cool projects, sometimes they're not. Unfortunately, they are all basically appeals for coverage on hackaday so they can get money. That immediately puts a negative taste in our mouths. Then again, if a hacker legitimately makes something really … [Read more...]

Ask Hackaday Anything over at Reddit tomorrow

Screen Shot 2012-10-08 at 2.30.30 PM

I've had several requests over the years to do an AMA on Reddit. If you're into that kind of thing (asking us anything), you can join us tomorrow morning at 10am central RIGHT HERE. For a rough example of what to expect, you can see the AMA that [Eliot Phillips] did when he moved on from hackaday. However, I suspect this one will contain much more Hackaday relevant content. … [Read more...]

Hacking a floating RGB LED decorative ball

glowball

Knowing that I'm always happy to get something new and glowy, my wife brought home a cheap "floating pool light" that she found on sale for roughly $10. This is a large white floating ball that has LEDs inside and cycles through different colors. Meant to be put into a pool for neat effects, we found it to be much more interesting just used around the house. However, it was a bit too bright and … [Read more...]

Ask Hackaday: What’s your backup solution?

fire

Here's some very, very sad news from [Charles] over at The Maker's Workbench: on July 16th, his house was hit by lightning causing his workshop to catch fire. His family is safe, but unfortunately thousands of dollars in gear has gone up in smoke. [Charles] lost a Reprap, a ton of dev boards, a huge amount of tools including an awesome soldering setup, and his laptop and file server. Short of … [Read more...]