Fresh hacks every day
[Kenneth Finnegan] took the focus of a great design and redirected it to solve his own problem. What results is this lead acid battery charger based on the 555 timer. It's not a top-of-the-line, all the bells and whistles type of charger. But it gets the job done with a readily available IC and no need to code for a microcontroller. The original idea came from a solar battery charger entered in … [Read more...]
We've seen a few 1-D pong games recently, and they've all be controlled using microcontrollers. Inspired by some of these hacks, [mischka] built the monoPong using a handful of logic chips. The monoPong has four major components. A 555 timer in astable mode provides a clock source which is fed into a 4510 decade counter, which connects to a 4028 BCD to decimal decoder to drive the LEDs. … [Read more...]
This hat has a chasing LED feature thanks to our old friend the 555 timer. [BananaSlug] even built in the option to change the speed at the push of a button. His design starts out with a costume hat. Each of the 25 LEDs is soldered to a 2x4 hole chunk of protoboard. The LED package is pushed through a slit in the hat, but the protoboard remains on the inside where it can be sewn in place. From … [Read more...]
Many companies today try to simplify life by over complicating the keyboard. Microsoft has been doing it since 2001. If you love your ergonomic keyboard, but hate that “function lock” key, there are plenty of options out there for you to try. The least complicated way is to either modify some XML or just set macros up in the MS software, but who wants to do that every time they re-install … [Read more...]
[Pete Mills] was browsing around online when he came across an arcade button light switch and immediately wanted one. He didn’t however want to pay the $35 asking price for the switch, so he decided to build it himself. He says that his solitary arcade machine doesn’t warrant its own room, so he figured he would wire the switch up to an extension cord in his workshop instead. The switch was … [Read more...]
When designing a circuit on the bench, sometimes things work far better than they do in real life. [Quinn Dunki] learned this lesson over the last few months as she struggled with one of her recent creations, the Dish-o-Tron 6000. We featured the Dish-o-Tron back in April, and at that point things seemed to be working out well for [Quinn]. As time passed however, she found the device to be an … [Read more...]
After seeing many projects that use microcontrollers to switch mains voltages [Rob Miles] decided to share his preferred method. The shots you see above are an enclosed relay, part number RIBTU1C manufactured by Functional Devices Inc. This in itself is not the full control scheme that he uses, but it takes care of the bulk of the hardware. He uses a triggering circuit based on a 555 timer … [Read more...]
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