Blinking light switch

blinking-light-switch

In addition to being a great replacement for that aging eye patch, these specs act as a light switch. By watching your eyelids, they are able to kill the lights whenever you blink. The installation is a shared experience piece conceived by [Michal Kohút]. He wanted to illustrate the constant blinking we all do but rarely think about. The system uses an Arduino to capture events from the … [Read more...]

Safe-Sync protects your camera from older high-voltage flash modules

driving-high-voltage-flash

Since we're not high-end camera aficionados it was a surprise to us that the hot shoe that allows a camera to interface with a flash module has changed rather dramatically over the years. Apparently the interface used to be mchanical-electrical in that the camera would use mechanical means to connect two electrodes from the hot shoe. It didn't matter the voltages it was switching because the … [Read more...]

Want a two person self destruct button, but tired of pesky microcontrollers?

self destruct

We all know that our precious cruisers/warships/assets can not fall into the wrong hands, and what better way to assure that information security than incorporating a self destruct button into the design? While the general premise is simple enough the only real way to make sure some crazy space-virus can't infect your captain and force him to destroy your ship is to add a two button security … [Read more...]

Quieting an inexpensive bench power supply

quieting-a-bench-supply

[Mike] just purchased this Atten APS3005S bench power supply for around $80. It does the job, but boy is it noisy! We were pretty surprised to hear it fire up in the video after the break. To make matters worse, the noise is persistent since the fan never shuts off. Having worked with other bench supplies he knew that a common feature included in many models is temperature controlled case fans. He … [Read more...]

Hidden bookshelf switch

Hidden-Bookshelf-Light-Switch

So you don't have any secret passageways in your house, but if you've got a bookshelf this secret switch can add some fun to your routine. [Brandon] saw a commercially available version which was out of stock when he went to order so he set out to build his own. He's using the switch to operate a lamp. The donor part for the hack is a lamp dimmer which you'll find at the big box store. This is … [Read more...]

Fix broken buttons on your ASUS computer monitors

fixing-broken-monitor-buttons

One of the perks of writing for Hackaday is that we often find hacks that we've been meaning to do ourselves. Here's one that will let us fix our borked ASUS computer monitor buttons. [Silviu] has the same monitor we do, an ASUS VW202, and had the same problem of stuck buttons. We already cracked ours open and realized that the buttons are not easily replaced (you've got to source the right one). … [Read more...]

Tiny audio switcher eliminates repetitive plug swapping

usb-audio-switcher

[Phil] uses both his computer’s speakers and a set of headphones while working at his desk, but he was growing tired of constantly having to remove the headset from his sound card in order to insert the speaker plug. He’s been meaning to rig something up to make it easier to switch outputs, but never seemed to get around to it until he recently saw this LAN-enabled audio switcher we … [Read more...]