[Christoph] sent in [fingers] rather interesting coffee hacking project. (Use the fish to translate it to English.) Using various scrounged parts, he’s constructed his own automated french press brewer. A good french press is a bit of an art, so I can understand the desire to automate one. The grind itself isn’t too critical, but brewing time can vary with the roast and grind of the bean. Personally, I’ve found that decent brew temperature is the real key to a good press. [Fingers] machine provides a way to do everything consistently, but the custom aluminum brew chamber might be effecting the brew temperature.
Year: 2007
Cell Phone Controlled Door Lock
Inspired by the knock to open hack, [ashish] put together a fairly simple DTMF decoder to control solenoid door unlocker and connected it to a Nokia 1100 cell phone. Call the phone, input the magic code, and the door unlocks.
Hack Some Bling Extra
I’ve been getting some good looking mods on the tips line, so I thought it was time for a bit of bling on Hack-A-Day.
[f00-F00] sent in his ever so lightly modded iPod. It’s a bit similar to his force feedback PSP mod, but in this case, the leds lighting up the clear case are music sensitive.
The not too shabby looking [flooky] sent in her latest use for the SEGA Dreamcast, a guitar. (Hopefully soon to have three more strings.)
[crait] decided to steal 5v to power a Dreamcast VMU from his PS/2 port.
Oh, and if you dig our logo, you might be amused by skulladay.
I’ve got my travel plans for Defcon 15 set up. [Eliot] will certainly be skulking around vegas, so we’ll see you there.
SMS Tracking With A GPS GSM Enabled AVR
[Alex] sent in some of his latest work. He interfaced some not so cheap components to give an AVR GPS and GSM I/O. For now it can read the GPS position and send text messages. Thanks to the GPS/GSM module, the schematic is pretty simple – anyone with basic soldering skills and a desire to put a dent in their credit card can probably build this. (Programming the AVR is probably the most difficult task)
Force Feedback PSP Mod
[F00 f00] sent in his latest PSP mod. By combining a voltage amplifier, a PIC controller and a cell phone motor he ended up with force feedback enabled PSP. He’s got the PIC set to enable the motor when it detects certain sound frequencies from the speaker via the amp.
The video is after the break.
Sideways Bike – Ride Perpendicular
I guess [Michaels Killian] just didn’t like to ride facing forward. He’s built a few versions of his sideways bike. Both wheels are used for steering – I’ve got to give him credit for making the chain drive handle that much side to side displacement. via [wired]
Virtualcogs Open Portable Gaming Platform
[David] thought you guys might like this – and I agree. It’s an open gaming platform built around a PSP LCD. It’s got all the basics, and it’s expandable. They’d like to put together an order for a run of boards, so let em know if you want one. If you’re lazy, here’s the specs:
- MX21 ARM9 266MHz processor with 64MB SDRAM and 16 MB of FLASH
- TFT LCD from the PSP (our thanks to Nathan at Sparkfun for helping us out with that)
- stereo audio CODEC
- stereo speakers
- headphone jack
- microphone
- couple of joysticks
- loads of buttons
- battery pack
- SD/MMC slot
- expandable (can add GPS, bluetooth, accelerometers and gyros, etc…)
Most of the hardware is pretty decent, but the battery pack could use some help. Maybe a good surplus li-ion cell phone battery.
