[Ryan] sent in [Bill]’s project to build his own JAMMA arcade game console. It’s actually a take off from one of [Ben Heck]’s how-tos, but I thought it might interest people who think that they can’t pull off any of the projects we feature on their own. We definitely like to show off some original, complex hacks, but success stories can be just as inspiring.
Month: April 2008
Arduino Beer Brewing
[Yuri] spent some time building a computer controlled, arduino interfaced beer brewing rig. A cooler serves as a mash tun, while the arduino controls a steam source that’s used to raise the temperature of the mash as desired. A java app talks to the arduino to set the temperature parameters and monitor the steam boiler. You can catch a nice video walkthrough of the setup, see some screen shots of his java interface.
Remote Control Whiteboard
Whenever [sprite_tm] sends in his latest project, it’s like getting a Christmas present and a night off. He put together a whiteboard, x/y stepper system, serial interfaced microcontroller and added a webcam with perspective correction for the online view. Me? I’m tempted to build one of these for leaving notes for the wife when I’m out.
EFI Your Motorcycle
This one’s In honor of my new project bike. [wildwestsyndey] converted his Suzuki DR 350 from the stock carbs to EFI using the megasquirt EFI controller and a custom machined throttle body. You can find a few pictures of the conversion here. To handle the ever annoying need for a high pressure fuel pump, he adapted an in-tank scooter pump with a machined mini-reservoir to fit in-line with the original tank. For more motorcycle builds, check out the megasquirt success stories forum.
Ghost External VGA Display Hack
Certain OS installers cough*osx*cough don’t like the on-board displays on some machines. [Ziddan] posted a paperclip based work around for them on the eeeuser forums (originally posted by [mugan] on insanelymac). Apparently by shorting the pins, the video card will report that there is an unknown external display attached.
Weekend Links
Friend of Hack-A-Day, [Dan Kaminsky], started off last weekend right by putting Rick Astley everywhere on the internet. ISPs routinely hijack mistyped URLs and [Dan] showed that an attacker could inject code into any unresolved subdomain, essentially taking over every site the ISP’s customer tried to reach. I doubt many companies would be happy to know their websites were being misrepresented.
The week wasn’t going so well for another friend of ours as he found himself back in court for allegedly inventing the entire satellite piracy industry.
BoingBoing TV featured the Graffiti Research Lab this week as they prepare for the New York premier of GRL: The Complete First Season. GRL encourages you to pick up your copy today… before they’ve even started selling it.
While you’re over at The Pirate Bay you might as well ask them where to get the leaked copy of Grand Theft Auto IV… or you could just wait a few days and buy it like a normal person. We do recommend you bide your time by checking out the GTA 4 leaked gameplay videos, GTA 4 walkthrough, and GTA 4 cheats.
Simple Serial Servo Controller
There’s nothing quite like a nice, simple hack. This serial servo controller uses a PIC12C671 and a pair of resistors. Leaving out the power supply, that’s the lowest part count I’ve ever seen.
