Radar Detector Tester

November 15, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 38 Comments

[Blacklight99] made this cool tool. It is a tester for those radar detectors that people keep in their cars. Though this seems like it would rarely be a tool we would need, it’s an interesting project. Some speed guns that the police use have a “stealth” mode that makes them invisible to some detectors. This tool can tell you if your detector is vulnerable to this. While this really is just a complicated flashing LED, he notes that it could be taken further to be made into a detector that is programmable and not vulnerable to any of the stealth modes.

Bulbdial Redux

November 15, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 9 Comments

[Taufeeq] sent in his “Circle of Light” bulbdial clock. You may remember when we showed you Evil Mad Scientist’s version a while back, and [Taufeeq] did use it as a base but he’s added some of his own little touches. Some of the changes include using a PIC with an RTC chip instead of AVR, which allowed him to shrink the board down small enough to fit behind the clock face, rather than on front. He’s even zipped everything up conveniently to help you build your own.

R/C Lawnmower

November 14, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 56 Comments

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[Johndavid400] built this incredible looking R/C lawnmower. After spending some time repairing broken R/C cars, he wanted to move on to something a little more useful and powerful. He decided to build a mower. He’s using a transceiver set from ebay, with an Arduino interpreting the signal and outputting to his custom motor board. In the video after the break, you can see that the mower looks responsive and quick. He does note, however, that he had some glitches early in the process that left him with a runaway mower. We covered a very similar mower ages ago that used a wheelchair as the base.

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[M]ouse: A PS/2 To C64 Adapter

November 14, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 30 Comments

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[svofski] has a friend who is a pixel artist. They really wanted to try out their skills on a c64, but were missing a mouse. The original mouse for the c64 was not only serial, but used a different method of communication than more modern mice. [svofski] built this adapter to translate the ps/2 data to something the c64 can use. The writeup describes the build in detail and even has the PCB and source code available for download.

[via flickr]

DIYLILCNC: Do-it-yourself CNC Mill

November 13, 2009 by Phil Burgess 39 Comments

DIYLILCNC

The DIY LIL CNC project is the newest member of the homebrew fabrication scene. This is a three-axis CNC mill that can be built by anyone with basic shop skills and about $700 in their pocket. Many of the materials can be acquired from the likes of Home Depot: the basic framework is assembled from Masonite, while other cost-cutting measures include the use of skate bearings and a common Dremel tool for powering the cutting bit. About half of the cost is for the HobbyCNC driver and stepper motor package that runs the show.

The instructions for the DIY LIL CNC are distributed under a Creative Commons license, allowing for modification and distribution with few restrictions. They’re well-written and quite thorough, including all patterns and a complete bill of materials with suppliers, part numbers and costs. As documented, the ’bot can produce parts up to 12 x 14 x 2 inches, but the project’s creators offer some suggestions on adapting the design for larger work. It’s not self-replicating like the RepRap aims for; you’ll need access to a laser cutter for some of the parts. If you can clear that hurdle, this looks like a great introduction to CNC production.

Duino Tag

November 13, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 31 Comments

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During our daily rounds we stumbled upon Duino Tag. Sure it’s not as awesome as a coil gun but it really sparked our imagination. First the base: an Arduino is wired up with IR LEDs and placed inside of a plastic pistol. A second Arduino with an IR receiver is scanning for the first Arduinos signal. A ‘shot’ of IR light is ‘fired’ and detected, you get a ‘kill’.

The base is nothing amazing, but it really gives us some ideas and we would like to see it expanded upon. [J44] has already put in a piezo and other LEDs to simulate muzzle flash and other effects. But we like to go further. Start off with multiple pistols and players. Include GPS to track players current position, and wireless to update each player of another player. A small wrist watch display could act much like a UAV. Add some expansions like IR ‘grenades’ and you’ve got a full-out war! What would you like to see?

Auto-drummer

November 13, 2009 by Mike Szczys 25 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COl1xmWAjUw]

Mix a cup of mechanical engineering with a dash of drum set and you end up with Steve, the robotic drummer. We know that it uses an MSA-T Midi Decoder but that’s about the extent of what has been shared. Just from observing the video, we think Steve’s got a few things going for him when compared to PEART, the robot drummer we saw back in 2005. Steve features two sticks for each drum and symbol and seems to be quite responsive.

Steve’s great, but we still think Rick Allen’s got this thing beat. Although this is a quality build, there’s no replacement for a human that can bang the drum in millions of subtly different way. That isn’t to say we don’t see potential in the hack. Perhaps it’s time to update a classic idea, the robotic orchestra. Don’t know what we mean? Check out 3:58 into the video embedded after the break.

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