Surgical Microscope Gets LED Retrofit

August 24, 2010 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

[Roberto Barrios] picked up a surgical microscope to add to those other fun lab toys you seen in the background. These work very well when soldering small components because they don’t have to be as close to the viewed objects as traditional microscopes. But [Robert] didn’t care for the heat generated by the incandescent bulb so he build his own LED replacement. If you recognize his name it’s because we saw a beautifully crafted in-visor GPS system that he built back in April. This project exhibits the same level of craftsmanship in which he utilized the base of a spare bulb to add an LED, heat sink, and driver board that is adjustable on all three axes.

He also mentioned that he overhauled his site design and it now plays nicely with all browsers.

WiFi Controlled Arduino-bot

August 23, 2010 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

This little robot was built very quickly thanks to the rapid prototyping capabilities of the Arduino. It uses a WiShield 1.0 from AsyncLabs to connect to a wireless network for control via a TCP connection. The body and wheels are wood, with a servo for each motor and a third used to scan a range finder from side to side. We’ve embedded a triad of demo videos after the break that take you through the various feature development of this platform. You’ll see control via a hacked Zipit, as well as joystick control. There’s also a couple of stages of autonomous movement where the distance information comes into play.

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Profit-less Space Program Launches In One Week

August 23, 2010 by Mike Szczys 40 Comments

The Copenhagen Suborbitals are now within one week of their first launch. We looked in on the non-profit and non-secretive space program back in March but we had no idea the group had a frickin’ submarine at their disposal. What you see above is the rocket on its floating launch platform. The submarine will haul it out into the Baltic Sea for launch. There’s not much room in the craft for an astronaut but it will be a horrifying an exhilarating flight. According to the spacecraft page the human payload will be in a half-sitting, half-standing position looking up through an acrylic nose dome. This first launch will not be manned, but once they get through the tests this will be one crazy ride.

Indestructible TI-89

August 23, 2010 by James Munns 63 Comments

Sometimes, expensive calculators hit the floor. It’s happened to almost anyone with a graphing calculator from TI or HP. Sadly, they don’t always bounce. After this happened to [Howard C.], an Industrial Engineering student from U. of Iowa, he decided to spend $50 on milling his own replacement case out of aluminum rather than trashing the device over a broken battery compartment. [Howard] chose to send us the story rather than write his own blog, so we’ve included all the great pictures he sent us after the break.

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A Different Take On Electric Motor Cars

August 23, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 43 Comments

[Craig Carmichael] has been hard at work on his electric hub motor for cars. Unlike typical electrical vehicles the plan is to bypass the transmission, differential, and everything else all together by connecting directly to the hub of the wheel. The goal of giving greater thrust and still allowing the use of a gas engine if need be.

There’s really too much detail for us to even begin to try to explain the entire project in a short recap, but [Craig] builds the entire motor (from magnets to coil windings) and wires his own controller (from schematic to finished PCB), all while documenting the process thoroughly for those wishing to make their own.

Hexapod Controlled By Android And IPhone

August 23, 2010 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

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

This video is a blatant example of having too many high-end toys but we love it anyway. [Robert Stephenson] is controlling a rather awesome-looking hexapod via a Bluetooth connection to his HTC Hero. The app allows on-screen selections to decide which portion of the robot will move as a result of accelerometer data from the handheld. The only thing we saw that was missing is a camera feed to the phone.

But this hack doesn’t stop there. The Hero can be used to host a WiFi network while still connected to the hexapod. The second half of the video shows an iPod Touch connecting via WiFi and controlling the bot. Now head on over to the laser cutter to start that hexapod build, and finish up by getting elbow-deep into some Android development.

Hackaday Links: August 22, 2010

August 22, 2010 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

EL back-lit keyboard

A couple bucks worth of EL wire gives a nice green glow to [Mark Shasha’s] T400 Elite. Hopefully [Jeri Ellsworth] has some time to pull those how-to videos together so that we can make our own EL wire to replicate this hack.

Mini kaboom

This tiny cannon is right out of Night at the Museum. It works just like its much bigger brothers would; fill with powder, insert cannon ball, and light with a fuse. Both the introduction and the follow-up videos document the destruction of various objects using the diminutive weapon. [Thanks Thorsten]

Don’t close that browser

We use Google Chrome quite a bit because it tends to be more responsive when opening massive numbers of tabs while researching featured hacks. But there’s some things we don’t like about it. Lack of built-in PDF support under Ubuntu comes to mind, but a smaller thorn in our side is that closing the last tab will also close the browser window. [Ted Schaefer] got tired of the same thing so he wrote an extension called Last Tab Standing to trap that last browser tab, opening the default window instead of closing the browser.

Amiga demo winner

This 4K demo for the Amiga AGA is the top ranked submission from Breakpoint 2010. [Osgeld] tipped us off about this and made the point that although it’s four times the size of those 1K JavaScript demos, the Amiga code doesn’t get to take advantage a pre-existing framework like Java does enjoy the benefits of running inside of a browser . Is this doing more with less?

Transformers balloon sculptures

If you’re having trouble finding that art piece to fill up your dining room you should consider building transformers out of balloons. The sculpture above is a free-standing Optimus Prime but the artist has also turned out Megatron, Grimlock, and others. [Thanks W01F]