Junkyard Fish Tank

February 16, 2011 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

So your house looks like a dumping ground for useless junk? Yeah, we know it’s the hacker’s curse… you just can’t stop salvaging stuff. But follow [Pontazy69’s] lead by building something useful out of that junk. He took an old polystyrene box and made it into this fishtank. You can see that the sides and back of the box has gone unaltered, but the front wall is missing. [Pontazy69] marked and cut straight lines while leaving a lip around the edge. Silicone was used to glue some acrylic (or perhaps glass?) to the inside of this lip. Once dried he added another bead around the outside to ensure it doesn’t leak. Few fish would be happy here without some type of filter so he built one of those out of an old plastic bottle and some other pieces. See videos that show you how to build both the tank and the filter after the break.

We love aquarium hacks almost as much as clock hacks. So check out the water exchange system, and a couple of different lighting systems. Then document your own aquarium projects and let us know about them.

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Printing Your Own Guitar Parts

February 16, 2011 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

The white parts that make up the body contours of this guitar have been 3D printed to meet [Bård S D’s] personal specifications. He started designing the pieces last year to add to his Zoybar guitar. Each of the three parts has its own function. The tail piece serves as a floor stand, as well as a hook for hanging the instrument upside down. The wide piece at the top gives the player a place to rest the forearm, and the piece at the bottom serves as a cradle to place on your leg, and contains the jack for the guitar’s pickup. You can see him playing the instrument in the video after the break.

We looked for more information on the Zoybar system but it’s a bit hard to get the facts from that website. We know that the 6-string kit comes standard without frets, and it’ll cost you a pretty penny at around $700. But if it performs as a quality instrument the price isn’t too far out of line.

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Guitar-mounted Camera Documents Your Guitar Hero-ness

February 16, 2011 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

[The Longhorn Engineer] wanted to record some of his virtual shredding sessions so he built this camera mount for a Guitar Hero controller. It holds the camera about a foot below the bottom of the controller, pointing up at the guitar and its player. Since the camera is held tightly to the guitar this produces an interesting effect of movement in the background while the foreground is completely stationary. He set out to complete the build using just one piece of acrylic and some fasteners but added an aluminum support piece because the prototype had a bit too much flex to it. The video after the break walks you through the design, the build process, and finishes with a test run.

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Arduino-Fart-O-Meter

February 16, 2011 by Kevin Dady 24 Comments

[robomaniac] shows us some serious application of modern technology with his recent Instructable, (the) Arduino-Fart-O-Meter. The wireless device uses a “perfboard Arduino” to read a remote wired methane sensor, and send data over a nRF2401A radio transceiver.

“The data” is picked up by another Arduino / transceiver combo, which then drives a servo motor connected to the pointer. The meter itself consists of 6 ranges from “Fresh Air” to “Liquid” so there is no doubt in your standing.

The wireless and remote sensor setup makes this an easy device to include into your loved ones chairs while having the meter far enough away (just in case you have to make a run for it). If you want some more accuracy check out the Fart intensity detector we posted about, which adds in temperature and sound to the equation, or how about a chair that twitters your toots?

Join us after the break for a quick video, its a real gas.

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Long-range Laser Night-vision

February 16, 2011 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

[Oneironaut] is back at it again, churning out yet another great hack in this long-distance night vision build. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen him build a night vision device, you may remember the monocle he put together using the view finder from an old camcorder. This time around he’ll give you look at distant object by using a laser instead of LEDs. He pulled an IR laser diode out of an old CD burner, then used a lens to spread out the dot in order to illuminate a larger area. A standard rifle scope is used as the optics, along with a security camera which can detect the infrared light. As always, he’s done a fantastic job with the images and the write-up. You’ll find his overview video embedded after the break.

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Black Rock City Navigator

February 16, 2011 by Kevin Dady 4 Comments

Only a little bit out of season but better late than never! [Scott] brings us his Black Rock City Navigator. This unique bike mounted GPS device made for Burning Man 2010 features a servo driven array of LEDs. Two LED strips are used to cover the full 240 degrees of the C shaped city without modifying the servo, and are rotated over the different compass points.

It is powered by a pair of Freescale MC9S08AW32 micro controllers, and a unnamed GPS receiver. One controller deals with the servo and GPS data, the second simply drives the LEDs, and why not if you have plenty?

Housing the device is a four inch black sewer pipe end cap with a ball clamp attached, and is toped off with green acrylic engraved with the map of Black Rock City. Add some stickers (because stickers make everything better) and you have a functional device with a top-notch look for this year’s event.

The Wandering Arduinobot

February 16, 2011 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

You almost have to love this Arduino based robot just because of the wheels and third leg support. Look closely, do you recognize them? Yep, they’re Capsela parts! That’s a blast from the past and we wonder why we don’t see the strange building toys of yore used in more hacks?

But we digress, this little ~~bugger~~ guy uses continuous rotation servos for locomotion. Perched atop the body is a third servo which scans an IR range finder back and forth to look out for obstacles in its path. The body itself is a Black and Decker rechargeable battery pack called Pocket Power which includes a USB port for a regulated 5V supply. One thing’s for sure, this little guy is fantastic at avoiding pizza and beer… you’ll just have to see for yourself after the break.

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