Bending A Home Security Control Panel To Your Will

July 27, 2012 by Mike Szczys 35 Comments

Does your home have a security system but you don’t subscribe to the monitoring service to make it work? Rip that baby off of the wall and do something with it, or just build your own system around it. If you have a DSC PC1500RK control panel [CaitSith2] shows us how easy it is to control the buttons, LEDs, and buzzer. If you’ve got a different model this is still a good jumping off point to start your own reverse engineering.

There are only four connections that need to be made. [CaitSith2] is using an Arduino for the demonstration. He connected the red wire to voltage, the black wire to ground, the yellow wire (clock) to digital pin 3 and the green wire (data) to digital pin 2. A communication cycle starts by setting the data line high, then clocking out eight bits to capture keypresses. 16-bits are then clocked in to set the LEDs and drive the buzzer. This is shown in the video after the break as well as documented in his sample code. We’ve embedded the sketch after the break to preserve it in case the pastebin code goes missing in the future.

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Building A Coffee Roaster From Junk

July 27, 2012 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

[Rxdtxd] has tried his hand at roasting coffee beans in a frying pan. It works but he can only roast small batches at once. What he really needed was a large-scale roaster that would have no problem with a few pounds of the green beans all at once. He ended up building this large-scale coffee roaster out of junk parts.

The vessel which holds the beans is the drum from a top-loading washing machine. It was headed for the junk pile, but the fully-enclosed drum is perfect for this purpose. After acquiring it [Rxdtxd] set out welding a frame that would hold either side by the pivot points. He used a geared motor to automate the process. The output shaft on the gear box is meant to drive a chain, but he just welded some pieces onto the gear to use as a coupling.

In the picture above he’s giving the roaster a thorough testing with about ten pounds of beans. A portable gas stove placed below the rotating drum supplies the heat. After the beans have reached the desired darkness he pours them out into a large skillet to cool. Take a peek at the roasting action in the clip after the break.

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Lab Robot Demonstrates Mastery Of Culturing And Other Tasks

July 27, 2012 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

Lab work is a pretty good job. But sometimes being around hazardous samples, or completing tedious and repetitive tasks leave scientists looking for a different way. This robot seems to know its way around a lab. The folks behind it claim it’s more precise than veteran lab technicians, and that it can complete the tasks in half the time.

After watching the video (embedded after the jump) we’re quite impressed. The dexterity shown by the system illustrates care down to the tiniest of details. This is because everything the robot works with has been passed through a 3D scanner in order to establish a virtual model. This way the training is done in the computer. The robot can be run though any number of scenarios before it actually starts working with infectious materials like the influenza virus and other not-so-nice microbes.

What we’d really like to know is what kind of visual feedback system is being used.

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Melting Plastic Powder Together, One Layer At A Time

July 27, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 23 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVOtKSKyIvI&fw=470]

Here’s an interesting development in the world of 3D printers: A rapid prototyping machine that melts plastic powder together to create objects with extremely good resolution

The Blueprinter works by drawing a 0.1 mm thick layer of plastic powder over the build platform. After that, a very hot needle-shaped probe melts the plastic together. This process continues at a rate of 10mm an hour on the z axis, and a very precise plastic model eventually appears in the powder.

There is no price ( or solid release date ) for the Blueprinter, but this 3ders.org article from earlier this year tells us the price for the machine will be €9,995, with a material cost of €49 per kg. Pricey, yes, but seeing as how the RepRap community already has the techniques behind melting plastic down pat, it might now be too hard to build your own plastic sintering printer.

If you know of any current projects or builds that are trying to emulate this plastic powder melting technique, drop us a note on the tip line. We’d love to see a version of this printer up and running. Until then, you can check out the render showing a rendered Blueprinter in action, along with a demo of a plastic clip printed on this sintering printer.

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Writing On LEDs With A Laser Pointer

July 27, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 13 Comments

After [Ch00f] got his hands on an 8×8 LED display, he didn’t make a 64-pixel video game or VU meter. He made a laser doodler, allowing him to draw on this display with only a laser pointer.

Using LEDs as light sensors is nothing new; [Forrest Mims III] discovered that LEDs can also detect light way back in the late 60s. [Ch00f] played around with this concept before creating a circuit that uses an LED as both a light emitter and sensor that reacts to the ambient brightness.

[Ch00f]’s laser doodler takes this phenomena and applies it to an Adafruit bicolor LED matrix. When a light shines on an individual pixel in the display, the ATMega48 senses the current and turns that pixel on. Since this these pixels have two colors, [Ch00f] used a latch circuit and a button to cycle between what color the ‘Mega writes to the display.

In the video after the break, [Ch00f] shows off his display by having the LEDs light up in response to a laser pointer. It may be a bit small, but we can see a lot of potential for something like this as a gigantic art installation.

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Drawbot Software Aims To Do It Better Than The Rest

July 27, 2012 by Mike Nathan 7 Comments

drawbot-software

There are plenty of drawbot projects out there, many of which come with their own special software in tow. While some of these packages are easier to use than others, [Dan Royer] is pretty sure he can do it better.

Looking for a fun and engaging way to teach STEM subjects in schools across the country, [Dan] developed a relatively simple drawbot which can be constructed by a wide range of age groups. While he is trying to get schools to purchase his robot kits, we’re guessing that our readers would be more inclined to build their own.

So what does [Dan] have to offer that might interest you? Well, he says he has developed some drawbot software that’s pretty darn easy to use. Rather than multiple applications generating machine-specific code, his software will transform your picture into a line drawing in one easy step. The app uses a traveling-salesman algorithm to generate drawings with nary a crossed line in sight before outputting the resultant machine instructions in easy-to-use GCode.

We don’t have a drawbot of our own handy to test his software out, so if you do happen to give it a shot, let us know how it worked for you in the comments.

Building An Artificial Moon For Burning Man

July 27, 2012 by Mike Nathan 15 Comments

lune-and-tide-burning-man

If you were lucky enough to score passes to this year’s Burning Man, be sure to keep a look out for [Laurence Symonds] and crew, who are putting together an ambitious fixture for the event. In reality, we’re guessing you won’t have to look far to find their giant moon replica floating overhead – in fact it will probably be pretty hard to miss.

They are calling the sculpture “Lune and Tide”, which of an 8 meter wide internally lit moon which hovers over a spinning platform that’s just as big across. The inflatable sphere is made up of giant ripstop nylon panels which are home to 36,000-odd sewn-in LEDs. The LEDs illuminate the sphere to reflect the natural color of the moon, though with a simple command, [Laurence] and Co. can alter the lighting to their heart’s content.

If Hack a Day’s [Jesse Congdon] makes his way out to the festival again this year, we’ll be sure he gets some footage of Lune and Tide in action. For now, you’ll have to satisfy your curiosity by checking out the project’s build log.