Add Speed Control To A DIY CNC Machine

February 12, 2013 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

adding-speed-control-to-diy-cnc

[Jesse Merritt] bought a manual speed controller for his router. It’s used in the CNC mill he build and he figured, why not add the ability for the computer to control the speed.

The speed controller is a $20 unit from Harbor Freight. It comes with an On/Off switch and knob which adjusts the power going to the router. [Jesse] pulled off the knob and milled a gear which takes its place. The second gear is attached to the horn of a hobby servo mounted on the side of the speed controller. The video after the break demonstrates an Arduino driving the servo based on a potentiometer input as well as commands from the CNC controller board he’s using.

Design files for the gears and the Arduino code which drives the servo is available from his Github repository.

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Converting An IBM PCjr Joystick To USB

February 12, 2013 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

pcjr-joystick-usb-conversion

Seeing this IBM joystick again really brings back memories. But it can be used on a modern system thanks to this USB conversion project.

This particular model had a connector which is foreign to us. It looks like a boxy USB-A plug, but has an eight-pin sockets which looks like it’s 0.1″ pitch. You could try to make your own male connector using a dual-row pin header, but [Gruso] just went ahead and lopped off the end of the cable. He managed to dig up the pin-out for the device and found that it could be wired up to a gameport — the connector being the only real difference. He gutted a USB gameport adapter, removing the DB15 connector and soldering directly to the board. The boxy old peripheral has just enough room to house that PCB.

If you’re looking for a few more details than this build album provides check out [Gruso’s] comments in the Reddit thread.

Help Hackaday Build A Custom Gaming Controller For A Good Cause

February 12, 2013 by Caleb Kraft 46 Comments

We are going to make a custom gaming controller for a child with Muscular Dystrophy. His name is Thomas and he loves minecraft. This is a project that I have been wanting to do for years. I’m just beginning now, and you can join in on the project and offer your thoughts in our forums. We’re starting with Thomas, but ultimately, we’d like to develop a collection of fairly simple to construct open source game controllers.

For people who have a physical disability, gaming can have a profound psychological impact. Sometimes it is the only place where they can go and be on a level playing ground with their peers. Often custom gaming controllers are quite expensive, especially when you start to leave the standard xbox/playstation form factor.

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Giant Resistor-shaped Ohmmeter

February 12, 2013 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

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The fun of having a giant resistor-shaped Ohmmeter is that it reads back the resistance by displaying the color code. If you’re not too hot with decoding those bands there’s a helper band to the right which will display the value numerically.

All of the electronics are housed in the opaque part of the resistor, making for a nice low-profile base. The bent leads are hollow and allow [Sebastian] and his friend to run power and measurement leads through to the power connector on the back and the pair of banana jacks near the front. Each translucent ring houses an RGB LED, except for the one on the right which has four 7-segment display modules embedded in it. An ATmega168 takes the measurements using its Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) to read the value from a voltage divider. You can see a quick demo of the Ohmmeter in the video after the jump.

This would be a fun thing to pair with that giant breadboard.

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Hackerspace Intro: Metrix Create:Space In Seattle, Washington

February 12, 2013 by Mike Szczys 25 Comments

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Instead of a video, the members of Metrix Create:Space in Seattle, Washington posted a self-guided virtual tour. There is a link to a professional photographer in the area that specializes in this kind of thing. We assume he’s a member and would love to know if he hacked his own setup to capture the spherical panoramas.

The image above looks toward the front entrance. To the right is a cafe type counter which even offers a menu board listing membership prices but also time rentals on things like one hour in the solder room. The tour includes shots from 11 vantage points highlighting each portion of the space. This includes everything you might expect (3d printing, laser cutting, electronic prototyping) but a few you don’t. There’s a toddler-safe play area (we hear that the Kansas City hackerspace has one of these too), and a huge pick and place machine.

University Research Dollars Poured Into Developing A Holodeck

February 12, 2013 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

holodeck-project

It may seem like this would be an early April Fool’s joke, but the image above shows serious research in action. [Ben Lang] recently had the chance to interview the director of a program that wants to make the Holodeck a reality. The core goal of the research — called Project Holodeck — is to develop an affordable multi-player virtual reality experience outside of the laboratory. We’ve heard speculation that Sony and Microsoft will release their next-gen systems in 2013; we’d rather wait for this to hit the market.

[Nathan Burba] is the director of the program. It’s part of the University of Southern California Games Institute and brings together students of Interactive Media, Cinema Arts, and Engineering. The hardware worn by each player is shown off at the beginning of the video after the break. Most of the components are commercially available (a Lenovo laptop worn in the backpack, PlayStation controllers, etc.) but the stereoscopic display which gives each eye its own 90-degree view was developed specifically for the project.

After seeing the in-game rendered footage we can’t help but think of playing some Minecraft with this equipment. We just need some type of omni-directional treadmill because our living room floor space is very limited.

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[Limor] From Adafruit To Hang Out With President [Obama]

February 12, 2013 by Caleb Kraft 32 Comments

In a positive twist on the usual publicity events that our administration has experimented with over the years, President [Obama] will be hosting a google+ hangout with some lucky people to discuss, well, whatever matters. It is nice to see the people running the country finally getting to grips with some technology. It is still scary to hear how many people making the laws about data still don’t even use a computer.

[Limor] from Adafruit was selected as one of the few that would get to ask the President some questions. She will be focusing on manufacturing and small businesses. We think she’s a great candidate to do so. We’ve watched her go from someone who just did some really well documented hacks to someone who runs a successful business focusing on open information and education (and gadgets of course). You can also submit your own questions, and if they get enough votes, the president will answer them.