Author: Bryan Cockfield

1830 Articles

A Scratch Instrument For Ants

December 20, 2018 by 2 Comments

If you think that this scratch instrument looks as though it should be at least… three times larger in order to be useful, you’d be wrong. This mighty pocket-sized instrument can really get the club hopping despite its diminuitive size. Despite that, the quality of the build as well as its use of off-the-shelf components for almost every part means that if you need a small, portable turntable there’s finally one you can build on your own.

[rasteri] built the SC1000 digital scratch instrument as a member of the portabilist scene, focusing on downsizing the equipment needed for a proper DJ setup. This instrument uses as Olimex A13-SOM-256 system-on-module, an ARM microprocessor, and can use a USB stick in order to load beats to the system. The scratch wheel itself uses a magnetic rotary encoder to sense position, and the slider is miniaturized as well.

If you want to learn to scratch good and learn to do other things good too, there’s a demo below showing a demonstration of the instrument, as well as a how-to video on the project page. All of the build files and software are open-source, so it won’t be too difficult to get one for yourself as long as you have some experience printing PCBs. If you need the rest of the equipment for a DJ booth, of course that’s also something you can build.

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Build Your Own Anechoic Chamber

December 14, 2018 by 16 Comments

For professional-level sound recording, you’ll need professional-level equipment. Microphones and mixing gear are the obvious necessities, as well as a good computer with the right software on it. But once you have those things covered, you’ll also need a place to record. Without a good acoustic space, you’ll have all kinds of reflections and artefacts in your sound recordings, and if you can’t rent a studio you can always build your anechoic chamber.

While it is possible to carpet the walls of a room or randomly glue egg crate foam to your walls, [Tech Ingredients] tests some homemade panels of various shapes, sizes, and materials against commercially available solutions. To do this he uses a special enclosed speaker pointed at the material, and a microphone to measure the sound reflections. The tests show promising results for the homemade acoustic-absorbing panels, at a fraction of the cost of ready-made panels.

From there, we are shown how to make and assemble these panels in order to get the best performance from them. When dealing with acoustics, even the glue used to hold everything together can change the properties of the materials. We also see a few other cost saving methods in construction that can help when building the panels themselves as well. And, while this build focuses on acoustic anechoic chambers, don’t forget that there are anechoic chambers for electromagnetic radiation that use the same principles as well.

Thanks to [jafinch78] for the tip!

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Dexterity Hand Is A Configurable Prosthetic Hand

December 14, 2018 by 5 Comments

One of the interesting benefits of the 3D printing revolution is the dramatic increase in availability of prosthetics for people with virtually any need. With a little bit of research, a 3D printer, and some trial and error, virtually anyone can build a prototype prosthetic to fit them specifically rather than spend thousands of dollars for one from a medical professional. [Dominick Scalise] is attempting to flesh out this idea with a prosthetic hand that he hopes will be a useful prosthetic in itself, but also a platform for others to build on or take ideas from.

His hand is explained in great detail in a series of videos on YouTube. The idea that sets this prosthetic apart from others, however, is its impressive configurability while not relying on servos or other electronics to control the device. The wearer would use their other hand to set the dexterity hand up for whatever task they need to perform, and then perform that task. Its versatility is thanks to a unique style of locks and tensioners which allow the hand to be positioned in various ways, and then squeezed to operate the hand. It seems like a skilled user can configure the hand rapidly, although they must have a way to squeeze the hand to operate it, or someone will need to develop an interface of some sort for people without needing to squeeze it.

To that end, the files for making your own hand are available on Thingiverse. [Dominick] hopes that his project will spark some collaboration and development, using this hand as a basis for building other low-cost 3D printed prosthetics. There are many good ideas from this project that could translate well into other areas of prosthetics, and putting it all out there will hopefully spur more growth in this area. We’ve already seen similar-looking hands that have different methods of actuation, and both projects could benefit from sharing ideas with each other.

Thanks to [mmemetea] for the tip!

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Electric Drift Trike Needs Water Cooling

December 12, 2018 by 10 Comments

Electric vehicles of all types are quickly hitting the market as people realize how inexpensive they can be to operate compared to traditional modes of transportation. From cars and trucks, to smaller vehicles such as bicycles and even electric boats, there’s a lot to be said for simplicity, ease of use, and efficiency. But sometimes we need a little bit more out of our electric vehicles than the obvious benefits they come with. Enter the electric drift trike, an electric vehicle built solely for the enjoyment of high torque electric motors.

This tricycle is built with some serious power behind it. [austiwawa] constructed his own 48V 18Ah battery with lithium ion cells and initially put a hub motor on the front wheel of the trike. When commenters complained that he could do better, he scrapped the front hub motor for a 1500W brushless water-cooled DC motor driving the rear wheels. To put that in perspective, electric bikes in Europe are typically capped at 250W and in the US at 750W. With that much power available, this trike can do some serious drifting, and has a top speed of nearly 50 kph. [austiwawa] did blow out a large number of motor controllers, but was finally able to obtain a beefier one which could handle the intense power requirements of this tricycle.

Be sure to check out the video below to see the trike being test driven. The build video is also worth a view for the attention to detail and high quality of this build. If you want to build your own but don’t want to build something this menacing, we have also seen electric bikes that are small enough to ride down hallways in various buildings, but still fast enough to retain an appropriate level of danger.

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From SPIDriver To I2CDriver

December 9, 2018 by 30 Comments

Communicating with microcontrollers and other embedded systems requires a communications standard. SPI is a great one, and is commonly used, but it’s not the only one available. There’s also I2C which has some advantages and disadvantages compared to SPI. The problem with both standards, however, is that modern computers don’t come with either built-in. To solve that problem and allow easier access to debugging in SPI, [James Bowman] built the SPIDriver a few months ago, and is now back by popular demand with a similar device for I2C, the I2CDriver.

Much like the SPIDriver, the I2C driver is a debugging tool that can be used at your computer with a USB interface. Working with I2C is often a hassle, with many things going on all at once that need to sync up just right in order to work at all, and this device allows the user to set up I2C devices in a fraction of the time. To start, it has a screen built in that shows information about the current device, like the signal lines and a graphical decoding of the current traffic. It also shows an address space map, and has programmable pullup resistors built in, and can send data about the I2C traffic back to its host PC for analysis.

The I2CDriver is also completely open source, from the hardware to the software, meaning you could build one from scratch if you have the will and the parts, or make changes to the code on your own to suit your specific needs. If you’re stuck using SPI still, though, you can still find the original SPIDriver tool to help you with your debugging needs with that protocol as well.

Artistic Images Made With Water Lens

December 7, 2018 by 15 Comments

It’s said that beauty and art can be found anywhere, as long as you look for it. The latest art project from [dmitry] both looks in unassuming places for that beauty, and projects what it sees for everyone to view. Like most of his projects, it’s able to produce its artwork in a very unconventional way. This particular project uses water as a lens, and by heating and cooling the water it produces a changing image.

The art installation uses a Peltier cooler to periodically freeze the water that’s being used as a lens. When light is projected through the frozen water onto a screen, the heat from the light melts the water and changes the projected image. The machine uses an Arduino and a Raspberry Pi in order to control the Peliter cooler and move the lens on top of the cooler to be frozen. Once frozen, it’s moved again into the path of the light in order to show an image through the lens.

[dmitry] intended the project to be a take on the cyclical nature of a substance from one state to another, and this is a very creative and interesting way of going about it. Of course, [dmitry]’s work always exhibits the same high build quality and interesting perspective, like his recent project which created music from the core samples of the deepest hole ever drilled.

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Spend All Day On The Lake

December 6, 2018 by 23 Comments

Solar vehicles are getting more and more common as the price of solar panels comes down, and the availability of motors and controllers for all of these vehicles rises. Making a solar-electric bike from a kit is one thing, but this solar-powered boat is a master class in hacking at all levels, from the solar drive train to the pontoons, and even the anchor.

[J Mantzel] has many videos about his boat on his channel, and watching them all will likely leave you wanting to build your own. He builds almost everything on his boat from scratch from things he has lying around. For example, the anchor was hand-built from fiberglass and then filled with concrete, and his steering system is a semi-complex system of ropes, pulleys, and shafts. Most of the boat’s shell was hand-built from fiberglass as well, and everything that can be repurposed is saved for later use.

The ten panels, batteries, inverter, and other miscellaneous part of the system were about half of the cost of the whole vessel, but he reports that he also uses the boat as a backup power source for his house, and can use the system to run other things like an electric chainsaw for example. He also uses the boat for camping and construction, and without having to worry about fuel it has been very useful to him.

If you get into the videos on the channel, you’ll find that this isn’t his only solar-powered boat. He recently completed a solar speedboat as well with a custom-built propeller that can really move across the water. His videos are apparently very popular as well, since they have been linked to repeatedly by readers in some of the recent solar vehicle write-ups we’ve published.

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