Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Update

October 24, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 14 Comments

[Faroun] sent in his updated vertical wind turbine. After running his previous one for a while, he felt that the motor he was using was inadequate, it required too high of RPM to produce what he wanted. He didn’t want to gear it up, fearing that the light construction couldn’t sustain rotation.

He built a new version that has the same surface area of fins, but much higher RPM. The new one, dubbed V8 is made mainly from PVC and an Amatek DC motor. His goal was to produce 100 watts at 35km/h. He doesn’t really state whether or not he achieved it though.

Quick Cheap Cassette Adapter

October 24, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 18 Comments

[Dane] sent us this super quick tape adapter project. Yes, we know we can go buy one of these for pretty cheap and it will probably sound much better, but really, wouldn’t it be cool to make one? Using a headphone adapter, a couple resisters, some wire, and an old cassette tape, [Dane] shows us how easy it is to build one of our own. You are basically pushing the signal from the headphones through a coil that is up against the tape read head. This is a perfect project to teach beginners about magnetic fields.

[Dane] has sent in some stuff before. You may recall his PWM adio generation with an AVR post several months ago.

Uv Oven From An IKEA Cabinet

October 23, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 7 Comments

This may not be an amazingly complicated project, but it is a very elegant and fairly cheap way of building a UV oven for exposing PCBs. [aris] started with an IKEA FIRA cabinet. He basically left the framework as an empty shell and made a make shift top hinged door to enclose it. Mounted in the top is an array of 35 UV LEDs powered by an HP printer transformer. He did not have a timer circuit, instead he just watched the clock and unplugged it at the right time. You can see from his pictures that his results were quite good.

If you don’t want that piece of furniture taking up room, and don’t mind using a little more elbow grease, you could follow our directions on how to make your own single sided PCB. If money isn’t an issue either, you can always just get your PCBs laser etched.

Motorcycle Visor Rain Disk

October 23, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 16 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LsTVro-o1Q]
[andrew] sent us this proof of concept. Based off of the Spiech Clear view screen, used in marine applications, it uses a spinning disk to keep a part of your vision free of water droplets. While you may not be too impressed by watching the video initially, keep in mind that this was a quick prototype. With some planning and a little work, this could be moved to a more convenient location and run by a side mounted motor. It could even be made to be removable for fair weather. It probably doesn’t do so well with mud though.

Mini-POV Hat

October 22, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 7 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfYU4grHD7g]

Viddy yourself this Halloween standing out amongst your droogs with this Mini-POV bowler. We’ll quit with the nadsat so as to avoid a kick to the yarbles, you have our sincerest appy polly loggy for starting in the first place. [cheeto4493] modified a Mini-POV to sit atop the bowler with an extension hanging out toward the brim that houses the lights. A motor, mounted inside the hat spins the entire device. Some counterweight was necessary to keep the whole thing from wobbling too much.

It is worth noting that, in person, the message scrolls slowly by. The refresh rate on the camera causes it to seem to jump around in the video.

Reflowing With A Toaster

October 22, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 12 Comments

This Reflow toaster oven project(pdf) was part of a contest back in early 2007, but it is new to us. We’ve seen several approaches to reflowing, but a bread toaster hasn’t been one of them. This has a nice controller with a large Nokia 3310 display too.

[via Projects-Lab]

USB Authenticated Deadbolt Lock

October 22, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 29 Comments

The Makers local 256 sent us this USB authenticated deadbolt prject. For roughly $60 these guys built an authentication system that reads the serial number off of the chip in a USB storage device. The actual content on the memory in the USB device is not used at all. They are using a Freeduino board to control its behavior. It has a magnetic sensor that keeps it from initiating the lock when the door is open. They mention that they are using Transparent Aluminum as an enclosure, we assume they mean the Star Trek variety, not Aluminium oxynitride. Be sure to check out the video after the break.

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