The Trinket Contest has drawn to a close, but we’re still going to show off the entries that were received by the deadline. The contest asked you slap the Hackaday logo onto something for a chance at winning one of 20 Trinket dev boards donated by Adafruit. See a dozen of them shown off after the break.
Here’s another Trinket Contest entry that was interesting enough for its own feature. [Adam] made his own Hackaday version of the Bat signal. It’s not nearly as big, but the concept is the same. Using this single modified LED he’s able to project a 12″ image that seems quite well-defined (more pictures below).
The LED is one he pulled from an old flashlight. After sanding the dome flat he made a jig which positioned it inside of his laser cutter. From there he etched the 0.1″ logo and filled the negative space with some ink. The remaining surface was polished to help the light shine through, then positioned in front of a jeweler’s loupe to magnify the image.
There’s just a couple of hours left before the Trinket Contest draws to a close. Get your entry in for a chance to win!
Continue reading “Hackaday Logo Projector From A Single LED”
Happy Halloween from everyone at Hackaday! To help you enjoy the holiday here are a few festive links:
[Mike Kohn] whipped up a set of motion tracking eyeballs to make his decor extra creepy.
There’s not much to this jet-pack costume but the results are pretty amusing.
The eyes on [Tim Butler’s] skeleton prop don’t follow you around the room, but they do use a PIR sensor to light up the skull.
Speaking of skulls, [Tom] is using some real skulls as decorations. He also added lights where the eyeballs should be, but he is using a photoresistor and comparator to turn on some LEDs.
[Clark] built a Mecha Robot Warrior costume for his son. With all of those LED strips we think he’ll be pretty safe when crossing the street!
And finally, [Jesse] added a lot to his prop in order to produce a Sinister Joker. That’s Joker-as-in-cards and not as in Batman. It’s got an IR distance sensor as a trigger, with a motor to move the wrist, lights for the eyes, and a sound shield to give it a disturbing voice.
Yep, we said it. This Halloween decoration goes way overboard… and we love it! Not only does [Shelby Merrick] put on an incredible sound and light show for the neighborhood, but he keeps us happy by posting all the details for the lighting controller he designed. He calls the creation FloodBrain as it’s switching a set of flood lights to achieve the effects seen above. But for the full experience you’ll want to watch the demo videos below as well.
He needed a way to switch twelve RGB flood lights which pull 10 Watts. His controller was designed to communicate with them via RS485, with an AVR Xmega8E5 controlling the system. We like it that he included some images of the manufacturing process, using a stencil for solder paste before placing components for reflow.
The floodlights themselves are also an interesting hack. To get what he wanted at the best price he picked up 10W white LED flood lights for about eight bucks a piece, then swapped out the LED itself for an RGB version (same wattage) using the same heat sink and case.
More often that not we see this type of system controlling Christmas lights. [Shelby] mentions that he did get help from Christmas light controller forum We also think he should have no problem repurposing the controller for that type of application.
Continue reading “Light Controller Goes Overboard For Halloween”
Today is the last day to get your Trinket Contest entries into us! After the break you’ll find another dozen that were sent in. If you’re waiting to see your own appear here please be patient as we’ve got a lot to wade through.
The contest asks you slap the Hackaday logo onto something for a chance at winning one of 20 Trinket dev boards donated by Adafruit for this contest.
Sheer luck brings a Halloween themed project for this Fail of the Week post. [Stryker] wrote in to the tips line to share a link to what is an extremely awesome hack. He carved four three different faces on the sides of his pumpkin, then sliced the eyes, nose, and mouth into different sections. Couple this with an internal skeleton made of wood and PVC and he’s got himself a nice hack which lets trick-or-treaters spin the sections to select one of up to 27 different faces.
The sections do spin rather well and the finished project looks fantastic. So what is it that failed? We’ll cover that after the break.
Continue reading “Fail Of The Week: 27 Face Jack-o’-Lantern”
I had the opportunity last Thursday to visit the Milwaukee Makerspace. I took along a video camera and had a great time on a tour guided by [Brant], [Matt], and [Vishal]. We’ve actually seen quite a number of reputable hacks come from this group already. A couple that come to mind include beer dispenser security and a bottle-free water cooler. This tour shows off a lot of the cool stuff going on at the space. Don’t miss the video after the break, but we’ll also give you the gist of it if you’re looking for a quick rundown:
We start off looking at their craft area, wall of fame (including all their Power Racing Series medals) and laser cutter room. From there we take a peek at one of the big rooms that serves as for-rent floor space and pallet storage. This part of the tour includes a look at Red Lotus and Big Jake-stein, two of the PRS cars used this season. The storage tour rounds up with a look at their set of 19 vaults — these are like deep self-storage closets for members. The space spices things up with awards for best vault of the month.
Moving on to the next large space we encounter this huge Kuka KR 30 industrial robot arm that they acquired for free! A room has been built around the 2500 pound beast for safety and they are working on building their own controller for it. Right now it’s got a jig that holds a spindle motor making it a CNC router. This enclosure is in a larger space that makes up the machine shop and welding area. Through a door is a woodshop that includes a big panel saw which they pick up on Craig’s List. The tour wraps up with a walk-through of the electronics den and a tour of the 3D Printer hangout.
