Loudest Telepresence Robot Ever

March 30, 2012 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

This telepresence robot will never let your Skype callers sneak up on you. [Priit] built the project, which he calls Skype Got Legs, so that his distant friends could follow him around the house during chats. But as you can hear after the break, the electric drills used to motorize the base are extremely loud.

Noise pollution aside, we like the roughness of the hack. It’s utilitarian but seems to work quite well. Commands are sent via the web using a combination of Ajax and PHP function calls. The two drills are controlled by an Arduino via a couple of automotive relays. The drills are powered by their original rechargeable battery packs. So as not to alter those batteries, [Priit] figured out a way to use synthetic wine bottle corks as a connector. They’ve been cut to size, and had tinned wires pushed through holes in them. Now, when he inserts the altered corks they press the wires against the battery contacts. Continue reading “Loudest Telepresence Robot Ever” →

New Dirigibles Are Power Plants In The Sky

March 30, 2012 by Mike Szczys 87 Comments

We wonder if a floating wind turbine generator (translated) like this one would alleviate some of the complaints we hear about ground-based turbines. This huge helium-filled structure is designed to generate electricity at high altitude, where winds are stronger and blow much more consistently than near ground level. We’ve read complaints at the unsightliness of wind farms, and the noise that they make as the turbines spin. A test run took place at only 350 feet, but this generator is meant to fly at an altitude of 2000 feet. We’d bet it’s much less obtrusive and much quieter at that distance.

There isn’t a whole lot to the lighter-than-air assembly. It’s got an aerodynamic balloon with stabilizing fins, and a propeller attached to a generator at the center. The tether that holds it in place also carries the conductors which translate the power down to the ground. There is mention of a fail-safe system that allows for a slow descent if it get gets away from its tether, so you shouldn’t have to worry about the sky falling on you.

It’s certainly an interesting idea. For some reason this makes us think of the space-based solar generator panels found on Larry Niven’s Ringworld.

[via Reddit]

10,000 Posts

March 30, 2012 by Mike Szczys 47 Comments

According to our CMS calculations (we use WordPress), this is Hackaday’s ten-thousandth published posts. We meant to build a confetti cannon, but we were too busy looking for interesting projects to feature multiple times per day.

We’d like to thank everyone who documents their projects to share what they’ve been up to in basements, garages, or hackerspaces with the ecosystem of hackers around the world. We hope that every time you publish a build log or project summary you think about sending us a link. We’re also grateful for those who find intriguing blog or forum posts and send in a tip even though it’s not their project (we wholeheartedly encourage it).

Our contributors and editors deserve kudos. Over the years a growing band of Hackaday alumni have helped keep the front page of Hackday a place you can count on for interesting uses for otherwise everyday things. You’ve heard many of their names, like [Philip Torrone], [Eliot Phillips], and [Caleb Kraft]. But most of what you see on the front page is the result of the writers sifting through tips and scanning a laundry list of RSS feeds to find new and interesting projects and project ideas. Their contribution is what keeps the front page fresh and new, but we continue to use the royal ‘we’ in our posts because it’s the project being featured that is paramount.

And finally we thank the regular readers, whose participation keeps the lights on, and whose comments build a community. Many started out as lurkers, inspired by the projects featured here until the point that they take the plunge and blink their first LED. The threads in the comments section of each post are the evolutionary ooze that often leads to the next amazing build. Keep reading, keep commenting constructively, and we’ll see you all back here for our 16,383rd post when we fill up these digits with ones.

Thank you.

Quieting An Inexpensive Bench Power Supply

March 29, 2012 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

[Mike] just purchased this Atten APS3005S bench power supply for around $80. It does the job, but boy is it noisy! We were pretty surprised to hear it fire up in the video after the break. To make matters worse, the noise is persistent since the fan never shuts off. Having worked with other bench supplies he knew that a common feature included in many models is temperature controlled case fans. He set out to quiet the fan and implement a temperature switch.

For this project [Mike] had the benefit of looking at a nearly identical model that does have temperature switching. He discovered that the board on this one has a through-hole zero ohm resistor populated in place of a thermostat switch. That switch closes the connection at or above 45 degree Celsius, thereby turning on the cooling fan. Bridging the traces with a zero ohm resistor to save on production costs is what caused the fan to run continuously. After replacing the resistor with a KSD-01F and swapping out the stock fan for a high-quality version [Mike] has takes a noise maker and turned it into a device that’s kind to the ears.

Continue reading “Quieting An Inexpensive Bench Power Supply” →

808 Camera Hack Produces A Time-lapse Tic Tac Box

March 29, 2012 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

It’s not really conceived as a spy cam, but it could be. [Quinn Dunki] built this tiny time-lapse camera project with racing in mind. She’s involved in a group that endurance races clunkers, and part of the fun is sharing the experience of riding around in the old beaters. The module seen above takes a picture every four seconds and will last 24 hours before needing new batteries or an SD card change. We wonder if that’s longer than some of the ‘racecars’ make it?

She picked up an 808 camera, which looks like the key fob you use to unlock your car doors. They’re so cheap you can include them in projects and not really care if you don’t get them back. Inside it’s got a small lithium battery, the circuit board with a processor, microSD card slot, and of course the SSD used to capture the images. To control the device she used a tiny relay with an ATtiny13 used for the timing. We think the battery selection is a bit overboard, but maybe the next version will be a little more conservative.

There was one folly along the way. She wanted to attach this to the body of the car with a handful of magnets. But they don’t play nicely with the magnetic relays so that was out. The solution was to add that lanyard ring to the case which will allow the camera to be zip tied to the vehicle. So far there are no time-lapse movies available, but keep your eyes on our links posts and we’ll try to include one when it pops up.

Sentry Gun Controller-board Upgrade

March 29, 2012 by Mike Szczys 18 Comments

This open source sentry gun controller board builds on a great concept by getting rid of the Arduino board. The previous version was an Arduino shield, but this upgrade keeps all of the cool features by rolling the necessary parts into one smaller footprint.

The image above doesn’t quite convey the scope of the project. Go take a look at the feature from last year which used the shield version of the controller. That build used a servo-mounted paintball gun in conjunction with a webcam. You can still build the same platform, but use the open-source files to include this board. It has outputs for three servo motors, and can also interface with airsoft or paintball guns which have their own electronic triggers and integrated batteries.

We always like to see the schematic for projects like this one. For your convenience we exported an image from the Eagle package. You can find it, along with the demo video, after the break.

Continue reading “Sentry Gun Controller-board Upgrade” →

Trumpet Hero

March 29, 2012 by Mike Szczys 4 Comments

[Evilsigntist] combined an old cornet with an old PS2 guitar hero controller to produce the Trumpet Hero. The fragile looking conglomeration really brings a smile to our faces. Just make sure the instrument has already seen the end of its days before drilling holes to mount the various parts.

In the image above you can see that the three valve buttons have been painted to correspond to frets on the original guitar controller. The orange and blue frets are positioned for the left hand to operate. There seems to be a couple of different version because there is a diagram showing a mute in the bell that can be twisted for whammy bar input, but that’s not shown here. Strumming is accomplished by blowing through the mouthpiece, but as you can see in the video after the break, no buzzing is necessary.

Using actual instruments as game inputs is a lot of fun. We always think back to the flute and drum set controllers for Rock Band.

Continue reading “Trumpet Hero” →