Experimental Music IPad Dock

June 9, 2011 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

You can buy nice audio breakout equipment for your iPod if you don’t mind breaking the bank. This is partly because the demand is not incredibly high so commercial breakout hardware doesn’t benefit from volume discounts. But it’s also because Apple charges licensing fees for third-party accessories (often referred to as the “Apple Tax”). [Reed Ghazala] decided to side-step the whole situation by building his own accessory which he calls the iPad Audio Desk.

It all starts with a breakout board. The PodBreakout Mini provides an easy to solder interface for the iPad, and ensures that the repetitive act of plugging and unplugging the connection doesn’t break a solder connection. From there [Reed’s] enclosure finishing skills take over. The shape and curve of the aluminum sheet give the look befitting an expensive tablet device. Along the back you can see the jacks for line-in, line-out, video, mic/guitar, and headphones that make the dock useful. It wouldn’t be hard to make one… but it might be hard to make one look this great. See for yourself after the break.

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Designing And Building A Bench Supply

June 8, 2011 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

[Scott’s] been digging around the back issues of the Internet to find this project. He blew the dust off and sent us a link to an article that traverses the design and build process of a bench power supply.

[Guido Socher] does an excellent job of presenting his bench supply project. So many others show of the final product, but he has gone out of his way to make sure we understand the design principles that went into it. He starts off by talking about the simplest possible supply design: a transistor and Zener diode which generates a reference voltage. He goes on to discuss the problems with this simplified circuit and how to address them, covering the gotchas that pop up at each step in the process.

Once he designed the circuit and laid out some boards he began building an enclosure. We love his tip about using a stick pin and an unpopulated through-hole PCB to mark button locations on the front bezel of the case. The final design is shown above, and includes a laptop brick to translate mains power into a 24V 3A DC feed for his custom circuitry.

VU Meter Lives In A Linksys Housing

June 8, 2011 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

[Dillon] just finished his first project of the summer. It’s a volume units meter for his sound system and it has a few tricks up its sleeve.

He’s driving the rows of LEDs using an AN6884 LED driver chip. It has an integrated amplifier circuit which makes it the perfect part for building a VU display. He had a broken Linksys 5-port switch sitting around which he used as the enclosure for the project. It has just enough room to incorporate a speaker in case he wants to take the meter on the road with him. But when at home he can choose to use his stereo system instead with the flip of a switch. To ensure he’s making the most out of the 5-bit precision he’s included a voltage divider that can be adjusted with a potentiometer. We’ve embedded a video after the break which shows how well it works.

Looking for a bit more inspiration for your own VU meter project? Check out this RGB version.

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Android Controlled Labyrinth

June 8, 2011 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

[Pcdevltd] pulled an all-nighter to get his first Android Developer Kit project up and running. Basing the project off of the example that Google used when unveiling the new accessory development hardware, he set to work controlling a marble labyrinth game using his smart phone. What began at 7pm was wrapped up by 5am to produce the results seen in the video after the break.

These ball mazes use two knobs to pivot the playing surface, changing gravity’s pull on the ball to get it to go where you want. [Pcdevltd] pulled off the bottom on his labyrinth and installed two small servo motors. These connect to the Android Open Accessory Development Kit via a small cable. Connect that to the phone and you can then use the internal accelerometer to play the game. If you have an Android phone and an Arduino this should be pretty easy to replicate since we know you can already use the ADK with Arduino. Get to work on your own projects and don’t forget to send us a link to your project log.

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Extending The Usability Of Touchscreens

June 8, 2011 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

Fanboys may be in shock from seeing duct tape applied to the screen of an iPad, but we can assure you it’s in the name of science. [Michael Knuepfel] is working on his thesis for the ITP graduate program at the Tisch School for the Arts. He managed to augment the usability of touchscreen devices by adding hardware to them.

What he’s come up with are devices for both input and output. The output devices generally rely on light and color of light displayed on the screen itself which is picked up by a light sensor. The input devices use conductive material to complete a path between your hand and your screen. This lets the capacitive sensing screen detect the presence of your hand, through the conductor. Some of his example devices include gaming controller overlays, encoder rings, and multiple stylus designs.

After the break we’ve embedded [Michael’s] teaser trailer which jumps through several demonstrations. It’s plenty to get your mind rolling, but if you want to know more you must watch his thesis presentation. It’s available as an MP4 download on this page. Just search for his name, [Michael Knuepfel] for the proper link.

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Experimenting With A Permeability Tuned Oscillator

June 8, 2011 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

[Scott Harden] has been working through a design for a variable inductor to use as a PTO, or permeability tuned oscillator. What you see above is the most recent fruit of these efforts. The variable inductor is made up of the green coil of wire with a threaded bolt in the core. Turning that bolt moves the tip in or out of the coil, affecting its inductance.

Traditionally, tuning RF oscillator circuits has been a function of an adjustable capacitor. But capacitance is only part of the circuit, with inductance being the other important portion. Since variable capacitors that are capable of affecting a large change on the frequency of a circuit can be quite expensive he set out to find another way. This is what prompted the development of his first PTO project.

[Scott] produced a demo video of the hardware seen above which we’ve embedded after the break.

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Solar Powered Cellphone A True Hack

June 7, 2011 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

The polished quality of this hack isn’t quite there, but we love the ingenuity and exploration exhibited. [Paulie1982] shows us how to make an old cellphone work with the rays of the sun.

You can see above that he’s added photovoltaic solar cells to the back case of what looks like an old smart phone. He grabbed the cells from two inexpensive solar landscaping lights and inserted them by cutting holes in the case and using black silicone sealant to glue them in place. Each can pump out about 3V and together they get above the 5V threshold that he needs to do some charging. See the build process in the video after the break.

From what we’ve seen there’s zero consideration of current in this hack and that’s what makes us skeptical. Still, we love the idea of trickle charging and we’d love to see some speculation in the comments about how to improve upon this. Surely the additional hardware necessary for proper regulation, etc. could be fit in a custom case cover like the one used for this inductive charger hack.

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