Author: Mike Szczys

6403 Articles

Is GEK A Modern-day Mr. Fusion?

March 4, 2010 by 42 Comments

[Nanomonkey] spent the weekend building generators that run off of syngas. All Powers Lab produces Gasifier Experimenter Kits to convert raw material to energy. The kits use Gasification to make a “natural gas like” fuel from materials such as wood chips, walnut shells, construction debris or agricultural waste.

So is this the Mr. Fusion that powered the DeLorean? This Honda fitted with a GEK sure makes it look that way. But all joking aside, this looks like a great way to turn waste in heat or electricity. There’s tons of info on the site to dig through. The controllers are open source which would make it easier to interface with the Google PowerMeter when the system is used as a generator.

Google Unveils API To PowerMeter

March 4, 2010 by 33 Comments

Google’s tentacles continue to wrap around every portion of our lives with the addition of an API for their PowerMeter software. The PowerMeter tool works with smart electricity meters to monitor and display power usage in the home. This will allow manufacturers (and hackers alike) to design new devices with the Google interface in mind.

We’ve got an old-fashioned power meter with a spinning dial and no blinking LED. This means we can’t monitor that blink to add our own PowerMeter interface. But if you do have an easy way to grab data from your meter you can design a home system that takes full advantage of Google’s tools.

Ok, who’s going to be the first to have their Google PowerMeter-compatible hack featured on Hackaday?

[Thanks Juan]

Using Mindflex To Shock The Heck Out Of People

March 4, 2010 by 29 Comments

We love to see eloquent hacks but this isn’t one of them. [Aaron] and his fellow sadists are using a Mindflex game with an electric shocker. If your brain is idle you’ll be fine, but too much activity inside the noggin and you’re in for nasty shock to the arm. Take a look at the video (bleeped but probably NSFW) after the break.

We’ve seen the Mindflex before, they’re using its interface in the same ways we’ve seen the Force Trainer used, by tapping into the LEDs. The shocks are provided by a Qkit, so hopefully there’s enough engineering behind it to keep the ‘contestant’ safe.

Hey, isn’t that the Tron Guy?

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Monocle Fixes Webcam Farsightedness

March 3, 2010 by 36 Comments

[Vik Oliver] came up with a webcam focus fix that is so quick and simple we never would have thought of it. He received the webcam as a gift and mounted on an articulated lamp so that it could easily be positioned around his projects. The problem is the camera lacks a focus adjustment so the close-up shots were blurry.

In what we consider a eureka moment, he sourced a pair of dollar store reading glasses to fix the optics. The glasses came with their own mounting bracket. He clipped them in half and wrapped the wire ear support around the camera body. Great hacks don’t have to be complicated, and we need to do a better job of looking at the dollar store for project parts!

Build Your Own Lightweight Flash Tripod

March 3, 2010 by 8 Comments

[Peter Karlsson] is a commercial photographer who wanted some ultralight, portable supports for multiple flashes. What he came up with meets those goals; measuring 16 inches long when folded and weighing just 14 ounces. They set up just like a tent because they’re made from tent poles. Like the portable habitats, the tripods have bungee cords running through each section which holds them rigid but allows them to fold for transport. This is a great sister project to the flash synchronizer from yesterday. See the demo and the building instructions after the break.

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IPhone Case Rehabilitation

March 3, 2010 by 42 Comments

[Richard Cabrera’s] iPhone was scratched from years of use. A big part of the appeal of Apple products is the dose of sexy that comes with them, so he set out to remedy this abomination. His iPhone case rehabilitation guide walks you through the miraculous transformation. One of the tools he uses is a headlight lens restoration kit from 3M because its polishing pads include graduated levels of grit for the transition from rough sanding to buffing. As you can see, the logo and text have been buffed off but that’s a small price to pay for what looks like a shiny new device.