Motorcycle Lighting Upgrade Ensures Other Drivers Know You’re There

April 16, 2012 by Mike Nathan 52 Comments

led-brake-lights

[Pete Mills] recently bought himself a motorcycle, and as people are known to do, they start trying to scare him with gruesome stories of cycling accidents once they hear about his purchase. While he tries to shrug them off as people simply not minding their own business, something must have resonated with him, because he started tinkering with the bike’s taillight in order to ensure he was always seen by other drivers.

He swapped out his motorcycle’s incandescent taillight for a smart LED-based lamp that he constructed using perfboard. Not only does his new brake light feature ultra bright LEDs, but the onboard ATtiny85 rapidly flashes the lights each time he hits the brakes, making his presence impossible to miss. Before everyone starts with the claims of, “Flashing red lights are illegal!”, let’s all take a deep breath and read on.

We’ve seen these sorts of lights on the back of motorcycles for years, though being a careful guy, [Pete] wrote to the state of Michigan in order to ensure that his modifications won’t get him pulled over. He has yet to hear back, but in the meantime, he merely needs to start the bike with the brakes applied to trigger the ATtiny85 to run the lights in “normal mode.”

Continue reading to see a short demo video of his brake light mod in action.

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Upgrading A Rockford Fosgate Punch 601s To An 801s With Just A Handful Of Parts

April 16, 2012 by Mike Nathan 29 Comments

[Simon] had a Rockford Fosgate Punch 601s amplifier in his car, and while it was a great piece of equipment, he wanted a little more power behind his stereo system. It turns out that with just a handful of parts and a bit of soldering work, he was able to increase his amplifier’s output by 200 watts, putting it on par with a Punch 801s.

The main board in each amp is laid out identically, making the conversion a relatively easy process. A handful of MOSFETs need to be added, along with some resistors and capacitors. Most of the work can be done with a decent soldering iron, though you might want a hot air reflow station to handle the smaller resistors – it all depends on your skill set.

We’re really not sure how big the price difference is between the two amps, but we’re pretty certain that the conversion would be worth it. [Simon] sells conversion kits on his web site for under $60, but you may be able to find the parts for a bit less if you hunt around.

Barrel Organ Made From Lego Plays The Star Wars Theme

April 15, 2012 by Mike Nathan 36 Comments

Whether or not you are a fan of the first installment of the Star Wars prequels, you have to see what [Lorenz Lnggrtnr] and [Renee Hoffmeister] have put together for the movie’s 3D debut.

In an attempt to capture the essence of Star Wars in a new fashion, they constructed a large barrel organ from Lego bricks that plays the movie’s legendary opening theme when turned. The barrel is separated into four parts, each representing one of the series’ iconic settings in plastic block form.

Hoth, the Death Star, Tatooine, and Endor are all featured on the organ, with each environment’s structures playing specific notes from the song. As the barrel turns each Lego structure toggles a note to be played on the attached organ, via a “reading” mechanism built from metal arms and Lego tires.

It looks fantastic, and sounds pretty decent too. Be sure to stick around for a short video that shows off the barrel organ in action.

[via Wired]

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Aquarium Automation Keeps The Fish Fed And The Lights On

April 14, 2012 by Mike Nathan 5 Comments

fish-tank-automator

Anyone who owns a fish tank knows that a good amount of care is required to keep fish happy, healthy, and most of all – alive. [Vicente Jiménez] usually has no problem keeping up on the day to day maintenance such as feeding and switching the tank light, but he wanted to automate these processes for times when he can’t be home to take care of the fish (Translation).

His aquarium automation project is meant to cover three separate parts of the operation: light control, feeding, and pump regulation during feeding times. [Vincente] picked up an STM8L Discovery board to control his system, which enabled him to easily control the automation of all three.

He constructed the feeding mechanism using an old cassette player motor, which turns his food drum (an old film canister), twice a day at specified feeding times. Before the drum is turned to dispense food, the STM8L turns off the aquarium’s pump via a relay to ensure it doesn’t get clogged in the process. During the day he keeps the tank illuminated, but once night falls, the microcontroller shuts the lights off so the fish can get their rest.

There’s no video of the system in action, but [Vincente] has detailed its construction pretty thoroughly in his blog, so be sure to check it out if you are in need of something similar.

IR Helicopter Controller Hacked Into A Linux Game Pad

April 14, 2012 by Mike Nathan 4 Comments

syma-linux-joystick

[Mike Kohn’s] Syma S107 helicopter wasn’t flying as well as it used to due to a broken gear, he figured he might as well find some use for the toy’s controller, since it was currently sitting around collecting dust. Having done a bunch of work with Syma IR protocols earlier this year, he decided it would be pretty easy to get the remote working as a game pad for his Linux desktop.

He patched an IR receiver into an MSP430 board, which decodes the incoming IR signals, sending them to his computer over a serial connection. [Mike] dug around in the Linux source for some good joystick driver code to borrow and found something that was close enough to work. After a bit of tweaking he loaded up his driver module and fired up Mame to give [Ms. Pacman] a try.

He says that the controller worked without much trouble, though as he discovered in previous projects, there are some quirks in the controller that make it somewhat less than convenient to use full time. Check out his site if you’re interested in taking a look at the code that he used to get things running.

This LED Table Really Ties The Room Together

April 13, 2012 by Mike Nathan 6 Comments

led-matrix-table

Along with quadrotors, and portable game consoles, one of the hacks we never get tired of seeing is an LED matrix table. [Christian Enchelmaier] wrote in to share his take on the ever popular pixelated furniture, which we think came out pretty well (Translation).

Instead of going for a full-sized coffee table, [Christian] decided to keep things on the smaller scale his first time out, opting for an ottoman/end table nstead. He constructed a 16×16 matrix using RGB LEDs, encapsulating each one in its own “pixel”, as is common with these builds. [Christian] uses an Atmega 128 to run the show, displaying the current time and date, temperature, music visualizations, games, images, along with short videos. He also outfitted the table with an IR receiver so that he can control the table’s display from afar.

As of right now, [Christian] doesn’t have any video of the table in action, but there’s plenty in the way of pictures scattered throughout his build log to keep you busy in the meantime.

Using GPS To Stay Aware Of Red Light Cameras

April 12, 2012 by Mike Nathan 62 Comments

red-light-camera-alerter

Depending on how you view them, red light cameras are a great way to get people to drive carefully, or an utter nuisance. We agree with the latter opinion, as does [Dave], so he built a handy little device that alerts him when he’s about to approach one of these intersections.

His Red Light Camera Alerter is based around an Atmega 328P sporting the Arduino bootloader. The micro obtains GPS coordinates while [Dave] is driving, comparing his current location with a table of all known red light intersections in the area. As he nears a red light camera, the status LED changes colors from blue to yellow to red as he gets closer, making it easy to keep aware of his situation. He also included an Adafruit OLED display in his device, which relays his speed, GPS coordinates, heading, and actual distance from the red light in real time.

While [Dave] admits that he doesn’t really have a need for the alerter as there are only a couple located in his immediate vicinity, he says it was a fun and easy way to get some experience with using GPS sensors in his projects. He doesn’t have any video of it in action, but you can find the code he uses to drive the alerter on his blog.