Oil Barrel Smoker

December 4, 2017 by James Hobson 23 Comments

What would you do with a pair of oil drums and a craving for delicious food? Like any sane person, redditor [Kilgore_nrw] made the logical choice and built a smoker.

To make the build easier, he picked up a double barrel stove kit which came with a door, hinges, legs and flue connectors. While fixing the legs and mounting the stove door — high enough for a bed of bricks in the fire barrel — went as planned, he had to improvise the installation of the smoke flue. It ended up being the exact same diameter as the flue connectors, but notching it enough to slide into place made a satisfactory seal.

Not liking the look of having the stack at the ‘front’ of the smoker, he mounted it above the flue at the rear and added two sandstone slabs in the smoking chamber to evenly distribute the heat. Finishing touches included heavy duty drawer slides for the cooking rack — ensuring easy access to deliciousness — and painstakingly grinding off the old paint to apply a new heat resistant coating. For any fans out there, the finished pictures are a sight to behold.

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Let There Be Automated Blinds!

December 4, 2017 by James Hobson 13 Comments

More than once a maker has wanted a thing, only to find it more economical to build it themselves. When your domicile has massive windows, closing what can feel like a mile of blinds becomes a trial every afternoon — or every time you sit down for a movie. [Kyle Stewart-Frantz] had enough of that and automated his blinds.

After taking down and dismantling his existing roller blinds, he rebuilt it using 1-1/4 in EMT conduit for the blinds’ roll to mount a 12V electric shade kit within — the key part: the motor is remote controlled. Fitting it inside the conduit takes a bit of hacking and smashing if you don’t want to or can’t 3D print specific parts. Reattaching the roller blind also takes a fair bit of precision lest they unroll crooked every time. He advises a quick test and fit to the window before moving on to calibrating and linking all your blinds to one remote — unless you want a different headache.

Now, to get Alexa to do your bidding.

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A Futuristic Plant To Inspire Bright Ideas

December 4, 2017 by James Hobson 16 Comments

A good video game prop can really spruce up the decor — doubly so if it’s a glowing, futuristic potted plant transplanted(sorry!) straight from Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Since it’s a bit difficult to grow neon light vines, this project is more lamp than plant. The maker with the green thumb is [Phil], from [JumperOneTV], and he is using five meters of warm white strip LEDs cut to varying vine lengths. He’s also procured a store-bought flower pot that conveniently mirrors the in-game model. The vines are made of 16mm polyethylene tubing which he’s shaped using a heat gun — setting their shape by pumping water through it — and secured in the pot with insulation foam. Feeding the LED strips through and wiring them in parallel was simple compared to his next conundrum: supplying the power.

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Jeep Wrangler Dome Light Mod

December 3, 2017 by James Hobson 42 Comments

If you’re the owner of a Jeep Wrangler, you may have experienced some frustration with the interior dome light. For those not in the know, removing the doors on a warm day or for a bit of fun can lead to a dead battery. This happens because the Wrangler’s light stays on unless the fuse or light are removed, or a custom shutoff switch is added — at the expense of troublesome wiring. You could say it’s a Jeep Thing. [Tim Nummy] offers a solution with minimal modifications.

First off, pop the switch out of the door and set it aside. As a replacement, [Tim Nummy] has managed to salvage a door light switch from an old Mercedes. In addition to the same momentary-off function as the Wrangler’s stock switch, the button on the new one can be pulled out and locked for a secondary off position. Many machines and appliances use this same type of switch in their safety interlocks as a service position. [Tim] didn’t want to cut apart the wiring in the Wrangler in case something goes awry down the line, so for now he has filed down some spade terminals to slot into the Mercedes plug. He’s also 3D printed a nut to nicely secure the new switch in place. Check out his how-to video after the break!

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A Motion Sensing Light For Your Entrance Hallway

November 11, 2017 by James Hobson 25 Comments

Arriving home to a dark house with an armful of anything is usually an exercise in fumbling confusion until someone manages to turn on a light. [Pavel Gesyuk] has circumvented this problem entirely by building and installing a motion detecting entrance light!

[Gesyuk] is using an Arduino clone by the name of Funduino Mini Pro, a 2-channel, 2-way relay, — he only needed one, but you use what you have on hand — a recycled power supply to convert 220V AC to 5V DC, and an infrared sensor.

The project’s goal — in excess of a lighting solution for an entrance hallway — was the learn the ins and outs of the Arduino and motion sensors. After some initial hurdles familiarizing himself with the Arduino, [Gesyuk] wired everything together on a protoboard and stuck it in a plastic case — loose wires in a high traffic area doesn’t a safe home make.

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An Awesome Open Mechanical Keyboard

November 10, 2017 by James Hobson 19 Comments

Who doesn’t want a little added functionality to their lives? Feeling a few shortcut keys would make working in Eagle a bit smoother, [dekuNukem] built his own programmable mechanical keypad: kbord.

It sports vibrant RGB LED backlight effects with different animations, 15 keys that execute scripts — anything from ctrl+c to backdoors — or simple keystrokes, up to 32 profiles, and a small OLED screen to keep track of which key does what!

kbord is using a STM32F072C8T6 microcontroller for its cost, speed, pins, and peripherals, Gateron RGB mechanical keys — but any clear key and keycaps with an opening for the kbord’s LEDs will do — on a light-diffusing switch plate, and SK6812 LEDs for a slick aesthetic.

Check out the timelapse video tour of his build process after the break! (Slightly NSFW, adolescent humor for a few seconds of the otherwise very cool video. Such is life.)

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Turn Medical Imaging From 2D Into 3D With Just $10

November 6, 2017 by James Hobson 48 Comments

One of the modern marvels in our medical toolkit is ultrasound imaging. One of its drawbacks, however, is that it displays 2D images. How expensive do you think it would be to retrofit an ultrasound machine to produce 3D images? Try a $10 chip and pennies worth of plastic.

While — of all things — playing the Wii with his son, [Joshua Broder, M.D], an emergency physician and associate professor of surgery at [Duke Health], realized he could port the Wii’s gyroscopic sensor to ultrasound technology. He did just that with the help of [Matt Morgan, Carl Herickhoff and Jeremy Dahl] from [Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering] and [Stanford University]. The team mounted the sensor onto the side of the probe with a 3D printed collar. This relays the orientation data to the computer running software that sutures the images together into a complete 3D image in near real-time, turning a $50,000 ultrasound machine into its $250,000 equivalent.

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