Replacing A Tire Valve Stem Without Special Tools!

February 19, 2014 by James Hobson 82 Comments

Your car’s tire is losing air from the valve stem — what do you do? Well you could take it to the mechanic and pay upwards of $30 to replace it… or you could try this MacGyver style approach!

Not wanting to take his car to the shop, [David] tried several ways of knocking the tire off its bead. Hitting it with a sledge hammer… Jumping on it… throwing it against the ground… In the end, he realized leverage would be his friend! He’s constructed a tool out of a few pieces of wood — simply place it on the tire near the valve stem, and then drive up the wood with your car. The weight of the car easily compresses the tire leaving you just enough room to pull the tire valve stem out, and put a new one in.

It’s pretty much the same method shops use, they just have a machine to do it for them — because of this, so we don’t think this would hurt your tire. As always though, we’d love to hear what you guys think in the comments! Stick around for the video to see [David’s] process.

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Vector Display Output On An Oscilliscope

February 19, 2014 by James Hobson 34 Comments

V3zirb1

What can we say, we’re a sucker for projects featuring our logo. That being said, this one is seriously awesome. [CNLohr] has figured out how to create a vector display output on an oscilloscope… from a VGA port.

He was inspired by a game called Trace Vector, which is done in the same style as some of the old classics like Asteroids. This got [Charles] thinking, and he decided to see what it would take to make his own vector capable display. An oscilloscope is perfect for this, as it already works by controlling the position of the beam (like a vector), as opposed to standard LCDs and CRTs that use rasterizing (horizontal scanning). This means to get the oscilloscope to display a graphic, all you need to do is to vary the voltages going into the X and Y channels — well, at a high speed!

But where are you going to find such a high speed digital to analog converter? Oh yeah, your computer’s VGA port! For a few dollars [Charles] threw together a VGA adapter with a few resistors using just the red and blue outputs (source code). A bit of programming later, and he’s created his own vector display!

Stick around to see our lovely skull and cross-wrenches rotate on his oscilloscope! Oh, and for a more in depth explanation and more impressive vector video demonstration.

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Ridiculously Over-Powered Quadrotor Spotlight Kills Battery, Blinds People

February 19, 2014 by James Hobson 46 Comments

Flying quadrotors at night is awesome — but being in the dark tends to be a problem for not crashing them… Tired of not being able to get successful GoPro videos, [Diode] decided to strap a light to his quadrotor. A 3000+ lumen, 50W LED to be precise.

He found the 50W LED for $20 online with the driver! The only problem was it gets super hot. He salvaged a heat sink from an Xbox 360 which helps to keep the temperature at bay… but also increases the weight of the quad by a bit too much. Luckily his quadrotor is pretty powerful — but with the added weight, and 50W power drain, his flight time went from 15 minutes… to about 3 minutes.

Three of the most awesome minutes ever! Just watch the following video — the night-time possibilities are endless!

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Mobile Hackerspace Status Indicator

February 18, 2014 by James Hobson 16 Comments

HACKERSPACE LIGHT

Cruising around town, not sure what to do — oh hey look, someone is at the hackerspace! Introducing the Mobile Spacestate Indicator!

During our Hackerspacing in Europe tour, we had the pleasure of visiting ACKspace in Heerlen, the Netherlands. And like many hackerspaces, they have an online status indicator letting members and non-members alike know if the space is open. [Vicarious], the gentleman who kindly picked us up from the train station, has just finished off an awesome modification to his car. Using an Arduino Uno and a Raspberry Pi, he has created a mobile indicator of his hackerspace’s status.

The Raspberry Pi automatically tethers to his phone and checks the status of the hackerspace online. It then sends the data to the Arduino Uno which controls a small strip of RGB LEDs. He’s cleverly hidden all of this inside his center console, and it looks awesome!

To see more of ACKspace’s cool projects, check out their wiki!

Stellated Snowdecahedra

February 17, 2014 by James Hobson 9 Comments

snoe deca

It’s been a pretty crazy winter here in Canada and the northern States, but at least one maker is having fun with it! He’s been making Snowdecahedras!

According to him, snow sculpting is an ancient art that was originally first discovered over 16,000 years ago outside of the caves of Lascaux, France. Despite whether this claim is true or just tongue in cheek, he’s crafted some amazing nonconvex regular polyhedra—or, stellated snowdecahedras—with a few fancy tools.

He’s created five steel molds for the sculpture by shearing 50 triangles out of steel sheet at his local hackerspace. After taping the cones together, he then welded them into place, creating a rather intricate five-piece mold. He’s welded nuts onto the outside of the pieces in order to tie the mold shut when it is filled with snow.

Plop it upside down, untie your ropes or other fastening device, and carefully remove each face, one at a time. Et voila, a beautiful spiky star for all to enjoy.

The project is part of the New American Public Art initiative.

Ketchup Bottle… Flexible Hose?

February 17, 2014 by James Hobson 62 Comments

ketchup pipe

Need a corrugated flexible hose for your CNC machine? You could buy one… or you could make your own using tape and ketchup bottles!

One of our tipsters stumbled upon a very interesting hack on a Russian 3D Modeling website that sells 3D models ready to be CNC machined. They have a few articles on CNC machines, and this is one of them. An ingenious way of making your own flexible hose — in this case, used as a vacuum return on the CNC machine.

It’s pretty simple, although we would expect the labor involved quickly outweighs the cost of some cheap hose — but this is recycling so hey! You start by finding a source of cylindrical plastic containers, like ketchup bottles. You then cut a never-ending ribbon from said bottles, and then using a cylindrical template (like a can of spray paint), wrap packing tape, sticky side out, around the template. Now wrap your ribbon around the template, slightly spaced, and then cover the outside in tape as well. A one liter bottle of ketchup will make approximately a half meter of corrugated hosing. It’s not hard to continue doing this by sliding the hose off the can, and wrapping more ribbon and tape in place.

Now that’s a hack.

[Thanks Michael!]

MacGyver Made IKEA Camera Slider

February 17, 2014 by James Hobson 12 Comments

It’s not hard to drastically increase the production value in your videos by adding a camera slide to your shot — in fact, [Derek] shows us how to make a decent camera slide using parts from IKEA for less than $30.

The hack makes use of a cutting board, glider and hook accessories, a triple curtain rail, and two ceiling fixtures. The ceiling fixtures are simply used to make a mount for the curtain rail to rest on. [Derek] shows us an easy way to make the carriage with some careful drilled holes in the cutting board — he’s added a 3D printed tripod head for mounting the camera, but really you can use whatever you want.

It’s a pretty simple and easy to build rig, and the results are quite impressive — just check out the following video to see!

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