DIY Mini-Amp Goes To Eleven

March 30, 2018 by James Hobson 26 Comments

On the day mini-amps were invented, electric guitar players the world over rejoiced. No longer would they be house-bound when jamming out on their favourite guitar. It is a doubly wondrous day indeed when an electric guitar-inclined maker realizes they can make their own.

[Frank Olson Music] took apart an old pair of headphones and salvaged the speakers — perhaps intending to replicate a vintage sound — and set them aside. Relying on the incisive application of an X-Acto knife, [Olson] made swift work cutting some basswood planks into pieces of the amp before gluing them together — sizing it to be only just bigger than the speakers. A tie was also shown no mercy and used as a dapper grille screen. Both the head and speaker cabinets were sanded and stained for a matching finish.

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Iron Man Mask With A HUD!

March 25, 2018 by James Hobson 12 Comments

At some point, a child will inevitably dream of being a superhero. Not all children get the chance to see that dream made manifest, but a few take that destiny into their own hands. Redditor [Lord_of_Bone] — seizing at that goal — has built himself an Iron Man mask with an integrated HUD!

Relying on a conceptually similar project he’d previously built, much of the code was rehashed for this ‘Mark II’ version. Pieces of a smartphone holo pyramid act as projection surfaces — using a lens to focus the image to be viewed at such close distances — and a pair of OLED screens displaying the information. It’s a happy bonus that the lack of backlight results in only the text showing in the user’s field of view.

Instead of speaking with J.A.R.V.I.S., [Lord_of_Bone] is using a Raspberry Pi Zero W as the mask’s brain. Working past some I2C troubles between the OLED screens and an Enviro pHat required a whipped-up veroboard and a bit of hardware hacking. Cramming everything into the mask was no easy task — using Blutack and Sugru to bind them in the limited space — but the pHat had to be surface-mounted in the open anyways for atmospheric and light data.

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Let There Be Light Rings!

March 24, 2018 by James Hobson 11 Comments

[Brandon Rice] is at it again — this time to level-up your photography and video production skills with a diffused light ring.

Inspired into creating more video content, he wanted to forgo the price tag associated with consumer lighting rigs. A 19″ diameter ring fit his requirements, but since the only laser cutter he had access to was limited to 12″x14″, he was forced to assemble it in pieces. As he screwed it together, he hid the M6 screws by pointing them ‘forwards,’ to be hidden underneath the diffusing vellum material. Liberal application of hot glue has kept the arched vellum and the LED strips in place with only a nominal number of burned fingers.

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Business On The Outside, Electronics Workstation On The Inside

March 23, 2018 by James Hobson 15 Comments

As an electrical engineering student, [Brandon Rice] had the full suite of electronics tools you’d expect. Cramming them all into a dorm room was doable — but cramped — a labour to square everything away from his desk’s top when he had to work on something else. To make it easier on himself, he built himself a portable electronics workstation inside the dimensions of a briefcase.

Built from scratch, the workstation includes a list of features that should have you salivating by the end. Instead of messing with a bunch of cables, on-board power is supplied by a dismantled 24V, 6A power brick, using a buck converter and ATmega to regulate and display the voltage, with power running directly to 12V and 5V lines of a breadboard in the middle of the workstation. A wealth of components are stored in two dozen 3d printed 1″ capsules setting them in loops pinned to the lid.

If all this was not already enough, there’s more!

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Ground-Effect Lighting For Your Bed.

March 23, 2018 by James Hobson 24 Comments

If you’ve ever disturbed your partner by getting up during the night and flicking on the bathroom light — or tripping over something and startling them awake completely in the ensuing catastrophe — [Kristjan Berce]’s idea to install motion-activated ground-effect lighting on his girlfriend’s bed might hold your attention.

[Berce] is using an Arduino Nano for the project’s brain, a PIR sensor from Adafruit, and an L7805 voltage regulator to handle load spikes. He doesn’t specify the type of LED strip he’s using, but Neopixels might be a safe bet here. Soldering issues over with, he mounted his protoboard in a 3D printed project box. Instead of reinventing the LED, [Berce] copied the code from Adafruit’s PIR tutorial before sticking the project to the side of the bed with adhesive strips so the on/off switch within handy reach to flick before meeting Mr. Sandman. Check out the build video after the break!

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Want A Leak-Proof Camper? Better Fire Up The 3D Printer Now.

March 22, 2018 by James Hobson 32 Comments

Ah, the great outdoors. Rejuvenating air rife with mosquitoes and other nasties, and spending some time hanging out in the woods sleeping in a 3D printed camper. Wait– what was that last one again?

Yep, it’s exactly what it sounds like. A Canadian team headed by [Randy Janes] of Wave of the Future 3D, printed a camper at [Create Cafe] in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, using high-flow nozzles on one of the largest 3D printers in North America. These layers are 10.3mm thick!!

This trailer is one single printed piece, taking 230 hours — nine and a half days — of straight printing with only a few hangups. Weighing 600lbs and at 13 feet long by six feet wide — approximately 507 cubic feet, this beats the previous record holder for largest single piece indoor print in size by three times over.

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Print, Rinse, Wear. Nanowire Circuits For Your Microfibre Clothing.

March 11, 2018 by James Hobson 7 Comments

While our bodies are pretty amazing, their dynamic nature makes integrating circuits into our clothing a frustrating process. Squaring up against this challenge, a team of researchers from North Carolina State University have hit upon a potential boon for wearable electronics: silver nanowires capable of being printed on flexible, stretchy substrates.

It helps that the properties of silver nanowires lend themselves to the needs of wearable circuits — flexible and springy in their own right — but are not without complications. Silver nanowires tend to clog print nozzles during printing, so the research team enlarged the nozzle and suspended the nanowires in a water-soluble solvent, dramatically cutting the chance of clogging. Normally this would have a negative impact on precision, but the team employed electrostatic force to draw the ink to the desired location and maintain print resolution. Once printed, the solvent is rinsed away and the wearable circuit is ready for use.

By controlling print parameters — such as ink viscosity and concentration — the team are able to print on a wide variety of materials. Successful prototypes thus far include a glove with an integrated heating circuit and an electrocardiograph electrode, but otherwise the size of the printer is the only factor limiting the scale of the print. Until this technique becomes more widely available, interested parties might have to put their stock into more homebrew methods.

[Thanks for the tip, Qes!]