Disposable Camera Flashes Live Again

April 6, 2016 by James Hobson 26 Comments

Aiming to improve the image quality of the photos on his website, [Jean] needed an external flash unit.

Say what you will about disposable cameras, but the fact that they were mass-produced, and are now nearly obsolete, means they are an absolute treasure trove of electronics components when you can buy them for dirt cheap. So [Jean] decided to turn a few of his disposable cameras into an external flash system for his DSLR (Translated).

He started by taking apart a Kodak digital camera and examining the circuit board. KEY1 enables the charging of the capacitor (the camera ON switch) and SW1 is located under the shutter-release.

Now all he had to do was replace SW1 with an electronic trigger from his DSLR.

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Reactor Forge Promises Induction Heating For All

April 5, 2016 by James Hobson 60 Comments

Ever want to try your hand at black smithing? Building a forge is expensive and tricky — especially if you live in an apartment! But we’re all tech nerds here — it’s way cooler to use induction heating to heat up your metal for forging. Fire is for cavemen! [Josh Campbell] is working on a kit to bring induction heating to the masses — he calls it the Reactor Forge.

The kit hasn’t launched yet, but you can follow his progress on his GitHub. Induction heating works by magnetically inducing current into the metal, where resistance turns the current into heat without physical contact. The Reactor Forge [Josh] has built runs off of a 220V circuit, and in the following demonstration, heats up a 6″ section of 1/2″ steel bar.

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Full-size AT-ST Star Wars Build

April 4, 2016 by James Hobson 30 Comments

Think you made a cool tree-house for your kids? Sorry to burst your bubble, but we don’t think anything can top this full-size 1:1 replica of a Star Wars AT-ST — complete with sound effects and moving turrets! Did we mention it seats two?

Built in his backyard, this AT-ST is constructed of wood, plastic, and sheet metal. On the inside it is decked out with joysticks, display panels, and other knobs and buttons for your imagination to go wild with. It even features solar panels on the roof to power two ventilation fans to keep you cool while daydreaming of blowing up Rebel scum on Hoth.

Stay tuned after the break to see a video of it in action.

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3D Printing A Fake Product Leak

April 4, 2016 by James Hobson 6 Comments

A few days ago you might have seen images floating around the net of the next Nintendo console controller, The Nintendo NX. There were so many pictures, it just had to be real!

Wrong. It was just [Frank Sandqvist] messing with everyone on the Internet. While phony product leaks are usually just photoshopped or 3D modeled renders, [Frank] took it a step further and actually designed a whole controller, 3D printed it, and took pictures of it. You might be wondering why he would do this. As a Reddit user points out there could be an excellent motive behind it:

You could also use it to get a job as a prop maker. It would look awesome on a CV that you made a prop that fooled the world — [Critters]

But, according to [Frank] it was really just for fun.

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Turning An Angle Grinder Into A Belt Sander

April 3, 2016 by James Hobson 23 Comments

Faced with a project requiring a lot of sanding, [George] had two options. Suck it up and buy a belt sander — or re-purpose a tool he already had to do the same job. He chose the latter, and turned an angle grinder into a belt sander.

Part of a series called Make It Extreme on YouTube, [George] built the entire project from scratch using raw materials. Using a lathe he created the aluminum rolling dowels the sanding belt will sit on. He pressed bearings into them, and then welded up a frame using scrap steel to hold them apart. He’s even added a spring-powered tension device to ensure the belt stays on.

As for mounting the angle grinder in place, it couldn’t be easier. It slides in between two metal guides, and attaches using the threaded hole for the angle grinder’s handle.

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Cyborg Olympics Is Coming This Fall

April 2, 2016 by James Hobson 12 Comments

You heard right. There’s a team of scientists in Europe who are arranging the world’s first Cyborg Olympics, called the Cybathlon. Hosted in Zurich this October, it aims to help gauge the performance and advancement in the latest developments of prosthesis and other devices that can augment human ability beyond what is considered normal or baseline.

The best example of this is [Oscar Pistorius] — the man with fiberglass spring legs. He’s a double amputee who can run at an Olympic level — or maybe even faster. With the Cybathlon, his prosthesis would not only be accepted, but encouraged to help demonstrate and further the technology by adding a competitive angle to the companies manufacturing them. Continue reading “Cyborg Olympics Is Coming This Fall” →

A $99 Smartphone Powered 3D Printer?

April 1, 2016 by James Hobson 170 Comments

What if we could reduce the cost of a photopolymer resin-based 3D printer by taking out the most expensive components — and replacing it with something we already have? A smartphone. That’s exactly what OLO hopes to do.

A resin-based 3D printer, at least on the mechanical side of things, is quite simple. It’s just a z-axis really. Which means if you can use the processing power and the high-resolution screen of your smart phone then you’ve just eliminated 90% of the costs involved with the manufacturing of a resin-based 3D printer. There are a ton of designs out there that use DLP projectors to do just this. (And there have been open-source designs since at least 2012.)

The question is, does it work with a cellphone’s relatively weak light source?

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