[Bird603568] sent in this sweet little LED hack that’ll drive a white LED from just 1.5 volts. The circuit consists of a pair of coils wound on a ferrite core, a resistor and a NPN transistor. He notes that the circuit still functions even at .35v. The version pictured is even small enough to fit inside a normal flashlight bulb base.
Author: Will O'Brien805 Articles
Pulse Soldering Iron
I’m always interested in new ways to solder. [SPman] sent in this diy pulse soldering iron. It heats up in 5 seconds on demand, then cools in about 15. The writeup is a bit terse (since it’s translated from Russian), but it would definitely be handy for larger wiring jobs. The transformer is hand wound, and an oscillation driver forms a sort of crude frequency modulation to run the MOSFETS that drive the heating elements. I’d keep it away from delicate electronics unless you’re confidant of the temperature stability. It was designed for 220V, so you’d need to modify the transformer a bit to get similar performance on a 110V circuit.
Build Your Own Car… From Scratch
Most of us settle for modding the latest car we’ve bought. [Steve Graber] took another approach and built his own car from scratch. [John] sent in this impressive project. The original was built around Toyota MR2 parts and the body was made from fiberglass after the design was hand made from a wooden support frame, foam and drywall mud that was sanded down to create the shape. After that, molds were made from the slug to allow the panels to be cast from fiberglass. [Steve] is actually offering the car up as a build-it-yourself kit. Personally, I’d like the see the price come down a bit – the 1,500lb street weight would make a sweet basis for an electric car.
Bonus: If you’d doing EVs, bots or R/C toys, you might like this comparison of the latest breed of Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries by [Ian Hooper].
$25 Head Mounted Display
[Jake] sent in his source for a cheap head mounted display. In his writeup he notes that the spy video car comes with quite a pile of handy electronics – video tx/rx, camera and this simple black and white monocle head mounted display. (Which happens to be available as a replacement unit for a mere $20) The screen is a Kopin 300M (Black and white, 300×240 pixels) The display is actually somewhat usable out of the box, but he takes the time to note some simple mods that’ll improve the displays performance.
If you ever bought a virtual boy just to gut the display, then you know you want one. In fact, I’ve got a perfect project in mind for this particular toy.
Back From Belize Extra
Yesterday, I was standing on a tropical island off the coast of Belize. Vacation rocked with lots of SCUBA diving, spearfishing and snorkeling. I’m back home, shaking off the jet lag and clearing up my inbox. Thanks to [fabienne] for filling in and letting me unplug for a while!
[Darkrom] has set a new standard for Hack-A-Day readers… I haven’t seen it in person, but that looks like a legit Hack-A-Day tattoo.
[null] sent in a new use for a frequency generator, a spare car amp, a sub-woofer and a plastic coffee can – brass cartridge polishing.
[LoopyMind] sent in this Game Boy Advanced Movie Player IDE hack. It’s pretty much a direct CF to laptop drive cable with an external battery supply.
[Dingolishious] sent in a POE UPS/remote power control solution. Could be handy if you’re using many POE devices, or if you’re having power issues. He added an inexpensive remote power monitor/switch solution behind his UPS. It senses power outages and kicks out an email – and allows remote power cycling of his POE devices. Of course, if you’ve got a linux box behind the UPS, it can monitor the output from the UPS and send notifications.
[William] added a preamp stage to his iKEY usb recorder. looks like an interesting toy – it’ll record audio directly to a USB flash key. The pre-amp allows him to record in more challenging environments.
[Andrew] noted a simple mod to increase the deadly fire power of the ubiquitous airsoft pellet gun. It’s just a matter of reducing some extra space in the spring compression area.
Last but not least, [VIPER] modded his projector to use a 12v halogen headlight bulb. Not a bad idea – at one point I was pondering a 550 watt source four halogen as a possible replacement.
USB 2.0 FPGA Based 24 Channel Logic Analyzer
[lekernel] sent in his USB logic analyzer. I might just have to build this one for my work bench. It’s based on an Altera Cyclone 2 FPGA and he’s provided full schematics, source and a quick and dirty Linux driver to get things going. The board is nearly all surface mount, but he points out that the entire thing was soldered with a standard iron and de-soldering wick. If you’re looking for a good starter FPGA project, this looks like a good one.
I started writing for Hack-A-Day a little over a year ago. I’ve barely taken a break, but for the next week I’m going to be taking some serious time off on a Caribbean island. Thanks for a great year guys! While I’m gone, [fbz] has kindly consented to take over the reins. I’m looking forward to another year when I get back, but right now I’ve got to finish packing my dive gear.
Make Your Own Jacobs Ladder And Other HV Fun
We’ve covered a few tesla coils, but somehow we never hit this classic – making your own jacobs ladder. The spark climbing the increasing gap between a pair of electrodes is easy enough to create – just get a high voltage transformer (like a neon sign transformer), make a set of insulated electrodes and wire things up.
Now that I’ve mentioned a couple of HV sources, I can point to this set of awesome high voltage photos from the same guy that put together the portable tesla coil.
