Infrared Controlled Remote Firework Igniter

June 21, 2014 by 15 Comments

Firework Igniter

With Independence Day just around the corner, American hackers are likely to find themselves blowing things up in the name of Independence. It’s all great fun but it can also be dangerous. The standard ignition method of “use a lighter and run away really fast” is not exactly safe. Instead of lighting your fireworks the old-fashioned way, why not follow [Facelesstech’s] example and build your own infrared controlled remote igniter?

The first step was to decide how to actually ignite the firework fuse. [Facelesstech] had seen others use a car cigarette lighter for this purpose and he decided to follow in their footsteps. He started by removing the cigarette lighter from his own car and pulling it apart. Only one component was needed for this hack. The main heating element is a small disk with a “stem” on the end. If you apply 12V to the stem and attach the outer edge of the disk to ground, the igniter will quickly become hot.

[Facelesstech] originally thought he could just solder some wires to the device. However, the heating element gets so hot that the solder just melts every time it’s turned on. He then got creative and drilled a hole in a small block of wood that fits the heating element. The element is bolted into the wood and the bolt is used as a conductor for the electrical power.

The heating element is powered via a 12V relay. The relay is controlled by an Arduino Nano. The Nano allows two modes of operation. With the first mode, you simply press a button and the Nano will start a five second timer. The idea is to give you enough time to run to a safe distance before the firework is ignited. This isn’t much different from the old-fashioned method, but it does give you a slightly extended fuse. The second mode is where the project really shines. The Nano is also hooked up to an infrared receiver. This allows [Facelesstech] to press a button on an old television infrared remote control to active the igniter. This is a clever solution because it allows you to get to a safe distance without having to run a long wire. It’s also simple and inexpensive. Be sure to watch the video test of the system below. Continue reading “Infrared Controlled Remote Firework Igniter” →

A Light Painting Infrared Ray Gun

April 19, 2014 by 5 Comments

gun

[Noe] over at Adafruit has a really great build that combines the Internet’s love of blinkey LEDs and rayguns with the awesome technology behind extraordinarily expensive thermal imaging cameras. It’s a light painting infrared heat gun, used for taking long exposure photographs and ‘painting’ a scene red or blue, depending on the temperature of an object.

While this isn’t a proper FLIR camera, with a DSLR and a wide open shutter, it is possible to take pseudo-thermal images by simply ‘painting’ a scene with the light gun. This is an absurdly clever technique we’ve seen before and has the potential to be a useful tool if you’re looking for leaks around your windows, or just want to have a useful cosplay prop.

The circuit inside this raygun is based on a contactless infrared sensor connected to an Adafruit Gemma, with the LEDs provided by a NeoPixel ring. There are two 3D printable cases – your traditional raygun/blaster, and a more pragmatic wand enclosure. With either enclosure, it’s possible to take some pretty heat map pictures, as seen in the video below.

Continue reading “A Light Painting Infrared Ray Gun” →

Modular Arduino Based Infrared Thermometer

March 20, 2014 by 2 Comments

IRTemperature

[Brian] started out with a clear and concise goal, “allow a regular human to associate an audible tone with a temperature from an infrared contactless thermometer.” With his latest project, the ESPeri.IRBud, he has achieved this goal.

One of our favorite parts of [Brian’s] post is his BOM. Being able to easily see that the IR temperature sensor costs $26 at DigiKey is unbelievably helpful to readers. This specific sensor was chosen because others have successfully interfaced it with the Arduino. Not having to reinvent the wheel is good thing! For the build, [Brian] decided to hook up the IR temperature sensor to a re-purposed flexible iPhone headset wire. Having used headphone sockets to connect to the sensor and speakers, the actual device is quite modular. Hearing this thing in action is quite cool, it almost sounds like old-school GameBoy music! Check it out after the break.

Have you used an IR temperature sensor in one of your projects? Let us know.

Continue reading “Modular Arduino Based Infrared Thermometer” →

3D Scanner Using A Sharp Infrared Sensor

December 21, 2013 by 13 Comments

[Fernando] sent in a tip about a pet project he’s been working on. It’s an interesting take on a 3D scanner. He used a stepper motor to rotate the object being scanned, and an Arduino for control, but the real novelty is the way he used the sensor. [Fernando] mounted a Sharp GP2D120X on vertical surface, and used a second stepper motor to raise the sensor during the scan. As you can see in the videos (embedded after the break), this results in the scan being put together in an ascending spiral.

The Sharp sensor is cheap and decent, but you’re obviously not going to get amazing accuracy. Still, using the average of several measurements, he ends up with a decent result. Happily, [Fernando] has released the code, and it should be easy enough to repurpose it with a more accurate sensor. It would be interesting to see a laser-based sensor paired with this code.

Continue reading “3D Scanner Using A Sharp Infrared Sensor” →

Cloning An Infrared Disarming Remote Of A $8 Home Security System

September 15, 2013 by 4 Comments

5

[Sylvio] decided to buy one of the cheap alarm systems you can find on the internet to have a look at its insides. The kit he bought was composed of one main motion sensor and two remote controls to arm/disarm it.

Communication between the remotes and the sensor is done by using infrared, requiring a direct line of sight for a signal to be received. Modern alarm systems typically use RF remotes with a typical frequency of 434MHz or 868MHz.  In his write-up, [Sylvio] first tries to replicate the IR signal with one of his ‘learning remote controls’ without success and then proceed to reverse engineering the remote circuit shown in the above picture. Hackaday readers may figure out just by looking at it that it is a simple astable multivibrator (read ‘oscillator’). Its main frequency is 38.5kHz, which is typical for IR applications. Therefore, if one of your neighbours had this ‘security system’ one could just disarm it with any of the same remotes…

[Sylvio] then explains different ways to replicate the simple IR signal, first with an Arduino then with a frequency generator and finally using the USB Infrared Toy from Dangerous Prototypes. We agree with his conclusion: “you get what you pay for”.

Seeing Plant Health In Infrared

July 3, 2013 by 13 Comments

aerial

Since the 70s, NASA, NOAA, and the USGS have been operating a series of satellites designed to look at vegetation health around the world. These satellites, going under the name Landsat, use specialized camera filters that look at light reflecting off chlorophyll to gauge the health of forests, plains, oceans, and even farms. It’s all very interesting technology, and a few very cool people want to put one of these near infrared cameras in the hands of everyone.

The basic idea behind gauging the health of plants from orbit, or the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, is actually pretty simple: absorb red and blue light (thus our verdant forests), and reflect nearly all infrared light. By removing the IR filter from a digital camera and adding a ‘superblue’ filter, the NDVI can be calculated with just a little bit of image processing.

The folks behind this have put up a Kickstarter with rewards including a modified webcam, a custom point and shoot camera, and a very low-cost source of one of these superblue filters. Just the thing to see how your garden grows or how efficiently you can kill a houseplant.

USB Infrared Receiver Looks Good Sitting In Your Livingroom

June 8, 2013 by 7 Comments

usb-ir-receiver

The problem with building your own electronics for the living room is that the final product may not fit your decorating style. This was true with [Itay’s] prototype of a universal USB IR receiver. So after testing it out for a few weeks he decided to build a final version that started by selecting an enclosure he could be proud of.

He came across an LED flash light at the dollar store which has an aluminum body. When we read about this we envisioned a cheap version of a Mag Light from which he removed the cylinder that holds the batteries. But actually, the pod seen above is the entire flashlight (with an added base). It forced him to design a tiny surface mount PCB to fit everything inside.

It’s not too much of a stretch since IR receivers tend to be small anyway. [Itay’s] design put a PIC 18F2553 on one side of the board. The other side hosted the through hole components: an IR receiver, LED for feedback, and the connections for the USB cable that exit through the rubber button cover that used to switch the flashlight on. He had a problem with one of the resistor values which took a while to figure out. But eventually he got it working. It’s been in use now for six months.