Sable-Machined Slingshot Is A Composite Marvel

November 4, 2017 by 9 Comments

Armed with an overseas CNC machine retrofitted with custom electronics, [Eric] has taken to wowing us with his suite of home-fabricated slingshots. In a more recent stint, he’s just polished off his Enzo Carbon Fiber Hydra Slingshot, complete with a build log that’s loaded with step-by-step insights.

[Eric’s] build started with a few carbon panels laying dormant in his shop for half a year. After epoxying two of these boards together for added thickness, he machines them down with his retrofitted Sable-2015 “Lunchbox CNC.” His final product accepts a few press-fit inserts, a few more machined ABS edge pieces for aesthetics, and behold: a professional slingshot that’s about as beautiful as it is dangerous.

Although the Sable-2015 CNC machine (made in Taiwan) isn’t a frequent flyer here on Hackaday, it had dozens of proud owners on a few hobby machinist forums that will rave about its wares. We’re proud to see a small-but-sturdy machine that we could carry one-handed be put to such delicate work.

[Eric] could’ve had us with his Lunchbox CNC Instructable, but he’s taken his craftsmanship to the next level by leveraging his homebrew tools and living the bootstrapped-machine-shop narrative. Slingshots don’t land here too often on these pages, but if you’re hungry for another machine monster, have a look at [Dennis the Menace’s] Triple Threat.

Circuit Challenge: Two Transistor 3.3V Regulator

November 4, 2017 by 26 Comments

[Kevin Darrah] wanted to make a simple 3.3V regulator without using an integrated circuit. He wound up using two common NPN transistors and 4 1K resistors. The circuit isn’t going to beat out a cheap linear regulator IC, but for the low component count, it is actually pretty good.

In all fairness, though, [Kevin] may have two transistors, but he’s only using one of them as a proper transistor. That one is a conventional pass regulator like you might find in any regulator circuit. The other transistor only has two connections. The design reverse biases the base-emitter junction which results in a roughly 8V breakdown voltage. Essentially, this transistor is being used as a poor-quality Zener diode.

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Printed Parts Make DIY Electric Longboard Possible

November 4, 2017 by 13 Comments

Appalled by expensive electric longboards, [Conor Patrick] still wanted one, and wanted it now. So — naturally — he converted an existing board into a sprightly electric version at a fraction of the cost.

[Patrick] is using a capable 380KV Propdrive motor, capable of pushing him up to 30mp/h! A waterproof 120A speed controller and 6000mAh, 22.2V LiPo battery slim enough to fit under the board give the motor the needed juice. He ended up buying the cheapest RF receiver and remote combo to control the board, but it fit the all-important “want electric long board now” criterion.

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Fridge Alarm Speaks, And Saves Power & Food

November 4, 2017 by 21 Comments

One of the most power-hungry devices in our homes, besides the air conditioner or heater, is our refrigerator and freezer. It’s especially so if the door doesn’t close all the way or the magnetic seal doesn’t seat properly. [Javier] took to solving a recurring problem with his personal fridge by attaching an alarm to the door to make sure that it doesn’t consume any more power than it absolutely needs.

At its core the device is straightforward. A micro switch powers a small microcontroller only when the door is open. If the door is open for too long, the microcontroller swings into action. The device then powers up a small wireless card (which looks like a variant of the very well-documented ESP module), that communicates with his microwave of all things, which in turn alerts him with an audible, spoken alarm that the refrigerator hasn’t closed all the way. It’s all powered with a battery that will eventually need to be recharged.

While there are certainly easier ways to implement an alarm, the use of the spoken alarm is a nice touch for this project, and the power savings that can be realized are not insignificant. There’s also the added benefit that [Javier] can prevent his freezer from frosting over. If you’re in the mood for other great fridge hacks, there are other exciting, novel, and surely one-of-a-kind ways to trick out your refrigerator.

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Inductive Loop Vehicle Detector Gets Modernized

November 4, 2017 by 41 Comments

Much like George Lucas and the original Star Wars films, many of us may find that our passion projects are never quite finished, especially when new technology comes around or we just want to make some improvements for their own sake. [Muris] was featured a while back for a vehicle detecting circuit, but is back with some important upgrades to his project. (Which, luckily, do not include any horrible CGI aliens.)

For starters, the entire project has been reworked from the ground up. For anyone unfamiliar with the original project, the circuit detected a vehicle via an inductive loop and was able to perform a task like opening a gate. It now has two independent channels which are polled separately, yet has a reduced parts count which should make construction simpler. The firmware has also been reprogrammed, and in addition to sensing a vehicle’s presence can now also measure the speed of any vehicles passing by.

The complete list of improvements can be found on the project page, and an extensive amount of documentation is available on this if you want to try to roll out your own inductive loop vehicle detector. Of course, this isn’t the only way to detect a vehicle’s presence if inductive loops aren’t really your style.

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386 Too Much Horsepower? Try A 186, In An FPGA!

November 3, 2017 by 45 Comments

Typically when we hear the term “System-on-Chip” bandied around, our mind jumps straight to modern ARM-based processors that drive smartphones and embedded devices around us. Coming a little bit more out of left field is [Jamie]’s 80186 core, that runs on Intel FPGAs.

[Jamie] ran the core through a few vintage PC benchmarks.
[Jamie] has implemented the entire set of 80186 instructions in Verilog, and included some of the undocumented instructions too. This sort of attention to detail is important – real world parts don’t always meet the original specifications on paper, and programmers can come to rely on this. The key to compatibility is understanding how things perform in the real world, not just on the spec sheet.

Not content to simply simulate a CPU, all the necessary peripherals for a complete working system have been worked into the design as well. There’s RAM, a UART, as well as CGA graphics and a PS/2 controller that is necessary if you’d like to actually use any sort of human input device.

[Jamie] has released the code under a GPL licence, and it’s available at GitHub. It’s a good basis if you want to play around with what was once a commercial CPU at a logic level. The development guide is also available if you need to really drill down into the details. It’s a cool project, and makes a great contrast to [Jamie]’s previous work – the Oldland 32-bit core.

 

 

Mini Millennium Falcon Is Envy Of The Neighborhood

November 3, 2017 by 19 Comments

Here’s a tip for any readers who may be expecting a child in the near future: there’s about a two year period where you can basically use your child as a Halloween prop. They’re too young to express any serious interest in what they want to dress up as, and as an added bonus, they generally spend most of their time being rolled around in a wheeled contraption anyway. As long as you can keep the little one warm and securely seated in the thing, you’ve essentially got free reign to put them into all sorts of elaborate vehicles.

Case in point, the awesome build that [shnatko] has dubbed the “Millennium Flyer”. Built atop his daughter’s plastic Radio Flyer wagon, the Millennium Flyer is constructed out of wood and foam board. By using the mounting holes in the wagon originally intended for an optional canopy, the ship itself can be removed to fly again next year.

[shnatko] notes that he possess no particular talent for the fine arts, so he decided to skin his build by printing out a high resolution image of the Millennium Falcon he found online. The amount of patience (not to mention printer ink) that this method took is considerable, but we think the final results speak for themselves.

To finish off his build [shnatko] found a blue cold cathode light from his PC modding days and rigged it up with a laptop battery he had laying around. Some foam ribs and wax paper to diffuse the light give it that iconic look from the “real” Falcon.

Between this build and the AT-AT rocking horse from a few weeks back, it seems we are in the golden age of childhood Star Wars conveyances. Though we wouldn’t mind seeing this get mounted to a racing Power Wheels either.