3 Hours Until Collabatorium

July 8, 2015 by 2 Comments

This is your 90-minute warning. This week’s Collabatorium begins in just 1.5 hours and you’re invited. To join in just click the “Request to join this project” found on the left sidebar of the Hacker Channel page.

Once you’ve joined you can open up the Group Messaging for that project, one of the many awesome collaboration features on Hackaday.io. Starting at 1700 UTC we’ll launch the Collabatorium to celebrate, discuss, encourage, and find partners for 2015 Hackaday Prize Entries. This edition of the live event is hosted by [Sophi Kravitz] and [Jasmine Brackett].

vote-shortWhile we have your attention, here’s another reminder to head on over and Vote in Astronaut or Not. Each week we draw a random hacker number for a $1000 giveaway, but only if you have voted!. The next drawing is TODAY so get at least one vote in right away to qualify.

The 2015 Hackaday Prize is sponsored by:

Insane 33 Port USB Charger

July 8, 2015 by 67 Comments

Like it or not, Hackers gonna hack. And when your hackerspace has someone who looks like Doc Brown from Back to the Future, the builds can get a bit weird, like this Hack42 FestivalCharger.

The Hack42 hackerspace in Arnhem, The Netherlands had collected a large number of TP-Link 5V USB chargers – but all of them had the North American NEMA plug (flat, 2 pin) which wouldn’t fit the Schuko sockets prevalent in The Netherlands. [Simon “MacSimski” Claessen] decided to whip out his giant soldering iron and use it to solder two long pieces of welding filler metal rods to 33 of the chargers, effectively wiring them up in parallel. He did apply his obvious skill and experience to good use. For one, the diameter of the filler metal rods he used were just about the right size to fit in the Shucko Schuko socket. And the gap between the two turned out to be the right distance too, thus creating a sort of Schucko Schuko plug. All that was needed to power up all the chargers was to connect a socket extension to the FestivalCharger. The unit was built to allow crowds of festival-goers to charge their phones and battery-powered gadgets simultaneously. To make sure the visitors didn’t get electrocuted, he used a piece of PVC pipe to cover up the exposed pins and keep it all safe.

Thanks to Hack42 member [Dennis van Zuijlekom] for sending in this tip.

Legit Hack Creates TEA Laser Power By Mr. Wimshurst

July 8, 2015 by 31 Comments

It’s a bit scary what you can make with stuff found in the average household, provided you know what you’re doing. How about a TEA laser? Don’t have a high-voltage power supply to run it? Do what [Steven] of rimstar.org did, and power it with a homemade Wimshurst machine.

TEA lasers give off ultraviolet light. In order to see the beam, [Steven] aims it through a glass of water tinted with highlighting-marker juice and onto a sheet of white paper. [Steven] originally used his homemade 30kV DC power supply to light up his TEA laser. He made the laser itself from aluminium foil, angled aluminium, transparency sheets, some basic hardware components, and a 100kΩ resistor.

Although the components are simple, adjusting them so that the laser actually works is quite a feat. [Steven] says he burned holes through several transparencies and pieces of foil before getting it right. Using a Wimshurst machine to power the TEA laser takes another level of patience. It takes about 25 cranks of the static electricity-producing machine to build up enough energy to attempt lasing.

Want to make your own TEA laser, perhaps in a different configuration? [Steven]’s design was based on one of [sparkbangbuzz]’s lasers, which we covered several years ago.

Continue reading “Legit Hack Creates TEA Laser Power By Mr. Wimshurst” →

Coin-Op Weather

July 8, 2015 by 1 Comment

When you have access to your own CNC machine, you tend to make stuff first and ask questions later. That sounds like how [Rui Cabral] came up with a weather station stuffed into a miniature arcade game cabinet.

arcade28Standing only about 16 cm tall, the cabinet is quite detailed and resembles the familiar arcade form factor that has consumed countless quarters. It even appears to be made of particle board like the big boys. The screen cutout is filled by a 84×48 monochrome Nokia display, and the rest of the cabinet’s interior is stuffed with a CNC-milled PCB, temperature and humidity sensors, an RTC, and a Bluetooth module for uploading data to a phone. [Rui] even manages to work in an homage to the grand-daddy of all arcade games with a Pong splash screen.

Another good-looking display for this project might have been this ePaper badge made into a weather station. And we’ve featured even tinier arcade cabinets too, though perhaps not as functional.

[Rui] takes us on a video tour of his build after the break.

Continue reading “Coin-Op Weather” →

Hackaday Prize Entry: Bone Conduction Headphones

July 7, 2015 by 46 Comments

Beats headphones are very popular, they’re everywhere, and they sound like trash. That’s a shame, because there’s a century of recorded music out there that sounds really good. [WΛLLTΞCH] forgot about [Dre] and started looking into a better way to listen to music. He came up with bone conduction transducers and started one of the most interesting projects for this year’s Hackaday Prize.

Instead of driving a speaker cone that vibrates the air, passes through the middle ear, and vibrates the eardrum, bone conduction amplifiers bypass the outer and middle ear completely. Not only does this produce a clearer reproduction of sound, but it’s also great for anyone with an abnormality in the ear canal, ear drum, or the tiny bones of the inner ear.

[WΛLLTΞCH]’s first prototype is using a bone conduction amplifier and a cheap Bluetooth module, stuffed into a small 3D printed case. With two 1W transducer modules, it was enough for a proof of concept. The final design is vastly more integrated, with a dedicated Bluetooth audio module. To this, [WΛLLTΞCH] is adding microphones and the ability to take calls over Bluetooth. It’s a great project, and something that could make a great product, something we’re also looking for in this year’s Hackaday Prize.

The 2015 Hackaday Prize is sponsored by:

Bread Online

Bread Online Is A Bread Maker For The Internet Of Things

July 7, 2015 by 17 Comments

An engineering student at the University of Western Macedonia has just added another appliance to the ever-growing list of Internet enabled things. [Panagiotis] decided to modify an off-the-shelf bread maker to enable remote control via the Internet.

[Panagiotis] had to remove pretty much all of the original control circuitry for this device. The original controller was replaced with an Arduino Uno R3 and an Ethernet shield. The temperature sensor also needed to be replaced, since [Panagiotis] could not find any official documentation describing the specifications of the original. Luckily, the heating element and mixer motor were able to be re-used.

A few holes were drilled into the case to make room for the Ethernet connector as well as a USB connector. Two relays were used to allow the Arduino to switch the heating element and mixer motor on and off. The front panel of the bread maker came with a simple LCD screen and a few control buttons. Rather than let those go to waste, they were also wired into the Arduino.

The Arduino bread maker can be controlled via a web site that runs on a separate server. The website is coded with PHP and runs on Apache. It has a simple interface that allows the user to specify several settings including how much bread is being cooked as well as the desired darkness of the bread. The user can then schedule the bread maker to start. Bread Online also comes with an “offline” mode so that it can be used locally without the need for a computer or web browser. Be sure to check out the video demonstration below. Continue reading “Bread Online Is A Bread Maker For The Internet Of Things” →

Headphone Amp Features A Tiny CRT

July 7, 2015 by 40 Comments

[ErikaFluff] needed an amp for her Grado open cans. Rather than build yet another boring black box, she built what may be the most awesome headphone amp ever by adding a tiny CRT which displays the current audio waveform. She packaged all this up in a customized Hammond box which makes it look like it just rolled off the line from some audiophile studio.

The amplifier in this case is based upon the CMoy, a common headphone amp design. [ErikaFluff] added a MOSFET on the output to drive his relatively low impedance (32 ohm) Grado headphones with reasonable volume. The CRT is from an old video camera viewfinder. Before LCDs were advanced and cheap enough to include in video cameras, CRTs were the only show in town. These tiny black and white screens use high voltage to scan an electron beam across a phosphor screen just like their bigger brethren.

In action! - ImgurSince she was going with an oscilloscope style vector scan rather than the raster scan the screen electronics were originally designed for, [ErikaFluff] had to create her own horizontal and vertical deflection circuits. Horizontal scan is created by a 555 timer generating a sawtooth wave at 75 Hz. Vertical deflection is via an LM386 driving a hand wound impedance matching transformer. The high voltage flyback transformer and its associated driver circuit were kept from the original CRT, though repackaged to make them as small as possible.

You might think that having a few thousand volts next to a sensitive audio amplifier would cause some noise issues. We also worried a bit about shorts causing unexpected shock treatments through the wearer’s ears. [ErikaFluff] says there is no need to for concern — the signal is fed to the CRT circuit through optocouplers. The audio circuit is also electrically split from the CRT and runs on a virtual ground. Judicious amounts of shielding tape keeps the two circuits isolated.

This may not be the most practical project, but we think it’s pretty darn cool. The response over on Reddit’s electronics subreddit seems to be positive as well. We hope [ErikaFluff] is sitting down when this post gets published!