Super Affordable LED Lighting Ready To Go Off Mains Voltage

April 13, 2014 by 19 Comments

lights

If you’re looking for a super cheap way to add LED lighting accents to your house, then this hack is for you! Corn-cob style LED light bulbs can be had for a few dollars. The bulbs include driver circuitry, and 8 LED arrays! All you have to do is take it apart.

[Martin Raynsford] stumbled upon this idea when trying to think of a way to light his laser engraving enclosure. It originally came with a regular light bulb, but it didn’t distribute light nicely and was in the way for some of his other planned upgrades.

Not wanting to add another DC power supply to the mix he remembered an old corn-cob LED light bulb he had — as it turns out, they’re pretty easy to take apart! Solder some longer leads on (take note of how they are wired, some are in series, some in parallel) and you’ve just made yourself some easy to use LED accent lighting!

Of course you could just buy those cheap LED rolls from China nowadays for next to nothing for your accent lighting.

[via Hacked Gadgets]

Hackerspace Tour: IXR In Wall, NJ

April 13, 2014 by 20 Comments

IXR2

Update: As of 2023, IXR has been superseded by the Computer Deconstruction Laboratory (CDL). The tools and equipment have obviously seen upgrades in the intervening years since this article was originally published — CDL member Neil Cherry tells us the synths are no longer available, but there is an impressively equipped podcast studio available for rent.

Hackaday took a little trip out to Wall, NJ last weekend for the Vintage Computer Festival 9.1 East. The event was held at Camp Evans, a former US military installation that can only be described as, “The DARPA of a century ago”. This is the site of a Marconi transmitter and the place where [Edwin Armstrong] developed the regenerative receiver a little more than 100 years ago.

There’s a lot more to Camp Evans than the yearly Vintage Computer Festival. It’s also home to the InfoAge Science & History Museums, a collection of fascinating mini-museums covering topics ranging from local shipwrecks to the history of broadcast radio. It’s also the home of IXR, the Institute for eXploratory Research, a hackerspace located in the old telecom building at Camp Evans.

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Desktop Sized Tamagotchi Is Even Harder To Ignore

April 13, 2014 by 5 Comments

desktop tamagotchi

[Vadim] was feeling a bit bored at work one day and dreamed up this rather odd project. He had a spare LED matrix handy, and thought, “I should build a giant Tamagotchi…” and so he did.

In case you’re not aware, Tamagotchi’s were digital pets introduced in the late 90’s. You had to feed them, play with them and even train them — attempting to teach the responsibility of having a real pet. It was a bit of a fad, and to be honest, they were really quite annoying — but that didn’t stop [Vadim] wanting to make his own!

He’s using an ATmega328P with the Arduino boot loader at the heart of this project. The LED matrix is made of a group of four 8×8 LED modules with four shift registers (74HC595) and two Darlington transistor arrays to take the current — This is because the 256 LEDs need to be multiplexed down to 32 IO’s (16 rows + 16 columns).

Once the hardware was all done, he started coding — he’s actually coded the entire game from scratch, and while it’s not that complex it’s still an impressive amount of effort that went into this desktop sized Tamagotchi!

To see it in action, stick around after the break.

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Printing In Three Dimensions, For Real This Time

April 13, 2014 by 37 Comments

topo

3D printers don’t continuously print in three dimensions – they print one layer, then another, then another. This is true for every single 3D printing technology, but now Topolabs has a very interesting technique that changes that. They’re printing in three dimensions by moving in the Z axis while also printing in the X and Y axes.

The basic idea behind Topolabs’ software is to print a support block, then print an object right on top of the support. The support block can be curved and convex, and the finished product follows the contours of the solid support block. Unlike ‘printing with supports’, the printer extrudes along the X, Y, and Z axes, which should make the finished product much, much stronger.

There are a few drawbacks to the technique – a release agent must be applied to the top of the support block. In the video below, Topolabs is using Kapton, but hair spray or glue sticks will also work. There’s also a limit to how steep an incline a printer can print, determined by the size of the extruder nozzle. Lastly, this technique would be much better suited for a delta-style bot, but the team is getting very good results with a normal Cartesian bot.

You can see a few videos of the Topolabs printing technique below.

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The Ultimate Workstation That Folds Up

April 13, 2014 by 19 Comments

ultimate maker station

Looking for an easy way to keep on making stuff even though you’re living in a tiny dorm room? [Matt Silver] was tired of not having a dedicated work-space, so he spent some serious time designing this modular, re-configurable and collapsible portable workstation ready for almost anything.

He started out by sketching ideas, playing around with 3D models in SketchUp, and eventually building a few prototypes using trial and error — and what he’s come up with is pretty darn impressive. It folds down to just under a foot by three feet squared and has casters to roll it around. Once unfolded, you stabilize it by placing your chair on one of the walls that folds down, and the desk itself is also re-configurable for different work surfaces. He’s included a power bar, an LED work-light, and it even has storage racks for tools on the side.

It’s a very thorough Instructable, and definitely worth a look through — especially to see how it magically unfolds! And if you’re wondering about how much it would cost to build, you’re probably looking at around $200 depending on what you already have on hand. What we really like is how it’s almost entirely made out of a single 4’x8′ panel of plywood — it’s like this guy works for IKEA or something!

Sewing Conductive Thread In Parallel Lines

April 12, 2014 by 5 Comments

[Cynthia] has shared a great video of  machine sewing parallel lines of conductive thread onto ribbon using a cording foot which usually comes standard with most machines. This technique could be particularly useful when using addressable LEDs like a NeoPixel to get the ground, data, and positive lined up fairly accurately. Sewing the conductive thread onto ribbon also makes it a hell of a lot easier to attach to many garments or textiles,  and also makes it easier to replace or reuse.

The method is pretty easy, essentially using the grooves in the cording foot to guide the conductive treads and ensuring even spacing. Two of the lines are sewn down approximately 3 mm apart using a zigzag stitch. The third line is sewn separately making sure the stitching doesn’t break the first two lines. In the video, a striped ribbon is used which has slight troughs that additionally helps the threads stay in place and the sewer to stay on target.

[Cynthia] of Cynthia Designs Studio has been experimenting with embedding electronics in textiles and has quite a few great videos that you can check out on the Cynthia Designs Studio YouTube channel.

We have seen a machine embroidered LED matrix and a hand sewn LED quilt here on Hackaday, but those who have tried know that conductive thread can be very tricky to work with and keep conductivity.  Do you have any tips or tricks for hand or machine sewing conductive thread? If so, please share in the comments below.

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Turn Your Drill Press Into A Bobbin/Spindle Sander

April 12, 2014 by 18 Comments

drill press ander

Drill presses are a staple tool of the typical garage — they aren’t too expensive and are indispensably useful — but have you ever thought of turning it into a spindle sander?

You can buy drum sander kits fairly cheap, but the problem is they’re really difficult to use and really messy too — you’ll have sawdust everywhere in no time. What [Carl’s] done here is created a wood box for his drill press with different size holes for each drum sander bit. By attaching a vacuum cleaner to the box, you can clean up your mess while you’re still doing the work.

Just a note — drill presses aren’t designed to take radial loads like a mill is. If you’re planning on doing some really heavy sanding, adding a bolt through the entire drum sander bit and then coupling it with a fixed bearing inside of your box might be a good idea.

It’s a pretty simple hack, but could save you an additional power tool, and space on your work bench! Have a drill but no drill press? No problem.