3D Printing Vacuum Tube Sockets

January 15, 2013 by 21 Comments

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With the popularity of 3D printers and the current cult of vacuum tubes, it’s shocking we haven’t seen someone do this before.

[Peter] printed his own sockets for a few vacuum tubes he had lying around. After designing them on his computer, [Peter] printed them out on his local hackerspace’s 3D printer.

After printing out the plastic parts, [Peter] needed to add a few strips of metal for a conductor. He used a few pieces of an ATX power supply; a little difficult to fit, but something that works all the same.

So far, [Peter] has whipped up a few sockets for UX5 and VT76 tubes, UX6, B7G (7 pin mini), and B9D  Magnoval tubes. No Nixie sockets yet, but it’s enough diversity to build your own tube amp using the most common designs. Now if we could only make our own transformers with laser cutters and 3D printers…

Automating A Key Fob Camera For Time Lapse

January 15, 2013 by 15 Comments

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If you’re lofting a digital camera high into the stratosphere with a helium balloon, you really can’t do better than one of those key fob spy cameras. Being extremely lightweight with decent resolution, they’re the perfect camera to take to near space. If you’re bringing someone along to snap the pictures, that is.

[Román] wanted to take his 808 spy camera to new heights, but not wanting to manually reset the thing when it’s 100,000 feet in the air decided to use a microcontroller instead. An 8-pin PIC12F675 takes care of taking 60 pictures with a 4-second interval, then switching to movie mode and recording a 20-second video.

The entire device can be powered by 6 to 9 volts with the help of a voltage regulator. [Román] found the camera hangs after taking about 1600 photos, so a connection from the microcontroller to the reset switch was added. Everything works on the ground, so we can’t wait to see what happens miles above the Earth’s surface.

Type4me Is A Hardware Clipboard For Your Digital Copy And Paste Needs

January 14, 2013 by 41 Comments

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It doesn’t happen often, but every now and again we find ourselves wanting for a more extensible cut and paste experience. Most notably we’ve searched for something that makes is very easy to keep multiple things in the clipboard and paste them as needed. Although we’ve tried several software offerings nothing really made it up to grade, but this hardware clipboard looks very promising. [Luca Dentella] calls it Type4me as it functions as a USB keyboard.

The PIC 18F14K50 enumerates as a USB keyboard, allowing it to send characters anywhere the cursor is located. It sends whatever string is stored inside, with an optional return character at the end. In addition to its keyboard properties it also establishes a serial connection, which allows you to push new strings to the device. This setup does require you to do copy or type your strings into a serial terminal, along with one of four special commands which are parsed by the microcontroller. One of these commands allows you to save the string to EEPROM so that it will be persistent through a power cycle.

The pasting back to the computer takes a mere push of the button. We’ve embedded the video demo after the break. It’s in Italian but there are English subtitles. Near the end [Luca] shows off the device as a macro button for gaming.

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Unwrapping Images Of Cylindrical Objects

January 14, 2013 by 15 Comments

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Here’s an automated setup that lets you create flat images of cylindrical objects. The example shown above takes a creamer and lets you see what the painted pattern looks like when viewed continuously.

The image capture rig is similar to turntable photography setups that allow you to construct animated GIF files or 3D models of objects. The subject is places on a stepper motor which allows precise control when rotating the object between frames. The EiBotBoard (which we’ve seen in at least one other project) is designed for the EggBot printer. But it is used here to interface the motor and capture equipment with the Raspberry Pi.

We’re a little uncertain if the RPi actually handles the image manipulation. The project uses ImageMagick, which will certainly run on the RPi. There is a mention of the Raspberry Pi camera joing the rig as a future improvement so we do expect to see a fully-automatic revision at some point.

[via Adafruit via EMSL]

Papercraft Dial Is The Slide-ruler Of Current Limiting Resistors

January 14, 2013 by 33 Comments

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This paper dial makes selecting current limiting resistors a snap. [Giorgos Lazaridis] came up with the tool, which he describes in detail in the Worklog tab of his writeup. If you want one of your own he also posted a PDF which you can print, cut, and tack together.

At this point we can calculate resistor values for LED circuits without looking at reference material. But it wasn’t always like that. This wheel will be a fantastic tool for those just starting out in hobby electronics who are trying to grasp the theory behind lighting up a simple project. The outer wheel references the source voltage, with the inner being a gauge of forward voltage across the LED(s). Line those two values up and you can read the optimal resistor value in the window seen to the right. But wait, there’s more! As you can see in the video after the break the opposite face of the dial also includes a window which will tell you the power dissipation so that you may choose a properly rated resistor. Slick!

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Microcontroller Statistics With A Small SRAM Footprint

January 14, 2013 by 9 Comments

statistics-library-for-microcontrollers

You may know your way around the registers of that favorite microcontroller, but at some point you’ll also need to wield some ninja-level math skills to manage arrays of data on a small device. [Scott Daniels] has some help for you in this arena. He explains how to manage statistical calculations on your collected data without eating up all the RAM. The library which he made available is targeted for the Arduino. But the concepts, which he explains quite well, should be easy to port to your preferred hardware.

The situation he outlines in the beginning his post is data collected from a sensor, but acted upon by the collection device (as opposed to a data logger where you dump the saved numbers and use a computer for the heavy lifting). This can take the form of a touch sensor, which are known for having a lot of noise when looking at individual readings. But since [Scott] is using the Mean and Standard Deviation to keep running totals of collected data over time it is also very useful for applications like building your own home heating thermostat.

Deathly Hallows Mark The Passing Of Time

January 14, 2013 by 3 Comments

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Whether you’re a Harry Potter fan or not we think you’ll enjoy this Deathly Hallows clock. The body is modeled after the triangle, circle, and line that make up the symbol that played a prominent role when concluding the fantasy novel series. A bit of motion and a couple handfuls of LEDs are what allow it to display the time of day.

[Yeenasty] started by building the triangular surround out of wood. In the center he added a circular veneer which was partitioned into twelve chambers. These indicate the hour and are illuminated one at a time from midnight until noon. Once all of the LEDs are switched on (as seen above) they are then extinguish one at a time from noon until midnight. [Yeenasty] mentions that this means the clock isn’t overly bright during the night-time hours.

Minutes are displayed by the wooden slat in the middle of the ring of LEDs. Here it’s showing 30 minutes after the hour because it is vertical and the bottom red LED is lit. The hand is mounted on a 180 degree servo so when it has made half of a rotation the hand backtracks 29 minutes and the LED at the other end is illuminated to continue progress around the face of the clock.

[via Reddit]