A while back, I wrote up a how-to on some mods I made to my ECM Giotto espresso machine. After giving it some break-in time, I finally wrote up my cheap plumbed in espresso trick. Plumbing kits use a $50 solenoid that requires special plumbing. My version uses a $12 fridge solenoid, easily adds on to my previous mods, and only requires some tubing size adaptation.
Li-ion For Your Roomba
[gim] gutted some li-ion laptop batteries to replace his roomba’s battery pack. He had to pick up a li-ion charger and add a protection circuit to deal with the li-ion cells, but ended up with a new lighter pack for his roomba. If you head this way, the protection circuit is a vital component to prevent fires/explisions/etc. Looks like a great resource for robot power or even R/C projects.
M3 Headphone Amp
If you’re serious about your headphone amps, you probably already know about the M3 headphone amplifier. Instead of going for the extra tiny, they’re going the ‘screw the size, it’s all about the sound’ route. Thsi thing needs a 24v .5amp power supply. Boards are available, and the discussion has gotten so long on headwize that they exceeded the maximum thread length.
I got busy with the laser last night and came up with something new: a custom etched track pad. It still works, with a bit of added texture where I introduced it to the warm glow of the laser. Hit the link for pics and a walk through.
Contactless Voltage Detection
[Tim], builder of that sweet NES pad controlled Silvia espresso machine put up an interesting idea for voltage current monitoring – at least, for AC circuits. In a nutshell, he created a mini transformer by wrapping some wire around the outside of one wire of an insulated AC power cord. Espresso machines use 120/220VAC actuated solenoids, so that’s why he’s so interested. I love the idea, since the detection circuit is just a piece of wire.
Underwater GPS (sorta)
Since water blocks the radio frequency used for GPS triangulation, GPS is considered pretty useless for SCUBA divers. Apparenlty some of them are finding it useful to waterproof off the shelf units for tracking the beginning and end of dives. (Dives in open water often involve currents that can really move you along.) To avoid any wiring, a floating case is used. When the diver wants to grab a waypoint, he/she lets the gps surface for a short while to acquire a fix. Then the diver can pull it back down and mark the waypoint or record the coordinates.
Ablative Power On My Doorstep
After months of waiting, emailing and waiting some more, I took the afternoon off to stay home and wait for this special delivery. (I had to wait an extra day due to a shipping issue!) I received three huge boxes in my workshop. Not only did I receive this (not so mini) Epilog mini 24, I put together a stand and unpacked a monster air filter.
Read on for the obligatory Hack-A-Day logo and my first impressions of this sweet piece of kit.
Laser-writing Via Vnc
Writing with a laser pointer has been done, but [Chris]’s roll your own version feeds the data the display pc using VNC. He’s got some speed issues, but I’m giving him points for most original use for remote desktop software.
