[joevennix]’s digital picture frame for Mother’s day is really an update to a previous how-to he wrote. The original shows you how to build a digital photo frame using a Juicebox media player. His version doesn’t require the MP3 addon (it would make it easier) since he connects the SD card directly to the header. His latest features a much better case and hideaway controls. He admits that he still can’t cut a matte worth a darn.
This project is designed to fade between seven different colors using an RGB LED. To keep things simple, Flakko decided to avoid PWM using a microcontroller. He used a binary counter to cycle through the color sequence. To do the fading between colors he added an RC filter. It’s a pretty simple device and the parts are more common than the ones in the Bit-tech article he referenced. YouTube video of the fader.
[thanks Javier Flores]
[Andrew Pollack]’s supersized iPod remote control isn’t the most technical hack around, but I’m sure his 87 year old father-in-law is very appreciative. He’s losing his vision rapidly and is finding it difficult to operate a tape player when listening to audiobooks. Andrew decided that the solution was to load up an iPod with a lot of books and then make a large tactile control for it. He purchased a JBL On Stage II sound dock with remote. The dock has built in speakers and keeps the iPod charged while in use. He put the remote in a larger box and connected buttons with unique shapes and high contrast colors. This makes the controls easy to remember, even if you can’t read the labels.
I usually don’t post Engadget material since they get more traffic than us, but with all the E3 coverage going on I wanted to make sure Will’s iPod dock project got the attention it deserves. Will had originally planned on doing this all in one post, but there ended up being so much material we had to do it in four. The idea was to breakout all of pins in the dock connector into usable connections: everything from line-out to USB to serial. Even if you don’t have (or even like) an iPod you might find this project interesting because it’s really a tutorial on board design in disguise. Part 1 covers how to create a new component in EAGLE. Part 2 has how to create the schematic. Part 3 shows how to generate and tweak the board layout. Finally in Part 4 he goes through the process of actually etching the boards. What’s next? Well a decent case would be nice; which seems like perfectly good excuse for Will to build vacuum table. Look for that in the future.
So, you’ve got an itching desire to inflate 150 helium balloons, but have no idea what to do with them afterwards? Well, readers Stefan and Michel decided to build a simple aluminum frame to mount a cheap digital camera and do some aerial photography. Instead of building a complex timing system they just attached a strong motor from a security camera. It’s powered by a AA and is geared really low so it only triggers the shutter every 12 seconds. They deployed the rig from the fortifications surrounding Wilemstad in the Netherlands. There are several pictures of the city (and the occasional envious child) on their site. If you follow the “continue reading” link you’ll see a couple more pictures of the camera mount.
todbot has developed a MIDI interface for the Roomba. RoombaMidi is an OSX application that acts as a virtual MIDI interface. It can be used by any standard MIDI sequencer and supports up to a 16 vacuum orchestra. It can even turn the vacuum motor on and off for a bass drum effect. I guess the circuit benders have a brand new toy on there hands, but who will be the first great Roomba artist?
[thanks Mike Kuniavsky]
We saw Amal Graafstra, the author of RFID Toys, at Maker Faire. Even though we spent most of the time at his booth poking at the RFID tags embedded in his hands we did remember him mentioning that he would be releasing a free bonus chapter. The first chapter of the book shows how to connect an RFID reader to your home automation system for front door access control. The free bonus chapter describes how to build a standalone system for operating a single deadbolt. The Powerbolt deadbolt he chose makes this project pretty easy since it already has marked solder pads for open and close. A BASIC Stamp 2 is used to read the tags and operate the lock.
