D’Groove Force Feedback Turntable

dgroove

Timothy Wisdom’s D’Groove is a digital haptic force feedback turntable. D’Groove takes digital music control further than products like FinalScratch. The platter has four divisions marked on it;  each line represents one beat in a measure. Every time the record makes a full rotation it plays a full measure. The force feedback allows you to actually feel where the beats are.

The Q-Slider represents where in the song you are. As the song progresses, the slider moves to match. If you grab the handle it’s like picking up the record needle. Sliding the handle you can feel the intensity of the track. There are a lot of other features and possibilities that I haven’t covered. Check out the video on the site to see it in action.

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OpenTracker APRS Encoder

aprs

Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) is used to transmit location and other real-time data over amateur radio frequencies. [Scott Miller]’s OpenTracker project is designed to encode the NMEA data from a serial GPS receiver for transmission. It doesn’t have to be used for GPS telemetry though, you could hook up a weather station or any other remotely located project. Scott has boards, parts and even full kits available.

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Pioneer DJM-707 Transform Switch Mod

DJM-707

The transform switch on a mixer is used to turn ON and OFF individual channels. The toggle switches used in the DJM-707 are three position switches, but their plastic caps limit them to only two positions. [Sp4rk] removed the switches from the unit, wired the other off position, and trimmed the cap. After this modification the switches have an OFF-ON-OFF motion. Here’s an MP3 of Sp4rk scratching with the new modification and a Coral cache of the transform modification.

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LCD Backlight Replacement

monitor

Backlights are one of the most common failure points on LCD panels. Even though they usually say “no serviceable parts” on the back you might still be able to fix your monitor. Jared Bouck details the removal of the dead cold cathode and replacing it with a new tube and inverter. Not quite as dangerous as opening a CRT, but you still need to be careful with the mercury vapor filled tubes.

[thanks Tom]

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Cheap Compound Microscope

microscope

[Aj] found this great article for building a really cheap microscope. The goal of the project is to construct a compound microscope that is superior to the cheap toy/children’s microscopes. Besides standard construction materials it uses the lenses from four disposable cameras. The article also covers a lot of possible improvements to the ‘scope: focus control, fine focus control, condensers, different eyepieces.

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High Altitude Linux Take 2

high altitude

[jcoxon] was inspired by the original Linux weather balloon project. His Pegasus 1 reached an altitude of 66,585ft and took over 600 pictures. The flight logging system is based on the Gumstix waysmall computer system. It captures data from the GPS receiver and controls two cameras. There are photos from both a downward facing camera and a side facing camera. Periodically the last three GPS entries are sent to Jame’s cellphone via SMS; this made recovering the payload a lot easier. There is already a second baloon planned.

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