We don’t usually go for commercial products, but this one (try the Internet Archive version) caught my eye. This fan is actualy a subwoofer. The blades spin at a constant rate and the blades are servo actuated to produce sound from 0Hz(don’t look at me like that) up to 40Hz according to the spec. I don’t know if I’d want one too badly, it might be dangerous in the wrong hands.
The true test of the amateur astronomer is building their own telescope. Grinding and polishing your own mirrors is a long, arduous process. Instead of lapping the blank by hand, Laurie Hall built this mirror grinding machine from scratch. His site has notes covering his mirror creation machines and other projects.
I’ve been searching for a particular old school hack and ran across this little gem. I don’t know why I’m so intrigued by tube amps.. the high voltage, the glow, the power – oh yeah, never-mind. One of the most expensive parts of a tube amp is the transformer. They scored a pair of mono-block amps and walk us through replacing virtually every part except the transformers. My problem? I need at least 6.
A decent signal generator is handy for tuning electronic projects. [SC] sent in this AVR signal generator. The parts count is really, really low. An ATMega8 is the core, and a shift register runs the LCD. Everything else is is built from simple components. The PCB is double sided, so it’s probably the biggest stumbling block. (But you can probably get away with making jumpers instead of etching both sides.)
[We’ll be heading out to Toorcon later this week, so send if tips early if you got em.]
I finally managed to pick up the 7×10 mini-lathe (on sale!) I mentioned in the diy dive light post. Seriously, there are more mods for this thing than a DS. There’s a great introduction to this handy tool over at mini-lathe.com. I’ve been looking over the mods for a while to build up my buying furvor. Bill exploited the cycle of florescent lighting to make a simple tachometer. Dave streched his (Now there’s a kit for this from the little machine shop.) I’m thinking that I’ll whip up a pic/LED tachometer for my first mod.
This mini-itx mod is pretty slick. It looks great, but inside you’ll find no less than five mobos, an ethernet switch complete with five hard drives. The controller is a Via PD1000 and the four slave machines are Via V8000As.
[yeah, I forgot to publish it earlier. Four words: Two Week Old Baby.]
Jared at inventgeek did aninterview and HAD got some screen time. You can catch it here. We get mentioned near the end. Jared, your office is way too clean.
