IoT Power Strip Lets You Control All Your Holiday Lights

December 27, 2015 by James Hobson 10 Comments

As IoT devices become more prevalent in the consumer world, how long will it be before it’s cheaper to buy one, than to make one? Definitely not yet, which means if you want your very own IoT power strip — you’ll have to make your own. Good thing it’s not that hard!

[Dev-Lab] came up with this project which allows him to control several outlets with his phone. What we really like about it is that he designed a 3D printed housing that fits on the end of the power-strip. This keeps all messy wires out of sight, and it looks like it was designed to be there!

The beauty with an IoT device like this is that it doesn’t require any infrastructure besides a WiFi enabled device with an HTTP browser — the ESP8266 module means no server is necessary. An Arduino was used in the project just because it was quick an easy to do. But it really boils down to being a glorified pin expander. This could very easily be fixed by upgrading from an ESP01 to and ESP03 module to get more IO broken out on the carrier board. If you do this, let us know!

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3D Printed RC Servo To Linear Actuator Conversion

December 24, 2015 by Al Williams 23 Comments

RC servos are handy when you need to rotate something. You can even modify them to rotate continuously if that’s what you need. However, [Roger Rabbit] needed linear motion, but wanted the simple control afforded by an RC servo. The solution? A 3D printed housing that converts a servo’s rotation into linear motion.

The actuator uses five different parts, a few screws, and a common RC servo. The video shows the actuator pushing and pulling a 200g load with a 6V supply. There’s some room for adjustment, so different servos should work.

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Polarizing 3D Scanner Gives Amazing Results

December 23, 2015 by Al Williams 16 Comments

What if you could take a cheap 3D sensor like a Kinect and increase its effectiveness by three orders of magnitude? The Kinect is great, of course, but it does have a limited resolution. To augment this, MIT researchers are using polarized measurements to deduce 3D forms.

The Fresnel equations describe how the shape of an object changes reflected light polarization, and the researchers use the received polarization to infer the shape. The polarizing sensor is nothing more than a DSLR camera and a polarizing filter, and scanning resolution is down to 300 microns.

The problem with the Fresnel equations is that there is an ambiguity so that a single measurement of polarization doesn’t uniquely identify the shape, and the novel work here is to use information from depth sensors like Kinect to select from the alternatives.

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Finally, A Working Lightsaber!

December 22, 2015 by James Hobson 53 Comments

Just in time for the movie of the decade, [Allen] from [Sufficiently Advanced] has built a real working fire-based light saber. And it’s awesome.

He started out with a replica light saber and designed his own 3D printed enclosure to house a small tank with a syringe valve that goes inside the handle. This allows him to fuel it with a mixture of methanol and acetone, using butane as a propellant. He learned how to do this from [Tesla Down Under], who has some fantastic projects — most notably, flamethrowers.

A nichrome coil provides ignition for the flame, and after he got the pressure just right, it produces a pretty awesome, albeit skinny, flame-saber.

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Kate Reed: The Creative Process In Action

December 21, 2015 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

Kate Reed is an artist. Kate Reed also builds hand-driven wheelchair accessories that work with any wheelchair. Wait, what? These things don’t have to be separate skills. We’re living in the age of artisanal creation and Kate is a perfect example that you need to embody all skills. She’s an artist who follows a creative idea from inception through to implementation. Check out her talk on the Creative Process in Action from the Hackaday SuperConference, then jump past the break for some more details on what she’s been building and how she build her diverse set of skills.

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$20 Sip-and-Puff Mouse From E-Cig And 3D Printing

December 21, 2015 by Al Williams 23 Comments

At Hackaday, we think the highest form of hacking is hacking for good. Sure, it’s fun to build robots and gadgets, and universal remotes. But it is even better to create things that make people’s lives better. In that spirit, we enjoyed seeing the Assistive Tech Challenge over on Thingiverse that ended last month. The winner was [0_o] who used 3D printing and an Arduino to produce a mouth-operated mouse for under $20.

Instructions on Thingiverse can be spotty, but [0_o] did an excellent job of laying out what you need to buy and how to assemble it. One of the most interesting parts of the build is the blow sensor. [0_o] tore apart a $5 electronic cigarette and used the sensor within. The mouthpiece is moved like a joystick to actuate the cursor, and the user blows into it for the mouse clicks. Perhaps not a true sip-and-puff system but it made us wonder what other uses you might find for these sensors.

You can see a video about the mouse after the break. These kinds of projects have the power to make someone’s life better and what could be better than that?

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3D Printed Hydraulics

December 20, 2015 by Al Williams 37 Comments

[Robert MacCurdy] at MIT wants to change how people think about hydraulics. Using fluid can be very useful in systems like robots, but it is often the case that the tubing that carries hydraulic fluid is not an integrated part of the overall design. [MacCurdy] and his colleagues have modified a 3D printer to allow it directly include hydraulic components as it prints.

The idea is simple. The team started with a printer that uses a liquid ink that is UV cured to produce solid layers. The printer has the ability to use multiple liquids, and [MacCurdy] uses hydraulic fluid (that does not UV cure) as one of the print materials. Just as you can use a 3D printer to build structures within other structures, printing the hydraulics allows for complex closed systems that use the UV-cured resin as mechanical parts that can transfer pressure to and from the hydraulic system.

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