Taste-O-Vision Is Now A Thing

February 27, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 26 Comments

taste

Not satisfied with late 1950s concepts of Smell-O-Vision [Nimesha] has created something extraordinary: A digital taste sensor, capable of representing taste with a little bit of heat, electricity, and an Arduino

The device purportedly works by via thermal and electrical stimulation of the tongue using silver electrodes. According to this video, different tastes are created with different currents and temperatures. For example, a sour taste is produced on the electrodes by varying the current from 60uA to 180uA and increasing the temperature up to 30 degrees C. Mint is produced by simply decreasing the temperature from 22C to 19C.

The control electronics include an Arduino, a motor controller, and a heat sink attached to one of the silver electrodes. Communication is done through USB, and of course there’s a mobile app for it, more specifically a protocol called Taste Over IP. This allows anyone to send a taste to anyone with one of these devices.

Videos below, and before you laugh, we’d really like to try one of these out.

Thanks [Jess] for the tip.

Continue reading “Taste-O-Vision Is Now A Thing” →

RFID Keepsake Box Is Sweet And Secure

February 27, 2014 by James Hobson 17 Comments

box-tag-top

[Mike Buss] wanted to make his girlfriend something unique for her upcoming birthday — she had mentioned she wanted something to keep small mementos in, but [Mike] decided to step it up a notch on the awesomeness scale.

You see, a few years ago [Mike] read about the Reverse Geocache Puzzle by [Mikal Hart], which is an awesome box that gives you feedback as to how far away you are from the “secret” location that the box will open at — To raise the stakes however, if you ask for the distance more than 20 times it locks itself forever! Now, unfortunately, a memento box wouldn’t be very useful if you had to go to a secret place every time you wanted to open it… so [Mike] decided to secure it another way, using RFID!

It makes use of an Arduino, a Parallax RFID Reader, a micro servo, a button, an RGB LED, and a cleverly designed latch made of a metal eye hook and small copper rod. Since the box is battery powered, [Mike] has added an extremely clever fail safe mechanism. The 9V battery inside includes two extra contacts to the outside of the box via small screws. Completely inconspicuous, but if the battery is dead, simply hold a new 9V to the screws with the RFID card in place, and bam, the box opens!

We’re pretty sure she’s going to like it — check it out after the break!

Continue reading “RFID Keepsake Box Is Sweet And Secure” →

Confuse The Birds With This Daylight Simulation System

February 26, 2014 by James Hobson 38 Comments

F7WW1DAHQP02H5D.LARGE

Hackers love a challenge. So when [Patrick’s] father-in-law asked him to look into a daylight simulation system for his bird breeding cages, [Patrick] quickly discovered the ridiculous prices for commercial systems… so he convinced his father-in-law to let him design and build one instead.

Like any project, [Patrick] quickly listed the requirements of the system before starting anything.

It must brighten gradually in the morning
Stay constant throughout the day
Dim in the evening to a very low intensity

In addition to this, the lighting transition should be smooth, and the lights cannot flicker, as this can be stressful for the birds — oh, and it needs to be reliable.

To build the system, [Patrick] has chosen an Arduino Duemillenova, an RTC, a small LCD screen, some cheap LEDs from eBay and a handful of N-channel NPN transistors to provide the PWM for the LEDs. The entire system cost less than $100 — a much cheaper alternative to commercial systems.

We think the system looks great, but as a big fan of the Hack a Day community, [Patrick] would love to hear your feedback!

EL Wire Nixie Tube Is In Your Reach

February 24, 2014 by James Hobson 18 Comments

FUQ84C3HS0D05D9.MEDIUM

Nixie tubes are awesome, but sometimes a little out of reach for some makers, whether it is a matter of obtaining them, or figuring out how to drive them. The hackerspace over at H3 Laboratories decided to try making a fun alternative — EL wire nixie tubes.

[Marty] leads us through the build in a very detailed Instructable, which makes use of CoolNeon EL wire. He’s using an Arduino Uno with a CoolNeon shield to control it. The trickiest part of this build is forming the numbers to minimize the overlap — to figure this out he modeled it in Blender. He created a test jig and formed the numbers using coat hanger wire first before playing around with the EL wire.

EL wire can be soldered together — it’s just a bit of a fine art, which is explained in another detailed Instructable. To black out parts of the number and the trailing wires, [Marty] made use of black plastic dip. The numbers are mounted on a Styrofoam cylinder which fits into the bottom of a large masonry jar. It’s a great build and a fun project to get into Nixies … without actually getting into Nixies.

Stick around for a video of it in operation.

Continue reading “EL Wire Nixie Tube Is In Your Reach” →

LuxBlaster: Blast A Beam Of Light At The Most Intense Light Source

February 24, 2014 by Nick Conn 59 Comments

HighBeams

[Hazim] wrote in to tell us about his project that teaches inconsiderate drivers a lesson! Well, theoretically. The LuxBlaster is a spot light which points towards the most intense light source.

The idea is that you can blast drivers who do not turn their high-beams off with a reverse high-beam of your own. It is very important to note that this should never be used, as [Hazim] also clearly states. While this project is meant to prove that it can be done (a “what if”) project, it has two components that are very well done and can easily be used in different projects: the Arduino controlled spotlight and the light intensity tracker.

What would you use an Arduino controlled spotlight for? Smart lighting? What about a light source tracker? Let us know in the comments.

Continue reading “LuxBlaster: Blast A Beam Of Light At The Most Intense Light Source” →

An Arduino Programmable Load

February 24, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 31 Comments

Having a big block of hot to dump current into is a very useful thing to have if you’re testing batteries, power supplies, high power LEDs, electroplating, or any thing else that would normally require a huge resistor. [Jakub] found himself in need of an electronic load, and instead of a transistor and a pot, decided to make something more automatic: a programmable load built around an Arduino shield.

The idea behind this load is pretty simple: connect a device to a FET and shunt resistor to measure current. Drive the gate of the FET with an op-amp that maintains either constant current or constant voltage. Control everything with a DAC, and you have a programmable load controlled by an Arduino.

With such a small form factor, getting rid of all that heat was bound to be a problem. For this, [Jakub] is using a 50×50 mm BGA style heat sink with a 5V fan. If it’s good enough for a big CPU, it should be able to handle dumping 70 Watts into a FET. There’s also a conservative application of thermal paste and a very small thermistor underneath the FET that’s able to be read by the Arduino. It might slowly heat up your room, but it’s not going to catch fire.

With the Arduino sketches [Jakub] wrote for his load he was able to characterize a pair of Idea batteries and figure out how much charge a three-year-old recyclable battery had. It’s a great piece of work, and if [Jakub] is willing to go through the hassle of a Kickstarter, it would make a fine crowdfunded product.

SoundCube: A Companion Cube That Can Talk

February 23, 2014 by Marsh 2 Comments

sound_companionCube

The Enrichment Center likely disapproves of the SoundCube: a portal music box in the form of a Portal Companion Cube. [Andreas] finished this project a couple of years ago, but we’re glad he’s finally had time to give a rundown on the details at his blog.

The build is primarily a modified speaker box cube—constructed out of what appears to be MDF—with four Alpine SXE-1725S speakers placed at the center of the middle faces. The faces were routed out to resembled the Companion Cube, while the electronics mount and the speaker grills were 3d printed. Inside is a homemade amplifier built around an Arduino Mega, with a TDA7560 quad bridge amplifier, a TDA7318 audio processor, a Belkin bluetooth receiver, and a 3.5″ touchscreen for volume control and for input selections.

Two 12v 7.2Ah lead-acid batteries keep the cube functional for an entire weekend of partying, but probably add a few pounds to the already hefty MDF construction. Check out [Andreas’s] blog for more pictures and his GitHub for all the necessary code.