Knit Touchpad

[Plusea] made her own touchpad using some anti-static gloves and an Arduino. This proof of concept is fairly small, but the system could be scaled quite large if you could find the fabric. She cut apart the anti-static glove, mounted it and wired it to the Arduino. A special piece is made to fit over the finger that is also wired to the Arduino. The location of where she touches is determined by the resistance between the finger and each corner. Watch the video on the instructable to see how it measures.

She mentions that there are a few different ways to build it, some which would not require anything on your finger, but would use another piece mounted behind the touchpad. The method she is currently using though, would allow for the fabrick to be any size or shape, even molded around something.

How-To: Web Server On A Business Card (Part 2)

This mini web server is slightly smaller than a business card. There are a lot of tiny one-board servers out there, but this is probably the smallest you can etch and solder at home. Unlike many embedded web servers, files are stored on a PC-readable SD card, not in a difficult-to-write EEPROM. Read on for the web server design, or catch up on PIC 24F basics in the previous article: Web server on a business card (part 1).

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Arcade Button Monome: Moanonme

[Johan Larsby] built this pretty cool Monome clone. He was starting with a kit to build an Arduinome, but had issues getting his LED matrix to work correctly. After digging around in some old parts and hacking together some custom LED arcade buttons, he ended up with the Moanonme.  Be sure to check out the video after the break.

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Underwater ROV

[SpaceShipOne] has built this very nice looking under water ROV.  It is still a work in progress, but nearly complete.  This ROV is a fairly simple construction. most of the body parts are held together using zip ties.  There’s no microcontroller and no custom boards.  He’s using a radio control transceiver that was intended for airplanes to control some standard speed controllers and servos.  For thrust, he pulled the motors out of some bilge pumps and fitted them with propellers.  He’s only tested it once, but promises videos from the lake soon.  He mentions [Jason Rollette] several times since [Jason] has done both simple and complex designs in the past.

Laser POV Projector

[shakirfm] sent us this LED persistence of vision (POV) laser projector that can display dot matrix style text. The laser projector contains a rotating mirror assembly and 5 lasers. We’ve covered other POV projectors,but this one is a bit different. The mirror assembly rotates using two cooling fans. Controlling on/off times of the lasers along with the mirror speed, it is able to project 8×5 dot matrix ASCII text onto a surface.
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Parts: LM317 Adjustable Voltage Regulator

Every project needs a power supply. As 3.3volt logic replaces 5volt systems, we’re reaching for the LM317 adjustable voltage regulator, rather than the classic 7805. We’ve found four different hobbyist-friendly packages for different situations.

A simple voltage divider (R1,R2) sets the LM317 output between 1.25volts and 37volts; use this handy LM317 calculator to find resistor values. The regulator does its best to maintain 1.25volts on the adjust pin (ADJ), and converts any excess voltage to heat. Not all packages are the same. Choose a part that can supply enough current for your project, but make sure the package has sufficient heat dissipation properties to burn off the difference between the input and output voltages.

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Broken LCD TV Turned Into A Light Table


[Steve DiRaddo] sent us this sweet little mod. After obtaining a free LCD TV that had a cracked screen, [steve] immediately tore it open to re purpose it. The end result was a computer controlled light table with audio. From what he says, it is very very bright due to the fact that it has 16 CFL tubes behind it as opposed to the usual 2 inside a PC monitor. The TV had a bult in RS232 command port. Whith some quick hacking, he was able to control power, channel, input, and volume via his laptop.