[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.
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Real Time Gas Monitoring
With the weather getting colder, [Daniel] decided it would be a good idea to monitor how much energy his gas heating was using in real time. He used a Nokia 6680 cameraphone to monitor the heater’s flame through the sight glass. PyS60, a Symbian implementation of Python, checks the image sent by the camera and measures how much blue flame is visible. These values are stored in a SQL DB on the phone that can be polled over Bluetooth. At the end of the billing cycle, he’ll be able to correlate the amount of gas used with what the phone reported.
[Thanks, florent bayle]
Direct To Garment Printing
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3iOuKzhUlQ]
Reader [deren lik] pointed out the world of direct to garment printing to us. You can purchase commercial machines that will print directly onto a t-shirt using inkjet technology. Unfortunately, these machines cost ~$10K, so hackers have decided to fill in the gaps. DIYDTG hosts plans for how to build your own DTG printer. Their standard instructions are based around the Epson C88 printer. A custom carrier is constructed and then the printer components are bolted on top. Commercial DTG printers are also based on Epson parts and you can easily purchase the garment inks even if you didn’t pay a premium for your printer.
Daily Photo Aging Project On Steroids
We’ve seen those videos where people take a picture of themselves every day. [Dan Hanna] took it to a much further level. He built a camera rig and took pictures of himself for 17 years. That is not a typo, 17 years. The rig consists of a ring that holds two cameras opposing each other. He centers his head facing a target that he increments around the ring every day before taking a picture. The ring can be split into 4 sections for portability. Check out the low resolution video after the break.
How-To: Web Server On A Business Card (Part 1)
For years, Microchip PIC microcontrollers dominated; PIC16F84 hacks and projects are everywhere. The 8-bit 16F and 18F lines are supported by several coding environments and easy-to-build serial port programmers. Microchip’s 16-bit PIC24F is cheaper, faster, and easier to work with, but largely absent from hacks and projects.
We recently used a Microchip PIC24F microcontroller in a mini web server project, but didn’t find many introductory references to link to. In this article we’ll cover some PIC 24F basics: support circuitry and programming options. We’ll also talk about our favorite features, and how we figured them out. Our next article will outline a web server on a business card based on the PIC 24F.
Continue reading “How-To: Web Server On A Business Card (Part 1)”
Backup DVD Burning Robot
[Aaron Shephard] at mini-itx.com just finished a backup DVD burning robot based on an EPIA M10000 Mini-ITX motherboard and scavenged parts. A Perl script interacts with stepper motors, LEDs, and sensors through the parallel port on the motherboard. The robot inserts DVDs for burning, flips them for labeling, and stacks completed discs in a pile. Coasters are rejected to a ‘penalty box’ for easy disposal.
We’ve also covered some other optical disc duplicators in the past.
[thanks maxthereal]
Old School High Voltage Capacitance
What would MacGyver do if he needed a high voltage capacitor but only had some foil, tape, water, salt, a nail and a plastic jug? He would build a salt water Leyden jar, that’s what. The Leyden jar is a very simple capacitor. Invented in 1745, it has been integral to many scientific experiments. Check the wikipedia entry to learn more about the history.
This specific type is quite easy to make. It uses a salt water interior instead of foil on the inside and outside. That means you could slap one of these together in a few minutes to impress your friends and/or electrocute yourself accidentally. Please be careful as this is high voltage.
