Going For The Amateur Balloon Altitude Record

October 21, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 24 Comments

At 11 AM London time, October 22, the Sutton grammar school for boys is going to be launching Apex Alpha, a high altitude amateur balloon for an attempt at the UK altitude record. Unlike a few other balloons we’ve seen, the Apex team is doing it right and giving everyone the downlink details for the balloon.

The payload for the balloon was built entirely by student of the Sutton grammar school and weighs less than 300 grams. While it’s not carrying a camera for the all-important pretty pictures, the payload does have a GPS module and a transmitter; it’s just enough to do the required testing on the lead up to Apex III.

Right now, the UK amateur balloon record stands shy of 130,000 feet. The team gained a lot of experience with their Apex I and Apex II launches, and they’re pretty confident they have the experience to pull this one off. You can check out the progress of the Apex Alpha flight on the spacenear.us tracker. For us Yanks, the launch should start October 22nd at 6:00 am Eastern time and 3:00 in the morning for the West coast. The team says they’ll be updating that throughout the flight.

UPDATE: Apex Alpha just won’t burst. Any HAMs ~~near Berlin~~ in Eastern Europe are sorely needed. Head over to the IRC chat if you can help.

Send A Satellite Into Space For $300

October 11, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 63 Comments

There’s a new Kickstarter campaign that promises to launch a personalized satellite into orbit for 300 bones.

The KickSat project is headed by [Zac Manchester], [Mason Peck], [Justin Atchison] and a few more contributors hailing from Cornell University. Their goal is to launch a CubeSat filled with hundreds of postage stamp-sized satellites and release these ‘Sprites’ into low Earth orbit.

The Sprite concept has been in development for a while now and has been featured on IEEE Spectrum. The tiny satellites are simple PCBs with a microcontroller and a radio powered by solar cells and capacitors. The first version of the Sprite is designed to beam down a few bytes of data – just a unique identifier and a Kickstarter backer’s name. Future versions will undoubtedly include more advanced sensors such as cameras, thermometers, and very tiny particle detectors.

The KickSat team will use the funding from the Kickstarter campaign to test and integrate the systems. The team hopes to hitch a ride on one of NASAs many CubeSat launches, but if they get funding from 400 people, they’ll get to fly on a commercial launch by early 2013.

We were wondering about the amazing amount of space junk this KickSat/Sprite build will produce, but the team says not to worry: The Sprites fly in a pretty low orbit and will reenter the atmosphere a few weeks after being deployed. Not bad, considering Sputnik orbited for only 3 months.

Linear Motor Can Be Built From Trash

October 9, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 13 Comments

[Raul] built a cheap linear actuator out of a drawer slide and a surplus flatbed scanner.

A few builds we’ve seen, like the PCB drill press or the horribly inefficient thermostat, used linear actuators as key components of their builds. These linear actuators are fairly expensive compared to other parts we usually have lying around so going the homebrew route to reduce costs is always a welcome idea.

The first step of [Raul]’s build is to mount a drawer slide to a piece of wood. A stepper motor is attached to one end of the actuator and a timing belt is strung along the length of the assemblage. After a bracket is connected the drawer slide and the belt, you’ve got a very inexpensive linear motor.

In our days of dumpster diving, we can’t count the number of times we’ve passed up on drawer slides in unwanted furniture. Stepper motors, gear trains and timing belts from old ScanJets can be found for pocket change any day of the week. For cheap and accurate linear motion, we couldn’t come up with a build that does better than [Raul]’s.

Laser Etched PCB Production

September 9, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 42 Comments

Like most of us, [reonarudo] isn’t satisfied with the current methods of homebrew PCBs, so he put a laser on a reprap and started burning some boards.

The basic procedure is to cover a copper clad board with matte black spray paint. A laser was installed on the X carriage of the reprap. [reonarudo] used cad.py to convert the board files into g-code and fired up his laser. The quality of the boards is highly dependent on the accuracy of the laser so after working through some mechanical problems [reonarudo] managed to make some passable boards.

We’ve seen just about every manufacturing method imaginable applied to PCB production. Etch resist and toner transfer do the job and a reprap milling machine is pretty neat, but lasers are so much cooler. While it may not be perfect (yet), printing PCBs with a laser shows a lot of potential. Check out a video of [reonarudo]’s bot burning some copper after the break.

Continue reading “Laser Etched PCB Production” →

Putting Laptop LCDs To Use With An FPGA

September 9, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 29 Comments

We’re always impressed with the number of laptop displays we’re able to pick out of the trash. Most of the time the computer is borked beyond repair so we end up with a lot of functional but unusable LCD panels. As a service to us all, [EiNSTeiN_] figured out how to control an LCD panel using a cheap homebrew FPGA board.

LCD panels don’t use a simple protocol like VGA for turning pixels on and off. Instead, the very high-speed LVDS is used. LVDS is beyond the capabilities of simple microprocessors, so [EiNSTeiN_] built himself a clone of an XuLA FPGA prototyping board and set to work. After figuring out the signal lines to the panel, [EiNSTeiN_] pored over the timing diagrams for the LVDS controller and the LCD panel. From the data sheets, he figured out data is usually sent to the panel at about 500 MHz. The homebrew FPGA board couldn’t manage that speed so [EiNSTeiN_] cut the FPGA clock in half.

While LCD’s 60 fps refresh rate was reduced to 30 fps, [EiNSTeiN_] says there’s only a little flicker. Not bad for something that could have easily been trashed.

Controlling Samplers And Sequencers With Multitouch

September 6, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 5 Comments

When we see artists like Daft Punk or Madeon working their magic in a live setting, we’re always impressed with their controllers. Sample-based artist use controllers like the Monome and Kaoss Pad a lot, but these devices are fairly expensive. Thankfully, we live in an age of multitouch displays, so [Graham Comerford] came up with his own multitouch controller that does just about anything.

The build is based on the Kivy framework and includes a Monome emulator, MIDI drum pads, mixer, and a whole bunch of other sliders and buttons. There’s no word on how [Graham]’s multitouch display was constructed, but if you’re looking to build your own gigantic audio control setup there’s a lot of info on building Microsoft Surface clones, adapting computer monitors, and spherical multitouch rigs.

We’re not sure if [Graham]’s virtual drum kit is velocity sensitive but even if it’s not, it’s an interesting bit of kit. Check out an earlier version of his setup after the break.

Continue reading “Controlling Samplers And Sequencers With Multitouch” →

High Voltage Hacks Finale: Do Not Try This Under Any Circumstances

August 28, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 31 Comments

Over the last two weeks, we’ve seen some pretty crazy and potentially dangerous stuff, like a stun glove and modern day alchemy. For our high voltage theme finale, we couldn’t pass up [Photonicinduction]’s YouTube channel.

Best known for his self-destructing washing machine (the source of this animated .gif), [Photonicinduction] is also the brainchild behind the hair dryer flame thrower and his homemade fifty thousand amp transformer.

While we do like his Not Safe For Work ammeter (yes, it really is NSFW), some of [Photonicinduction]’s videos – charging a car battery in 4 minutes, making a kettle boil without a heater element, pressurizing coconuts to over 200 psi, and exploding rabbits – are hilariously dangerous and should not be attempted by anyone.

We need to say you should not attempt to emulate [Photonicinduction]’s hijinks under any circumstances. Cleaning up a puddle of burning gasoline with a vacuum cleaner may sound like fun, but copying [Photonicinduction] will eventually get you killed. This man must know his stuff, because we’re honestly shocked he hasn’t exploded yet. The best way to enjoy three hundred thousand volts is probably grabbing a coffee and watching [Photonicinduction]’s YouTube channel.