Timothy Wisdom’s D’Groove is a digital haptic force feedback turntable. D’Groove takes digital music control further than products like FinalScratch. The platter has four divisions marked on it;  each line represents one beat in a measure. Every time the record makes a full rotation it plays a full measure. The force feedback allows you to actually feel where the beats are.

The Q-Slider represents where in the song you are. As the song progresses, the slider moves to match. If you grab the handle it’s like picking up the record needle. Sliding the handle you can feel the intensity of the track. There are a lot of other features and possibilities that I haven’t covered. Check out the video on the site to see it in action.

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The transform switch on a mixer is used to turn ON and OFF individual channels. The toggle switches used in the DJM-707 are three position switches, but their plastic caps limit them to only two positions. [Sp4rk] removed the switches from the unit, wired the other off position, and trimmed the cap. After this modification the switches have an OFF-ON-OFF motion. Here’s an MP3 of Sp4rk scratching with the new modification and a Coral cache of the transform modification.

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[hb] was having some serious issues with noise in the power line communication of his X10 home automation system. He decided to switch to an all RF module system eliminating the need for power line communication. While trying to improve his reliability he built a data logger. It is constructed out of a LEGO RCX and an X10 universal module. Once the RCX is set to listen it records every time that the module activates. A script is used to tell the universal module to trip at regular intervals. Missing time steps in the RCX’s log relate to missed commands. If you’re interested in home automation you should check our previous story and its comments.

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[Mojo Jojo] mentioned this link in yesterday’s comments. It’s really simple and the author has expanded the description since it was featured on Slashdot. The hack describes how to wire sets of red, green, and blue LEDs with the goal of producing all possible colors. Definitely a cool effect with minimal effort, a good starter project. Not sure if kits are still being sold, but they should save you some money on parts. Can someone come up with an adaptive color controller for this?

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[Clinton Mann] sent in how he built a rack mount stereo. I’d normally pass this to the links, but it was so heavily photographed, had a price list, and covered the problems encountered, I couldn’t pass it up. It really is as simple as you think of course the bizarre justification and results video really help sell it. Any other must haves for a data center?

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Here’s the latest entry in “future robot overlord watch”. Each stick is driven by a pneumatic cylinder. The control is generated using a midi file as the source. The system is completely modular. You assign instruments to individual channels based on what you have so it should be able to play any kit. My favorite quote from the FAQ: Q: What do you use to generate the midi files? A: Google.

[thanks synth-c]

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The Atari Flashback is a game system that includes 40 original Atari 2600 games for about $30. The games are placed on a rom chip just like the original except it is soldered inside the case instead of on a cartridge. You can bypass the rom chip with a couple toggle switches and add an external cartridge adapter to play any of the original 2600 games. All of the pinouts are marked on board and the site has links to get the proper connector. Time to start hitting up ebay for the big game lots.

[thanks hk-47]

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