Remote-Operated Gate On A Budget

August 9, 2016 by James Hobson 30 Comments

Sometimes, a simple fix is the best solution. Lacking extra funds for a proper remote-controlled gate-opener after the recent purchase of their farm, redditor [amaurer3210] built one as a birthday gift for his wife.

Supported on pillow block housings, a 10″ wheel is connected to the motor by via a 3D printed pulley and a timing belt turned inside-out to allow for slippage — in case of obstacles or manual opening of the gate. If you’ve ever worked with belts in your builds, [amaurer3210] adds that during sizing he uses a few layers of fiberglass tape as a stand-in for the belt to avoid frustration over final belt size and tension.
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Jump In When The Water Is Just Right With A Wireless Swimming Pool Thermometer

August 7, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 21 Comments

[David]’s family acquired a swimming pool. While it’s not his favorite activity in the world, every now and then he’ll indulge in the blue plastic bin full of water occupying previously pristine land in his backyard.

As he says, cool beer is pleasant, but cool water tends to put a damper on the experience. Rather than do something pedestrian like touch the water himself to discover its temperature; he saw an opportunity for a fun little project in a wireless temperature monitor.

The heart of the device is a Telecom Design TD1208 which runs on the French SigFox network. For a small fee any device on the network can send up to 140 12byte packets of data a day. Not a lot, but certainly acceptable for the Microchip MCP9700 temperature sensor it uses. He got the board up and running, and even made his own custom helical coil antenna.

The case was 3D printed out of PLA. It’s a tiered cylindrical bobber. The wider top section floats on the water and the base acts as a ballast, holding the battery and sensor. The bobber is powered by a combination of a questionable Chinese lithium battery, charging circuit, and solar panel. [Dave] was keen to point out that the battery is, technically, water cooled.

He wrapped up the code for the bobber and used SigFox’s SDK to build a nice web interface. Now, when the rare mood strikes him, he can remain inside if the conditions aren’t right for a swim.

Arduino Replaces Bad AC Thermostat, Hacker Stays Cool

August 5, 2016 by Dan Maloney 16 Comments

Most of North America has been locked in a record-setting heat wave for the last two weeks, and cheap window AC units are flying out of the local big-box stores. Not all of these discount units undergo rigorous QC before sailing across the Pacific, though, and a few wonky thermostats are sure to get through. But with a little sweat-equity you can fix it with this Arduino thermostat and temperature display.

We’ll stipulate that an Arduino may be overkill for this application and that microcontrollers don’t belong in every project. But if it’s what you’ve got on hand, and you’re sick of waking up in a pool of sweat, then it’s a perfectly acceptable solution. It looks like [Engineering Nonsense] got lucky and had a unit with a low-current power switch, allowing him to use a small relay to control the AC. The control algorithm is simple enough – accept a setpoint from an encoder, read the temperature sensor, and turn the AC on or off accordingly. Setpoint and current temperature are displayed on an OLED screen. One improvement we’d suggest is adding a three-minute delay between power cycles like the faceplate of the AC states.

This project bears some resemblance to this Arduino-controlled AC, but it seems more hackish to us. And that’s a good thing – hackers have to keep cool somehow.

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DEFCON Thermometer

August 5, 2016 by James Hobson 22 Comments

Redditor [mulishadan] — a fan of the movie WarGames — has created a singular thermostat in the form of a Defcon alert meter.

Looking to learn some new skills while building, [mulishadan] tried their hand at MIG welding the 16g cold-rolled plate steel into the distinctive shape. A second attempt produced the desired result, adding a 1/4-inch foam core and painting the exterior. Individual LEDs were used at first for lighting, but were replaced with flexible LED strips which provided a more even glow behind the coloured acrylic. A Particle Photon board queries the Weather Underground API via Wi-Fi in five-minute intervals.

Each escalation in the Defcon alert signals an increase of 10 F, starting at Defcon 5 for 69 F and below, up to Defcon 1 for 100+ F. The final build looks like a true-to-life prop with some useful functionality that can be adapted to many different purposes — proof that a relatively simple project can still produce fantastic results for entry-level makers. So why not try making this thermostat scarf as well?

[via /r/DIY]

Home Automation Is Hung Up On Software

August 2, 2016 by Mike Szczys 98 Comments

Home automation is a favorite in sci-fi, from Tony Stark’s Jarvis, to Rosie the robotic maid on the Jetsons, and even the sliding doors pulled by a stagehand Star Trek. In fact, most people have a favorite technology that should be just about ready to make an appearance in their own home. So where are these things? We asked you a few weeks ago and the overwhelming answer was that the software just isn’t there yet.

We’re toddling through the smart home years, having been able to buy Internet-connected garage doors and thermostats for some time now. But for the most part all of these systems are islands under one roof. Automation is the topic of the current challenge for the 2016 Hackaday Prize. Developing the glue that can hold all of these pieces together would make a great entry. Why doesn’t that glue yet exist?

I think the problem is really twofold. On the one hand, there isn’t a clear way to make many devices work under one software. Second, there really isn’t an obvious example of great user experience when it comes to home automation. Let’s look at why and talk about what will eventually get us there.

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Your Laundry Is Done!

August 1, 2016 by Jenny List 20 Comments

Have you ever put a load of dirty clothing in the washing machine and set the cycle running, only to forget all about it and discover a mouldering congealed mass in the machine a few days later? [Xose Pérez] has more than once, and to stop it happening again he’s got a project that monitors the machine in his basement and notifies him when his wash is done.

At the centre of his washing machine monitor is an ITead Sonoff IoT mains on-off switch. This device contains a 10A mains relay, an ESP8266 chip to control it, and a small mains switch-mode power supply. The Sonoff doesn’t use the ESP’s ADC pins, so he’s broken one of them out on a lead to a current transformer which captures the power level being consumed by the washing machine. The Sonoff is one of those IoT devices that relies on a proprietary cloud service and doesn’t have its own API, so [Xose] has created his own firmware for it incorporating an ESP port of an Arduino current sensing library. To round off the project and because he could, he’s added an ambient humidity sensor to the device.

The resulting boxed-up unit returns minute-by-minute current readings for the entire wash cycle. To spot when the cycle has finished, he waits for a moment when it has been using no power for more than five minutes, at which point his Node-RED system sends him a notification via Pushover.

This project is a very neatly executed hack on an extremely cheap piece of hardware whose capabilities would ordinarily be somewhat curtailed due to its proprietary interface. Surprisingly it’s not the first laundry monitor we’ve seen here at Hackaday, we’ve had this apartment laundry monitor using an accelerometer and a Raspberry Pi, and a notifier for a finicky dryer that insisted on stopping mid-cycle.

DIY Smart Home Device Means No More Fumbling In The Dark

July 27, 2016 by James Hobson 24 Comments

Smart home tech is on the rise, but cost or lack of specific functionality may give pause to prospective buyers. [Whiskey Tango Hotel] opted to design their own system using a Raspberry Pi and Bluetooth device connectivity. Combining two ubiquitous technologies provides a reliable proximity activation of handy functions upon one’s arrival home.

The primary function is to turn on a strip of LEDs when [Whiskey Tango Hotel] gets home to avoid fumbling for the lights in the dark, and to turn them off after a set time. The Raspberry Pi and Bluetooth dongle detect when a specified discoverable Bluetooth device comes within range — in this case, an iPad — after some time away. This toggles the Pi’s GP10 outputs and connected switching relay while also logging the actions to the terminal and Google Drive via IFTTT.

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