Candlestick Phone Goes Modern.

September 1, 2011 by Jack Buffington 10 Comments

[Adam Ben-Dror] recently tipped us off to a project that he worked on recently. In this build he gutted an old candlestick-style phone and added modern technology to make it work as a cordless phone. We really liked this project because he married together new and old technology into an elegant package. There are a few hacks that he had to perform to get this to work. One was converting the rotary pulses into DTMF tones. The other was making the cordless phone that he gutted recognize when the phone was on or off of the hook.

Details of his build after the break. Continue reading “Candlestick Phone Goes Modern.” →

Retractable IPad Dock For The Kitchen

August 30, 2011 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

[Evan Flint] and his wife use a lot of online recipes in the kitchen. Rather than printing them out, they bought an iPad as a cooking companion. But in their cramped kitchen he needed to find a place for the high-end hardware that is out-of-the-way yet accessible. Some head scratching and parts bin diving led to this under-cabinet iPod dock.

The dock itself is a cradle made out of sheet aluminum. After cutting to shape, [Evan] bent up the sides and bottom to center the iPad. Since this is not a permanent fixture he needed to make the cradle collapsible. He used a CAD program to design the base tray to let the cradle lay flat, while giving several options to the angle when it is in use. Once the cooking is done just fold it up and the drawer slides make for easy under-cabinet storage.

Because he doesn’t own the house he didn’t want to make permanent alterations to the cabinet. But he does lament the unfinished look of the drawer slides. We’d just grab some pre-finished oak crown molding from the home store and wrap the entire thing. The left-edge of molding could slide out with the cradle when in use.

A Cat Elevator, For The Discerning Lazy Feline In Your Life

August 29, 2011 by Mike Nathan 36 Comments

Ah, to live the life of a cat. The lazing about, the food delivered on demand, and the elevators – oh the glorious elevators.

No you didn’t misread and we haven’t gone crazy. We were sent a link to the video below just the other day, and while it is nearly two years old, it was new to us. From the very brief description on YouTube, it looks as if the elevator senses the cat’s entry using infrared, locking the door behind the cat before transporting it to another level of the house. While it’s often implied that cats are incredibly lazy, this contraption definitely takes things above and beyond the norm.

It’s a pretty ridiculous system if you ask us, but it’s pretty compelling just the same. If you can find any more information on it, we’d love to hear about it in the comments. If you can’t, feel free to speculate as to how you would build a cat elevator, or elaborate on the crazy contraptions you’ve built for the lazy felines in your life.

Continue reading “A Cat Elevator, For The Discerning Lazy Feline In Your Life” →

Controlling Dioder Light Strips Wirelessly

August 25, 2011 by Mike Nathan 1 Comment

dioder_universal_io

[SeBsZ] does a lot of work in home automation, using Xbee modules, LEDs, and other home lighting systems. Naturally, people look to him for help with different electronics projects, but one thing he has been asked time and time again is if he can make a simple mood lighting solution that can be easily installed.

He has always been interested in playing around with RGB LEDs, but he wasn’t looking to reinvent the wheel with this project. Instead he based his work off the Ikea Dioder product, an off-the-shelf set of adjustable LED strips. As we’ve seen before, the control module for these LEDs leaves a bit to be desired, so he removed the Dioder’s onboard PIC and wired up a controller of his own. His “Universal IO Board” uses an Atmega88 for control and has all the pins required to attach an Xbee wireless module. With everything wired up, he now has full wireless control of the Dioder light strips, without a ton of fuss.

Although he’s selling a few different hardware kits, the schematics for his IO board are freely available on his site, should you want to make your own. The only thing that we didn’t see was the code for the Atmega, but we’re guessing he has that posted somewhere as well.

Zigbee Home Automation Gives Us Another Reason Not To Get Up

August 24, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 27 Comments

[Russell] sent in a neat home automation project he’s been working on. Even though the project only has two devices so far, we can already see the potential of his project.

Instead of the X10 standard that has been a staple of home automation for more than 30 years, [Russell] went with ZigBee modules. Aside from being much faster and more flexible than X10 home automation modules, ZigBees also open up a bunch of projects that would be impossible if he went with X10. With some well-placed IR transmitters hidden in his living room, it would be possible to have a TV and cable box controlled via the Internet.

So far, [Russell] built an network-controlled RGB ‘mood lamp’ and an infrared remote for his central air. Everything is controlled through a web app, and [Russell] says that additional modules can be easily added to the code.

Check out [Russell]’s demo of his project after the break.

Continue reading “Zigbee Home Automation Gives Us Another Reason Not To Get Up” →

The Dish-o-Tron 6000 Is Back And Better Than Ever

August 24, 2011 by Mike Nathan 30 Comments

dish_o_tron_6000_extreme

When designing a circuit on the bench, sometimes things work far better than they do in real life. [Quinn Dunki] learned this lesson over the last few months as she struggled with one of her recent creations, the Dish-o-Tron 6000. We featured the Dish-o-Tron back in April, and at that point things seemed to be working out well for [Quinn]. As time passed however, she found the device to be an unreliable power hog. Aside from eating through a battery every few weeks, it kept spontaneously switching states from ‘Dirty’ to ‘Clean’ and back. It was time to take the Dish-o-Tron back to the bench for some debugging.

The random status flip from ‘Dirty’ to ‘Clean’ was a relatively easy fix, and required a small capacitor between the set pin and ground to eliminate the electrical noise that was tripping things up. She nailed down the spontaneous ‘Clean’ to ‘Dirty’ flip to a stuck tilt switch, which she swapped out for a mercury-based model, making things far more reliable. She solved her battery problems by wiring in a 12v wall wart, which might not be any more energy efficient, but it does save her from swapping out batteries all the time.

It’s always nice to see how projects evolve over time, and how the inevitable bugs are worked out of an initial design.

Winterizing: Keeping The Drafts Out Of Double-hung Windows

August 23, 2011 by Mike Szczys 22 Comments

[Rumplestiltskin] has had work done on his double-hung windows to help prevent drafts and keep them in good working order. But there are still a few that rattle, and let in the cold of winter. Not this year; he’s added a small feature to the jamb that will keep out the cold weather.

A pair of jointing blocks were added to each window. The small block seen above is attached to the window jam with a couple of all-purpose screws, and hosts a machine screw which points toward the window frame. Since there is weather stripping between the two window frames, and between the frame and the outer jamb, tightening this screw will snug the frames up to close any small gaps. This has the unintended consequence of prohibiting the window from being opened (unless you don’t mind scraping the paint as the machine screw slides across the wood). But if only used in the winter months this is a viable solution.