Simple Household Status System

February 18, 2011 by Mike Nathan 20 Comments

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[BrianH] decided that he no longer wanted to venture outside on cold or rainy days just to check if the mail had come, so he built himself a notification system that would alert him if the postman had stopped by. Additionally, he admits to being forgetful on occasion and wanted a way to monitor whether or not he forgot to close the garage door. His Instructable details how he accomplished both of these tasks with the household monitor he built around an ATmega168. His project uses a mailbox mounted photoresistor to determine when the mailbox has been opened, and a reed switch that is triggered when the garage door has been opened. If either of these things occur, a beep is emitted from his notifier, and the appropriate status LED is lit. Simply monitoring whether the garage door has been opened is not all that helpful, so he programmed his notifier to beep persistently at 10-minute intervals if the garage has been left open for more than an hour.

His hack is pretty useful, but he does mention that there is an inordinate amount of wiring that needs to be laid, citing his driveway repaving as a great opportunity to do so.

Junkyard Fish Tank

February 16, 2011 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

So your house looks like a dumping ground for useless junk? Yeah, we know it’s the hacker’s curse… you just can’t stop salvaging stuff. But follow [Pontazy69’s] lead by building something useful out of that junk. He took an old polystyrene box and made it into this fishtank. You can see that the sides and back of the box has gone unaltered, but the front wall is missing. [Pontazy69] marked and cut straight lines while leaving a lip around the edge. Silicone was used to glue some acrylic (or perhaps glass?) to the inside of this lip. Once dried he added another bead around the outside to ensure it doesn’t leak. Few fish would be happy here without some type of filter so he built one of those out of an old plastic bottle and some other pieces. See videos that show you how to build both the tank and the filter after the break.

We love aquarium hacks almost as much as clock hacks. So check out the water exchange system, and a couple of different lighting systems. Then document your own aquarium projects and let us know about them.

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Batman Inspired Hidden Light Switch

February 14, 2011 by Mike Nathan 7 Comments

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[Chris] over at the New Hobbyist sent in his latest creation, a wireless light switch hidden within a statue bust. While shopping around for another project, he came across a wireless relay that can can be used to switch a standard 120v AC load. He bought the part without a project in mind, but inspiration quickly struck. Some of you young’uns might not remember the original Batman television series, but [Chris] certainly does. To access the Bat Cave, Bruce Wayne had to flip a secret switch located inside a bust of William Shakespeare that adorned his desk. While he doesn’t have a secret door to activate, [Chris] couldn’t think of any better way to switch on the lights in his man cave. He found a similar-looking bust of Beethoven and got to chopping his head off.

He fabricated a small mount for a push button, hiding the battery powered remote underneath, and an old 12v wall wart was repurposed to drive the wireless receiver. While not overly complicated, this is definitely a fun project and could make for a neat light switch in a kid’s room. Interested in some more Batman inspired hacks? Be sure to check out this Bat Cave-style entrance switch from a few years back.

Keep reading to see a video of his hidden light switch in action.

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SMS Controlled Irrigation

February 12, 2011 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

[Mhkabir] built an irrigation system that communicates by text message. The concept is simple, sending a text message to the system will cause it to switch on the water pump.

Many times we see text message manipulation via the Internet, or using a GSM module. But in this case an inexpensive cellphone is used as the communication interface. The vibration motor has been removed and those connections are monitored to signal incoming messages. Wire leads were soldered to the keypad contacts which allow an Arduino to send out text messages when there is a problem with watering. This isn’t an iron-clad system, as any incoming message will trigger the system and outgoing messages are limited to saved drafts. But a bit of creative programming and we’re sure more functionality could be squeezed out of this hardware.

PID Controlled Bradley Smoker Clone

February 11, 2011 by Mike Nathan 21 Comments

Bradley smokers are coveted for their ease of use, as they require very little interaction from the user once the hopper is loaded with wood pucks and the machine is powered on. The more robust models are quite pricey, so [Maukka] decided to build his own version of a Bradley smoker as an add on to his existing unit. He fabricated a smoke generator out of aluminum, including all of the components you would normally find in an automated smoker. Once the hopper is loaded with wood pucks, the smoker runs autonomously, shuffling new pucks onto the heating element, presumably at timed intervals. The main barrel of the smoker has a separate PIC-controlled heating element installed, and is connected to the smoke generator by an aluminum duct. This configuration allows [Maukka] to cold smoke items such as fish, nuts, and cheeses using the smoke generator by itself, while also permitting the smoking of meats at far higher temperatures when the main heating element is used. This is truly a fantastic build, and the cold smoker component is something I would love to have as an addition to my Weber bullet.

Be sure to explore his blog a bit to catch all of the build details, as they are separated into various posts.

[Thanks Hali Batsuiba]

The Plant Whisperer

February 11, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 14 Comments

[Jeff], fully acknowledging his inability to keep plants alive, has designed a system to help him out a little bit. The “Plant Whisperer” monitors water levels and notifies him if the plant needs attention. Actually, it notifies him either way. The plant whisperer uses real time text to speech to say one of several pre-programmed things, either proclaiming its happiness or requesting more water. He’s using a parallax propeller for the job as he says it is capable of handling the real time text to speech. We realize this is overkill, but we absolutely love it. The only improvement we would want would be to possibly use a pre-recorded voice for more clarity. You can see a video of it in action after the break.

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The Joy Of Forums

February 10, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 15 Comments

[John Park] over at Make posted a short story about coming home from vacation to find his espresso machine non-functional. After beating his head against the wall for a while he joined a forum and posted a video. As has happened so many times, another user had seen this exact issue and was able to send him in the right direction.

We realize that this is just a simple capacitor replacement, though we understand his frustration, the original looks perfectly fine. The point here, is that there is usually someone out there on a forum that has experience with whatever your problem is. So don’t waste any time, go join the most awesome forum on the planet and get hacking!