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How-to: Make A Mains Crossover Cable

April 1, 2010 by 397 Comments

Update: This How-To was written for April Fools’ Day. It is not advised  you attempt to make or even use this cable. The comments have made it very clear how dangerous to you and others using this cable can be. The image above is not of a full male-to-male cable, only the ground is connected, and the generator is not running.

We all know Ethernet has the crossover cable, cars have jumper cables, and RS232 has the null modem. Well, it is about time our wall sockets get their own crossover cable. This crossover cable is great for running power to a circuit disconnected from power. Maybe you are out of fuses, the breaker is broken or you just don’t want to go check the fuse box when there is a murderer about. This cable makes a great gift for even the most loathsome of acquaintances. Continue reading “How-to: Make A Mains Crossover Cable” →

Lawnbot 400: An Update To An Update

March 26, 2010 by 13 Comments

Driven by the relentless nagging encouragement of the Hackaday commenters, [Johndavid400] has improved the Lawnbot 400. No longer does it just sport a makeshift wooden shelf. he now has a wheel barrow attachment. It looks quite sturdy as long as that front hinge holds out. There is an actuator coming in the near future for dumping the contents as well. Also, we suspect that might be a shovel in this picture.

Lawnbot400 Saves Wheelbarrow Trips

March 25, 2010 by 22 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZETK74RWn8]

We may be good at soldering but when it comes to hauling topsoil our scrawny arms quiver. [Johndavid400] did the smart thing here by letting the machine do all the work. Instead of hauling an entire truckload of dirt across the yard one wheelbarrow at a time, he built a shelf on the top of his Lawnbot400. We saw this lawnmower Arduino-powered, remote control mower back in November. The addition of its ability to handle some of the manual labor makes it the perfect backyard hack.

[Via Embedds]

LEDs Invade Coffee Table Crevice

March 8, 2010 by 34 Comments

That’s a lot of LEDs, and a little bit of glass cleaner. [Tobias] spiced up his IKEA coffee table by adding 6144 LEDs. This is a larger realization of SparkFun’s LED coffee table which used 64 8×8 modules. [Tobias] sourced three display boards from Sure Electronics for a total of 96 8×8 modules. These boards are addressed through a serial interface; four serial lines for each board but a shared data bus for each of the row select pins and the data/latch/clock pins.  This method uses 19 of the 20 pins on the Arduino that drives the display. After the break you can see a demonstration. If this is more than you need there’s always the 112-LED and 81-LED table projects that can produce a full color range. Continue reading “LEDs Invade Coffee Table Crevice” →

Lava Lamp Centrifuge

March 8, 2010 by 72 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-i9iI0ZA4M]

Like many projects, this one started with a harmless question. “Will lava lamps work in a high-gravity environment such as Jupiter?”. Well, as it turns out, this harmless question was not so easily answered. The only real solution was to test and prove for sure. To do this, [Neil Fraser] built a centrifuge in his living room. At 10 feet across and roughly 50 kilograms, this is no small toy. The end with the lava lamp is set to pivot, so at a stand still, it is positioned vertically and at full speed it is positioned horizontally. The whole process is recorded on video for proof. So, does a lava lamp work in high gravity? Watch the video or read the article to find out.

[via Makezine]

Time Delay Door Alarm

March 6, 2010 by 21 Comments

Ever accidentally left your front door ajar and had a pet escape? [BlackCow] came up with a simple solution to this problem. The circuit is fairly rudimentary but a great example of using the basics to get the job done. Now, instead of having an alarm that sounds as soon as the door is open, he has a 30 second delay. This helps avoid the “boy who cried wolf” effect also known as the “vista security warning” effect of being bothered too many times for a non issue.  We also have to say that we like his taste in blog layouts.

[via Hacked Gadgets]

Shiftbrite Coffee Table

February 25, 2010 by 22 Comments

Here’s a project we’ve been wanting to do for a while. Over at macetech.com they’ve posted an LED coffee table that uses a 9×9 RGB LED grid. For the LEDs, they used the shiftbrite modules we’ve seen before. The table is capable of displaying pre written patterns as well as accepting patterns from a computer via bluetooth. They’ve set it up to connect to a twitter feed and display to a live cam on their site. Though we would love to reproduce this, we need a little more justification than “ooooh, shiny”  for the funds involved. Anyone want to donate 100 shiftbrights?