Keychain GPS Finder

June 25, 2009 by Steve Watkins 7 Comments

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With a user interface consisting of two buttons and a three digit display, the GPS finder guides the user back to a saved location. Nine locations can be saved for navigation recall. Press a button to save location and press another button to recall. Each switch has a secondary function, for management purposes such as memory indexes and power features. An AarLogic GPS 3A module and AVR microcontroller make up the guts. With the popularity of Geocaching, this would make an impressive trinket; Leading the hunter to an undocumented treasure.

Wireless Arduino Cat Food Dispenser

June 24, 2009 by Gerrit Coetzee 14 Comments

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Reader, [Andres Leon], has two adorable cats with very specific dietary needs. Instead of altering his schedule, he donned his hacking hat and designed a very solid cat food dispenser. The dispenser consists of a rotating drum with a slot in it and a PVC pipe Y-fitting to distribute the food evenly. The brains of the machine is an Arduino Deumillanove and an XBee module. The unit can be controlled by a web interface or it can run completely standalone. [Andres] ran into a problem where the drum’s resistance to turning varied based on how much food was inside. He solved this with a clever laser position indicator. A piece of plywood is lined up with the slot at the top so that whenever the slot is facing up it keeps the laser from shining on a photoresistor. The cats were afraid of the servo noise at first, but now they run to their bowls whenever they hear it.

The Holy Toaster Kit

June 23, 2009 by Steve Watkins 39 Comments

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The holy toaster is an open source kit to put Jesus on your toast, complete with cost breakdown and engineering data files. A laser machined stainless steel Jesus blocks a pattern of radiation from browning the toast. Installation is quite simple. Use a pair of pliers to bend a few tabs for support, and then insert the pattern in the toaster. Browning adjustments may be required to obtain adequate contrast. Best results appear to come from Honey Bran Country Bread. Their Flickr page contains more photos and a video of the prototype being cut. Let everyone know about your divine toast with the twittering toaster we had covered in 2008. Below is the instructional video.

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Meat Thermometer Using Predictive Filtering

June 17, 2009 by Gerrit Coetzee 20 Comments

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The guys over at NerdKits put together a really informative video on a meat thermometer using predictive filtering which is viewable below. The video, supplemental text, and code is available on their website. The thermometer is constructed of a LM34 temperature sensor attached to a piece of 12 gauge solid copper wire. The thermometer signal is processed on an ATmega168 microcontroller and visualized using the pygame library for python. The real gem in this project is their excellent explanation of predictive filtering, which could easily be utilized for a large number of projects.

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Persistence Of Vision Propeller Clock

June 13, 2009 by Gerrit Coetzee 12 Comments

[Jon Stanley] has a nice write up on a POV propellor clock powered by a PIC microcontroller. He improved on the original design by [Bob Blick]. Jon tried a few different methods of powering the spinning circuit, some of which could be handy for other projects. As a double plus good bonus, schematics and code are all linked on the site. This clock would look nice and sinister sitting on any mad scientist’s dresser.

Ghetto Electronics Repair

May 31, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 190 Comments

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After hearing that his video card might be repairable by heating it up to reflow it, this user did just that. He stripped it down and tossed it in his oven. It’s amazing how often this type of hackish repair works. We’ve heard of people using candles on ibooks, tossing video cards in oven,s and wrapping an xbox 360 in a towel and running it for 30 minutes to get it hot enough to reflow itself. Why even bother with controlled temperatures and exact measurements? What other crazy fixes have you had to employ? We had a Playstation that only worked upside down.

[via engadget]

CandyFab Relaunched

May 27, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 9 Comments

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Forget about machines that can replicate themselves, what we want is a machine capable of making an 8 inch wide hollow torus out of sugar. The CandyFab project has been around for a while, but with the release of the new machine, the CandyFab 6000 they are reinventing the project. Built from the ground up to be a candy constructing beast, the CandyFab 6000 might be a little smaller than the previous version, but it’s much better designed. You can get more details on the new wiki site.