There are a ton of digital picture frame tutorials out there. Most are old laptops with crafty case reconfigurations that fit a photo frame profile.
We set out to build a 100% DIY, scratch-built digital picture frame. Our frame has a 12bit color LCD, gigabytes of storage on common, FAT-formatted microSD cards, and you can build it at home. We’ve got the details below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tnfcTAoggI]
The Cheap Vegetable Gardener sent us his fully automated grow chamber project. In the quest to have fresh strawberries year round, they’ve made some progress in the area of automating their plant care. The whole thing is controlled by a computer that can turn on/off the lights and adjust the temperature. It also takes snapshots and logs the environment conditions so you can chart it all out nicely. The automated watering feature isn’t done yet, but hopefully will be soon.
Building a generator can be a fun and fairly simple project. Getting a large DC motor however can sometimes be difficult. Here is a writeup on how to make a generator from an old washing machine drive. It looks like you might need to find a specific machine called the “Smart Drive” to follow their directions exactly though. If you happen to find one, or know of a unit with a similar motor, you can follow these directions to end up with a fairly decent wind powered generator.
[thanks TripleB]
[Koil_1] knows he’s forgetful. In order to save himself from any undue harm, or possibly to keep from burning his house down, he felt he needed a timed power switch to run his soldering iron from. He realized he could harvest the relays and timer circuit from a microwave. This allows him to have presets for specific tasks. Considering the fact that you can get a used microwave for free or close to it most of the time, this was a great re use of something that might just go wasted otherwise. Great job [Koil_1].
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkMXpKmRXvU&fmt=18]
If you don’t have at least one twittering appliance in your household, you’re getting behind. The latest addition to the spread is a twittering washing machine. [Ryan] tells us that he kept accidentally forgetting to retrieve his clothing from the washing machine, resulting in smelly mildewy clothes. Now, his washing machine twitters to announce it is done. It also has a sign in the house that displays its status to help him remember. We’ve seen unborn babies and toasters twitter, what’s left? Remember those refrigerators that were supposed to let you know that you’re out of certain food? Why don’t we see a twittering fridge yet?
[Max] sent us his dorm room RFID controlled lock. While RFID door locks are nothing new, his implementation is very slick. The entire unit is attached with suction cups to a mirror on the inside of the door. It looks like it could be removed and put elsewhere in a matter of seconds. That’s pretty slick. Much cleaner than the touch sensitive dorm lock we saw last year.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtUyzQBNT3k&eurl=&feature=player_embedded]
[Steve] sent us his new years project, a remote beer server controlled by his iPhone. He has built a frame from construx and used ioBridge to connect it to his iPhone. He states that he “wanted to make a project that allows for the perfect pour and take out all of that physical work”. Seems like it could use a little adjustment to be a bit less foamy. Maybe an additional frame to adjust the angle of the glass as it is poured.
