Unreasonably Bright Bike Light Apparently Hunts Deer

October 22, 2009 by Mike Szczys 79 Comments

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[Jukka] wanted a bike light that wasn’t afraid to go into the woods during the dark winter. He put together a lamp that uses eight 3 Watt LEDs to pump out 1680 lumens (english translation). The high power LEDs were mounted on a large aluminum heat sink and use lenses to optimize the beam of light. The system uses a 2 amp driver board that he assembled himself. Power is provided by sixteen AA Nickel Metal Hydride batteries that are housed along with the driver circuit in a water bottle.

This more than doubles the output of the last bike light we thought was too bright. Where will this lumen-arms-race stop?

[Thanks Sami]

War Monument Hacking

October 21, 2009 by Mike Szczys 42 Comments

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[Timo] tipped us off about a War Monument that has been… upgraded. The story starts when a monument was erected in Cherkassy, Ukraine to commemorate the ultimate sacrifice that was made by Russian soldiers during World War II. The huge statue and expansive plaza were capped off by an eternal flame. Unfortunately, when the Soviet Block broke up, the natural gas that had been provided by the government became a luxury so the flame was extinguished.

The eternal flame sat unlit, a sad commentary to the remembrance of the dead. But how to fix this issue? As cell phone companies came into the area, a need for cell phone towers arose. At some point a solution was reached; a cell phone tower was built in the bowl of the eternal flame and then wrapped with an LED marquee. The marquee now displays the image of a flame in perpetuity.

We’re not quite sure what to think about this. After some adjustment, the substitution of LEDs for flames will probably become accepted. The monument is now providing a useful purpose for the living, and once again shows a flame. We think that having something there showing that the memory is still alive is much better than the message an unkempt derelict sends.

Shift Powered Pumpkins

October 19, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 15 Comments

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[Garret] and a couple of friends totally stole our idea wanted to light up their pumpkins a bit differently this year. They used some ShiftBrites and all the corresponding shift hardware (who knew there was so much shift out there) to bring their carved orange minions to life. Yes, this could be done a lot less modulated by using a regular LED and perhaps a PIC. Maybe it’s not the most technically challenging, but hey its in the spirit of Halloween – one of our favorite holidays. Speaking of which, doesn’t that fence look familiar? Check out a video after the break. Seriously, Mutton Chops? Continue reading “Shift Powered Pumpkins” →

Build Your Own Wristwatch

October 19, 2009 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

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[rgbphil] has done a great job detailing how he built his Microdot wristwatch.This project is a lot more approachable than the pong watch we saw last month. If you’ve made a few printed circuit boards, but haven’t yet tried working with surface mount component, this is a great way to give it a try.

The parts count is pretty low, a few switches, resistors, capacitors, LEDs, a watch crystal, and a PIC 16F88 microcontroller.[rgbphil] is using a charlieplex so that a separate shift register is not needed to drive all of the LEDs. He goes into detail about the process of laying out the circuit. Some of the problems he encounters include how to manage all of the charlieplex connections in a simple way, how to program the chip once it’s on the board, and how to layout the controls for the device.

The display looks great in the video we’ve embedded after the break. We’re going to add these components to our next parts order and make this project part of the plan for getting us through the long cold winter ahead.

Continue reading “Build Your Own Wristwatch” →

72 LED Persistence Of Vision Globe

October 15, 2009 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

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[Ben] told us about his POV globe yesterday. We took a look and saw just one photo and the code with no real explanation of his project. He certainly set to work over night and now we see all the goodies we look for in a great build log. He even threw the Hackaday logo up for our enjoyment. His build is well executed and he found some creative ways around the common problems in these projects. We take a closer look after the break. Continue reading “72 LED Persistence Of Vision Globe” →

Multi-touch LCD From LEDs

October 10, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 8 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiJsBaBAUL4%5D

[Thomas] promised nearly a year ago he would give the community code and schematics of how he made his LED Multi-touch panel, but we would have to wait for his next version first. Well its finally here, bigger and better then we could ever have imagined. His new version is organized as a 48 by 32 matrix of 1536 LEDs, but he’s gone further by placing it behind a stripped LCD to make a multi-touch display. It doesn’t seem nearly as fast or accurate as the original, but potentially could be more portable than ones we’ve seen before. And yes, this time around he included how his LED matrix is made.