Magnets Keep The Shower Curtain From Groping You

December 25, 2012 by Mike Szczys 94 Comments

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We guess we’re glad to hear that other also suffer from the phantom shower curtain liner. On occasion the shower curtain will start closing in on us around the bottom of the shower. We’re not certain of the phenomenon that causes it. Perhaps it’s static electricity like when a comb repels a stream of water. It could be an issue with rising air though… who know. But [Sk84life0129] has had enough of it. He figured out a magnet-based solution to stop the shower curtain from groping him.

You can buy curtain liners that have magnets in the bottom of them to help prevent this. But this is an acrylic tub — not one that’s porcelain-coated cast iron like they used to be — so that’s not going to do any good. Instead, a pair of magnets from an old hard drive were glued to the shower surround. A couple of galvanized bolts had their heads sawn off, and were sewn into pockets in the shower curtain. These hold it taught while you scrub your body, preventing it from reaching out for a close encounter.

[via Reddit]

Adding Task Lighting Inside A Desk

December 21, 2012 by Mike Szczys 32 Comments

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[Mahesh Venkitachalam] wanted to light up the dark recesses of his desk. What good is all that storage if you can’t see a darn thing in there? His solution was to add LED strips which turn on automatically when the door is opened.

The design is quite simple. A 2N2222 NPN transistor is responsible for connecting the ground rail of the LED strips mounted under each shelf. The base of that transistor is held high with a pull-up resistor. But a reed switch always connects the base to ground when the door is shut. Opening the door removes the magnet that keeps that reed switch closed. This allows current to flow from the pull-up to the base, connecting the ground rail to the LED strips and turning them on. You can see the video demo after the break.

One problem that we see with the design is that these are driven by a 9V battery. Over a long period of time that pull-up resistor will drain the cell. You can pick up a magnetic reed switch at the hardware or electronics store that is rated for 500 mA. If you can stay under that with the LED strips, and get one that is open when the magnet is present you will have zero power drain when the lights aren’t being used.

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Printing Press Made From Ikea Furniture

December 7, 2012 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

Those planning to get married take note: real hackers print their own invitations on a press which they built. [Jenny] and [Charles] actually did this for printing the cover pages of their ceremony programs. They built their press using a chest of drawers from Ikea.

If you look closely you’ll see the printing plate is mounted on the back wall of the chest behind the drawer. This back wall has been reinforced with some plywood, and a second piece of plywood has been attached to the back side of the drawer. This second piece is actually hinged using steel pipe and a collection of fittings. When the six-foot tall hoop of pipe is drawn down it closes the drawer, hinging the piece of plywood holding the paper until it comes in contact with the printing plate. The size of the lever ensures the press will have enough force to produce a quality print.

They didn’t make a video of this process but after the break we have embedded a clip of the press on which this one was modeled.

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Personal Cooling Using A Closed Loop Water System

November 26, 2012 by Mike Szczys 38 Comments

That’s not a colostomy bag, it’s the first prototype of [Stephen’s] scratch-built closed loop personal cooling system. He must be living in an uncomfortably hot apartment as this is the second cooling system we’ve seen from him in as many weeks. The previous offering was an evaporative system. This time around he’s pumping chilled water to bring some relief.

The image on the left shows the first iteration of the system which pumped cool water from a large jug through a loop of plastic tubing which he wears around his neck. To refine the design he build the version on the right. As a reservoir he grabbed a water-proof ID container meant to keep your valuables dry in the pool or ocean. Inside there’s a pump which he runs off of a 5V battery supply. It circulates water through the neck strap which is a piece of plastic tubing.

This will work for a time, but as the cold water picks up your body’s heat the effect will be lost. We think he needs to add a Peltier cooler to the reservoir in the next iteration. It might help to refine the loop to increase its ability to transfer heat where it touches your skin.

There’s demo of the most recent version embedded after the break.

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Soap, Candles, And Toiletries From Deer Fat

November 23, 2012 by Mike Szczys 36 Comments

Here’s a hack with more of a survivalist flair to it. [Ligament] and some friends used the fat from butchering a deer to make soap, candles, and toiletries.

It’s hunting season and [Ligament’s] dad is processing the deer which he harvested. Wild game doesn’t have the amount of fat you’d find on a domesticated animal, but there is still a fair amount. The group cut off as much as they could before cutting up the rest of the meat. The trimmings are put in a pot with water and boiled until the fat starts to rise. It is ladled off and strained through some cheese cloth. The fat hardens overnight and can be picked up out of the container as a big disk. It is reheated and strained through a mesh coffee filter to achieve the final product. From there the fat was used as an ingredient in the recipes for candles, soap, and things like lip balm. For details on that heck out the comments for each image in the gallery linked above.

It’s a good thing to waste as little as possible. But this skill will be indispensable once the Zombie Apocalypse comes. You might also want to know how to chlorinate your own water.

[via Reddit]

Quick And Easy Personal Evaporative Cooler

November 23, 2012 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

This quick and easy evaporative cooler might be just the thing the next time the air conditioning goes on the fritz. [Stephen] saw an eBay listing for a personal air conditioner that used a moist sponge and fan to send some cool relief your way. But he wanted to run his own test to see if it really did anything before laying down the cash.

The idea is to run air past a moisture source. Some of the heat energy in the air is reduced through evaporation resulting in the exhaust air feeling a bit cooler. It’s the same concept used in swamp coolers (an evaporative type of air conditioning). To build his device [Stephen] grabbed a refrigerator deodorizer which uses a hinged plastic cage to hold a packet of baking soda. He attached a small PC fan to the cage, then inserted a damp sponge. This is so easy to put together you could hit the dollar store on your lunch break and have some relief for the second half of the work day.

If you’re looking for a technique that cools just a bit better consider leveraging a beer fridge as a personal cooler.

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An Umbrella Stand That Tells You The Weather Forecast

November 15, 2012 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

This project takes an umbrella stand and gives it the ability to let you know if you need to take an umbrella when you leave the house. The image above is a concept drawing, but a first prototype was built and seems to work quite well. See for yourself in the video after the break.

The project was put together by openPicus. They sell a prototyping module called the Flyport which provides a WiFi connection to your projects. This board connects to a set of LEDs which are used to illuminate the translucent plastic umbrella stand. But you might not notice the color change if the LEDs were always on. Also designed into the system is a PIR motion sensor. When you walk toward the door to leave for the day it switches on the appropriate color — green for clear, blue for raining, and red for storming — catching your attention in time to grab an umbrella as you pass by.

You don’t need to spend a bundle to pull off a hack like this. You can scavenge for a PIR sensor, use one color of LEDs just to tell you when rain or storms are forecast, and an ENC28J60 is a cheap and easy Ethernet alternative to using WiFi.

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