An Arduino-Free Automatic Alcohol Administrator

April 5, 2020 by Kristina Panos 30 Comments

With all the hands-free dispenser designs cropping up out there, the maker world could potentially be headed for an Arduino shortage. We say that in jest, but it’s far too easy to use an Arduino to prototype a design and then just leave it there doing all the work, even if you know going in that it’s overkill.

[ASCAS] took up the challenge and built a cheap and simple dispenser that relies on recycled parts and essential electronics. It uses an IR proximity sensor module to detect dirty digits, and a small submersible pump to push isopropyl alcohol, sanitizer, or soap up to your hovering hand. The power comes from a sacrificial USB cable and is switched through a transistor, so it could be plugged into the wall or a portable power pack.

We admire the amount of reuse in this project, especially the nozzle-narrowing ballpoint pen piece. Be sure to check out the build video after the break.

Hopefully, you’re all still washing your hands for the prescribed 20 seconds. If you’re starting to slip, why not build a digital hourglass and watch the pixels disappear?

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Particle Sniffer For Pollution Point Sources

April 2, 2020 by Lewin Day 13 Comments

When measuring air quality, particulate matter is an important metric to watch. The PM2.5 rating refers to particulate matter that has a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers. While it’s often measured by authorities on a city-wide basis, [rabbitcreek] wanted a way to track down point sources indoors.

The tool [rabbitcreek] built is in a similar form factor to a typical infrared workshop thermometer. Inside, it packs a Honeywell HPMA115S0-TIR laser particle sensor, hooked up to an ESP32 which runs the show. The sensor chosen makes things easy, with the device already set up with a blower and inlet and outlet ports for taking accurate readings.. Results are displayed on an SSD1306 OLED screen. It’s all wrapped up in a 3D printed case with a trigger grip, and a dog nose on the front which hints at the devices true purpose.

In testing, the device proves capable of detecting point sources of atmospheric particulates like flowers and a toaster. It’s something we’re sure would prove handy to those working in HVAC and environmental assessment industries. We’ve seen other rigs for monitoring particulates before, too. Video after the break.

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Ammo Can Battery; 50 Ah LiFePO4 Clad In Army Green

March 30, 2020 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

For the price of a mid-range Android phone, [Kenneth Finnegan] turned a 50 caliber ammo can into a 50 amp-hour portable power supply. The battery pack uses four 3.5 V LiFePO₄ cells wired in series to achieve a nominal 12 V supply that stands in for a traditional lead-acid battery. The angel of second-hand purchases was smiling on this project as the cells were acquired on eBay in unused condition, complete with bus bars and mounting spacers. All it took to fit them in the case was to grind off the spacers’ dovetails on the outer edges.

There are many benefits to Lithium Iron Phosphate chemistry over traditional lead acid and [Kenneth] spells that out in his discussion of the battery management system at work here. While the newer technology has a much better discharge curve than lead-acid, there’s a frightening amount of power density there if these batteries were to have a catastrophic failure. That’s why there are Battery Management Systems and the one in use here is capable of monitoring all four cells individually which explains the small-gauge wires in the image above. It can balance all of the cells to make sure one doesn’t get more juice than the others, and can disconnect the system if trouble is a-brewin’. Continue reading “Ammo Can Battery; 50 Ah LiFePO4 Clad In Army Green” →

BCD To I2C: Turning A Nixie Counter Into Whatever You Want It To Be

March 28, 2020 by Sven Gregori 3 Comments

Whenever a project calls for displaying numbers, a 7-segment display is the classic and straightforward choice. However, if you’re more into a rustic, retro, almost mystical, and steampunky look and feel, it’s hard to beat the warm, orange glow of a Nixie tube. Once doomed as obsolete technology of yesteryear, they have since reclaimed their significance in the hobbyist space, and have become such a frequent and deliberate design choice, that it’s easy to forget that older devices actually used them out of necessity for lack of alternatives. Exhibit A: the impulse counter [soldeerridder] found in the attic that he turned into a general-purpose, I2C controlled display.

Instead of just salvaging the Nixie tubes, [soldeerridder] kept and re-used the original device, with the goal to embed an Intel Edison module and connect it via I2C. Naturally, as the counter is a standalone device containing mainly just a handful of SN74141 drivers and SN7490 BCD counters, there was no I2C connectivity available out of the box. At the same time, the Edison would anyway replace the 7490s functionality, so the solution is simple yet genius: remove the BCD counter ICs and design a custom PCB containing a PCF8574 GPIO expander as drop-in replacement for them, hence allowing to send arbitrary values to the driver ICs via I2C, while keeping everything else in its original shape.

Containing six Nixie tubes, the obvious choice is of course to use it as a clock, but [soldeerridder] wanted more than that. Okay, it does display the time, along with the date, but also some sensor values and even the likes on his project blog. If you want to experiment with Nixie tubes yourself, but lack a matching device, Arduino has you obviously covered. Although, you might as well go the other direction then.

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Put Down New Roots From Home With A Free-Form Tree Of Life

March 26, 2020 by Kristina Panos 6 Comments

Mandalas are meditative objects that mean many things to myriad religions. Psychologist Carl Jung equated them with the concept of the Self as a whole, and put forth the notion that an urge to create mandalas signifies a period of intense personal growth.

[Sander van de Bor] took up the mandala challenge at the beginning of 2020 and decided to create several of them in free-form electronic style. If you’re looking for a healthy new way to deal, [Sander] has step-by-step instructions for making your own light-up tree of life by wrangling a wad of wires into a trunk and branches. Big bonus if you already find soldering to be soothing.

[Sander] starts by forming a circle from brass rod. This is the base for the rest of the build and will tie all the LED grounds together. The tree is twisted from a cluster of enameled copper wires that are eventually soldered together to distribute power from a coin cell out to the six SMT LEDs.

You could argue that the tree should be ground because it’s rooted to Earth, but you could also argue that the circle should be ground because the circle of life is a grounding force. Something to think about while you design and build your own, eh?

If electronic sculpture becomes your new thing, explore all the angles with the master manipulator, [Mohit Bhoite].

Whirling Shutters On This Field Mill Measure Electrostatic Charges At Distance

March 26, 2020 by Dan Maloney 34 Comments

Hardly a person hasn’t experienced the sudden, sharp discharge of static electricity, especially on a crisp winter’s day. It usually requires a touch, though, the classic example being a spark from finger to doorknob after scuffing across the carpet. But how would one measure the electrostatic charge of an object without touching it? Something like this field mill, which is capable of measuring electrostatic charge over a range of several meters, will do the trick.

We confess to not having heard of field mills before, and found [Leo Fernekes]’ video documenting his build to be very instructive. Field mills have applications in meteorology, being used to measure the electrostatic state of the atmosphere from the ground. They’ve also played a role in many a scrubbing of rocket launches, to prevent the missile from getting zapped during launch.

[Leo]’s mill works much like the commercial units: a grounded shutter rotates in front of two disc-shaped electrodes, modulating the capacitance of the system relative to the outside world. The two electrodes are fed into a series of transimpedance amplifiers, which boost the AC signal coming from them. A Hall sensor on the shutter allows sampling of the signal to be synchronized to the rotation of the shutter; this not only generates the interrupts needed to sample the sine wave output of the amplifier at its peaks and troughs, but it also measures whether the electrostatic field is positive or negative. Check out the video below for a great explanation and a good looking build with a junk-bin vibe to it.

Meteorological uses aside, we’d love to see this turned toward any of the dozens of Tesla coil builds we’ve seen. From the tiny to the absurd, this field mill should be able to easily measure any Tesla coil’s output with ease.

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[Ben Krasnow] Rolls Old School Camera Out For Photolithography

March 26, 2020 by Dan Maloney 14 Comments

In a time when cameras have been reduced to microchips, it’s ironic that the old view camera, with its bellows and black cloth draped over the viewscreen for focusing, endures as an icon for photography. Such technology appears dated and with no application in the modern world, but as [Ben Krasnow] shows us, an old view camera is just the thing when you want to make homemade microchips. (Video, embedded below.)

Granted, the photolithography process [Ben] demonstrates in the video below is quite a bit upstream from the creation of chips. But mastering the process on a larger scale is a step on the way. The idea is to create a high-resolution photograph of a pattern — [Ben] chose both a test pattern and, in a nod to the season, an IRS tax form — that can be used as a mask. The camera he chose is a 4×5 view camera, the kind with lens and film connected by adjustable bellows. He found that modifications were needed to keep the film fixed at the focal plane, so he added a vacuum port to the film pack to suck the film flat. Developing film has always been magical, and watching the latent images appear on the film under the red light of the darkroom really brings us back — we can practically smell the vinegary stop solution.

[Ben] also steps through the rest of the photolithography process — spin coating glass slides with photoresist, making a contact print of the negative under UV light, developing the print, and sputtering it with titanium. It’s a fascinating process, and the fact that [Ben] mentions both garage chip-maker [Sam Zeloof] and [Justin Atkin] from the Thought Emporium means that three of our favorite YouTube mad scientists are collaborating. The possibilities are endless.

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