Misc Hacks

4164 Articles

A Better Mousetrap, At Least For The Mouse

May 20, 2016 by 61 Comments

No mice were harmed in the making of this non-lethal soda bottle mousetrap.

Depending on your opinion of these little critters, that could be a good thing or a bad thing. We don’t deny that mice are cute as all get-out, but when they do damage to foodstuffs that you’ve put an entire summer’s effort into growing, harvesting and preserving, cute isn’t worth much.

Our preference for taking care of rodent problems is either bioremediation or rapid cervical dislocation, but if you’re more of the catch-and-release type, this trap is for you. It’s just a 2-liter soda bottle on a wire pivot and mounted to a scrap wood frame; when the offending critter unwisely enters the neck of the bottle, its weight flips the bottle down and blocks the exit. Release is as simple as removing the bottle from the frame and letting Monsieur Jingles wiggle free. The questions of where to release and how many times you’ll keep catching the same mouse are left as an exercise for the reader.

Remember – a live catch trap is only humane if it’s checked regularly. To that end, maybe something like das Katzetelegraf could be added to this trap.

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Scratch-built Radial Solenoid Engine Is Polished And Professional

May 20, 2016 by 23 Comments

There’s something alluring about radial engines. The Wasps, the Cyclones, the Gnomes – the mechanical beauty of those classic aircraft engines can’t be denied. And even when a radial engine is powered by solenoids rather than internal combustion, it can still be a thing of beauty.

The solenoid engine proves that he has some mechanical chops. If you follow along in the videos below, you’ll see how [Tyler] progressed in his design and incorporated what he learned from the earliest breadboard stage to the nearly-complete engine. There’s an impressive amount of work here – looks like the octagonal housing was bent on a press brake, and the apparently homebrew solenoids are enclosed in copper pipe and fittings that [Tyler] took the time to bring to a fine polish. We’re skeptical that the microswitches that electrically commutate the engine will hold up to as many cycles are they’d need to handle for this to be a useful engine, but that’s hardly the point here. This one is all about the learning, and we think [Tyler] has done a bang-up job with that.

For more radial solenoid engine goodness, check out this engine with an entirely different take on commutation. Or if you need the basics of radial engine theory, this wood mockup might be just the thing.

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Navid Gornall Eats His Own Face

May 18, 2016 by 27 Comments

Navid Gornall is a creative technologist at a London advertising agency, which means that he gets to play with cool toys and make movies. That also means that he spends his every working hour trying to explain tech to non-technical audiences. Which is why he was so clearly happy to give a talk to the audience of hardware nerds at the Hackaday Belgrade conference.

After a whirlwind pastiche of the projects he’s been working on for the last year and a half, with tantalizing views of delta printers, dancing-flame grills, and strange juxtapositions of heat sinks and food products, he got down to details. What followed was half tech show-and-tell, and half peering behind the curtain at the naked advertising industry. You can read our writeup of the highlights after the video below.

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DIY USB Type C

May 17, 2016 by 30 Comments

For many years, the humble serial port was one of the best ways to communicate with an embedded system. Then USB ports became more popular and serial ports started to vanish. These days, even if you’re using a serial protocol to communicate with the microcontroller, it’s often over USB. And USB provides a convenient source of 5 V too. In short, we’ve made our peace with USB.

And then they go and change it. USB type C is a small connector that is reversible and has more options for power and connectivity. However, it is yet another new interface to figure out. [Scorpia] recently posted an article about USB type C that you may find useful.

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DIY PCB Fixture Helps You Spread The Paste

May 14, 2016 by 6 Comments

(Yeah, we don’t know what that title means either.) But holding your PCBs down in one place and nicely registered while you spread solder paste over them is a problem that needs solving, and [Carsten] did it nicely.

High volume PCB manufacturers have expensive screen printers to do this. The standard hardware hacker solution is to tape some scrap PCBs of the same thickness down to the table to hold the PCBs solidly in place. But if you’re doing a large run, and if you’re already firing up the laser to cut out mylar stencils, you might as well cut out some PCB-holding fixtures to match.

[Carsten]’s blog entry is short on details, but you get the idea just from looking at the picture, right? Adding registration pins to the holder that engage with the stencils could make this a real time-saver as well. As long as you’re lasering the stencil and the holder, there’s nothing stopping you. It’s a simple idea, but a good one, so we thought we’d share. Our only remaining question: what’s a Karate Light?

The Ultimate Traveler’s Toolkit

May 14, 2016 by 9 Comments

Looking for a better way to store your tools during transportation? While we certainly wouldn’t recommend trying to check this thing as a carry-on (oh and prepare for it to be searched even in checked luggage), this clever use of a road case is probably one of the best tool boxes we’ve ever seen.

This is [Robb Godshaw’s] tool box. It’s been developed over the past five years as he’s become a skilled maker. You might remember him best from his ironic project “Why are we limited to C-Clamps?” — a clamp offering of the entire alphabet.

He also picked up the road case close to home for Hackaday — at Apex Electronics Surplus in LA — one of our favorite places to find parts. But the most clever part of the project is the way he’s divided the case for different tools.

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We’re Headed To Maker Faire, Will You Be There?

May 13, 2016 by 10 Comments

The Hackaday Crew will be descending on San Mateo next weekend for Bay Area Maker Faire. Will you be there? Gerrit and I will be looking in every booth and byway for amazing hacks, new hardware, and anything else that tickles the fancy of hackers everyone.

We certainly didn’t miss the massive tin spider seen above at last year’s event. But it’s a huge venue, and I’m always afraid we’re going to miss something epic. If you’re exhibiting and want us to stop by, leave a comment below. If you know of something awesome that we shouldn’t miss this year, we’d love to hear about that too.

I’d also like to invite you to hang out with Hackaday on Saturday night. When the Faire closes its gates, something amazing happens every year at O’Neil’s Irish Pub. Don’t miss it!

Need a Ticket?

Texas Instruments sent us 4 Friday passes, and 9 weekend passes which we want to give away. The fairest way of doing that is a drawing using Twitter.

To enter, simply Tweet something about your favorite 2016 Hackaday Prize entry, including @Hackaday @TXinstruments #FairePass in the message. Here’s what an example Tweet looks like (don’t worry, I’m not eligible to win).

On Sunday, 4pm PDT we’ll make a list of all the Twitter handles that sent out a Tweet, then use random.org to choose 6 random numbers from that list. The second giveaway will happen at 4pm PDT on Wednesday 5/18, using the same procedure to choose the remaining 7 winners.

All of the obvious contest stuff applies: employees and family of Hackaday, Supplyframe, and TI are not eligible. Results of the drawing are final. We can’t substitute other prizes (we’re just giving away extra tickets) and this giveaway has no bearing on any other contests or winner selection.