Zero Gravity (sort Of) On A Budget

September 25, 2013 by Marsh 32 Comments

zeroGravRoom

At $250,000, Virgin Galactic is probably out of most people’s price range; even reduced gravity flights run $5k. You may be in luck, though, as [Justin] and his friends have built a spinning room for $350 (Warning: loud noise @ beginning) that can turn your world upside down. The video provides a time-lapse of the build, but you’ll probably want to skip ahead 5 minutes in for the real fun.

It may not be anti-gravity, but holding onto furniture to keep from flying into the ceiling looks pretty entertaining. The room works like the fairground favorite “Gravitron” ride turned sideways. 2 forklifts support a massive wooden cube, which includes familiar features from home: drywall, flooring, and some furniture. [Justin] managed to borrow two car wheels, which he mounted in the middle of the walls on opposing sides of the cube. Two casters support each rim, and the forklifts hold the casters just high enough to allow a few friends to manually sling everything around.

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World Maker Faire 2013 Roundup

September 25, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 9 Comments

They built a shed using only this tool

Handibot

One of the more interesting structures at WMF was a garden shed made entirely out of plywood cut with the Handibot. It’s a handheld luggable CNC router that allows you to place the machine over a work piece, punch some settings into the software, and cut mortises, CNC engravings, and just about any other shape you can imagine.

The Handibot recently finished a very successful Kickstarter, and from the looks of it they have a really great tool on their hands. They managed to carve a few Hackaday logos in the floor of their shed, but we forgot to film that. It was a busy day.

Future Crew and a 1930s teletype Model 15 Teletype

Scope

Being from the area, NYC Resistor, the Brooklyn-based hackerspace just had to make a showing. Some of the smaller project they brought with them is Space Rocks, an Asteroids clone played on an old, slowly dying oscilloscope. They also had a Minitel terminal made for the US market, which was just weird.

Their big, impressive project for the Maker Faire was Future Crew a Starship/TARDIS bridge simulation game that pits five players against a common enemy: time itself.

Each station has a certain task, such as advancing the timeline on an old video edit console, playing a short ditty on a toy electronic piano, and reading what a Model 15 Teletype was printing out. All these stations are connected to a Raspberry Pi, and the game looks really fun, provided all the players know what’s going on.

Now we know what Make does with their networking hardware

For anyone who visited Maker Faire, you may have noticed your iDevice’s current location was in San Mateo, CA. I noticed this when my MacBook’s time was set for Pacific time, and a few other people who were there early on Saturday told me their iPhones were doing the same thing.

Apparently, shipping a bunch of WiFi routers across the country (along with a bunch of PA gear and other ephemera) is cheaper than buying two sets and warehousing them. This was mildly interesting and we’re now accepting proposals to figure out how quickly Apple/Google/Whatever’s database can be updated with the correct information. Deadline for applications is before the next SFO Maker Faire.

Phone Trucks Around the World

2600

Like most years, 2600 made a showing with their reclaimed Bell service van, ‘Free Kevin’ bumper sticker included. They had a ton of swag including a few old HOPE badges, current and back issues, t-shirts, Department of Hopeland Security passports and stickers.

The 2600 van did give us a few ideas should Hackaday ever need a booth for Maker Faires and other shows. Anyone up for building a heart-shaped bed?

Backlit PCB Panel As Wall Art

September 24, 2013 by Mike Szczys 6 Comments

For his buddy’s wedding [Saar Drimer] wanted a one-of-a-kind gift, and what’s more unique than a piece of art? He set out to design something that would speak to his geeky game-loving friend. This full-panel PCB is what he came up with. It’s a wall hanging that uses addressable LEDs and a PCB for the enclosure and as a diffuser.

On the right you can see the panel as it was delivered to him. He used routed slots to separate the main body of the enclosure from the four side pieces and the mounting bracket. This design lets him snap off the parts and solder them in place. The only thing you need to add to it is a pair of screws (well, and the components that make it light up).

We’re shocked by how well the PCB works as a diffuser. The substrate is translucent when not covered with silk screen or the copper layers. The outline of the letters uses that, as well as circular areas along the side pieces. The letters themselves are copper fills that have artistic patterns removed from them. This really adds to the visual appeal when the piece is illuminated by 42 WS2812B LEDs. The video below shows the piece in action. It really takes PCB as art to the next level

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How To Make PinMAME Awesome

September 22, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 8 Comments

By now you should be familiar with MAME arcade cabinets and their ability to emulate any classic arcade machine from the days of yore. PinMAME is a similar setup to reconstruct classic pinball machines on computer monitors, but its popularity is nothing compared to the machines that play everything from Galaga to The Simpson’s arcade game. We won’t speculate on the reasons for that, but we do know how to make pinball emulation awesome – you need to emulate the buzzing and 60 Hz hum of solenoids found in the original machines.

This project comes from [Brendan Schrader] of the Hive76 hackerspace in Philly. It gives emulated pinball machines the tactile and haptic feedback required for a proper PinMAME setup. Inside [Brendan]’s box are two monitors, one for the backglass and one for the playfield, and a small computer to run the PinMAME software.

Also in the box are a few transducers usually used to turn any flat solid surface into a speaker. [Brendan] sent the audio output from the pinball emulation to a set of speakers and the ‘mechanical sounds’ audio to the transducer mounted to the chassis. The difference between haptic feedback and no haptic feedback is amazing, and something every PinMAME setup desperately needs.

Unfortunately, [Brendan] says he lives a decade in the past and doesn’t do the whole interwebs and email thing. He tells us he’ll send in a build log in a week or so, and we’ll put that up when it comes in.

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Hackett’s Tripod And Some Advice on abstraction

September 22, 2013 by Marsh 44 Comments

hackettTripod

[Hackett] calls it a “transmission problem.” You’ve scavenged the pieces for your build, but nothing fits. Metric and standard hardware clash, a successful weld is as reliable as duct-taping. You’ll hear about plenty of these obstacles as [Hackett] tries to tackle a tripod build in this video.

He was contacted by a group looking to make a bicycle-mounted portable projector. Their request: build them an easy-to-use tripod on a shoestring budget that is strong enough to hold a 30-pound projector. Garbage and scrap turn into a functional device as [Hackett] grinds and welds the tripod together.

The video’s greatest contribution, however, is the advice near the end.

You need to retrain your eye, so you’re not looking at a thing as to what it is, what it’s branded, what it’s originally intended for. What you’re looking at is what it is at the core, and once you start looking at things for what they really, really are, you have the power to completely remake the world.

A desire to re-contextualize everyday stuff is probably the reason you’re a Hackaday reader. Hopefully [Hackett’s] succinct advice strikes some chords and encourages you to keep abstracting and re-purposing the world around you. If you’re new to hacking and need somewhere to start, why not build a robot?

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Polyurethane Protecting PCBs

September 20, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 29 Comments

PCB

What you see above is a home-made PCB. No, this isn’t an example of a terrible toner transfer job, but rather evidence of the ravages of time. This board is seven years old, and the corrosion and broken traces show it. Luckily, [George] already has seven years of environmental data for a cheap DIY soldermask.

Seven years ago, [George] took a piece of copper clad board, masked half of it off, and sprayed it with fast drying polyurethane. After drying, he put it on a shelf in his garage. The results were fairly surprising – the uncovered portion is covered in verdigris, while the coated half is still shiny and new.

[George] took this a bit further and experimented with other spray can coverings. He found Testors spray enable worked just like the polyurethane, burning off when the heat of a soldering iron was applied, and also passed for a professional PCB.

Seven Decade Programmable Resistor

September 18, 2013 by James Hobson 50 Comments

124

[Gerry Sweeney] was tired of messing around with resistors while prototyping his projects, so he decided he wanted a resistor decade box. The problem is they are typically big and rather expensive ($100+). Unhappy with the selection available for purchase, he decided to design his own.

In the accompanying video, he shows off his first attempt after being inspired by a past post we covered that used a combination of resistors and thumbwheel decimal switches. He modified the design a bit and used surface mount resistors instead, which made for a fairly compact and convenient seven decade resistor box. But he still wasn’t happy with it.

He decided to design his own PCB instead. The simple design utilizes surface mount resistors to conserve space, and jumpers to select the resistance. No bulky switches get in the way and it’s fairly cheap to produce.

Check out the great video explanation of the project after the break. He also shows off the insides of a commercial resistor decade box!

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