No Nonsense Mbed Development Demo

June 17, 2010 by Mike Szczys 6 Comments

This tweeting RFID reader is a great working example for the mbed. When an RFID tag is read it is matched with the name of the owner and a Twitter message is sent out. This is very similar to the RFID cat tracker that used an Arduino.

The code is short and simple due to the use of available mbed libraries. The hardware needs just two extra modules, an RFID reader and an Ethernet socket. If you’re trying to decide if you can make the jump over to ARM development this certainly presents an easy learning curve and an opportunity to get comfortable with the code and the libraries before you make a purchase. It’s also a great set of test code to start with if you have an mbed and the two supplementary modules on hand. The quick video clip after the break will walk you through the components and the code.

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Most Useless Machine Loses Carbon Footprint

June 16, 2010 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxyQ3PFbK9Y]

[Clayton Boyer] took the electricity out of the useless machine, making one that runs like a clock. To this point, we’ve always seen these useless machine use electric motors. [Clayton’s] clever design uses a wind-up spring and a series of wooden gears to bring the fun, making it a great companion for the binary adder you built. The video above shows the inner workings and the design plans are for sale. We’d love to print out the parts or perhaps just laser-cut them from wood like the legs of this spider bot.

[Thanks llwynog]

(Real) Stargate Built In Backyard

June 15, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 56 Comments

PVC, wood, and some creativity bring this Stargate duplicate to life. [Mango] and his father started with AutoCad drawings taped together, and ended with the Stargate you see before you. Sure it’s not 22 foot in diameter and not made of Naquadah, but its inner ring rotates and dials like the real thing and it has all 39 symbols – hand carved. Catch a fun and entertaining video with the Stargate after the break.

[via SciFiWire]

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Preparing Your PCB Design For Manufacture

June 15, 2010 by Mike Szczys 31 Comments

[Colin] has cut his teeth with about fifteen PCB orders. He wrote a tutorial describing the process and sharing his tips on avoiding common problems. You may remember our own How-To prepare designs for manufacture early last year. In that post, [Ian] shared his veteran knowledge by outlining BatchPCB’s board design process. This time, [Colin] is using Advanced Circuits in Colorado as a board house, giving us more insight on how the different companies work. No matter who you choose for manufacturing, make sure you really understand how to properly format and troubleshoot your designs. It’ll end up saving you a lot of time and money.

Preserving Old Stuff With The Library Of Congress

June 9, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 7 Comments

Take a few moments and browse this gallery from the Library of Congress. Tasked with the job of preserving the roughly 150 million historical items, they are constantly developing new methods using bleeding edge technology. There is an odd balance of some of the oldest documents in tandem with some of the newest technology evident in these pictures. From doing spectral scans of ancient books to laser mapping warped phonographs, everything must be preserved and documented.

DUO 128 Elite, 4 Bit CPU

June 8, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 36 Comments

We’re not sure how we missed [Jack Eisenmann’s] 4 bit TTL CPU when we were tipped off the first time, but we’re glad it was sent in again for us to feature it.

41 different ICs (mostly TTL) come together to comprise the DUO 128 Elite. While the architecture is a little different than what we’ve seen before, using “nyckles”, the DUO 128 Elite still works perfectly. Catch a video of some example programs, including pong, after the divide.

[Thanks Marc G-C]

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1000W Induction Heater

June 4, 2010 by Mike Szczys 63 Comments

[Tim Williams] likes to heat things up with this induction heater he built. At peak it can use 1000W and as you can see in the video, that’s more than enough power to heat, burn, and melt a plethora of different objects. The case design uses a center divider to isolate switching noise from the magnetic field with the whole unit housed in aluminum because it won’t heat up from stray magnetic fields. He’s selling plans and kits in case you want one, but we just don’t know what we’d use it for.

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