[btopley] built his own micro mill out of Lego NXT parts. The construction details are a bit light, but it looks like a great way to try things out without all the actual machine work.
Misc Hacks4179 Articles
CNC Mini-lathe
Given my obsession of CNC projects, I’m surprised that we haven’t mentioned this project before. [Dave] put together an excellent site about his CNC converted mini-lathe. (The same on that I’ve got) He built a pretty simple stepper controller to drive it. Since the lathe only needed two axis motors, he drove the steppers with some mosfets that he triggered from a parallel port. The site has been around for a while, but I thought you guys would enjoy a classic hack like this one.
D200 Hotshoe GPS Redux (el Cheapo Version)
It’s been a while since we talked about putting a GPS on top of a D200. [Rick] sent in his latest version. He used a nice 20 channel sirf III gps from spark-fun, a cheap D200 remote cable and a few parts to send the NMEA sentences down the wire. The biggest improvements include taking the $100 Nikon cable out of the mix and swiping power from the camera for the GPS board. All the info is there, but I had to seriously stare at his wiring instructions for a while despite the low parts count. I like to see actual circuit diagrams!
Binary POV Watch
I probably won’t be replacing my giant G-shock watch just yet, but this binary POV watch is pretty sweet. Sure, the POV clock is old hat by now, but it’s also a nice example of adding a Li-ionbattery to an embedded project. It uses a MAX1555 li-ion charger and throws caution to the wind and doesn’t bother with any external capacitors. Battery life is several days or several hours if the watch is put into flashlight mode.
Cheap DIY Acoustic Guitar Pickup
I stumbled on this simple, but effective and cheap diy guitar pickup in my rounds for interesting hacks. Piezo elements haven’t failed to amaze me. They’re usable for electronic drum kit, underwater microphones, running shoes and musical greeting cards.
(I’ve only found an old, out of print book on hydrophones, so if you’ve got a good reference, send it in.)
Tin Hat Bonus: Jetlag Got Me.
Update: Sorry guys. I hadn’t seen it before, but apparently this dell keylogger junk is a rather delicious hoax. To keep from confusing the RSS readers, I’m leaving a post stub up. If I wasn’t travel-beaten I would have paid attention to the fact that the supposed keylogger wasn’t on a flexible flat cable. I pulled the image since it was originally stolen.
It’s probably totally BS, but supposedly this guy found what seems to be a keylogger inside his new dell 600m laptop. He submitted a FOIA request to the DHS, only to have his request denied. It’s a bit tin-hat, but the idea that a three letter agency might be adding extra hardware to your laptop is very disturbing indeed. I guess it’s time to start auditing any new hardware purchased for bonus parts. [via]
Console On The Kindle (and More)
[Dev] sent in an interesting blog series on hacking Amazon’s kindle. [Igor] has documented getting a console, the bootloader and more. Even if you don’t have a Kindle to hack on, it’s a good overview of hacking similar devices. He used a cell phone cable to build his interface, but I suggest getting familiar with the MAX232 family of semiconductors for cheap rs-232 to ttl converters.
