I was looking for some interesting ideas for using lithium polymer cells and stumbled across this diy flashlight. (It’s on geocities, so hit the cache.) Flashlights aren’t usually that interesting, but this one uses a pair of li-poly cells and a PWM signal generated by a pic controller to regulate the power to the lamp using a IRL1404 MOSFET. It still requires an external li-poly charger, but looks like a nice project to get into li-poly and PWM applications.
Misc Hacks4181 Articles
DIY Powered Respirator
If you like to freak out your neighbors, you’ll love this one. [jake] had a run-in with allergies in his wood shop, so he built his own positive air pressure respirator. He used a surplus gas mask, scsi squirrel cage fan, and an automotive air filter. My old TDI VW Beetle used an activated charcoal filter for the cabin – I’d suggest one of those for more effective air filtration.
MB-6582 – DIY C64 Based Midi Synth
![MB-6582 by [wilba]](http://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/mb4685-had.jpg)
It’s been a while since we’ve seen one of these. [vscd] sent in the flikr stream showing off the gorgeous MB-6582, built by [wilba]. It’s a diy midi synth that’s based on the midibox platform. It uses … synth chips to do the dirty work, and some PICs, a little CMOS hardware and a C64 PSU. He even anticipated some future versions of the midibox project to complete the design. This is one of the nicest DIY builds I’ve seen in a while – just beautiful work. Check out the build notes on the wiki page.
TinyProjector: Mini POV Laser Projector
I found [Stefan]’s work through his older, but interesting TinyProjector project. He opted to use multiple diodes in various configurations with rotating mirrors to create images. He’s built quite a few interesting projects over the years. The WeatherTank is pretty sweet.
Aux Stereo Receiver Controls
[Bob van loosen] added a remote learning circuit made from a PIC 16F84A to his Onkyo receiver – which happens to have remote buttons and a ttl control link for external devices. The PIC listens to the remote link on the receiver. By grounding a pin, it will learn the next remote command that’s received. In this case, he uses it to swap the left/right front/rear signals to gain proper speaker orientation when he switches between his TV and Computer. This would make an entertaining external dongle if you combined it with a smoke generator…
Soldering Iron Indicator Mod
At first glance, [sprite_tm]s weller mod seemed a bit trivial. In reality, it’s like art with analog electronics. He wanted to add an indicator light for the heating element. To pull it off, he built a funky diode capacitor circuit to create a pseudo-regulated DC voltage, then used a zener diode, a potentiometer and a transistor to make a simple voltage switch that activates a transistor driven LED.
DIY Beamer Control
I was poking around the lumenlab forums and ran across this nice little project. It’s designed specifically for diy projectors. I settled for a simple thermal switch for my cooling, but this provides temperature monitoring/protection, dual fan control, lamp hour counter, serial interface and optional LCD controls. Everything you need to build your own is there, but it’s mostly in german.
Now I’m outta here – I’m going scuba diving.
