We’re fond of Team Hack-A-Day, so I wanted to point out the AOL CD lamp that Team Hack-A-Day member Figgy built. CD lamps are a fairly popular project: If you don’t have a cold cathode, you could build a compact florescent version. I really like the clean look of Neil’s version. Russel Jone’s added an external power connector to his Antec case to power his lamp.

I wonder what will happen if I combine the power of the AOL cd tesla generator and the AOL CD throne…[Sorry about the lack of comments, They’ll be back ASAP.]

Continue reading “Cd Lamps, Etc” →

The guys at invent geek posted their latest project. They

I’ve been known to modify an innocent kitchen appliance or two, but Derek Bradford has me beat. Derek is on the third iteration of his ‘uglyroast‘ coffee roaster. Since the nearest Home Depot is a continent away, he’s limited to simple parts and tools. The beans are heated with a gas stove. The second version used an electric fan and a camp stove. The latest one has a dedicated motor and sits over a gas range.

Continue reading “Scrounged Coffee Roaster” →

Cupric chloride is generally considered a better etchant even though it is not as well known as ferric chloride. [Rolan Yang] has a photoset of the process. Cupric chloride is usually sold as a photography chemical. The best feature is that the solution can be regenerated so you won’t be disposing of nearly as much etchant. I found a great page detailing the process for the hobbyist.

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Want your home automation system to know the exact position of your garage door not just whether it is open or closed? Then the ultimate garage door monitor is for you. There has got to be at least one person that needs that, right? Well for the rest of you it is a handy guide for how-to implement analog sensors (like this potentiometer) into your home automation by way of an analog to digital converter.

[thanks ledtester]

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Two clever students at MIT have built this impressive brute force safe cracker. Their target: a document safe with a S&G 8400 lock. The 8400 is a group 1 manipulation proof lock. Group 1 locks will resist manipulation by an expert for at least 20 hours. These guys used a stepper motor to move the dial and built a custom controller for it. The dial has butterfly knob in the center which must be rotated before and after each combination. That job is handled by a hobby servo. The torque required to open the safe is higher than the stepper motor, so when the optical encoder detects that the motor has stalled you know you’ve found the combination.

Related: Automated Master Lock crackers

Continue reading “Safe Autodialer” →

The Church of Wifi has been really busy since we last checked in with them. They showed a lot of cool projects yesterday. I was really impressed by the modded WRT54Gs that their members have been building. beakmyn’s self contained war driving box article was what really kicked this off. He covers adding GPS, SD card, and all the needed software to the WRT. Once completed all you have to do is plug the box in, go for a drive and then just pull the card when you get home to retrieve the data.

Continue reading “Self-contained War Driving Box” →