Combining Musical Hatred With Target Practice

July 16, 2015 by Rick Osgood 3 Comments

Not everyone can agree on what good music is, but in some cases you’ll find that just about everyone can agree on what is awful. That’s what the people over at Neo-Pangea discovered when they were listening to Internet radio. When one of those terrible songs hits their collective eardrums, the group’s rage increases and they just need to skip the track.

This is how Engineers act if the song is super-awful

Rather than use a web app or simple push button to do the trick, they turned the “skip” button into a NERF target. They call their creation the Boom Box Blaster and made a fantastic demo ~~film~~ video about it which is found after the break.

Inspired by a painting in the office, the target takes the form of a small hot air balloon. The target obviously needed some kind of sensor that can detect when it is hit by a NERF dart. The group tried several different sensor types, but eventually settled on a medium vibration sensor. This sensor is connected to an Arduino, which then communicates with a Raspberry Pi over a Serial connection. The Pi uses a Python script to monitor the Arduino’s vibration sensor. The system also includes some orange LEDs to simulate flames and a servo attached to the string which suspends the balloon from the ceiling. Whenever a hit is registered, the flames light up and the balloon raises into the air to indicate that the shot was on target.

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Vintage Vinyl Laser-Etched On A Tortilla

July 14, 2015 by Theodora Fabio 39 Comments

[UpgradeTech] had a proof-of-concept itch they needed to scratch: making a playable record out of a tortilla using a laser cutter. The idea was spawned from the goofy “tortilla vinyl” YouTube video.

Uncooked flour tortillas were used. Corn tortillas were too lumpy while cooked tortillas shredded on the record player. To get the recording onto the tortilla, Audacity was used to modify a stereo WAV file. Using the RIAA equalization standard is a great choice here as it was originally adopted to prevent excess wear and tear on record grooves as the needle passed through. A Python script generated the files for the laser cutter, creating a text file with the sound data which was then processed into a vector PDF of the grooves. For each record it takes 30 minutes for the laser cutter to turn a simple flour tortilla into the musical variety.

Each tortilla can play 30-40 seconds of music at 45 or 78 RPM, but they start to warp once they dry out. Time to build a humidor around the record player! There is background noise that can make certain songs harder to hear, but there is unarguably audible music. There is plenty of room for optimizing the sound file, grooves, and cutting. We hope this project inspires others to make their own musical tortilla. Playing with your food has taken on a whole new meaning!

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Hackaday Prize Entry: 3D Printed Modular Keyboard

July 12, 2015 by Bryan Cockfield 24 Comments

There is a big community of people creating all kinds of synthesizers, but until now no one has attempted to make a keyboard controller like the one [Tim] created. Not only has he created the keyboard synthesizer, but he’s developed one that is modular and 3D printed so you can just expand on the synth you have rather than go out and buy or build a new one.

The design has a lot useful features. Since the design is modular, you can 3D print extra octaves of keys if you need, and simply build off of the existing keyboard. The interior has mounts that allow circuit boards to be screwed down, and the exterior has plenty of available places to put knobs or sliders. Anything that could possibly be built into a synthesizer is possible with this system, and if you decide you want to start small, that’s possible too!

All of the design files are available from Pinshape if you want to get started. The great thing about this controller is that you could use a 555-based synth in this keyboard controller, or a SID synth, or any other synth you could think of!

The 2015 Hackaday Prize is sponsored by:

Busted Wah Pedal Becomes New Synth Tool

July 8, 2015 by Bryan Cockfield 3 Comments

Sometimes we get lucky and find a part we need for a project in our parts drawer. [Scissorfeind] got even luckier and found a part for his project lying around in the street. It was a Crybaby Wah pedal, a classic effects pedal typically used for a guitar. Since it was somewhat damaged, [Scissorfeind] got to work creating a control voltage (CV) and volume circuit for his Korg synthesizer.

For those who aren’t synthesizer aficionados, CV is a method of controlling the pitch of a tone. A higher voltage creates a higher tone and vice-versa. The wah pedal has a rocker on it that allows one’s foot to control the effect, but this particular one has been modified for CV instead of the wah-wah sound these pedals normally make. [Scissorfeind] built in a switch that will allow it to control volume as well, which makes this pedal quite unique in the effects world.

[Scissorfeind] built the custom circuit out of other parts he had lying around (presumably not in the street) and put the entire thing together on perfboard, then fit it all back together in the pedal. Now he has a great control voltage pedal for the vintage Korg synthesizer he recently restored! [Scissorfeind] knows his way around a synth, but if you’re looking to get started on a synthesizer project we have a great tutorial for you!

Headphone Amp Features A Tiny CRT

July 7, 2015 by Adam Fabio 40 Comments

[ErikaFluff] needed an amp for her Grado open cans. Rather than build yet another boring black box, she built what may be the most awesome headphone amp ever by adding a tiny CRT which displays the current audio waveform. She packaged all this up in a customized Hammond box which makes it look like it just rolled off the line from some audiophile studio.

The amplifier in this case is based upon the CMoy, a common headphone amp design. [ErikaFluff] added a MOSFET on the output to drive his relatively low impedance (32 ohm) Grado headphones with reasonable volume. The CRT is from an old video camera viewfinder. Before LCDs were advanced and cheap enough to include in video cameras, CRTs were the only show in town. These tiny black and white screens use high voltage to scan an electron beam across a phosphor screen just like their bigger brethren.

Since she was going with an oscilloscope style vector scan rather than the raster scan the screen electronics were originally designed for, [ErikaFluff] had to create her own horizontal and vertical deflection circuits. Horizontal scan is created by a 555 timer generating a sawtooth wave at 75 Hz. Vertical deflection is via an LM386 driving a hand wound impedance matching transformer. The high voltage flyback transformer and its associated driver circuit were kept from the original CRT, though repackaged to make them as small as possible.

You might think that having a few thousand volts next to a sensitive audio amplifier would cause some noise issues. We also worried a bit about shorts causing unexpected shock treatments through the wearer’s ears. [ErikaFluff] says there is no need to for concern — the signal is fed to the CRT circuit through optocouplers. The audio circuit is also electrically split from the CRT and runs on a virtual ground. Judicious amounts of shielding tape keeps the two circuits isolated.

This may not be the most practical project, but we think it’s pretty darn cool. The response over on Reddit’s electronics subreddit seems to be positive as well. We hope [ErikaFluff] is sitting down when this post gets published!

An Electronic Woodwind With An Onboard Synthesizer

June 20, 2015 by Brian Benchoff 7 Comments

About a year ago, we saw a project on Hackaday.io for a MIDI wind controller. Keyboard MIDI controllers are a dime a dozen, but if you want something that actually sounds like a brass or woodwind instrument, you need something that’s controlled by a breath sensor. Since then, this project has been updated with an onboard synthesizer. It sounds great, and thanks to some interesting components, the part count is actually really low.

The synthesizer used for this project is just a single chip – the DSP-G1 from [Jan Ostman]. This isn’t a custom ASIC or anything fancy; it’s just an 8-pin ARM microcontroller in DIP format, the LPC810.

The rest of the instrument is just a series of pressure sensors along the body, and a breath sensor. The plan is to stuff all the electronics – a microcontroller to read the touch and breath sensors, the DSP-G1 chip, and the battery – inside the body of the instrument. That’s something that would be incredibly cool, and much more capable than the wind controllers that are available today.

You can see a few videos of the wind controller below.

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Vintage Stereo Reborn With All The Bells And Whistles

June 17, 2015 by Bryan Cockfield 36 Comments

We always like seeing projects that salvage a classic piece of technology, and this one doesn’t disappoint. It’s a vintage kiosk- or console-style stereo, repurposed with every useful feature imaginable, but still made to look original. Until you open the lid, that is.

[Julian] has been hard at work on rebuilding this 1957 RCA stereo, and since he’s no stranger to these types of rebuilds, the results are pretty impressive. Underneath the hood is a 22″ touchscreen running Windows 7 and a Lepai amplifier. The controls for the stereo were placed towards the back, along with USB ports and an RJ45 connector for the computer.

The speakers in the stereo also needed to be replaced. For this, [Julian] used a set of Dayton speakers that worked well enough for this application. After mounting the speakers and all the other hardware in the unit, [Julian] noted that while it isn’t an audiophile’s dream stereo, it was nice to have all of these parts integrated together into something that looks nice. We’d have to agree!

There are a lot of rejuvenated antique stereos around too, like this Bluetooth-enabled tube amp radio, or this Soviet-era handheld, or even this slightly more modern stereo. There’s just something classy about having a vintage-looking thing spruced up with modern technology!