Toaster Oven Forgoes Pop-Tarts, Reflows Solder

September 19, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 13 Comments

For SMD work, solder paste and a heat gun is great. Heat guns aren’t the cheapest thing, so [Karel] decided to make cheap reflow oven out of a toaster oven. With a PCB taken from a laminator temperature control board, the build was fairly successful, so [Karel] decided to add a thermistor to his oven.

There was a problem with placing this thermistor near the board: solder melts in a reflow oven, so [Karel] needed to figure how to connect the thermistor to the control board outside the oven. The solution was crimping thin copper tubing to the thermistor leads and passing that tube through the wall of the oven. Epoxy was used to avoid an electrical short. A low tech solution, but very effective. After applying some solder paste and going in the oven, this board looks very clean. There are a few solder bridges, but nothing a wick can’t take care of.

[Karel] is now working on an update to the temperature controller that controls the oven over a serial connection. Check out the video of a few temperature cycles after the break.

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An Open-Source Rotational Casting Machine

September 15, 2011 by Jeremy Cook 28 Comments

[Aurelio] wrote in to tell us about the smartCaster, an “Open source automatic roto-casting machine.” For those of you not familiar with roto-casting, or rotational molding, it’s a process whereby something to be formed is placed into a mold and then melted while spinning. This item is often plastic, but it can be another material such as plaster of Paris or even chocolate.

Naturally, having something made using this process is generally very expensive and generally requires a high volume of parts to be made. The smartCaster Kickstarter project aims to change this. Although in the prototype stage currently, [Aurelio] claims to need only $1571 to finish his project and make it ready for the prospective at-home rotational molder.

Although it’s a much different tool than we see here most of the time, for the right project (custom Easter Bunnies anyone?) it could be quite useful. Check out a video of the prototype in action after the break. Continue reading “An Open-Source Rotational Casting Machine” →

Upverter: It’s Like Github For Hardware

September 14, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 39 Comments

If there’s one thing we’ve noticed about hardware hackery and electronics project, it’s that all the resources to build a project are scattered about the Internet on forums, blogs (heh), and personal web pages. Enter Upverter. The fellows who started Upverter had the same observation, and after some Y Combinator funding, launched what they hope to be “The Github of electronics” and the “Google Docs of hardware design.”

Upverter has the features we would expect – forking, versioning, and integration with Github for a project’s code. Already there’s a few cool projects, like a PIC programmer, a TV-B-Gone, and a tiny version of Conway’s Game Of Life.

We’re not ready to wave the banner of an Upverter fanboy quite yet. There’s quite a number of components available in the schematic editor, but from our experience the component library could use some refinement both by weeding out duplicates and increasing the number of parts. We’d also like to put a zoom control for the schematic view on our wish list. Upverter doesn’t have a PCB editor either, but from this post from a VC rag, the team is working on one. While this is really just nitpicking – Upverter launched less than 24 hours ago – we’ll be happy to see the some projects roll in on the tip line that are hosted on Upverter.

EDIT: ~~link to the Google cache, because we probably Slashdotted it.~~ It’s up for now.

PCB Drill From R/C Car Parts

September 12, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 17 Comments

[Sid] makes a few PCBs a month and the hardest part of his fabrication process is always drilling the through-holes. He has a PCB hand drill that usually results in a sore index finger. After a few unsuccessful attempts of using a full-size electric drill and not wanting to invest in a commercial solution, [Sid] made a PCB drill from a broken R/C car.

The toy car was donated by [Sid]’s 4-year-old after a terrible crash. [Sid] took the gearbox from the car and added a small circuit to control the direction of the drill. After attaching the drill chuck to the former R/C car axle and adding the power leads to a 5 Volt adapter, a PCB drill press was born.

Most of the parts for this build were salvaged from the toy car’s radio control circuit. Except for the chuck from [Sid]’s hand drill and a few switches, everything on this build was pulled from a broken remote control car. While the build is a lot simpler than this semi-automatic PCB drill, [Sid]’s drill seems to work well. Check out the demo video after the break.

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Improving Your Welder Without A Microcontroller

September 10, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 13 Comments

We’re always impressed when a piece of hardware is torn apart, rebuilt and ends up exceeding the capabilities of the original device. [Dave] and [Will]’s home-built TIG welder is no exception to that rule.

When [Dave] and [Will] started working on converting a simple AC stick welder to a welder with every function imaginable, they decided to keep it simple. After looking at some high-price commercial welders they came up with a list of features they wanted to have and decided to implement this in TTL and CMOS logic. The guys didn’t want to go with a microcontroller solution because not everyone can code, and discrete chips are very easy to troubleshoot given minimal tools.

For the high voltage part of the build, the original flyback transformer was replaced with a neon sign transformer and homebrew spark gap and capacitor. The plans for a homebrew spark gap and cap didn’t quite work out so they were replaced with commercial units. The guys included schematics and a PCB layout (PDF warning) of their build. It’s always great to see an amazing logic chip build, and improving an existing tool never hurts.

Thanks to [Franci] for sending this one in.

Adding Fluke 54 II Features To A 51 II Thermometer

September 10, 2011 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

The difference between Fluke’s 54 II and 51 II thermometers is the addition of a second channel for dual temperature sensing, and buttons which control data logging. Oh, and an additional $150 in price for the higher model. [TiN] was poking around inside and with the help of some forum members he figured out how to unlock additional features on his low-end Fluke temperature meter. You can do the same if you don’t mind cracking open the meter, sourcing and soldering most of the components seen above, cutting holes in the case for the buttons, and hoping it still works when you put everything back together.

It seems that Fluke designed one full-featured unit and watered it down to fill a hole in the lower-priced market just like some other testing-hardware manufacturers (Rigol’s digital storage oscilloscopes come to mind). But the MSP430 P337I in this meter cannot be reflashed, so this would most likely be unhackable hardware if the firmware for the two models is different. After some intensive study of the PCB layout [TiN] found a set of resistors which seemed to serve no external hardware purpose. They do connect to the microcontroller and together they create a two-bit code. He was able to get pictures of the four different hardware models and work out which resistor combinations identify the different meters. Now he can get the firmware to believe it is operating a Fluke 54 II, the rest is just putting the correct passive components onto the unpopulated locations.

We think the quest is what is of interest with this hack. [TiN] did an amazing job of photographing and writing about each step in the process. We’re unlikely to try this ourselves but loved reading about it.

DIY Portable Charger/generator

September 8, 2011 by Mike Nathan 26 Comments

portable_charger_generator

[Glenn] from The Back Shed has built a lot of windmills and stationary generators over the years, but recently decided to try his hand at building something a bit more portable.

The charger is based of a relatively simple design, employing a 5.2 HP Kubota 4 stroke motor and a 12v car alternator to provide power. While you might be inclined to point out that his charger does exactly what an alternator and motor are built to do, there was a bit more to it than simply slapping the two parts together.

A laser cut adapter plate holds the motor and alternator together, but once [Glenn] wrapped things up and gave the motor a spin, he realized that he was driving the alternator backwards. This would eventually cause the alternator to overheat since the cooling fan was running the wrong way. He removed the fan and reversed the fins with a hammer so that he could get the cooling he needed without having to reinstall the alternator in the opposite orientation.

The whole kit was mounted on a hand truck for portability, and [Glenn] says that the charger/generator only needs to run about 5 minutes before a dead battery has enough juice to crank an engine.

[via HackedGadgets]