Drill-powered Go Cart

January 28, 2010 by Mike Szczys 36 Comments

Here we have a toy car modified to use a drill as the powertrain. [Hans] has thrown a 12v 4.5 amp battery in to power the motor and it tops out around 9 miles per hour. This is similar in concept to the trash-based go cart from last week but this time there’s video. He’s built a couple of these and there’s footage of both after the break. Our favorite part is from the first video when dad chuckles with glee from behind the camera as son whips around the neighborhood on the mean-sounding machine.

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Electric Go Cart From Trash

January 22, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 33 Comments

A quick lesson on being a good parent. If you make an awesome electronic cart out of trash that may not necessarily be stable, or even fully capable of stopping once it gets going, you MUST put your children on it and insist that they drive. Did we mention that the system is full acceleration or no acceleration? Indeed, it is. There isn’t a writeup, and one really isn’t needed. This is dead simple. The parts list will explain most of what is going on, but the look of doubt and fear on the kids face is what really makes this hack worth it. Or is that possibly a look that says “what are you looking at?”

[via Flickr]

Cell Phone Based Car Starter, Another Take

January 19, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 56 Comments

[Dave] Had been working on a cell phone activated remote start for his car for a while when we posted the GSM car starter. While both do carry out the same job, we feel that there is enough good information here to share. He’s gone a pretty simple way, by connecting the vibrator motor leads to a headphone jack. He’s using that signal to then activate the remote start by setting off an extra fob. Though it is amazingly simple, this version does have an advantage. As [Dave] points out, his cell phone has several features which could be utilized to automate some of his car starts. He can set alarms as well as recurring calendar events to get his car started without his interaction. Lets just hope he doesn’t forget and let his car run too long unattended, especially if it is in a garage attached to his house.

GSM Car Starter

January 15, 2010 by Mike Szczys 44 Comments

It’s just starting to warm up around here but it was very cold for a long time. We’re not fond of going anywhere when it’s way below freezing but those professional hermit opportunities never panned out so we’re stuck freezing our butts off. Fed up with his frigid auto, [Aaron] installed a remote starter to warm the car up before he got to it. This didn’t help at work because of the distance from his office to the sizable parking lot is too far for the key fob’s signal to carry. He decided to make his starter work with GSM so he could start the car with a phone call.

The first attempt involved a pre-paid cell phone for $30. The problem is that anyone who called the phone would end up starting the car. After a bit of looking he found a GSM switch that just needs an activated SIM to work. When called, it reads the incoming phone number for authentication but never picks up the phone so there’s no minutes used. He cracked open an extra key-fob and wired up the lock and start buttons to the relays in the GSM switch. Bam! A phone call starts (and locks) his car.

Maybe this isn’t as hardcore as body implants but it’s a fairly clean solution. He uses the car’s 12v system to power the switch and pays $10 every three months to keep the SIM card active. There’s an underwhelming demonstration video after the break showing a cellphone call and a car starting. Continue reading “GSM Car Starter” →

A Day At The Lake For The Disabled

January 15, 2010 by Mike Szczys 18 Comments

We do a lot of useless hacks just for the fun of it so when we see something with purpose it’s pretty exciting. This hack turns any kayak into a motorized vessel that can be controlled by a quadriplegic person using a sip & puff interface. After the break you can see some clips of navigation and an explanation of the hardware.

[Mark’s] system starts by adding outriggers to a kayak to prevent the possibility of the boat rolling over in the water. Each pontoon has an electric trolling motor attached to it that is controlled by an Arduino via a motor driver.

The Arduino takes navigational commands from a sip & puff controller. A straw in the operator’s mouth allows them to sip or puff for a split second to turn left or right. Longer sips or puffs control forward and reverse incrementally, up to a top speed of about 3.7 miles per hour. [Mark] incorporated an auxiliary remote control interface so that a safety observer can take control of navigation if necessary.

His build came in around $1300, a tiny cost if this makes kayaking available to several people each summer. Great job [Mark]! Continue reading “A Day At The Lake For The Disabled” →

Start The Car With A Wave Of Your Hand

January 14, 2010 by Mike Szczys 74 Comments

[Jair2K4] likes his RFID almost as much as he likes his chaw. Ever since his car was stolen he’s had to start it using a screwdriver. Obviously this is not a good way to leave things so he decided to convert his starter to read an RFID tag. He installed an RFID transponder he picked up on eBay, wiring it to the ignition switch. He’s removed the clutch-check sensor and wired a rocker switch to enable the RFID reader. We presume the rocker switch will eventually be used to shut the car off as well.

While most would have purchased a key-chain RFID tag, [Jair2k4] went far beyond that and had the tag implanted in his hand. This is an honor usually reserved for pets and until he adds RFID functionality to the door locks maybe a key fob would have been a better answer. But, to each his own. See his short demonstration video after the break.

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Bike Trainer Computer: Speed, Cadence, Heartrate, Trainer Temp

January 12, 2010 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

[Kurt] was using a bike trainer to get in shape for warmer and dryer biking months. Unfortunately it’s pretty hard to train if you don’t have reliable data concerning how hard you’re working. There’s commercial solutions for trainer computers but he’d read some rough reviews about them and decided to build his own trainer computer. He’s done a great job of integrating a lot of different data collection sources. He picked up two replacement bike computer sensors to use on the back wheel for speed (the front wheel is stationary with this type of trainer) and on the crank for cadence. He also wears a heart rate monitor and sourced a SparkFun heart rate module to gather that data. Finally, an LM235 analog temperature sensor was combined with a spring clamp to detect the temperature of the trainer’s resistance module.

Data from the sensors is collected with a PIC16F73 microprocessor and fed to a computer over a serial connection. He’s got a screenshot of the realtime graphs that he’s using for feedback while on the bike. This is a useful and practical setup but when he get’s tired of exercising he’s just a few lines of code from converting this into a gaming controller.

[Thanks Justin]