[Peter] And The Amazing Technicolor Phone Wire Bracelet

October 15, 2014 by Adam Fabio 31 Comments

When a job left him with some extra phone wire, [Peter] didn’t toss it in the scrap pile. He broke out the casting resin and made an awesome bracelet (Imgur link). [Peter] is becoming quite an accomplished jeweler! When we last checked in on him, he was making rings out of colored pencils.

Casting the wire in resin was as simple as building a square form, placing the wires, then filling the form with appropriate amounts of epoxy and hardener. Once the epoxy cured, [Peter] drilled out the center with a sharp Forstner bit. A band saw brought the corners of the block closer to a cylinder.

From there it was over to the lathe, where [Peter] used a jam chuck to hold the bracelet in place. Once he shaped the bracelet [Peter] started wet sanding. It took Lots and lots of sanding both inside and out to finish the bracelet. The result is a mirror smooth finish, with bits of insulation bright copper just popping out of the resin.

One might think that the bracelet would be rough with all that copper, but [Peter] mentions on his Reddit Thread that it feels like plastic, though the bits of copper were “very pokey” before sanding. We’d recommend tossing on a clear coating to protect the exposed copper. Worn on a wrist, all that exposed metal would start oxidizing in no time.

This hack gives us lots of ideas for casting wearable circuits. Some WS2812’s and a teensy would make for a pretty flashy setup! Got an idea for a project? Tell us about in the comments, or post it up on Hackaday.io!

Continue reading “[Peter] And The Amazing Technicolor Phone Wire Bracelet” →

Your Halloween Costume May Be Cool, But It’s Not Laser-Cut Cardboard Vintage Airplane Cool

October 13, 2014 by Kristina Panos 33 Comments

While others are absorbed in baseball playoffs, [Aidan] has spent his recent Octobers planning incredible Halloween costumes for his son. We don’t know what he did last year, but there’s no way it’s better than this laser-cut cardboard airplane costume.

He had a few specs in mind and started with a model of a Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat from 3D Warehouse. Using SketchUp, he simplified the model and removed the landing gear and the propeller. [Aidan] created a simpler model on top of that, and set to work changing the proportions to make it adorable and toddler-sized.

To build around his son’s proportions, he inserted a 10-inch diameter scaled tube vertically into the model and squished down the fuselage in SketchUp. The plan was to have it laser-cut by Ponoko, which meant turning the design into flat pieces for them to cut. He ended up with 58 parts, many of them mirror images due to the symmetry of his design.

When the box from Ponoko arrived, [Aidan] was giddy. He was astonished at the quality of the pieces and found the plane very satisfying to build. But, he didn’t stop there. Using LayOut, he created a custom instrument cluster with reflections and shadows. The plane also has a Wii steering wheel, a motorized propeller, and of course, decals.

Laser Dog Goggles Make Halloween A Nice Night For A Walk

October 8, 2014 by Kristina Panos 31 Comments

Sure, you could dress your dog up for Halloween in some pre-fab hot dog costume or a little French maid outfit, but what’s the fun in that? Hilarious as it may be, there’s no hack there. [Becky Stern] will help you out of your pet costume rut with the tutorial for her latest creation, laser dog goggles.

First things first: the laser she uses is fairly benign. You can safely stare it down for just under 30 seconds, so your pet should be okay. [Becky] offers other helpful safety suggestions, like covering the delicate battery pack with fabric to avoid scratching damage, and waiting until the adhesives are completely dry before outfitting Rover. But hey, if your dog isn’t into eye wear, don’t force it.

These are based on Doggles brand dog goggles and the Adafruit Trinket. The laser is mounted on a micro servo so that it pivots back and forth, allowing your dog to scan the ground like RoboCop or Terminator. As you might expect, [Becky]’s tutorial includes a comprehensive list of tools and great documentation. Check out her video overview after the break.

Continue reading “Laser Dog Goggles Make Halloween A Nice Night For A Walk” →

Using A Standard Coil For NFC Tag Implant Reading

October 8, 2014 by Mathieu Stephan 18 Comments

A few months ago Hackaday covered the xNT crowdfunding campaign which aimed at making an NTAG216 based NFC implant for different purposes. I actually backed it, found that standard NFC readers don’t perform well and therefore decided to try using a standard coil as an antenna for better reading performances.

Most NFC readers typically only have a small sweet spot where implant reading is possible. This is due to what we call coupling factor which depends on the reading distance and reader & NFC tag antenna geometries. Having a smaller antenna diameter increases the coupling factor and makes implant positioning easier.

In my detailed write-up you’ll find a good introduction to impedance matching, a process where a few passive components are added in series/parallel with an antenna to bring its complex impedance close to a RF signal transmitter’s. This usually requires expensive tools but allows optimal power transmission at a given frequency.

You may find our xNT coverage here.

Feed That Shoulder Boom Box With A Wrist Tune Transmitter

October 5, 2014 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

Next time you’re strutting down the block with that hi-fi on you shoulder, don’t subject yourself to the limitations of a radio station’s tight playlist or the short run time of a cassette tape. Pack your tunes on your wrist and beam them directly with this wearable FM transmitter. No wires… it’s like the future is now!

The Raspberry Pi has proven itself to be a dependable FM transmitter. This project follows in those footsteps but moves the goal line a few leaps further. The build has a full user interface which will make it easy to adapt to just about any application you can imagine. And the added twist is shown in the latter third of the video after the break. [Navic209] has included a microphone in the design which allows the wearer to transmit voice to an appropriately tuned radio. It gives the device a very Dick Tracey-esque feel.

Continue reading “Feed That Shoulder Boom Box With A Wrist Tune Transmitter” →

Perceiving Invisible Forces With An EMF-Detecting Dress

October 3, 2014 by Kristina Panos 9 Comments

In June of 2014, [Afrdt] spent two weeks on a boat as an artist-in-residence in Linz, Austria. During that time, she created a dress that detects EMF waves and outputs them to vibration motors and a headphone jack.

[Afrdt] started by making two EMF coil antennas and sewed them to cuffs that snap together. She crafted fashionable fabric stripes that both conceal and carry the cables from the coils to an Adafruit FLORA that’s sewn into the body of the dress. The wearer experiences haptic feedback via vibration motors in the chest, and sonic feedback from a mini female headphone jack built into the collar. The zipper functions as a low-pass filter and volume control for the jack. One side bears resistive tape and runs to the FLORA, which is programmed to play an 800Hz tone. The other side runs to the headphone jack via conductive thread. As the zipper is opened, the pitch increases to toward the maximum pitch of 880Hz.

She drew inspiration for this project from [Aaron Alai]’s EMF detector project and built the code on top of it. Broader documentation and many more pictures are available both at [Afrdt]’s site and the residency program’s site.

This project is an official entry to The Hackaday Prize that sadly didn’t make the quarterfinal selection. It’s still a great project, and worthy of a Hackaday post on its own.

Prototype LED Light Suit Runs Off Of A NES Power Glove

September 28, 2014 by James Hobson 12 Comments

[Greg’s] been playing around with wearable hacks for quite some time now, and he’s decided to add a new twist for his latest LED light suit (Mk 4) — An ancient NES Power Glove to control it.

He was inspired by the band Hypercrush who had a music video where one of the guys was wearing a laser-shooting power glove — awesome. Having already made light suits before, he thought it’d be fun to do something similar.

The suit is controlled by an Arduino Pro Mini which has been hacked into the Power Glove for ultimate button pushing capabilities. He’s using 5 meter LED strips of the classic WS2812 RGB variety, which allow for individual LEDs to be addressed using a single pin. It’s powered by a 5V 2A USB battery pack, and he’s made all the components very modular, you could even say it’s “plug and play”!

Continue reading “Prototype LED Light Suit Runs Off Of A NES Power Glove” →