Exposed Flip Clock

Exposed Clock Is Flippin’ Cool

Some hacks are triumphs of cleverness, others…are just cool. [Super Cameraman’s] exposed retro flip clock tends toward the latter half of that spectrum—it may not be the most complex, but we’re relieved that for once there isn’t an Arduino crammed into the back of it.

You can buy pared down, exposed flip clocks at museums for an arm and a leg, or you can trudge through eBay and local thrift shops until you come across a cheapo clock radio. [Super Cameraman’s] clock cost him exactly $2, and is split into two sections: a clock side and a radio side. Prying off the knobs and popping open the case reveals all the shiny mechanisms and electronics, most of which he trashed. The radio and even the transformer were removed, leaving only the flip clock, which he re-wired directly to the plug—it seems these types of clocks run straight off 120VAC. Check out the video below.

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SPRIME Controlled AC Outlets

Reader [Tim Upthegrove] sent in a novel take on powering and monitoring AC outlets and devices called SPRIME, or Simple Powerline Remote Interactive Monitor and Enforcer. Compared to previous hacks, such as 120v switching or Quick cheap remote outlets, that only turned an outlet on or off; SPRIME allows not only control over outlets via the internet, but also power usage of devices currently plugged in.

We really liked their idea of giving power companies access to SPRIME outlets to reduce power consumption during peak hours, but sadly we don’t see it being implemented in homes any time soon. Catch a video of SPRIME after the rift.

[Thanks Chris McClanahan and Jeff Starker for the project, and deyjavont for pointing out our silly mistakes]

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IR Controlled Light Dimmer

dimmer

This is a pretty useful device. It is an IR controlled light dimmer. It goes in line with the main power and controls how much gets through to your light. You can adjust the brightness with a TV remote control. Finally, we can retire our clapper! These are commercially available, but making your own is just so much more fun. You may have to dig a little on their site for the schematics and programming. There are tons of other projects there as well so have fun.  You can see a video of it in action after the break.

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Working With Relays

relay

SparkFun’s latest tutorial shows you how to work with relays. A relay is an electrically operated switch. In this case, they’re using it to switch a 120V AC outlet. The article carries the standard warnings about how not to kill yourself with AC (plus some non sequitor linking throughout). As an extra precaution, they chose a GFI outlet. You probably know how a relay works, but it’s worth seeing how they implemented it. They use a transistor to prevent overloading the microcontroller’s GPIO pin. The control pin is pulled to ground to keep the relay off. A diode is placed across the relay coil to manage the power flow when it discharges. An indicator LED is included to show when the relay closes. This is a great foundation for an automation project, or maybe you just want to terrorize your cat.