Hackaday Prize Entry: An Automated Still

April 27, 2017 by Brian Benchoff 27 Comments

We’ve seen plenty of Arduinofied home brewing setups, and kegerators are a fairly standard project for the types of people we hang out with. What we haven’t seen a lot of are home stills. There are unfortunate reasons for this. First off, distilling alcohol is illegal in a few parts of the world if you don’t have a license or tax stamp. Second, vapors explode. Third, wood alcohol is poison.

That said, [TegwynTwmffat’s] project for the Hackaday Prize is the coolest and the safest alcohol still we’ve ever seen. It’s fully automated, small, safe, and there are video game noises sprinkled about the user interface.

The boiler for this nano still is constructed out of a keg, but that was just the starting point. [Tegwyn] removed the bottom of the keg, installed a new bottom, and coupled that bottom to a hot plate. The top of the keg was modified to accept a 2 inch brass fitting that was beautifully welded into place. From the boiler, the alcohol vapor goes into an air-cooled condenser, and all this equipment is housed in a welded steel frame. You couldn’t make something out of aluminum extrusion that looks this good.

The electronics include a hydrometer, an electronic alcohol vapor sensor, several temperature sensors an Arduino Mega, and a GPRS module for controlling the entire setup over the Internet. At various points in the distillation process, the Arduino plays audio files of a robot voice saying what’s going on in the still.

Right now, [Tegwyn] is distilling barley wine and cider into alcohol. The volume produced isn’t much — the keg is only 10 liters, after all — but this is one of the best stills we’ve ever seen. You can check out a video of [Tegwyn] walking us through the project below.

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Hackaday Links: April 9, 2017

April 9, 2017 by Brian Benchoff 35 Comments

[Federico Musto], one of the Arduinos in the Arduino vs. Arduino saga (which finally came to an end last September) may have fabricated his academic record. This news comes from Wired, providing documents from the registrars at MIT and NYU stating [Musto] never attended these institutions. Since this story came out, [Musto] has edited his LinkedIn, listing his only academic credential as a kindergarten in Torino, Italy.

[shininglaser] built a tinnitus machine. What’s a tinnitus machine? It’s a device that, when activated, produces this sound: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. [shininglaser] built this tinnitus machine out of a pair of speakers, a cardboard box, a few batteries, and some sort of board with an epoxy-coated blob. We have no idea what the circuit looks like, but you could do this with any normal signal pulsing at around 15-18kHz (address pins on a CPU for bonus nerd cred) or a simple 555 timer.

This is a hackers bar. This bar in Roppongi, Tokyo is, “a place where you can enjoy live programming and business making…. The term ‘hacker’ is applied to someone who possesses top skills and knowledge to provide innovative and quick solutions even to the most difficult tasks.” It appears they have daily events/talks for JavaScript, Python, R, and Swift.

Captain Crunch needs our help. He’s facing some serious surgery, and even if it’s successful, there’s going to be a lot of stuff insurance doesn’t cover.

We can use Libreboot again. A few months ago, the Libreboot project left the GNU project after an issue with an employee at the Free Software Foundation. Hackaday chose not to report on this only because the accusations levied against the FSF were hearsay. I should emphasize this: the only reason we chose not to report on this is because the accusations were hearsay. Now the Libreboot project is under more democratic management and they’re working on the Thinkpad X220, the greatest Thinkpad of all time. Neat.

Here’s a quick and easy tip to get metal fume fever. Build a foundry out of a galvanized trash can! No, don’t worry about that galvanized coating, it’ll burn off. Oh, he’s doing this indoors. What’s carbon monoxide? Why am I sleepy?

Even Easier Toner Transfer PCBs

January 12, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 37 Comments

One of the most popular methods of homebrew PCB fabrication is the toner transfer process. Compared to UV-sensitive films and CNC mills, the toner transfer process is fantastically simple and only requires a laser printer. Being simple doesn’t mean it’s easy, though, and successful toner transfer depends on melting the toner to transfer it from a piece of paper to a copper clad board.

This is heatless toner transfer for PCB fabrication. Instead of using a clothes iron or laminator to transfer toner from a paper to board, [simpletronic] is doing it chemically using acetone and alcohol.

Acetone usually dissolves laser printer toner, and while this is useful for transferring a PCB from paper to board, it alone is insufficient. By using a mixture of eight parts alcohol to three parts acetone, [simpletronic] can make the toner on a piece of paper stick, but not enough to dissolve the toner or make it blur.

From there, it’s a simple matter of putting a piece of paper down on copper clad board. After waiting a few minutes, the paper peels off revealing perfectly transferred board art. All the usual etching techniques can be used to remove copper and fabricate a PCB.

This is an entirely novel method of PCB fabrication, but it’s not exactly original. A few days ago, we saw a very similar method of transferring laser printed graphics to cloth, wood, and metal. While these are probably independent discoveries, it is great evidence there are still new techniques and new ways of doing things left to be discovered.

Thanks [fridgefire] for the tip.

Barduino, Now With Facebook Integration

May 10, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 8 Comments

We’ve seen BarBots that will automagically pour you a drink, but how about one with RFID? How about one with Facebook integration, so your friends know how much of a lush you are? Wait. Facebook already tells them that. Huh.

[Andy] and [Daniel]’s latest build follows on the heels of a lot of similar cocktail bots; an Arduino controls a few solenoid valves connected to a CO2 supply and a few bottles of liquor and mixers that allow drinks to be dispensed at the push of the button. Where this project gets interesting is its use of RFID and Facebook.

The user interface was coded for Windows 7, with an RFID tag (ostensibly issued to each guest) allowing a unique login that checks an SQL server to see what privileges the user has. The app pulls the user’s Facebook profile photo down and displays it in the corner of the screen, and with the server keeping track of how many drinks (and of what kind) they had, with the right permissions it should be possible to post that info to their wall. Because we all know what you did last night, even if you don’t.

Interactive Boozeshelf Is Its Own Dance Party

October 17, 2013 by Marsh 9 Comments

boozeshelf

[Jeremy] refused to settle on your typical alcohol storage options, and instead created the Boozeshelf. Like most furniture hacks, the Boozeshelf began as a basic IKEA product, which [Jeremy] modified by cutting strips of wood to serve as wine glass holders and affixing the front end of a wine rack at the base to store bottles.

In its standard operating mode the Boozeshelf lies dark and dormant. Approaching it triggers a cleverly recessed ultrasonic sensor that gently illuminates some LEDs, revealing the shelf’s contents. When you walk away, then lights fade out. An Arduino Mega running [Jeremy’s] custom LEDFader library drives the RGB LED strips, which he wired with some power MOSFETS to handle current demands.

[Jeremy] didn’t stop there, however, adding an additional IR receiver that allows him to select from three different RGB LED color modes: simple crossfading, individual shelf colors (saved to the on-board EEPROM), or the festive favorite: “Dance Party Mode.” Stick around after the break to see [Jeremy] in full aficionado attire demonstrating his Boozeshelf in a couple of videos. Considering blackouts are a likely result of enjoying this hack, we recommend these LED ice cubes for your safety.

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Generating Electricity From Alcohol

April 12, 2013 by Mike Szczys 50 Comments

thermoelectric-generator-lamp

Here’s a thermoelectric generator which [x2Jiggy] built. The concept uses heat from a flame, biased against cooler temperatures produced by that huge heat sink making up the top portion of the build to produce electricity via the Peltier effect.

The build is passively cooled, using a sync assembly that takes advantage of heat pipes to help increase the heat dissipation. A nearly flat heat sink makes up the mounting surface for the hot side, which faces down toward a flame driving the generator. [x2Jiggy] started the project by using a can, wick, and olive oil as the heat source. He managed to get about 2V out of the system with this method. What you see here is the second version. It swaps out the olive oil lamp for an alcohol stove. The cans with holes punched in them act as a wind screen while also providing a stable base. This rendition produces about 3V, but it doesn’t sound like there are any precise measurements of what it can do under load.

Robot Bartender Mixes A Mean Drink

March 25, 2013 by Ryan Fitzpatrick 11 Comments

Back in 2002, [Dave] came across a discarded PUMA robotic arm and quickly set his sights on turning it into a bartender to serve drinks at his parties. Unfortunately, the arm was far from operational and being an engineer at his day job meant that working on this project was the last thing he wanted to do when he came home. So, progress trickled along slowly for years. He eventually announced a public deadline to spur him to action, and this years Pi(e) party saw the official debut of ‘Sir-Mix-a-Bot’ – the robot bartender .

With the exception of having to build a new hand for it, mechanically, the arm was still in good condition when [Dave] found it. The electronics were another story however. Using some off the shelf components and his own know-how, [Dave] had to custom build all the controls. The software was written from scratch as well. (He lucked out and had help from his brother who was taking a Ph.D. program in robotics at the time).

As if the robotics aspect of the project wasn’t enough, [Dave] even created a beautiful custom table that both houses and displays his masterpiece. The quality of craftsmanship on his table alone is worth the time to check this out – there’s a short video after the break.

[Thanks Dave]

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