Automatic Dog Dish Filler Never Goes Dry

March 18, 2011 by Mike Nathan 37 Comments

automatic_water_dish

[Avatar-X] has a Siberian Husky that gets a lot of exercise throughout the day, and as you would imagine, drinks a ton of water as well. We all suffer from memory lapses at one time or another, and while he is normally good about keeping the bowl filled, he occasionally forgets. He has tried a handful of various auto-filling dog dishes, but none of them seemed to work all that well, and they often rapidly built up healthy bacterial colonies.

With the help of some friends, he rigged up an automatic water dish filler, that ensures his pup always has a sufficient supply of water. He tapped into his kitchen water supply with a standard refrigerator hookup kit, and ran some tubing up into his cabinets, where he placed a garden irrigation valve. The valve is controlled using an Arduino which senses the bowl’s water level using a pair of wires.

The system looks like it works pretty well if the video embedded below is any indicator. [Avatar-X] provides code and schematics for the water control circuit on his site, free to anyone looking to build a similar system for their pets.

If you are interested in learning more about automating some of your pet’s care, be sure to check out these hacks we featured in the past.

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Automatic Ball Launcher Is For The Dogs

March 15, 2011 by Mike Nathan 24 Comments

automatic_ball_launcher

A while back, [Dino] built an automatic ball launcher for his dogs, but he wanted to revise it to make it smaller and a bit more user-friendly. While watching an episode of “Prototype This”, he came across a great idea to improve his launcher, so off to the workshop he went.

He repurposed a power window motor from a car, and mounted it to some wood-reinforced aluminum sheeting in his garage. He added a piece of aluminum tubing to serve as a spring-loaded launch arm, which is drawn back by a small lever attached to the window motor.

When a ball is dropped onto a switch at the bottom of the launcher, the window motor starts turning, which pulls the launch arm back into place. Once the arm reaches the tipping point, the spring snaps it forward, launching the ball across the yard. The lever attached to the window motor eventually makes its way back under the launch arm, and is stopped by a switch that is also attached to the motor.

After the prototype was finished, he added some more wood to protect the mechanism from his dogs and vice versa. A hopper was added to the top of the structure to allow the dogs to load the launcher themselves, after a bit of training.

Now, some of you might wonder what is wrong with [Dino’s] arm. Truth be told, it works just fine. If you are a frequent Hack-a-Day visitor, you know that he spends plenty of time in the workshop, so this is an easy way to let the dogs entertain themselves until their owner is ready to play.

Check out the video embedded below for a demonstration of the launcher, as well as a detailed walkthrough of how the mechanism works.

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Home Built Revolving Shotgun

February 7, 2011 by James Munns 61 Comments

Sometimes, you just need more ammo available. In this weapon mod, the chamber of a 12 gauge shotgun, a hammer from an 1857 Remington Perc Revolver, and other parts from an Italian auto shotgun were all combined to make this happen. The gun is of questionable legality depending on what state or country it resides in. Don’t quote us on it, but the members of the forum seem to think it should be fine anywhere in the US but California. Slightly more practical than other shotgun mods we have seen, the inventor has been kind enough to share some stills of the inner mechanisms to see how this gun ticks.

[via Neatorama]

Home Brew Coffee Machine

December 8, 2010 by Joseph Thibodeau 23 Comments

There are already a lot of different ways to brew up a decent coffee at home, from the humble saucepan to the elegant vacuum flask. In an office environment the choice of coffee-making technique can have a major impact on workplace harmony—how can people be expected to work happily when the kitchen is filthy with grounds and the coffee is always stale? “Someone have mercy,” [Christian Finger] lamented, “and boil a pot of fresh.”

In the end he took extreme measures, building a machine that grinds whole beans, measures out a dose, brews a cup and self-cleans. He used all sorts of odds and ends to put the thing together, detailed in his long and hilarious build log (english translation—and check out the dude’s sweet ride). Refer to his shockwave animation for a summary of the intended operation.

The end result is an extremely impressive Goldbergian contraption—download the video from the build log. It is pretty noisy and probably energy- and water-hungry, but that wouldn’t stop us from using it every day, if given the chance. Hell, this here could form a major part of your next breakfast machine.

We’re sure that there is further potential in this, because to get the really freshest possible cup of coffee you’d want to roast the coffee beans just before grinding them. Then you’d be well on your way towards something else entirely: a delicious breakfast machine.

LEGO Automatic Transmissions

October 13, 2010 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

[AviatorBJP] is building some impressive automatic transmissions using LEGO parts. Your best bet is to check out his YouTube channel as he’s got a slew of videos related to topic. We’ve embedded test footage of first and second generation vehicles as well as the most recent flywheel design after the break. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, let’s look at how the system works.

Each transmission centers on a mechanism that includes hinged arms attached to a central axle. The arms are held together with a rubber band but as the axle spins faster, they overcome the elastic force of the band and begin to pivot outward. This pulls the shaft in one direction, moving its gear up to the next position in the transmission box. To test the system [AviatorBJP] uses a treadmill. A string is attached to the front of the vehicle to keep it in place and the treadmill is switched on to simulate engine power.

This design is quite brilliant, and he’s not keeping it to himself. If you’ve grown tired of the manual LEGO transmission you built, you can follow his multi-video build process to make one of these for yourself.

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Airsoft Minigun Packs Quite A Punch

August 12, 2010 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

[Kuba_T1000] built a multi-barrell Airsoft minigun with an unbelievable firing rate and an almost inexhaustible ammo pack. The gun is made entirely from aluminum which meant some time on the CNC machine. The six barrels don’t rotate but they are all used, resulting in the carnage shown in the video after the break. That large box you see is the ammo pack, which can hold 16,000 BBs and uses an electric feed system to reach the necessary delivery speeds. It is certainly not something you’d want to run into as part of an automated turret.

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Automated Car Cover

December 27, 2009 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

[Mike] covers his car whenever he puts it into the garage because the top is always open. After years of this ritual he decided to upgrade his garage to automatically cover the vehicle (link dead, try the Internet Archive version). The car cover, made from a few bed sheets, attaches to the bottom of the garage door. At the front of the stall the cover has two half-pound weights sewn in with plenty of padding to protect the car’s finish. Ropes attach to these weights, travel through a pulley system, and connect to the garage door opener carriage. This $65 dollar solution makes sure [Mike’s] car is always taken care of.

[Thanks 02TA]