car

249 Articles

Automotive Current Monitor

December 16, 2009 by 27 Comments

If you’ve ever had a car with an electrical system problem you know how hard it can be to pin-point the source of your woes. Here’s a hackery solution that uses a diy PCB to monitor the current being drawn off of the alternator.The sensing is provided by an Allegro ACS758 integrated circuit. This chip measures current up to 150A and outputs an analog signal that can be measured by a microcontroller. In this case an AVR ATmega8 measures the signal and spits the info back to a PC via the serial port. This data can be graphed to help locate when too much current is being drawn for the battery to remain charged.

Check out that CNC milled PCB, what a beauty!

[Thanks Joshua via Elektronika]

(Remote Controlled Robot) Car Vs (solar Charged) Tank

December 5, 2009 by 8 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKFECpQ8asI%5D

[Matthias] sent in his team’s iPhone Robot (CAR) project in response to yesterday’s iPhone controlled solar charged tank. Unlike the tank, the iPhone car is controlled via Bluetooth BTnode and BTstack, and also isn’t solar-powered. However, both projects utilize iPhones and readily available components. We particularly liked how it not only used a multi-touch input, but also the accelerometer within the iPhone. It seems some competition is stirring, lets see who wins out.

$4500 Book About A Car You Can’t Afford

October 9, 2009 by 24 Comments

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The folks over at Kirkham Motorsports have turned out two things of beauty. The first is a sky’s-the-limit milled aluminum car. The second is a book about the making of the car that runs $4500 per copy. Why so much for a book? The binding is milled out of a 35 pound aluminum billet.

The project spans a 2 1/2 year build cycle and showcases the gamut of craftsmanship. The extremely detailed build log is available at their website in PDF form. Of particular interest to us is Chapter 10: Milling. The sheer volume of machined parts for this roadster is mind-boggling. There’s also plenty of CNC pipe bending involved with the body work in Chapter 18.

Finish up your work this morning and spend the rest of the day with this fantasy creation. If you’ve got too much to do, why not shell out for the hard-copy version and devote your weekend to metal-working romance?

[via Makezine]

ED, The Electric DeLorean

October 7, 2009 by 34 Comments

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Who wouldn’t want a DeLorean, honestly it has to be the one of the coolest cars around, what with its gull wing doors and stainless steel siding. Joking aside [Tom Neiland] and [Dave Delman] went even further, creating eD, the electric DeLorean. It contains around 910 pounds of deep cycle lead batteries, custom transmission adapter plate, and a WarP 9 DC motor controlled by a water cooled 2000 amp Z2K-HV, all together to produce 200 horsepower reaching over 85 miles per hour.

The project cost ended up around $18,000 and they plan to add even more including a digital dash and Lithium batteries to extend the cars travel distance from the currently limited 30-40 miles on a single charge. Unfortunately the two couldn’t get their flux capacitor working, but we feel Dr. Brown would still be proud. Check out a video after the break and the writeup at Jameco.

[Thanks Tech Olive]

Continue reading “ED, The Electric DeLorean” →

Controlling An R/C Car With A Pic16F84

September 12, 2009 by 27 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hoFxx1EaN8]

[GuySoft] sent in this project. He doesn’t normally mess with electronics, but decided to give it a try. He chose a fairly complicated project to be his first, but seems extremely comfortable with it. This project was to control his R/C car with a pic16f84. That chip was chosen simply because it was the only one available at local stores. Though we’ve seen much more complicated projects in the past, he does a great job of showing exactly what has been done. He shares his thoughts and source code with us as well. He has express a little frustration about the closed source compiler he was using, so if anyone has any suggestions for him, he would probably appreciate it.  The funny part is that he mentions that people would just tell him to “get an AVR”. We think the readers here will probably be happy with how he pulled it off.

Center Brake Light LED Retrofit

August 29, 2009 by 26 Comments

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[Matt] wanted to increase the intensity of the center brake light on his car. The factory installed light uses a 20w incandescent bulb and although aftermarket LED replacements are available, he decided to take the retrofit on himself. Using the Fresnel lens from the light assembly as protoboard, he mounted a row of 10mm LEDs along with their current limiting resistors. He then broke the glass from the original bulb, removed the filament, and soldered directly to the two electrodes. This way the bulb socket can still be used to connect to the car’s electrical system.

Cheap Cup Holder Laptop Tray

July 11, 2009 by 52 Comments

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[Michael Davis] sent in his homemade laptop tray. He does a lot of traveling in his Toyota Tacoma and was looking for a good way to mount his laptop inside. Unfortunately, [Michael] soon discovered that commercial laptop trays can be very expensive and difficult to install. He saw an opportunity in the empty cup holder in his car. Fifteen dollars worth of PVC pipe fittings and a piece of plywood later he had a laptop tray.