Hackaday Links: December 7 2009

December 7, 2009 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5lksMvmqQc]

Ah the beauty of watching molten solder pull SMD components into place. Yeah, we’ve seen it before, but for some reason it never gets old.

The glory days of wardriving are certainly behind us but if you’re still hunting in certain areas for access points you can leave the laptop at home. A homebrew program called Road Dog can turn your PSP into a WiFi search device. You must be able to run custom code to use this app.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE2pB1pyZN0]

Ferrofluid is our friend. But having grown up watching the Terminator and Hellraiser movies we can’t help being a little creeped out by the effects seen in this movie.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1OTSbIzcwI]

Follow along with the NASA astronauts in this 20 minute HD tour of the international space station. It’s a cramped place to live but we can’t help thinking that it looks incredibly clean. After all, where would the dirt come from?

How are your woodworking skills? Can you take a wooden block and turn it on a lathe until you have a lampshade 1/32″ thick? We’d love to see how these are made, but imagine the artist’s reaction when hours of labor are ruined by a minuscule amount of misplaced pressure on a carving tool. Patience, we’ll learn it some day!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6pUMlPBMQA]

This video from the past that is about the future of travel does leave us wondering why our cars don’t have built-in radar for poor visibility? We’ve already realized the rear-view-mirror-tv-picture, but we’re going to need your help before the flying police/fire/ambulance-mobile is a common sight. Oh, the fun of seeing a high-tech push-button selector 3:30 into the video. Perhaps the touch-screen was a bit beyond the vision of the time.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW5PByaR2EQ]

Sometimes you have so many servants you need to find creative things for them to do. Only the most discriminating of the super-rich employ a person whose sole responsibility is to erase and redraw the hands of a clock each minute. This video is obviously a result of the global recession as the live time-keeper has been let go; a looping recording took his job!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7woG0pqFjs]

Last time we checked in with [Marco Tempest] he was syncing video over multiple iPhones. Now he’s at it again with an augmented reality setup. A camera picks up some IR LEDs in a canvas and translates that into information for a video projector. We’d call this a trick, but it’s certainly not magic.

Magic Clock Knows Your Location

November 29, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 12 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-A4ZNdkmEs&feature=player_embedded%5D

Straight out of the fiction of Harry Potter is The Magic Clock. Just like in the novel this clock (is it still a clock even thought it doesnt tell time?) shows the current location of family members, from home to the doctor’s office, even to mortal peril (We hear its nice this time of year).

The clock hands are driven by 4 separate servo motors, which are maintained by an Arduino. The location of family members is updated wirelessly via Twitter. We think a script written for each member’s GPS enabled cell phone might be more trustworthy, but it seems to be working fine currently.

[via Make]

13th Century Navigation System

November 28, 2009 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

[ted id=694]

[Tom Wujec] explains how an astrolabe works and its importance in our technological development. He argues that an astrolabe was the world’s first “popular computer”. It measures the sky and that measurement can be used to tell time, survey land, and navigate a ship.

Astrolabes are built from three pieces and according to [Tom], educated children in the 1200’s would not just have been able to use one, but could build one as well. Electronics have certainly made our lives easier, but there’s something powerful about such a useful yet simple device.

Bulbdial Redux

November 15, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 9 Comments

[Taufeeq] sent in his “Circle of Light” bulbdial clock. You may remember when we showed you Evil Mad Scientist’s version a while back, and [Taufeeq] did use it as a base but he’s added some of his own little touches. Some of the changes include using a PIC with an RTC chip instead of AVR, which allowed him to shrink the board down small enough to fit behind the clock face, rather than on front. He’s even zipped everything up conveniently to help you build your own.

Too Much Time, Not Enough Pressure

November 12, 2009 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

[Audin] got a hold of a pressure gauge and decided to turn it into a clock. We were under the impression that these types of gauges were filled with oil but he didn’t detail cleaning it up for his purposes. Once he gained access to the guts he replaced them with a stepper motor. The motor connects to an Arduino with the help of a Darlington array for handling the large load. [Audin’s] plans include using a real time clock (on order) and moving to an AVR ATmega8 microprocessor once the prototyping is finished. In the mean time, he has posted the code used in his current prototype.

Stay with us past the page break for some video of this in action. He’s got the needle dialed in for very precise movement and has coded a “jitter” effect as well. We’re not sure this would be the most convenient clock, but we’d love to affix it to our kitchen stove for a gnarly looking timer. [Audin] acquired the gauge at his local Habitat for Humanity ReStore, a place we’ve used many times to source reclaimed and unused items of all kinds for our projects.

Continue reading “Too Much Time, Not Enough Pressure” →

Parts: ChronoDot RTC Module (DS3231)

October 27, 2009 by James Munns 18 Comments

Macetech’s ChronoDot is a Real Time Clock module for projects requiring highly accurate time keeping and measurement. The ChronoDot uses the DS3231 chip, which features a TCXO to compensate for variations in temperature which affect normal oscillators, like the ones in most microcontrollers. The DS3231 uses simple I2C commands and registers for storing and retrieving time, but also features a variable output that goes all the way down to 1.000 hz for low power, interrupt style timekeeping applications. With the provided watch battery, the ChronoDot can keep time in idle mode for up to 8 years.

Normally the ChronoDot comes mostly assembled, requiring you to only solder on the watch battery. However, due to a manufacturing mistake, Macetech is selling a version with the header pins on the wrong side they call the ChronoDoh. This module is currently nearly half off the regular price of $14.99, which makes it a great low cost addition to a project. Macetech has sent us a couple of these modules to demonstrate how functional they still are.

Continue reading “Parts: ChronoDot RTC Module (DS3231)” →

Clock Knock Block Full Of Puns

October 2, 2009 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

This Clock Knock Block has a bit of everything; milling, Arduino, sensing, solenoids, and plenty of dirty puns. Just knock on the box or on the table right next to it and the time of day will be played back to you in a series of crisp, clean knocks. A big part of the fun here is that the box is a musical instrument.

If you take a look inside you’ll find an Arduino, a piezo sensor, a solenoid, and a nine-volt battery. The piezo sensor detects your knocking as an input. It can even listen to and repeat back a series of your knocks. The Arduino actuates the solenoid, which strikes the wooden enclosure, producing the knocking sound.

We’ve embedded a video of this useless machine after the break (that’s where all the puns are). One note for your own build; this box is made out of mahogany and because it is used as a resonance chamber, this may not work as well if it isn’t milled from a piece of quality lumber. Continue reading “Clock Knock Block Full Of Puns” →