Mega-CNC Router Carves Styrofoam Into A Full-Size Flying Delorean

December 23, 2023 by Dan Maloney 18 Comments

When you own an enormous CNC router, you’ve got to find projects that justify it. So why not shoot for the sky — literally — and build the 1980s-est possible thing: a full-scale flying Delorean.

Attentive readers will no doubt remember [Brian Brocken] from his recent attempt to bring a welding robot out of retirement. That worked quite well, and equipped with a high-speed spindle, the giant ABB robot is now one of the biggest CNC routers we’ve ever seen. As for the flying Delorean, short of the well-known Mr. Fusion mod, [Brian] had to settle for less fictional approaches. The project is still in its early phase, but it appears that the flying car will basically be a huge quadcopter, with motors and propellers hidden under the chassis. That of course means eschewing the stainless steel of the OEM design for something lighter: expanded polystyrene foam (EPS).

The video below shows the fabrication of most of the body, which starts as large blocks of EPS and ends up as shaped panels and an unthinkable amount of dust. Individual pieces are glued together with what looks like plain old PVA adhesive. The standard Delorean “frunk” has been replaced by a louvered assembly that will act as an air intake; we presume the rear engine cover will get the same treatment. Interestingly, the weight of the finished model is almost exactly what Fusion 360 predicted based on the 3D model — a mere 13.9 kg.

[Brian] is currently thrust-testing motors and propellers and has some interesting details on that process in his write-up. There’s obviously a lot of work left on this project, and a lot more dust to be made, and we’ll be eagerly following along. Continue reading “Mega-CNC Router Carves Styrofoam Into A Full-Size Flying Delorean” →

A DeLorean sitting on patchy snow next to a driveway. It's angled away from the viewer to the left showing off the open engine compartment with bright orange high voltage lines coming out of a square metallic charger box.

A DeLorean With An Electrifying Secret

August 16, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 47 Comments

There are few production cars with as much geek cred as the DMC DeLorean. If you want to kick the nerdiness up a notch without doing a full Back to the Future prop-mod, then the next best thing is to make it an EV.

[Bill Carlson] took a 1981 DeLorean and transplanted the drivetrain from a Chevy Bolt to electrify this ride. With the DeLorean being a rear wheel drive vehicle and the Bolt front wheel, there was some amount of component reshuffling to do. The motor is now in the rear of the car along with the main contactor, charger, and motor controller while the batteries are split between a pack in the original engine compartment and another up front under the hood.

The electric power steering and brake booster from the Bolt now also live under the hood, and the accelerator and steering column from the EV were transplanted into the cockpit. [Carlson] still needs to tidy up the interior of the car which is currently a nest of low voltage cables as well as add the cooling system which will bring this stainless monster up to a hefty 3200 lbs (~1450 kg) versus the original 2850 lbs (~1300 kg). We suspect the total bill came in a bit lower than getting an electric DeLorean Alpha5.

This isn’t the first electric DeLorean we’ve covered here, and if that isn’t cool enough, how about this DeLorean-inspired hovercraft?

Continue reading “A DeLorean With An Electrifying Secret” →

Back To The Future Prop Can Tell When It Hits 88 MPH

August 17, 2022 by Tom Nardi 8 Comments

Obviously, the most iconic piece of fictional hardware from the Back to the Future films is Doc Brown’s DeLorean DMC-12 time machine. But we’d have to agree with [Jason Altice] of CodeMakesItGo that the second-most memorable gadget is the modified Futaba remote control used to control the DeLorean from a distance. Now, thanks to his detailed build guide, you can build your own version of the time machine’s controller — complete with working speed readout.

Now to be clear, [Jason] isn’t claiming that his build is particularly screen accurate. It turns out that the actual transmitter used for the prop in the film, the Futaba PCM FP-T8SGA-P, has become difficult to find and expensive. But he argues that to the casual observer, most vintage Futaba transmitters are a close enough match visually. The more important part is recreating the extra gear Doc Brown bolted onto his version. Continue reading “Back To The Future Prop Can Tell When It Hits 88 MPH” →

Hackaday Links: February 20, 2022

February 20, 2022 by Dan Maloney 23 Comments

Sounds like somebody had a really bad day at work, as Western Digital reports that “factory contamination” caused a batch of flash memory chips to be spoiled. How much, you ask? Oh, only about 7 billion gigabytes! For those of you fond of SI prefixes, that’s 7 exabytes of storage; to put that into perspective, it’s seven times what Google used for Gmail storage in 2012, and enough to store approximately 1.69 trillion copies of Project Gutenberg’s ASCII King James Version Bible. Very few details were available other than the unspecified contamination of two factories, but this stands poised to cause problems with everything from flash drives to phones to SSDs, and will probably only worsen the ongoing chip shortage. And while we hate to be cynical, it’ll probably be prudent to watch out for any “too good to be true” deals on memory that pop up on eBay and Ali in the coming months.

Continue reading “Hackaday Links: February 20, 2022” →

Back To The Future We Go With This Flux Capacitor PCB Badge

December 5, 2021 by Orlando Hoilett 8 Comments

[Arnov] is a huge fan of the Back to the Future franchise, so he wanted some memorabilia from the movie to decorate his work area. Official memorabilia from successful movie franchises can be pretty expensive, so [Arnov] opted to make something himself instead, creating his own flux capacitor PCB badge.

Fortunately, [Arnov’s] design isn’t as complicated as Doc’s was from the movie (pictured on the right), so it should be a lot easier to replicate. We have a simple LED circuit driven by an 8205S MOSFET and controlled by an ATtiny microcontroller. There’s a small diode for auto-switching between USB and battery power as well as a few current limiting resistors for the LEDs. Fortunately, [Arnov’s] project only requires 0.017 W to power, so no plutonium nuclear reactor is necessary and you can easily power it with a standard coin cell battery or with a USB. That’s quite a relief.

As with many of [Arnov’s] projects, the beauty in its design lies in the detail he places on the PCB layout. In this case, the layout is a bit easier than some of his other work needing only to arrange the blinking LEDs in a “Y” shape to mirror the flux capacitor seen in the movies. He also adds a bit of detail to the silkscreen to help complete the aesthetic.

We think this is worth adding to your PCB badge collection.

Continue reading “Back To The Future We Go With This Flux Capacitor PCB Badge” →

Tiny DeLorean Made From Lighters Is A Total Gas

May 18, 2021 by Kristina Panos 29 Comments

There’s making stuff out of trash, and then there’s mind-blowing stuff like this: a DeLorean built from four disposable cigarette lighters and various other bits and bobs like wire sheathing and cotton bud sticks. If it weren’t for the video evidence embedded below, we would have never believed that [Ank Creative] or anyone else could have turned boxy acrylic into the fastback time machine we all know and love.

Is the back window the most important detail? Maybe.

[Ank Creative] seems to have wasted no parts of the lighters, and even saved themselves a bit of trouble by using curved scraps to make the wheel wells. After installing the windshield, we certainly didn’t expect them to saw the thing in half, but how else are they going to put in the little seats and the steering column when the gull-wing doors aren’t real?

This build is all about unbelievable craftsmanship and deft but daring use of hand tools. Although this totally qualifies as an open source how-to video, you’d have to be quite the sorcerer to pull this one off. Zoom past the break (if you haven’t already) and check out this amazing build.

Disposable lighters are dirt cheap, but they get the job done and you can always see how much gas is left in the tank. On the other hand, a refillable lighter is just that, and if you build it yourself, you can make it actuate like a cap gun.

Continue reading “Tiny DeLorean Made From Lighters Is A Total Gas” →

IPad, Not Flux Capacitor, Brings DeLorean Back To The Future

June 25, 2017 by Dan Maloney 15 Comments

Add a flux capacitor and a Mr. Fusion to a DeLorean and it becomes a time machine. But without those, a DeLorean is just a car. A 35-year old car at that, and thus lacking even the most basic modern amenities. No GPS, no Bluetooth — not even remote locks for the gullwing doors!

To fix that, [TheKingofDub] decided to deck his DeLorean out with an iPad dash computer that upgrades the cockpit experience, and we have to say we’re impressed by the results. Luckily, the space occupied by the original stereo and dash vents in the center console is the perfect size for an iPad mini, even with the Lightning cable and audio extension cable attached. A Bluetooth relay module is used to interface to the doors, windows, trunk, garage door remote, and outdoor temperature sensor. A WiFi backup camera frames the rear license plate. Custom software ties everything together with OEM-looking icons and a big GPS speedometer. The build looks great, adds functionality, and should make road trips a little easier.

When [TheKingofDub] finally gets sick of people complaining about where the BTTF guts are, maybe he can add a flux capacitor and time circuits.

[via r/electronics]