Warm Tube Clock, Take 2

June 3, 2011 by Mike Nathan 23 Comments

[Mure] wrote in to let us know he has put the finishing touches on the second iteration of his Warm Tube Nixie clock. We featured his original creation here last year, and while many things remain the same, he has still found a few things that he was able to improve on.

The first notable feature is the new real time clock. Instead of using a discrete crystal to keep time and a temperature sensor for compensation, he has opted to use a DS3231 RTC IC. It is far more accurate than the crystal, and it features a built-in temperature sensor as well. The alarm functionality has been simplified too, moving the controls into firmware rather than having to use a sliding switch to do so.

With the mainboard redesign, it would have been easy to leave behind the nixie “shields” he created for his first clock, but with a focus on interoperability, he chose to make this clock fully compatible with version one’s shields and vice versa.

While the changes aren’t groundbreaking, it’s nice to see a project like this undergo continued refinements. If you want to build a clone of this clock, [Mure] has made sure that all of the schematics and source code are available on his site.

Continue reading to see a brief video demo of the clock in action.

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Hackaday Links: Monday, May 30th

May 30, 2011 by Mike Nathan 5 Comments

Huge, fully functional NES game pad replica

huge_nes_pad

Students at Dutch TU Delft university recently built a huge replica of the original NES controller (Google Translation), which is fully functional and can be used to play games on a large display screen they also installed. How big is it, you ask? It’s about 6 meters wide – over 30 times the size of the original NES game pad and requires participants to jump on the buttons to play.

Convert any image to G-code

bitmap_to_gcode

Members of [Forskningsavdelningen], a Swedish hackerspace, are working on software that will allow users to vectorize bitmap images in order to convert them to G-code files for CNC milling. A good portion of the project is complete, but there is still a bit of work to do, so you won’t see it in action for a while. When it’s ready, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Convert your lame Dead Space plasma cutter into a bonafide laser weapon

dead_space_laser

If you forked out big bucks for the special edition of Dead Space 2, you know how lame the included plasma cutter replica is. Check out this video, that shows you how to convert your LED toy to a dual laser, fire starting, laser pistol. The process is pretty simple, so what are you waiting for?

Synchronized, LED-lit juggling balls

led_balls

[Jonathan] wrote in to share a project he and some friends have just finished. He’s not sharing a ton of details at the moment, but he has put up a video showing off their wireless LED juggling balls. All we know is that they use bright RGB LEDS, Zigbees for communication, and that they are awesome. We can’t wait to hear more about them!

Water cooled PS3 Laptop

watercooled_ps3

[Pirate] recently unveiled his latest work, a water-cooled Playstation 3 laptop. It looks pretty sharp, and can undoubtedly rival some of Ben Heck’s work, even if it does have an external PSU. Obviously having a separate power component isn’t necessarily ideal, but when you are cramming all of that water cooling goodness into such a small package, something has to give!

Displaying Video And Gifs On RGB LED Matrices

May 19, 2011 by Mike Nathan 14 Comments

led_matrix

[Mathieu] was on holiday in China and picked up some fun toys while perusing the numerous electronics markets there. The most interesting things he discovered were a pair of RGB LED matrices. They came in two different flavors, one made for indoor and one for outdoor displays, sporting a 64×32 and 32×16 resolution, respectively.

If you’ve read his blog before you know he is a big fan of LED matrices, so it’s only natural that bought a whole bunch of them and started experimenting once he got home. Using the same Atmel FPSLIC LED matrix control board he showed off in this previous hack, he was able to get the LED matrices up and running in no time. He adapted his webcam project to utilize the new panels, and he added a whole new feature as well. Via MatLab, he can now display any sort of animated gif on the panels, as you can see in the video below. The panels look great, and if we had a few of these around, there’s no doubt we would probably play this video on infinite repeat.

He says that the despite their somewhat questionable origins, the panels are of top notch quality, and he is willing to organize some sort of group buy if others are interested.

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Awesome Custom Disco Basement

May 17, 2011 by Mike Nathan 14 Comments

led_shelves

[Evan] is one of those neighbors you only wish you had.

His neighbors were renovating their basement for use as home theater, and he stopped by to check out how things were coming along. While there, he suggested they add some LED lighting to their shelving unit to make them pop. His neighbors were game, so he sourced some cheap RGB LEDs online and began working on the circuits and firmware needed to control the lights. His neighbors wrote some custom software that interfaces with iTunes to create a neat visualization in the shelving unit whenever music is played.

Once everything was complete, his neighbors informed him that they wanted an additional 20 overhead can lights and a set of 4 wall sconces wired up as well. Needless to say he was pretty excited, so he got busy wiring up the remainder of the basement.

He pushed the installation’s PIC microcontroller about as far as he possibly could, resulting in the awesome show seen in the video below.

Needless to say, it’s pretty impressive, though we wish we could have a peek at the code used to run everything. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

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Dimming Control For An Ikea Solar Desk Lamp

May 16, 2011 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

[Frank] decided to augment his desk lamp’s features by adding dimming controls (translated). Since the light source is a triad of LEDs the best method of dimming their intensity is to use Pulse Width Modulation. That’s the method that he went with, and luckily the SUNNAN lamp from Ikea which he’s using as the donor for the project has just enough room to squeeze in the parts necessary for this hack.

You need two main bits to use PWM with a lamp like this; a microcontroller (or possibly a timer chip like the 555) and a transistor to protect that chip from the current necessary to run the LEDs at full brightness. [Frank] went with an ATtiny13 and a 2N2222 transistor, both quite common and very inexpensive (you can even pull the microcontroller from a light bulb if you know where to look). Two buttons were added to the top of the lamp base which allow for up and down controls. There’s even an SOS function which is triggered by pressing both buttons at the same time. [Frank’s] happy to show off the completed project in the clip after the break.

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Macetech Is Looking For A Few Good Processing Programmers

May 12, 2011 by Mike Nathan 7 Comments

maker_faire_logo

[Garrett Mace] wrote to us in hopes of finding a few good programmers to help him out with a project he’s been working on for Maker Faire Bay Area 2011.

More specifically, he is looking for Processing programmers who are also pretty decent with graphics. Macetech’s big project for this year’s Maker Faire is a large overhead light matrix constructed from Chinese lanterns. They are using their new Satellite LED modules to light the 128-lantern array, which is laid out in a 16×8 matrix.

It seems that the Macetech crew has been so busy getting the array built and tested that they don’t have much time to program any visualizations for it – that’s where you come in. If you are so inclined, simply download his matrix simulation code, put together some cool displays, and send them his way. [Garrett] says that they will be taking video of the visualizations, so even if you can’t attend Maker Faire, we will all be able to enjoy your hard work (though it would be pretty cool if they sent contributors a Satellite LED module “sample” as well!)

Keep reading to see a quick demo video of the simulation software to get an idea of what they are looking for visualization-wise.

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Bringing The Game Of Tag Into The Digital Age

May 12, 2011 by Mike Nathan 8 Comments

tagurit

How long has it been since you’ve played a game of tag?

[Sylvia Cheng, Kibum Kim, and Roel Vertegaal] from Queen’s University’s human media lab have concocted a fun twist on the classic game that just might compel you to start playing again.

Their game, called TagURIt, arms two players with Lumalive LED t-shirts which sport embedded touch sensors. A third player, known as the “chaser” attempts to touch either of the other players in order to capture the token displayed on the player’s chest-based LED matrix. The game is score-based, awarding points to the chaser for capturing tokens, while giving the other players points for avoiding capture.

If both players wearing the LED shirts are near to one another, the token will jump to the other player in an attempt to thwart the chaser. In this game, each player is a location-tagged URI, and proximity is determined by either tracking the users with cameras indoors, or via RF sensors if the game is played outside.

It is definitely an interesting way of playing tag, and we imagine it could be quite fun in large groups.

Continue reading to see a video demonstration of the TagURIt game being played.

[via Adafruit blog]

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