Cheap Toy Yields Good Parts

December 19, 2009 by Mike Szczys 25 Comments

We’ve spent some serious time building robot chassis and motor controllers. [Whamodyne] does the smart thing and scavenges what he needs form cheap sources. He picked up an RC car from the local pharmacy for just $10, tore the body off and behold, a bounty of robot-friendly parts.

We’re not talking precision parts here, but we don’t scoff at two geared motors, four wheels, a driver board, and steering. There’s no great way to attach your own stuff but that’s half the fun of hacking. [Whamodyne] used the 9v battery that came with the toy to power his boarduino and quickly patched in to produce a miracle of automated locomotion.

Homopolar Motor

November 10, 2009 by Mike Szczys 36 Comments

homopolar-motor

Slow day at the office? Here’s a trick that’ll make your coworkers smile. Dangerously Fun has a guide to build a homopolar motor from a battery, copper wire, and magnet. A homopolor motor doesn’t rely on electromagnets in an armature changing their polarity to force a rotation movement compared to stationary magnets. Instead, they use an electrical current’s orientation to a magnetic field to provide a repulsive or rotational force. In this implementation, the current moves through a loops of copper wire from one pole of a battery to the other. A rare-earth magnet on one pole of the battery provides the magnetic field.

After the break we’ve embedded video of this simple example as well as a few more complex homopolar examples such as a five speed version. The motor in action certainly brings a smile to our faces and places this firmly in the useless machines family of hacks.

Continue reading “Homopolar Motor” →

Gear Clock

October 22, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 21 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkLIKfdYW3I&feature=player_embedded%5D

Analog clocks now a days get no respect. Everyone is digital this, or binary that, and we admit it is nice to look over and see the time promptly displayed. But there’s something about the quiet ticking and ominous feeling you get when around a large intricate clock that you know some serious time has been invested.

Nostalgia feelings aside, [Alan] from Hacked Gadgets introduced us to his Gear Clock. While it’s not a new idea, and in fact we have a few around the office, his concept really inspired us. His clock is driven via stepper motor and a PIC, allowing for the time to be fairly accurate. The only small problem he mentions is the poor paint job, but we think it looks amazing regardless.

Batcave-style Entrance (on A Budget)

September 29, 2009 by Jake W 8 Comments

buttonhead

Want to enter your hidden lair in style? Well [Jimmy] simply wanted to create a cool prop for his school’s homecoming dance. This project includes some obvious inspiration from Wayne Manor. [Jimmy] wired up the automated entrance with a 12VDC motor. In order for it to be able to push the door , the motor had to be attached to a gearbox, which directly powered a wheel. Current consumption issues were solved by using a wall-wart. Because a real bookshelf would still be too heavy, [Jimmy] dressed up a regular door with some patterned wallpaper to give it the right look. Coupled with a Shakespearean bust concealing the button, and some other cosmetic touches, this project was sure to impress any student who knew its secret.

Chainsaw Powered Bicycle

July 11, 2009 by Gerrit Coetzee 37 Comments

chainsawbike

We’ve covered weed whacker bicycles before and you can even buy 66cc conversion kits now. [geoff390] posted a few videos over on YouTube about another motor option. In the first video embedded below, he goes over the basic parts of his bike. The chainsaw motor is mounted to the side of the back tire and a metal drive wheel extending from the chainsaw shaft makes contact with it. The motor assembly is mounted on a hinge and the friction between the drive wheel and the back tire is adjusted with a turnbuckle. He posted a more detailed second video in which he goes over some of the finer details of the bike and some of the issues he’s had. Continue reading “Chainsaw Powered Bicycle” →

Lego Modded Antenna Tuner

July 3, 2009 by Steve Watkins 15 Comments

legomoddedtunner

This antenna tuner is controlled remotely using geared motors and legos. The tuner needed to be closer to the antenna for performance reasons. This created a problem; most of the radio gear is inside while the tuner is outside. The gear motors and Legos combine to form a closed loop servo, operating two air core caps and an inductor switch. A control box placed near the radio is hard wired to the modded tuner outside. We would like to see something like this under gesture control using the Wii MotionPlus + Arduino.

Motors And Microcontrollers 101

June 29, 2009 by Gerrit Coetzee 7 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnWJki-zwsE]

[Humberto] from NerdKits sends in the newest addition to their excellent collection of videos. This video goes over the basics of DC motor control with microcontrollers. They begin by showing nine experiments and observations that can be done by the average hacker with a multimeter, motor, LED, and jumperwire. Using the results from these they show how to model and calculate the properties of a motor. Lastly, it shows how to control a motor using PWM. They have supplemental text and demonstration code for an ATmega168 on their website.