Small Engine Failure Leads To Impromptu Teardown

September 1, 2022 by Tom Nardi 20 Comments

When the 6.5 HP (212 cc) Harbor Freight Predator engine in his kid’s go-kart gave up the ghost after some particularly hard driving, [HowToLou] figured it would be a good time to poke around inside the low-cost powerplant for our viewing pleasure. As a bonus, he even got it up and running again.

For an engine that has a retail price of just $160 USD, we’ve got to admit, the inside of the Predator doesn’t look too shabby. Admittedly, [HowToLou] determined that the cause of the failure was a blown connecting rod, but he also mentions that somebody had previously removed the engine’s governor, allowing it to rev up far beyond the nominal maximum of 3,600 RPM. No word on who snuck in there and yanked the governor out, but we’re betting it wasn’t the 7-year old driver…

Replacing the connecting rod meant taking most of the engine apart, but for our education, [HowToLou] decided to take it a bit further and remove everything from the engine. After stripping it down to the block, he re-installs each piece while explaining its function. If you’ve ever wanted to see what makes one of these little engines tick, or perhaps you’ve got a Predator 212 cc in need of a repair or rebuild, the presentation is a fantastic resource.

Incidentally, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the go-kart in question — back in June, we covered the unique electric reverse that [HowToLou] came up with for it.

Folding Mass Effect Pistol!

May 16, 2017 by James Hobson 13 Comments

Video game props require a dedicated maker with a repertoire of skills to create. When those props are pulled from the Mass-Effect universe, a little more technological mastery is needed. Bringing those talents to bear, [Optimistic Geometry] has built a motorized, folding M-3 Predator Pistol!

The gun was modeled in Fusion 360 and 3D printed on an Ultimaker 2 at the MAKLab Glasgow. [Optimistic Geometry] felt constrained by the laws of our reality, so opted for the smaller firearm thinking it would be an appropriate entry-level challenge. I’m sure you can guess how that went.

There wound up being three main build phases as well as a spring-loaded version to testing purposes. Throughout, [Optimistic Geometry] struggled with getting the parts to latch fully open or closed, as well as working with the small form factor. However, overhauling the motor design — and including some limiters lest it deconstruct itself — a custom latching circuit, and — obviously — a few LEDs for effect, produced a magnificent prop.

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Roomba Now Able To Hunt Arnold Schwarzenegger

August 27, 2016 by Bryan Cockfield 13 Comments

Ever since the Roomba was invented, humanity has been one step closer to a Jetsons-style future with robots performing all of our tedious tasks for us. The platform is so ubiquitous and popular with the hardware hacking community that almost anything that could be put on a Roomba has been done already, with one major exception: a Roomba with heat vision. Thanks to [marcelvarallo], though, there’s now a Roomba with almost all of the capabilities of the Predator.

The Roomba isn’t just sporting an infrared camera, though. This Roomba comes fully equipped with a Raspberry Pi for wireless connectivity, audio in and out, video streaming from a webcam (and the FLiR infrared camera), and control over the motors. Everything is wired to the internal battery which allows for automatic recharging, but the impressive part of this build is that it’s all done in a non-destructive way so that the Roomba can be reverted back to a normal vacuum cleaner if the need arises.

If sweeping a just the right time the heat camera might be the key to the messy problem we discussed on Wednesday.

The only thing stopping this from hunting humans is the addition of some sort of weapons. Perhaps this sentry gun or maybe some exploding rope. And, if you don’t want your vacuum cleaner to turn into a weapon of mass destruction, maybe you could just turn yours into a DJ.

Using Missile Tech To See Like Predator

May 18, 2016 by Rud Merriam 30 Comments

[Artem Litvinovich] wanted to see by heat vision like in the Predator movies. He not only succeeded but went on to see in color, medium-wave IR, short-wave IR, and ultraviolet using a very unique approach since his effort began back in 2009.

He started with a box based on the basic pinhole camera concept. In the box is a physical X-Y digitizer moving a photodiode to collect the thousands of points needed to create a picture. First all he got, due to the high signal amplification, was the 60 cycle hum that permeates our lives. A Faraday cage around the box helped but metal foil around the sensor and amplifier finally eliminated the noise. Now he had pictures in the near infrared (NIR). Continue reading “Using Missile Tech To See Like Predator” →

Predator Suit For Monsterpalooza Includes Over-engineered Shoulder Cannon

July 24, 2013 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

off-the-hook-predator-suit

This Predator suit was premiered at this year’s Monsterpalooza conference. It’s nothing short of incredible. But the shoulder cannon is really what caught our attention. The thing is fully motorized and includes sound and light firing effects.

We saw a glimpse of what [Jerome Kelty] is capable of about two years ago. He was showing off an Arduino-based animatronics platform he put together for a Predator shoulder cannon that tracked based on where the predator’s helmet was pointing. But other than a video demonstration there wasn’t much info on the that actual build. This post makes up for that and then some.

A replica of this quality is rarely the work of just one person. A team of fans joined in to make it happen. After getting the molded parts for the backpack and canon from another team member [Jerome] set out to fit the support structure, motors, and control electronics into the space available. That meant a ton of milling, cutting, and shaping parts like the support arm seen above which integrates a servo motor into its rectangular outline. All of the controls fit in the backpack, with cables running to the helmet, as well as the cannon.

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Camera Software Learns To Pick You Out Of A Crowd

April 21, 2011 by Mike Nathan 42 Comments

tld_object_tracking

While the Kinect is great at tracking gross body movements and discerning what part of a person’s skeleton is moving in front of the camera, the device most definitely has its shortfalls. For instance, facial recognition is quite limited, and we’re guessing that it couldn’t easily track an individual’s eye throughout the room.

No, for tracking like that, you would need something far more robust. Under the guidance of [Krystian Mikolajczyk and Jiri Matas], PhD student [Zdenek Kalal] has been working on a piece of software called TLD, which has some pretty amazing capabilities. The software uses almost any computer-connected camera to simultaneously Track an object, Learn its appearance, and Detect the object whenever it appears in the video stream. The software is so effective as you can see in the video below, that it has been dubbed “Predator”.

Once he has chosen an object within the camera’s field of vision, the software monitors that object, learning more and more about how it looks under different conditions. The software’s learning abilities allow it to pick out individual facial features, follow moving objects in video, and can recognize an individual’s face amid a collection of others.

While the software can currently only track one object at a time, we imagine that with some additional development and computing horsepower, this technology will become even more amazing.

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Developing An Animatronics Platform

December 1, 2010 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

This Predator costume has an animatronic element in the shoulder cannon. It tracks the movement of the mask, aiming wherever the Predator gazes. [Jerome Kelty] was asked by a friend to help develop the costume and he ended up with an animatronics platform which can be adapted for many different uses.

Starting with an Arduino Pro Mini [Jerome] designed a host board which would breakout the pins of the Arduino and make it easy to connect and drive multiple servo motors. The board is powered by a 3.3v Lithium Polymer battery with charging handled by a MAX1555 that was included in the design. Check out the video after the break which shows off the Predator suit. Looks like [Jerome] got it right, and he’s also put the platform to use with an Ironman suit that has an arm-mounted missle feature.

Need some inspiration for you next costume build? Take a look at this animatronic collection to get you started.

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