X-Ray Imaging Camera Lens Persuaded to Join Micro Four Thirds Camera

April 22, 2017 by Inderpreet Singh 16 Comments

Anyone who is into photography knows that the lenses are the most expensive part in the bag. The larger the aperture or f-stop of the lens, the more light is coming in which is better for dimly lit scenes. Consequently, the price of the larger glass can burn a hole in one’s pocket. [Anthony Kouttron] decided that he could use a Rodenstock TV-Heligon lens he found online and adapt it for his micro four-third’s camera.

The lens came attached to a Fischer Imaging TV camera which was supposedly part of the Fluorotron line of systems used for X-ray imaging. We find [Anthony’s] exploration of the equipment, and discovery of previous hacks by unknown owners, to be entertaining. Even before he begins machining the parts for his own purposes, this is an epic teardown he’s published.

Since the lens was originally mounted on a brass part, [Anthony Kouttron] knew that it would be rather easy to machine the custom part to fit standardized lens adapters. He describes in detail the process for cleaning out the original mount by sanding, machining and threading it. Along the way you’ll enjoy his tips on dealing with a part that, instead of being a perfect circle on the outside, had a formidable mounting tab (which he no longer needed) protruding from one side.

The video after the break shows the result of shooting with a very shallow depth of field. For those who already have a manual lens but lack the autofocus motor, a conversion hack works like a charm as well.

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Frackers: Inside the Mind of the Junk Hacker

February 25, 2016 by Elliot Williams 116 Comments

Hackers can be a diverse bunch. My old hackerspace had folks ranging from NSA employees (ahem, independent security contractors) to space-probe pilots to anarchist vegan punks. And we all got along because we shared a common love for what we’re doing. One summer night we were out late in Adams Morgan and my vegan-punk friend reaches into the trash can and pulls out a discarded pepperoni Jumbo Slice.

“Wait a minute! Vegans don’t eat pepperoni pizza with cheese.” But my friend was a “freegan” — a vegan who, for ethical reasons, won’t buy meat or milk but who also won’t turn it down if it’s visibly going to waste. It’s actually quite a practical and principled moral proposal if you think about it: he’s not contributing to the use of animals that he opposes, but he gets to have a slice of pizza just the same. And fishing a slice of pizza, in a cardboard container, off the top of the trashcan isn’t as gross as you’d imagine, although it pays to be picky.

A Fracker is Born

That was the night that we realized we all had something deeper in common: we were all “frackers”. If you’ve been around hackers long enough, you’ll have noticed this tendency, but maybe you’ve never put a name to it. Tearing something apart, even if you might break it in the process, isn’t a problem if you fished it out of the e-waste stream to begin with. If you’re able to turn it into something, so much the better. It’s all upside. Need practice de-soldering tricky ICs? Looking for a cheap target to learn reverse engineering on? Off to the trashcan! No hack is too dirty, no method too barbaric. It’s already junk, and you’re a fracker.

Do you have a junk shelf where you keep old heatsinks in case you need to cut some up and use it? Have you used a heat gun more frequently for harvesting parts than for stripping paint? Do you know that certain satisfaction that you get from pulling some old tech out of the junk pile and either fixing it up again or, better yet, making it do something else? You might just be a fracker too.

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Delta 3D Printer Made From Unorthodox Parts

June 19, 2015 by Rich Bremer 5 Comments

Over here at Hackaday, we love stuff made from other (unrelated) stuff. Maybe it’s the ingenuity behind the build or the recycling of parts… or it could be both. Either way, it’s cool and a side benefit of re-using parts from the junk drawer is that it keeps the project cost down, maybe enough that the project wouldn’t even be feasible without the re-use of parts.

That brings us to the topic of this post, a Delta-style 3D Printer made from recycled parts not typically seen in such a machine. It was built by DIYer [hesamh] and is almost unrecognizable visually. The usual extruded aluminum or precision shaft frame has been replaced with 5 pieces of MDF, finger-jointed together at the seams. Attached to the 3 vertical MDF frame pieces are rail and carriage assemblies scavenged from Epson dot matrix prints saved from the scrap yard. The best part is that these rail/carriage assemblies already had stepper motors and belts installed!

The end effector is also unique among delta-style printers. This one is made from aluminum plate and provides a mount for the extruder. There is no need for a bowden tube setup when the extruder is mounted on the end effector, although the increase in mass may reduce the printer’s top speed. That’s fine by us as we’d rather have a good-looking slow print than a fast ball of spaghetti. Another scavenged stepper motor is used for the extruder. The accompanying belt pulley acts as a direct drive feed gear.

The print bed is a re-purposed flatbed scanner. The guts were removed and a heating element was placed under the glass. The bed heater is controlled separately by way of a household thermostat. An Arduino Leonardo and 4 stepper drivers replace the normally used Mega/RAMPS/Pololu combo. Overall, this is a cool build that shows what is possible with a little thought and resourcefulness. The only part used in this build that was actually made for use in a 3D Printer is the hotend!

Giving old appliances a second life with simple tweaks

February 25, 2012 by Mike Nathan 17 Comments

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Cruising estate sales can be a total crapshoot – sometimes you find a goldmine, other times nothing but junk. [John Ownby] recently found a sleek-looking old blender at such a sale and decided to take it home. The chrome plated base and fluted glass immediately caught his eye, but he didn’t buy the blender so he could make mediocre frozen drinks – he wanted a lamp instead.

The conversion was fairly simple, requiring him to gut the machine of its moving parts including the motor and blades, replacing them with a small incandescent candelabra base. While his modifications themselves are not groundbreaking, taking them a step further would make for some really cool (and functional) retro house fixtures.

Indulge me for a moment, if you will, and imagine swapping out the simple incandescent bulb for some LED strips or even EL wire. Replace the blender’s cap with a small speaker, and you can use several of these together as retro-looking surround satellites.

We can definitely get behind his reuse of the blender, which would have otherwise likely ended up in a landfill. It’s great to see solid, durable appliances given a second life, even in ways which were never intended. Have you rescued anything from the trash heap like [John], or do you have other ideas for your fellow hackers who might come across similar goods? Let us know in the comments.

Halloween Hacks: Transform that annoying dancing Santa into a Halloween mummy!

October 17, 2011 by Mike Nathan 6 Comments

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If you have one of those annoying dancing (Santa/Elvis/Frankenstein) decorations sitting around collecting dust, you could always repurpose it like [mischka] did. He originally wanted to enter our Santa-Pede challenge and purchased a dancing Santa, but time eventually got the best of him. With no other use for it in mind, he decided to make his dancing Christmas toy into a fun Halloween decoration.

An electronic rendition of “Jingle Bells” isn’t exactly the scariest thing around, so he dismantled the dancing toy and started fiddling with the sound board. A few well placed resistors later, his circuit-bent Santa Claus started to sound like he had five too many egg nogs, which was perfect for the dancing mummy [mischka] had in mind.

He transplanted some LEDs from Santa’s base into his head, and masked it off with some electrical tape so that only the eyes were visible. He then wrapped the mummy in the requisite bloodied bandages and set him out for the kids to enjoy.

Since it’s hard to find someone who genuinely likes these dancing toys, we think this is a great way to make them useful again. If you’ve got a few of these things kicking around, we suggest reenacting the dance routine from Thriller using an army of Santa-zombies and sending a video our way.

Continue reading to see a video of [mischka’s] mummy in action.

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Desktop Decepticon repurposes cell phone

October 24, 2009 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

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We’ve got a few old cell phones sitting around and apart from salvaging the LCD screen we’re not quite sure what to do with them. [Gingerpete50] turned his into a desktop Decepticon figurine. This masterpiece is a delightful conversation piece and when he’s tired of it decorating his cubicle, we’re sure there will be plenty of people he can hand it down to. The figure doesn’t transform back into a cell phone and it uses a few extra parts he had on hand, but neither of these things bother us. What it does have is some articulated joints and a few LEDs that you can see above. We haven’t tried our hand at custom model building, but after seeing this you can be assured it’s on our list.