Hackaday Links: July 25, 2012

July 25, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 45 Comments

Ever wonder what CPU dev boards look like?

In the realm of highly confidential hardware, it doesn’t get much more secret than upcoming CPUs coming out of Intel. Somehow, a few CPU dev boards wound up on eBay, and [Leon] was cool enough to save all the pictures (Polish, Google translation, or translate in the sidebar). There are a few ongoing auctions right now, but we’d settle for this LGA 1156 breakout board. So cool.

No, we’re not linking directly to the free stuff

TI is giving away a brushless motor controller powered by a Stellaris ARM processor. [Chris] says he’s ordering one to figure out how to make a Stellaris dev board out of the giveaway. This controller is designed for e-bikes, so at the very least we see a few ginormous UAVs in someone’s future.

More rocket stuff!

One of [Bill]’s older hacks was taking a CVS disposable digital camera (remember that?) and stuffing it into the nose code of an Estes D-powered rocket. There’s a ton of videos of the flights [Bill] put up on YouTube.

On another note, [CyberPunk] built a half-scale model of a swing-wing rocket launched glider (pics: 1, 2, 3, 4). He’s currently building the full-size version capable of carrying RC and video gear and wants some feedback.

So, CAD on a tablet?

[spuder] caught wind of a tablet-based engineering notebook a few people are working on. They’re looking for some feedback on their demo video. We think it’s cool – especially the ability to share stuff between devices – but CAD on a tablet makes us extremely skeptical. Tell them what you think; we’d love to see this make it to our phone.

Now if they only made one for editing WordPress posts….

Test-driven development just got cooler. Here’s a Tamagotchi for Eclipse that you ‘feed’ by going from red to green and refactoring your code. Be careful, because having the same code test as red twice will kill your little code ninja.

And now I’ll rant about you.

A few days ago, I posted [Becky Stern]’s light-up handlebars project, and one comment surprised me. Who says guys can’t sew? It’s time to confront the gender roles that show up whenever sewing is used in a project. I’m doing a tutorial on how to sew a parachute, but I need your help. It’ll be a two-parter: one on how to actually use a sewing machine, and another for how to make a ‘chute. Is there anything else you’d like to see?

Key-covered Textiles

July 24, 2012 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

[Karolina] has been hard at work adding a little flair to her bag. Well, a lot of flair actually. She rolled several keyboards worth of keys into one of the panels for this bag. She had seen the idea in a magazine and decided to give it a try. The secret is to use staples.

The first issues is gather enough keys, so if you give this a try make sure to let your friends know you’re looking for old keyboards. Next she wanted each of the keys to lay flat on the fabric panel, which meant cutting away the plastic pegs that extend past the edges of the key. From there [Karolina] laid out her design with each key face down. Notice how careful she was to make sure there were no gaps between them. Now it was time to link them all together. She used heavy-duty staples as connecting brackets. They were bent to provide a large gluing surface on the underside of the face of each key. With the staples in place, each can be sewn to the fabric with a loop of thread. Although she started the project in the fall she’s just now showing off the finished bag.

Lighted Shoe Ruffles — He’ll Never Step On Your Toes Again

August 9, 2011 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

Whether for fashion, emergency lighting, or just to make a statement, these lighted shoe clips make for a unique footwear accessory. [Becky Stern], who we’ve seen before hacking automatic knitting machines, tackles this quick lighted project.

The electronics are simple, two LEDs connected in parallel to a button battery by some conductive thread. The circuit is the same as an LED throwie, but she’s using a sewable battery holder. The ruffle is made by cutting out and folding several circles of fabric. We’re not too used to working with this building material and were glad to hear her tip on fusing the cut edges with a lighter. She’s also got a good tip about bending one LED lead in a square shape and the other in a round shape to keep track of the polarity. After sewing everything together and completing the circuit with the conductive thread [Becky] adds a paper clamp making this easy to use with any shoe. In fact, the guy’s don’t have to miss out on the fun as this could easily double as a boutineer.

Don’t miss [Becky’s] complete walk through video embedded after the break.

Continue reading “Lighted Shoe Ruffles — He’ll Never Step On Your Toes Again” →

Make Any Gloves Work With A Touch Screen

November 25, 2009 by Phil Burgess 16 Comments

The chill of autumn is upon us, and with it comes the awkward sport of trying to work touch-sensitive phones and gadgets with gloved fingers. One can try toughing it out with fingerless gloves, or we’ve seen some costly solutions in the forms of specialized gloves and capacitive-compatible styluses, but sometimes simple is best: all it takes is a few stitches of conductive thread in the fingertips.

Conductive thread is available from various sources; SparkFun Electronics comes naturally to mind, but most vendors carrying the LilyPad Arduino will stock a suitable thread as well. Don’t fret if you’ve never sewn before — just a few simple loops are required, and it doesn’t need to be especially tidy. In principle this should work for trackpads and capacitive mice as well, if you use those in the field. For multitouch devices, add a separate conductive bit to each fingertip.

[via Lifehacker]