Halloween Props: Borg Costume

October 27, 2010 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

The Halloween hacks are rolling in late this year, but we’re delighted to see that [DJ Sures] finished his borg costume in time. It is made up of a hodge-podge of items from different cultures… oh wait, so are the borg. These include a set of hockey pads spray painted black with just a light misting of silver to give them some depth. After taking the image above (which mostly shows off his makeup) [DJ Sures] added an LCD screen to the chest plate and lighted electronics throughout. See for yourself after the break.

If you liked this you might take a look at his singing spark plug.

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Phaser-to-laser Mod Puts Out 465mW

January 15, 2010 by Mike Szczys 47 Comments

Here’s another Star Trek phaser toy with a laser added. [Jay] started with a 1994 Star Trek phaser and added a 12X Blu-Ray diode. The sound effects of the toy still work, a nice touch that you can check out in the video after the break. That video shows him popping balloons with the laser, a feat made possible by the 465 mW that it puts out when the diode is driven at 320 mA of current. He’s made a nice carrying case for the weapon but we didn’t see a spot in there for protective glasses like we’ve seen with other phaser hacks. He did make one safety consideration by adding a safety switch and indicator LED to signal when the laser diode is armed.

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Star Trek Submarine

December 28, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 36 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQEsG4eKIXs]

You can try to be unimpressed. You can attempt to feign disinterest. But even the most casual Star Trek fan will get giddy watching this model submarine in action. Apparently there is a group that builds under water R/C vehicles from static models. It’s not Star Trek exclusively either, we saw some anime vehicles as well as a modern-day shuttle replica.

[via Makezine]

Set Phasers To “blind”

November 12, 2009 by Mike Szczys 30 Comments

[Directive0] added a 200mW laser to his Enterprise Phase Pistol toy. This joins the ranks of hand-held laser hacks that we’ve seen around here lately. His build makes use of the stun and kill settings of the toy to switch between different modes. The built-in 9 volt battery holder is tapped into for power. When set to stun, the stun LED indicator is illuminated and a trigger pull sends current limited electricity to the laser diode. When the kill (or blind) setting is selected, the appropriate LED is illuminated and the trigger sends the full current from the battery to the laser diode. Power regulation is managed by the driver circuit for the laser.

This build preserves the unmodded look of the toy gun. [Directive0’s] inclusion of protective glass should fend off the warnings we usually see in the comments of these types of hacks.

LED Enterprise

May 12, 2009 by Eliot 19 Comments

[Wolf] built this LED Enterprise model. It’s a ‘sparebot‘ assembled from leftover LEDs and resistors. Unlike most sparebot sculptural oddities, this one actually works. If you place it near a magnet, a reed switch closes to turn on the LEDs. A mechanical switch would have just caused more stress on the model. The part count is very low, but took some forethought. Two resistors are used to raise the resistance of the red LEDs to match the white LED. A quite clever and simple model.

Pervasive Health Monitor (Got Granny?)

August 22, 2007 by Will O'Brien 34 Comments

[Reza] sent in a project that he’s obviously put loads of work into. His Pervasive Health Monitor is basically a bluetooth enabled health telemetry recorder/transmitter. I think it’s an absolutely excellent piece of work. He’s offered to post more technical details if we have enough interest – It’s got my vote.

The video (after the break) starts off a bit dry, but trust me – it’s worth checking out. The monitor sports a TI MCU, bluetooth chipset, flash socket, multiple signal amps and onboard audio amplification. The PocketPC is showing the real time data stream being delivered via bluetooth.

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