R/C Toilet Paper Roll Is The Hero We Deserve

April 4, 2020 by Tom Nardi 11 Comments

For reasons that most rational consumers can’t fathom, a not inconsiderable segment of the population believes the key to their continued survival during a pandemic unprecedented in modern times is to stockpile toilet paper. This leaves those of us not compelled to act based on the whims of our bowels looking at bare racks in the paper product aisle more often than not.

Which makes it the perfect time for [Ariel Yahni] to develop his remote controlled toilet paper roll. With this gadget deployed, you just might have a chance at drawing the Karens away from all the rolled gold long enough to grab yourself a pack. Even if it doesn’t distract the other ~~competitors~~ shoppers, you can at least enjoy the looks on their faces as it scurries by.

The project starts with, of all things, popsicle sticks. These are used to make a reinforced platform to which the two motors, radio receiver, speed controller, and battery are mounted. With some clever packing, [Ariel] is able to (tightly) fit it inside of a cardboard tube with just the bottoms of the two wheels protruding through cutouts. A careful wrapping with toilet paper is then used to give it the look of a partially used roll, including a trailing “tail” that flutters in its wake.

In the video after the break, you can see [Ariel] take his roll of motorized TP through a local mall for a test drive. We’re sorry to say that nobody appears to make a wild dive for it during the test. But that could be because the video was recorded back in December before people had resorted to fighting over toiletries. It also explains why he was able to get into a mall in the first place.

Just think, if we had embraced the high-tech toilets of the future back when we had a chance, we could have avoided this whole thing. As far as dystopias go, this one is shaping up to be pretty weird.

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Accurate Dispensing Of Toilet Paper Will Get Us Through The Crisis

April 1, 2020 by Jenny List 51 Comments

As we enter our second week of official COVID-19-related lockdown where this is being written, it’s evident that there are some resources we will have to conserve to help get us through all this. Instead of just using all of something because we can nip out to the store and buy more, we have to look at what we’ve got and treat it as though it will have to get us through the next three months. It’s not always certain that on our infrequent trips to the supermarket they’ll have stocks of what we want.

This is the very last of the toilet paper in my local supermarket, on the 8th of March.

A particular shortage has been of toilet paper. The news was full of footage showing people fighting for the last twelve-pack, and since early last month there has been none to be had for love nor money. To conserve stocks and save us from the desperate measures of having to cut the Daily Mail into squares and hang them on the wall, a technical solution is required. To this end I’ve created a computerised toilet roll dispenser which carefully controls the quantity of the precious sanitary product, in the hope of curbing its consumption to see us through the crisis.

In the midst of a full lockdown it’s difficult to secure immediate delivery of our usual maker essentials, so rather than send off for the controller boards I might have liked it has been necessary to make do with what I had. In the end I selected an older single board computer I had in a box under my bench. The Sinclair ZX81 has a single-core Z80 processor running at 3.25 MHz, dual-channel memory, a Ferranti GPU, and plenty of expansion possibilities from its black plastic case. I chose it because I could repurpose its thermal printer peripheral as a toilet paper printer, and because it has an easily wiped and hygienic membrane keyboard rather than a conventional one that could harbour germs.

Hardware wise I found I was fairly easily able to adapt a standard roll of Cushelle to the ZX printer, and was soon dispensing sheets with the following BASIC code.

10 REM TOILET PAPER PRINTER
20 FOR T=0 TO 44
30 LPRINT ""
40 NEXT T
50 LPRINT "---------- TEAR HERE -----------"

For now it’s working on the bench, but it will soon be mounted with a small portable TV as a monitor on the wall next to the toilet. Dispensing toilet paper will be as simple as typing RUN and hitting the ZX’s NEW LINE key, before watching as a sheet of toilet paper emerges magically from the printer. It’s the little hacks like this one that will be so useful in getting us through the crisis. After all, this Sinclair always has a square to spare.

Always Have A Square To Spare

January 19, 2019 by Bryan Cockfield 24 Comments

Some aspects of humanity affect all of us at some point in our lives. Whether it’s getting caught in the rain without an umbrella, getting a flat tire on the way to work, or upgrading a Linux package which somehow breaks the entire installation, some experiences are truly universal. Among these is pulling a few squares of toilet paper off the roll, only to have the entire roll unravel with an overly aggressive pull. It’s possible to employ a little technology so that none of us have to go through this hassle again, though.

[William Holden] and [Eric Strebel] have decided to tackle this problem with an innovative bearing of sorts that replaces a typical toilet paper holder. Embedded in the mechanism is a set of magnetic discs which provide a higher resistance than a normal roll holder would. Slowly pulling out squares of paper is possible, but like a non-Newtonian fluid becomes solid when a higher force is applied, the magnets will provide enough resistance when a higher speed tug is performed on the toilet paper. This causes the paper to tear rather than unspool the whole roll, and also allows the user to operate the toilet paper one-handed.

This is a great solution to a problem we’ve all faced but probably forgot about a minute after we experienced it. And, it also holds your cell phone to keep it from falling in the toilet! If you’d like to check out their Kickstarter, they are trying to raise money to bring the product to market. And, if you want to upgrade your toilet paper dispenser even further, there’s also an IoT device for it as well, of course.

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IoTP: The Internet Of Toilet Paper

November 27, 2017 by Dan Maloney 25 Comments

Our first impression of this IoT toilet paper roll was that somebody was pulling our leg. Watching the infomercial-esque video below is alternately hilarious and horrifying, but it leaves you with the unmistakable feeling that this is all a joke, and a pretty good one at that. Right up until you get to the big Kimberly-Clark logo at the end, that is, and you realize that the international paper concern must be looking at this seriously.

When you read [zvizvi]’s Instructables post, you find out that this project is indeed a legitimate attempt to meld an Amazon Dash button with your toilet paper dispenser. For his proof-of-concept build, [zvizvi] started with a gag “talking TP” roll off eBay, designed to play back a voice clip when the paper is used. It had all the right guts, and being just the size for a Wemos Mini and an accelerometer for motion detection was a bonus. The smart spindle can tally the amount of paper used, so you’ll never be caught without a square to spare. And of course, critical TP usage parameters are uploaded to a cloud server, so that more toilet paper can be rushed to your door when you’re getting low.

The whole idea, including justification based on monitoring TP use as a proxy for bowel health, seems ridiculous, but we suspect there may be some brilliance here. Joke if you will, but in the end it’s probably better than an Internet of Farts.

Continue reading “IoTP: The Internet Of Toilet Paper” →

Ask Hackaday: Wiping Your Bum With An Arduino?

March 9, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 83 Comments

Over or under? Standing or sitting? Truly, toilet paper has been the focus of the most irreconcilable arguments ever. The folks on the Arduino Stack Exchange have a far more important question: how do you trigger an alarm when your TP supply is low?

[user706837] asked the Internet this question in response to his kids never replacing an empty roll. This eliminates the most obvious means of notifying someone of an empty roll – looking at it before you sit down – and brings up a few interesting engineering challenges.

Most of the initial ideas deal with weight or some sort of light sensor that can differentiate between the white TP and the brown roll. A much, much more interesting solution puts a radioactive source in the TP holder’s spring-loaded rod and uses a sensor to detect how much TP is left. A quick back-of-the-wolfram calculation suggests this might be possible, and amazingly, not too dangerous.

We’re turning this one over to you, Hackaday readers. How would you design an empty toilet paper alarm? Bonus points awarded for ingenuity and cat resistance.

Image source, and also one of the longest and most absurd Wikipedia articles ever.

Hackaday Links: April 10, 2011

April 10, 2011 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

Sunlit LCD screen

[A.J.] did some experiments and managed to replace his LCD backlight using fiber optics and the sun.

Game Boy LCD Repair

[Alan] found that he could fix dead columns on his Game Boy LCD screen with a little reflow work on the connector.

3DS Design Flaw?

Anyone having problems with the way their Nintendo 3DS closes? [Jeroen] noticed that his screen touches the other half of the device when closed. He added rubber feet to protect it, but we wonder if anyone else has noticed this issue?

Mac TP dispenser

This one takes iLife to a new level. Never poop without Apple’s consent again thanks to this Macintosh toilet paper dispenser. [Thanks Rob]

Children are the future

Here’s a heart warming way to end; [Bret] is teaching his 5-year-old son to solder. There’s a video that is sure to put a smile on your face. You’ll remember [Bret] (aka [FightCube]) from the adjustable prank box, a few 555 timer contest submissions, and several other hacks. We expect big things from your progeny!

Toilet Paper Dispenser

July 18, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 47 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTsXlTKaFq0]

Solving the age old problem of… wait, what problem are they solving? These students at UC Berkeley have built a toilet paper dispenser prototype. Not only does it meter out an exact amount for you, it will fold it and cut it as well. They mention this being the perfect accessory for a high tech bathroom, and we can agree. To be serious though, in public places, metering out limited amounts of toilet paper at a time could possibly result in major cost savings. We think the next prototype should have different preference settings such as; wadded, folded, or wrapped around your hand. Anyone else’s mind suddenly filled with unpleasant imagery?

[via Makezine]