Lessons Learned From An Art Installation Build

July 11, 2019 by Lewin Day 7 Comments

Art installations are an interesting business, which more and more often tend to include electronic or mechanical aspects to their creation. Compared to more mainstream engineering, things in this space are often done quite a bit differently. [Jan Enning-Kleinejan] worked on an installation called Prendre la parole, and shared the lessons learned from the experience.

The installation consisted of a series of individual statues, each with an LED light fitted. Additionally, each statue was fitted with a module that was to play a sound when it detected visitors in proximity. Initial designs used mains power, however for this particular install battery power would be required.

Arduinos, USB power banks and ultrasonic rangefinders were all thrown into the mix to get the job done. DFplayer modules were used to run sound, and Grove System parts were used to enable everything to be hooked up quickly and easily. While this would be a strange choice for a production design, it is common for art projects to lean heavily on rapid prototyping tools. They enable inexperienced users to quickly and effectively whip up a project that works well and at low cost.

[Jan] does a great job of explaining some of the pitfalls faced in the project, as well as reporting that the installation functioned near-flawlessly for 6 months, running 8 hours a day. We love to see a good art piece around these parts, and we’ve likely got something to your tastes – whether you’re into harmonicas, fungus, or Markov chains.

Creating Coherent Sound Beams, Easily

February 14, 2019 by Bryan Cockfield 57 Comments

Lasers work by emitting light that is “coherent” in that it doesn’t spread out in a disorganized way like light from most sources does. This makes extremely focused beams possible that can do things like measure the distance from the Earth to the Moon. This behavior isn’t just limited to electromagnetic waves, though. [Gigs] via [CodeParade] was able to build a device that produces a tightly focused sound wave, essentially building an audio laser.

Curiously enough, the device does not emit sound in the frequency range of human hearing. It uses a set of ultrasound speakers which emit a “carrier wave” in the ultrasound frequency. However, with a relatively simple circuit a second signal in the audible frequency range is modulated on top of it, much the same way that an AM radio broadcast has a carrier wave with an amplitude modulated signal on top of it. With this device, though, the air itself acts in a nonlinear way and demodulates the signal, producing the modulated signal as audible sounds.

There are some interesting effects of using this device. First, it is extremely directional, so in order to hear sound from the device you would need to be standing directly in front of it. However, once the ultrasound beam hits a solid object, the wave is instantly demodulated and reflected from the object, making it sound like that object is making the sounds and not the device. It’s obvious that this effect is hard to experience via video, but it’s interesting enough that we’d like to have one of our own to try out. It’s not the only time that sound waves and electromagnetic waves have paired up in interesting ways, either.

Thanks to [Setvir] for the tip! Continue reading “Creating Coherent Sound Beams, Easily” →

Cutting Wit And Plastic

January 14, 2019 by Brian McEvoy 4 Comments

If you have ever used a scalpel to cut something tougher than an eraser, you can appreciate a hot knife or better yet, an ultrasonic cutter. Saws work too, but they have their own issues. [This Old Tony] uses a hobby store tool to cut some plastic and wood, then demos a commercial ultrasonic cutter to show how a blade can sail through with less brute force. The previous requires some muscle, finesse, and eventually a splash of Bactine antiseptic. The video can also be seen after the break.

This is more than a tool review, [Tony] takes it apart with a screwdriver and offers his snarky comments. On the plus side is that it cuts polystyrene well where a regular knife won’t do more than scratch or shatter it. Meanwhile in the negative category we don’t hear a definitive price, but they seem to cost half as much as his mini-lathe. If you need an estimated return on investment, consider the price of two-thousand X-acto blades, but you may also wish to factor in the reduced hand calluses. While you are shopping, maybe also think about a set of earplugs; when the video gets to 17:30 he tries to cut a ceramic fitting and manages to make a child-deafening screech instead. We warned you.

This is a fitting follow-up to his unsuccessful attempt to turn an ultrasonic cleaner into an ultrasonic cutter, but we have seen success converting a tooth scaler into a cutter.

Continue reading “Cutting Wit And Plastic” →

Making An Ultrasonic Cutter For Post-processing Tiny 3D Prints

January 7, 2019 by Donald Papp 58 Comments

An ultrasonic knife is a blade that vibrates a tiny amount at a high frequency, giving the knife edge minor superpowers. It gets used much like any other blade, but it becomes far easier to cut through troublesome materials like rubber or hard plastics. I was always curious about them, and recently made my own by modifying another tool. It turns out that an ultrasonic scaling tool intended for dental use can fairly easily be turned into a nimble little ultrasonic cutter for fine detail work.

Cheap ultrasonic scaler. The blue disk is for adjusting power. Foot switch not shown.

I originally started thinking about an ultrasonic knife to make removing supports from SLA 3D prints easier. SLA resin prints are made from a smooth, hard plastic and can sometimes require a veritable forest of supports. These supports are normally removed with flush cutters, or torn off if one doesn’t care about appearances, but sometimes the density of supports makes this process awkward, especially on small objects.

I imagined that an ultrasonic blade would make short work of these pesky supports, and for the most part, I was right! It won’t effortlessly cut through a forest of support bases like a hot knife through butter, but it certainly makes it easier to remove tricky supports from the model itself. Specifically, it excels at slicing through fine areas while preserving delicate features. Continue reading “Making An Ultrasonic Cutter For Post-processing Tiny 3D Prints” →

Skeletal Robot Skips The Chassis

December 26, 2018 by Tom Nardi 5 Comments

With the high availability of low-cost modular electronic components, building your own little robot buddy is easier and more affordable than ever. But while the electronics might be dirt cheap thanks to the economies of scale, modular robot chassis can be surprisingly expensive. If you’ve got a 3D printer you can always make a chassis that way, but what if you’re looking for something a bit more artisanal?

For his entry into the Circuit Sculpture Contest, [Robson Couto] has built a simple robot which dumps the traditional chassis for a frame made out of bent and soldered copper wire. Not only does this happen to look really cool in a Steampunk kind of way, it’s also a very cheap way of knocking together a basic bot with just the parts you have on hand. Not exactly a heavy-duty chassis, to be sure, but certainly robust enough to rove around your workbench.

The dual servos constrained within the wire frame have been modified for continuous rotation, which combined with the narrow track should make for a fairly maneuverable little bot. [Robson] equipped his servos with copper wheels built in the same style of the frame, which likely isn’t great for traction but really does help sell the overall look. If you aren’t planning on entering your creation into a contest that focuses on unique construction, we’d suggest some more traditional wheels for best results.

The brains of this bot are provided by an ATmega8 with external 16MHz crystal tacked onto the pins. There’s also a ultrasonic sensor board mounted to the servos which eventually will give this little fellow the ability to avoid obstacles. Of course, it doesn’t take a robotics expert to realize there’s currently no onboard power supply in the design. We’d love to say that he’s planning on using the copper loops of the frame to power the thing via induction, but we imagine [Robson] is still fiddling around with the best way to get juice into his wireframe creation before the Contest deadline.

Speaking of which, there’s still plenty of time to get your own Circuit Sculpture creation submitted. If it’s a functional device that isn’t scared to show off the goods, we’re interested in seeing it. Just document the project on Hackaday.io and submit it to the contest before the January 8th, 2019 deadline.

72 Tranducers For Acoustic Levitation

November 28, 2018 by Lewin Day 9 Comments

Levitation has a way of arousing curiousity and wonder wherever it appears. There’s a multitude of ways to do it, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and ideal use cases. [Julius Kramer] tried his hand at acoustic levitation, and decided to share his build.

The build relies on an astounding number of ultrasonic transducers – 72, in fact. The device operates at 40 kHz to be well above the human range of hearing. 36 each are placed in the top and bottom shells of the device’s 3D printed chassis. Through careful construction, the transducers are placed an integer multiple of half the wavelength apart. This allows the device to create a standing wave, with several low-energy nodes in which small objects can be levitated. In this case, [Julius] uses small scraps of styrofoam, but notes that water droplets can also be used if one is careful to avoid spilling any on the electronics.

The transducers are energised with a square wave generated by an Arduino Nano. This allows the possibility of the frequency and phase of the wave to be altered, which can help tune the device and allow some movement in the vertical axis. Unfortunately, movement in the other axes isn’t possible as the transducers appear to be connected in parallel. However, this could be a good upgrade in a later revision.

This project shows that a device relying on incredibly precise measurement and control can now be constructed at home with a 3D printer and some off the shelf electronics.

Now that you’ve whet your whistle, perhaps you’d like to tackle laser levitation?

[Thanks to Baldpower for the tip!]

A $4 Ultrasonic Theremin Looks Cheesy On Purpose

November 10, 2018 by Al Williams 6 Comments

We don’t think [bleepbit] will take offense when we say the “poor man’s theremin” looks cheesy — after all, it was built in a cheese container. Actually, it isn’t a bad case for a simple device, as you can see in the picture and the video below. Unlike a traditional theremin, the device uses ultrasonics to detect how far away your hand is and modifies the sound based on that.

There are also two buttons — one to turn the sound off and another to cycle through some effects. We liked how it looked like a retro cassette, though. The device uses a cheap Arduino clone, but even with a real Arduino, the price wouldn’t be too bad. However, the price tag quoted doesn’t include a few connectors or the speaker that appears in the schematic. There’s a note that the model built uses a jack instead of a speaker, but it would be nice to include both and use the kind of jack that disconnects the speaker when you plug speakers or headphones in.

Continue reading “A $4 Ultrasonic Theremin Looks Cheesy On Purpose” →