Zippo Keeps Your Bits Safe

April 20, 2018 by Adam Fabio 29 Comments

[Laura Kampf] found a new use for an old Zippo lighter by turning it into a carrier for her screwdriver bits. There are several multitools out there which can accept standard screwdriver bits. The problem is carrying those bits around. Leaving a few bits in your pocket is a recipe for pocket holes and missing bits.

[Laura’s] solution uses her old Zippo lighter. All she needs is the case, the lighter element itself can be saved for another project. A block of aluminum is cut and sanded down to a friction fit. Laura uses a band saw and bench sander for this. The aluminum block is then drilled out to fit four bits. Small neodymium magnets are taped into the holes with double-sided tape. These magnets retain the bits, ensuring none will fall out when the lighter is opened.

This is a great quick project and an excellent way to carry four bits. We’re curious if the second set of holes (and a shorter bar) could expand this carrier to 8 bits – 4 on top and 4 on the bottom. [Laura] noticed this too, but decided to keep the build simple with 4 bits.

We love Every Day Carry (EDC) projects like this – in fact, a few years back we had our own EDC contest featuring the Adafruit Trinket. Check out the awards announcement post for some awesome pocket projects!

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Hackaday Links: December 14, 2014

December 14, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 30 Comments

The Progressive Snapshot is a small device that plugs into the ODB-II port on your car, figures out how terrible of a driver you are, and sends that data to Progressive servers so a discount (or increase) can be applied to your car insurance policy. [Jared] wondered what was inside this little device, so he did a teardown. There’s an Atmel ARM in there along with a SIM card. Anyone else want to have a go at reverse engineering this thing from a few pictures?

[Alex]’s dad received a special gift for his company’s 50th anniversary – a Zippo Ziplight. Basically, its a flashlight stuffed into the metal Zippo lighter we all know and love. The problem is, it’s battery-powered, and Zippo doesn’t make them any more. It also uses AAAA batteries. Yes, four As. No problem, because you can take apart a 9V and get six of them.

‘Tis the season to decorate things, I guess, and here’s a Hackaday snowflake. That’s from [Benjamin Gray], someone who really knows his way around a laser cutter.

HHaviing trouble wiith a debounce ciircut? HHer’s a calculator for just thhat problem. Put iin the logiic hhiigh voltage level, the bounce tiime, and the fiinal voltage, and you get the capaciitor value and resiistor value.

A harmonograph is a device that puts a pen on a pendulum, drawing out complex curves that even a spirograph would find impressive. [Matt] wanted to make some harmonographs, but a CNC and a printing press got in the way. He’s actually making some interesting prints that would be difficult if not impossible to make with a traditional harmonograph – [Matt] can control the depth and width of the cut, making for some interesting patterns.

The Mooltipass, the Developed On Hackaday offline password keeper, has had an interesting crowdfunding campaign and now it’s completely funded. The person who tipped it over was [Shad Van Den Hul]. Go him. There’s still two days left in the campaign, so now’s the time if you want one.

Laser Cigarette Lighter Makes Smoking Even More Dangerous

August 1, 2013 by Mike Szczys 64 Comments

Dangers involved with using this laser cigarette lighter to start off your smoking session include shooting your eyes out and giving yourself a mean Harry Potter style forehead scar. This thing boasts a two Watt laser diode which has no problem burning everything that comes in contact with it.

[Masterjoa3000] shows you how it was built in the video after the break. You need to acquire the diode and support hardware which acts as a heat sink. These are press-fit together before wires are attached to the positive and negative leads. The housing is just a bit too wide for the wind shield on the lighter, but that is fixed by cutting a ‘V’ out of the center of that shielding. Next comes a minuscule driver board which is soldered to the diode and to a momentary push switch. The switch takes the place of the flint so that pressing down on the striking wheel activates the laser. The whole thing still fits in the unaltered outer case.

Here’s another take on the same idea with the laser pointing in a different direction.

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Burglar Alarm In A Zippo Lighter

August 26, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 9 Comments

surprisingly awesome

[Madmanmoe64] has really done a fantastic job with this burglar alarm built into a zippo. He crammed a picaxe microcontroller, some IR LEDs, an IR sensor, a battery and various switches in there quite well. It almost closes perfectly, something we think he could remedy if it really bugged him that much.

It has several modes, all initiated by a different sequence of button presses. There is the proximity alarm, which sounds when something moves very close. The reverse proximity alarm which sounds when you remove something from its immediate vicinity. A doorbell mode, and a silent alarm mode. Check out the video after the break to see it in action.

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Laser Projector Zippo

April 16, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 26 Comments

[vimeo=4130779]

If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “I wish I had a laser projector hidden in a zippo”, then you’ll really appreciate this project. [Rog8811], who you might remember from the laser lighter, has made a spirograph style green laser projector that fits inside his zippo. This is very compact and you would have no idea it was there until you open it up. Just be careful, this seems perfect for causing eye damage to someone who isn’t expecting a laser to shoot out of your zippo.