Dick Cappels has made a DIY LC meter. As usual he has provided full schematics and code so you can build your own.
“There must be half a dozen similar LC meters on the web. Why didn’t I just download one of them and use it? I suppose part of the answer is that I wanted to do some of it myself. As nice as these other projects are, I wanted to make an LC meter that others could copy and get working without very much trouble. That meant that “exotic” components need to be kept to a minimum, and to me, that means no relays or hard-to-find special switches. It also means that the complete design nees to be spelled out in sufficent detial to allow anybody with basic assembly skills to put it together and make it work.
This instrument requires two precision components: A precision capacitor and a […]
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Electronic Hacks, DIY Hacks, Complex Hacks |
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Have a look at this laser light show! Guaranteed to get some attention…
Video after the jump.
“The main event of the GRL Rotterdam tour - ‘L.A.S.E.R TAG’ - 60mw geek graffiti madness.
Watch the video here on the Graffiti Research Lab website.
In the spirt of GRL’s and Eyebeam’s open source beliefs, we are posting the code and executable for the Laser Tag application online for you to download, dissect, reuse and hopefully improve. The code is C++ and compiled in a super old school Codewarrior IDE for windows but it is oepnGL based and written using openFrameworks which is a cross platform library for writing creative code. So it should be very straight forward to run in Visual Studio, DevC++ or even xcode on a mac.
In its simplest form the Laser Tag system is a camera and laptop setup, tracking a green laser point across the face of a building and generating […]
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Insane Equipment, Complex Hacks, Computer Hacks, Crazy Hacks |
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Someone needs to make a diy version of this. I would totally drive my car using brain power. Or at least send it to this guy to add to his car.
“A monkey has a microchip in its brain which allows it to move a robotic arm as if it were its real arm.”
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What Were They Thinking, Electronic Hacks, Complex Hacks, Computer Hacks |
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Windows Vista is going to have to take a back seat to the amazing OS effects that Ubuntu 6.10 Linux with XGL Kiba-Dock can perform. Watch the video and be amazed. I think Microsoft might have to hire some of the open source developers of they want to keep up… Have a close look at the video, the creator must be a Diggnation fan!
Video after the jump.
Via: Slashdot Review
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Complex Hacks, Computer Hacks, Crazy Hacks |
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You will have to put aside 5 or 6 hours to understand this project! Good thing is that it comes with a 115 page manual! I would bet that David is the first to publish plans for a DIY Laser Beam Analyzer.
“The laser beam spot is the tool in laser welding cutting. Industrial lasers are really great, but there’s a huge problem when it comes to knowing the state of your tool. I mean, in a normal milling machine the mill bit can visually be examined to see if a part of the edge is chipped off. But how does your beam spot look? How is your beam quality? You might have pretty good idea of how good the beam quality is but the truth is: You don’t know. You can’t just look at the laser beam an tell. First of all trying to look at a laser beam without […]
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Electronic Hacks, Insane Equipment, DIY Hacks, Complex Hacks |
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Remember the video we featured last week? Well the CoilOsapien (Robosapien Coil Gun) is done, look here for all of the details.
“When the servo is activated it turns the disc inside the housing, with each spin it will pick up one BB and drop it into the firing chamber. The coilgun will need to be on a slight angle whilst reloading to allow the BB to roll to the back of the chamber. The reload would function better if it could be setup behind the coil to drop the BB directly into position, this would also allow loading in any position. Due to the fact there was not enough room to mount it back there I went the easier less functional alternative.
The following list is what I used for the hack, there are many substitutes you could make here.
* At least one disposable camera with flash
[…]
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Insane Equipment, Toy Hacks, Complex Hacks |
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Looks like less is more when trying to master flight. This small helicopter is using a brain that is based on the brain of an insect!
“As tiny as insect brains are, they can still perform extraordinary acrobatics in the air that human flying machines have yet to match. Now scientists reveal a miniature helicopter, with an electronic brain inspired by insects, that could help lead to better takeoffs, flights and landings for robotic aircraft.
Insects and other animals capable of powered, flapping flight are somehow able to execute controlled takeoffs and landings and keep flying at proper altitudes despite their lack of the sophisticated instruments available to human aviators.
“It’s extraordinary to see flies navigate with just their small 10-milligram brains,” said researcher Nicolas Franceschini, a neurophysiologist and engineer at France’s National Center for Scientific Research and at the University of the Mediterranean in France. ”
Via: The Raw Feed and Gear […]
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What Were They Thinking, Electronic Hacks, Insane Equipment, Complex Hacks |
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Ever wonder how induction heating worked? Me too… Penguin Labs has an informative article about some of their experiments.
“Induction cookers, furnaces, stoves and all that jazz are now widely used. You put your metal saucepan on top of an innocent looking glass plate and it magically heats your food with no flame and almost no waste heat.
They are able to heat certain metals up to their melting points, and that is very hot, obviously…
How they work?
When an alternating electric current is passed through a coil, the coil creates a magnetic field. The magnetic lines of flux cut through the air around the coil. If a ferrous material, such a solid bar of iron is inserted into this coil, certain effects known as eddy currents are induced to flow in the metal bar. This causes localised heating, and ultimately heats up the metal bar.
A hexagonal screw in the red hot zone. […]
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Electronic Hacks, DIY Hacks, Complex Hacks, Crazy Hacks |
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This RF Remote Controller project is very well documented and even has a step by step explanation of what the PIC microcontroller code is doing line by line!
“On these pages, I will introduce Remote Controller with Radio Frequency. The electric wave sending-out is controlled with the code by PIC for transmission and the code is deciphered by PIC for receiving.
The 2 stages FET amplifier is used for the high frequency amplification. The FET amplifies only at the voltage to apply to gate (G). The resistor to be putting in the source (S) of the FET is to make the bias voltage of the gate. When making a resistance value big, voltage of the source goes up to the grounding and the bias voltage becomes big. In case of the gain of the amplifier is big, when the signal of the output returns to the input, an amplifier oscillates. In the […]
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Electronic Hacks, DIY Hacks, Complex Hacks |
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Want to be a DJ? You can go hands on with a modified Wiimote called the WiiJ. But when you get serious the Kuka industrial robotic DJ is the only way to go!
Videos and more pictures after the jump.
“The Juke Bot is a pair of Kuka industrial robots; each is surrounded by a set of platters (you know, vinyl LPs). The two bots act independently, deftly grasping an LP, and then bringing it to a platform with a phonograph needle. Delicately, the robot presses the LP against the needle and begins to rotate it forward and backward, creating a unique performance sound.”
Via: Robot Gossip and Technovelgy
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What Were They Thinking, Electronic Hacks, Insane Equipment, Complex Hacks, Computer Hacks, Crazy Hacks |
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Here is an digital audio project that uses S/PDIF.
“Here’s a very trivial S/PDIF transmitter hack for portable MiniDiscs and other digital audio devices lacking S/PDIF output.
The s/pdif transmitter runs from +5V, 44kHz 16bit input at 384xfs, is set to consumer mode output, and doesn’t transmit any COPY bit (copyright protection disabled). The board can be connected directly to a PC motherboard, or via a Toshiba TOTX173 to an optical cable feed, or with a small transformer to a coax line.”
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Electronic Hacks, DIY Hacks, Complex Hacks |
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Here is a list of 5 cool coil guns, either one would be fun to try out. Remember that coil guns can be dangerous, if you build one and shoot out your eye don’t say you weren’t warned.
5. The Mk II Coil RIfle
This is the second gun that Nicholas Howard has built.
“This is my second coil rifle, it has a firing energy of about 5 joules and it charges in about 10 seconds. the power source is the 12V 3.5AH SLA batery. This supplies the power to the 12v-240v inverter that provides the 240v requiered by the rectifacation circut. The 400v output from this circut is used to charge the two 400v 2200uF capacitors used to supply the energy to the work coil. it is capable of shooting through multiple soda cans.”
4. 18 Shot Repeat Coilgun
This one packs the punch of an automatic.
“Here it concerns a three speed CG in […]
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Using an old serial GPS the guys as Semifluid have made a home made GPS data logger on the cheap. As usual schematics and directions are on the site.
“This project focused on creating a simple serial data logger for the Delorme Tripmate (also known as the GPSTripmate). The Tripmate is an older GPS receiver that can be purchased on eBay for
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Electronic Hacks, DIY Hacks, Cool Gadgets, Complex Hacks |
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Once the full scale version of this car is made all it will need is a paint ball gun to keep the bad guys away!
“Build a security robot that can be controlled and viewed over the internet. The planned final version will be a kids 48″ electric car with a network camera attached.
1/4 Scale Trial Version:
I opted to try this out with a $20 RC car from Wal-Mart first, before I invest $200 in a kids car.
Parts:
Linksys WRT54G Router - Used as the wireless connection from Bestbuy
Comfiletech: Industrial Micro Controller/PLC “Cubloc”- http://www.comfiletech.com/index.asp
Maxport: Ethernet to RS232 converter with web server. From http://www.comfiletech.com/index.asp
Kowasaki RC car from Wal-Mart
Camera: None yet. I intend to use an Axis 206, when I can find one cheap on ebay”
Via: ZedoMax and Make
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Electronic Hacks, DIY Hacks, Toy Hacks, Complex Hacks, Computer Hacks |
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