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Hack A Day (45 unread)

Self-regulating water heater

Posted: February 23rd, 2011, 4:02pm MST by Mike Nathan

Most everyone is looking to live a little greener these days, with motivating factors typically being the preservation of the environment or financial considerations. [Fabien] fit into the latter category after realizing that about 25% of his monthly gas bill went to heating the water he and his family use each day. After a few [...]
Repair stuck iPod Nano buttons

Posted: February 23rd, 2011, 3:03pm MST by Mike Szczys

A system is only as strong as its weakest link and [Roberto Barrios] found that on the sixth generation iPod nano the buttons are the problem. It makes sense that the buttons would be exposed to wear since they’re movable parts. The issue isn’t one of contacts or springs wearing out, but how the buttons [...]
Force feedback rig

Posted: February 23rd, 2011, 2:01pm MST by Mike Szczys

Strap yourself in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. No really, if you don’t believe us, check out the video after the break of this bouncing and rolling game system. [Shawn McGrath] built it to compliment the gaming experience for Dyad, an indie game for which he is a developer. His wife was kind [...]
Gauss Weapons

Posted: February 23rd, 2011, 1:02pm MST by Mike Szczys

This collection of gauss weapons use rare earth magnets to accelerate projectiles to damaging speeds. They work using the same concepts as a coil gun, but instead of just one projectile travelling along a length of guide track, there are many projectiles that work in a chain reaction. A series of magnets are placed at [...]
Breaking the iClass security

Posted: February 23rd, 2011, 12:11pm MST by Mike Szczys

iClass is a popular format of RFID enabled access cards. These are issued to company employees to grant them access to parts of a building via a card reader at each security door. We’ve known for a long time that these access systems are rather weak when it comes to security. But now you can [...]
Kindle 3.1 Jailbreak

Posted: February 23rd, 2011, 10:08am MST by Mike Nathan

In the constant battle of manufacturers vs. jailbreakers, the turnaround time between a new software release and a new jailbreak seems to be getting shorter and shorter. [Yifan] noticed that a recent Kindle update broke a previous method of running unsigned code and started the search for a new workaround. He eventually found a way [...]
Building a dead mouse’s switch

Posted: February 23rd, 2011, 9:00am MST by Mike Nathan

[Ned] had a mouse problem in a very uncomfortable place. No, not like the back of a Volkswagen, in his ceiling. He wanted to put a mouse trap up there to take care of the critter, but knowing how nasty a tripped trap can be after a few days, he was hesitant. He recalled a [...]
Easy DIY stroboscope

Posted: February 23rd, 2011, 8:10am MST by Mike Nathan

Looking for something to do in his downtime, [Mista Sparkle] decided that building a simple stroboscope was in order. He already had a set of six LEDs connected to his Arduino from a previous project, so he added a potentiometer to control the rate at which the LEDs flashed, and dug into the IDE. During [...]
Xteardown

Posted: February 23rd, 2011, 7:09am MST by Kevin Dady

A hot topic in the gadget world right now is the Sony Ericsson XperiaPlay phone, and while that is not our usual cup of tea, when we see the newest toy stripped down to its bits n pieces it piques our interest. This 8 page teardown of the XperiaPlay (google translated to english) takes you [...]
Mystery Box out of Lego

Posted: February 23rd, 2011, 6:05am MST by Kevin Dady

[Todd] recently completed completed his biggest LEGO project, and its pretty wild. The Mystery Box is an 8 compartment LEGO brick puzzle box, covered in a psychedelic pattern of interconnecting question marks. The question mark pattern was inspired by a few things, the book called “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” contained [...]
MIDI controller fit for an arcade

Posted: February 23rd, 2011, 5:05am MST by Mike Nathan

MIDI controllers can be relatively expensive depending on feature sets and requirements, so Instructables user [fraganator] went about building one on his own for just under $100. He originally wanted to replicate a commercially available MIDI controller, which used arcade buttons in lieu of the more common rubberized buttons, since they are large and have [...]
The interstellar clock

Posted: February 22nd, 2011, 4:06pm MST by Chris Nelson

[Alexander Avtanski] has put together a nice clock to meet all your interstellar travel needs. Besides being another PIC based timer, this is a neat little project because it incorporates pretty much every feature you could think of when building a clock for our solar sytem. For example, it has 16 independent timers and alarms, it can simultaneously give the time for multiple planets, as [...]
DIY Racing Sim shift box

Posted: February 22nd, 2011, 4:02pm MST by Mike Nathan

Ask anyone who has ever owned a car with a manual gearbox – in real life and in video games, nothing beats stick shift. Rather than shell out gobs of money to purchase a pre-made shift box, forum member [nikescar] built his own for about $20. Using some scrap wood and a plastic cutting board, [...]
iTalkman Refrigerated Franken-phone

Posted: February 22nd, 2011, 3:01pm MST by Mike Nathan

[Jani] over at MetkuMods was commissioned to build a prize for an on-air contest held by MTV3 in Finland. Well known for some of his previous work, he was a natural choice for this project. The only stipulation for the build was that it contain three specific items: a Mobira mobile phone, an Apple iPhone, [...]
DARPA’s hummingbird spybot

Posted: February 22nd, 2011, 2:01pm MST by Mike Szczys

Nope, this isn’t some extravagant fishing lure, it’s the US Government’s newest way to spy on its people enemies. The hummingbird bot has no problems flying like an actual hummingbird while recording video. It was developed by a company called Aerovironment as part of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract. Of course details are scarce, [...]
Valentine’s gift counts the days spent together

Posted: February 18th, 2011, 2:03pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Vegard Paulsen] dug deep down to the romantic geek at his core and built this box that counts the days he’s spent together with his Valentine. As you can see, it uses a four-digit seven segment display installed in the lid of a wooden box. An Arduino mini is responsible for driving the display, but [...]
Sniff Ethernet with a throwing star

Posted: February 18th, 2011, 1:02pm MST by Kevin Dady

[Michael Ossmann] came up with a nifty little device that arranges RJ48 plugs into a plus shape for the intent of sniffing Ethernet packets, and named it the “Throwing Star LAN Tap”. While the original design worked fine it does suffer some limitations such as being limited to 10/100 base networks, and one way only. [...]
Bluetooth-enabled Wii nunchuck

Posted: February 18th, 2011, 12:01pm MST by Mike Nathan

The wireless controller for the Nintendo Wii has been used in many a hack due to its simple to use Bluetooth interface. The nunchuck portion of the controller however, has always required a physical tether to the wireless controller, or an aftermarket wireless dongle. [Rousselmanu] is looking to change that with his Bluetooth-enabled wireless Wii [...]
Brain Car Interface

Posted: February 18th, 2011, 11:03am MST by Kevin Dady

The AutoNOMOS labs project has found a new way to maneuver its vehicles, your brain. We have looked at a previous version that uses a mostly computerized van under remote control from an iPhone. This one however, named “Brain Driver”, places the operator in the driver’s seat with an EEG strapped to their head. Going [...]
Simple household status system

Posted: February 18th, 2011, 10:01am MST by Mike Nathan

[BrianH] decided that he no longer wanted to venture outside on cold or rainy days just to check if the mail had come, so he built himself a notification system that would alert him if the postman had stopped by. Additionally, he admits to being forgetful on occasion and wanted a way to monitor whether [...]
Molded parts: Prusa Mendel in 30 minutes

Posted: February 18th, 2011, 9:00am MST by Mike Szczys

This set of white RepRap parts were created in molds, instead of being printed by another RepRap. [Mark A. Ganter] of the University of Washington admits that this breaks the idea of a 3D printer that is self-replicating. But the molds – which were created by tweaking Prusa Mendel parts to be mold friendly – [...]
8-bit MIDI synthesizer

Posted: February 18th, 2011, 8:02am MST by Mike Szczys

[Derek Enos'] toils are starting to yield results. He’s been working on an 8-bit synthesizer that is MIDI controlled which he calls the deMIDulator. As he demonstrates after the break, the device has sine and square wave functions that produce quite a pleasing sound. But it also offers the option to record your own samples which [...]
Cyborg camera mask

Posted: February 18th, 2011, 6:05am MST by Kevin Dady

[Ryan] whipped up this robotic masquerade mask to wear to his wife’s art opening / masquerade party, and its pretty wild. The prominent feature of this mask is a scavenged lens assembly from a typical point n shoot style camera, which is still connected to its electronics so it can go through its off and [...]
NES Paul game controller

Posted: February 18th, 2011, 5:11am MST by Mike Nathan

[NeoTenchi] wrote in to share the new game peripheral he built, dubbed the NES Paul. The ultimate goal of the project was to build a NES-styled controller for an upcoming game he is working on, tentatively titled 8-bit Hero. The guitar is constructed primarily from wood, as well as some scrounged bits he had around [...]
Xprotolab: oscilloscope and Xmega development board

Posted: February 17th, 2011, 3:03pm MST by Mike Szczys

Here’s a nice hands-on overview of the Xprotolab, a development board based around the AVR ATxmega32A4 microcontroller. The tiny DIP package includes an OLED display, four tactile switches, and it can be powered via a micro USB connector. The device ships ready to use as a two-channel Oscilloscope, but check out how small it is [...]
Motion tracking prop from Alien movie

Posted: February 17th, 2011, 2:02pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Erv Plecter] likes to recreate movie props that actually work. This time around he’s making the motion detector device from the original Alien movie. You’ll immediately remember this prop after seeing and hearing it in the video after the break. For our money, the most brilliant part of that movie was the use of rhythmic sounds [...]
Model rocket radio telemetry

Posted: February 17th, 2011, 1:03pm MST by Mike Nathan

[Ken] sent us his Instructable in which he used radio telemetry to monitor the status of his air-powered model rocket through a series of launches. His setup is centered around an Arduino IDE-compatible board that looks to be about the size of a Boarduino, but has the benefit of an embedded 915 MHz radio module. [...]
More ambient lighting monitor hacks

Posted: February 17th, 2011, 12:02pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Christian Pigeon's] first big project was to build this ambient light system for his computer monitor. This is based on the same concept as the Phillips Ambilight system which illuminates the area behind a television to match the color on the edges of the screen. We’ve seen clones before, but this is the first one [...]
Fingertip heart rate monitor

Posted: February 17th, 2011, 11:00am MST by Chris Nelson

[Embedded lab] has a nice tutorial on building your own heart rate monitor. The monitor works by shining infrared light into the fingertip and looking at the changes in the reflected infrared signal caused by a heartbeat. The IR detector produces a very small AC signal so a couple of op-amps are used to filter and amplify the signal. [...]
Your first Digital to Analog Converter build

Posted: February 17th, 2011, 10:00am MST by Mike Szczys

Have you ever built a Digital to Analog Converter before? This is a circuit that can take the 0 or 5V coming off of several digital logic pins, combine them together, and spit out one analog voltage that represents that value. If you’ve never made one, here’s your chance. [Collin Cunningham] over at Make put [...]
Nixie tube thermometer

Posted: February 14th, 2011, 6:10am MST by Mike Nathan

After seeing a picture of a thermometer using a bargraph style nixie tube in place of a mercury column, [Juergen Grau] decided he wanted to build his own. Dubbed the “Nixietherm”, his replica looks even better than the original. He used an IN-9 Nixie tube mounted on top of a custom plastic case, all powered [...]
Arduino Based PC Ambient Lighting

Posted: February 14th, 2011, 5:09am MST by Kevin Dady

[royboy] from the Arduino forum has recently made a post showing off his Arduino / PC ambient light system. The system is simple to wire up and easy to use, as long as your video is being sent from a PC, which for many of us that use “home theater pc” systems is very convenient. [...]
Overclocked ATmega32 gaming

Posted: February 13th, 2011, 1:04pm MST by Mike Szczys

With more pixels and more objects to track you’re going to need to get that AVR running pretty fast to get the job done. But [Vladutz2000] figured why stop at 16 MHz when you can overclock an ATmega32 to 27 MHz for a faster gaming experience? This build may not be as colorful as Super [...]
Range finder musical toy

Posted: February 13th, 2011, 11:03am MST by Mike Nathan

Instructables user [sketchsk3tch] was looking to make a fun toy for his kids using things he had around the house and came up with the Ping Organ. The organ is played by standing in front of the Parallax Ping range sensor, and moving around any which way you please. He interfaced the range sensor with [...]
LaunchPad MIDI synth

Posted: February 13th, 2011, 10:03am MST by Mike Nathan

[NatureTM] sent in a writeup for the MIDI synthesizer he recently built using a TI LaunchPad. The construction is pretty simple overall, consisting of little more than the MSP430, a handful of resistors, and an optoiosolater. Of course, a MIDI controller is required, but he already had that on hand. Once the MIDI data is [...]
Flash trigger with programmable delay

Posted: February 13th, 2011, 9:03am MST by Mike Szczys

Here’s a flash trigger with a programmable delay. These triggers are often used to capture quick events like a balloon popping. The technique takes place in a dark room with the shutter open. When the event is triggered the flash illuminates the scene and an image is captured. Because these require precise timing it has [...]
NES game pad guided robotic arm

Posted: February 13th, 2011, 8:01am MST by Mike Nathan

Instructables user [Bruno] sent in his most recent creation, a robotic arm controlled using an old NES game pad. He scavenged the majority of his parts from a pair of old HP printers, including motors pulleys, belts and more. In fact, most of the metal and plastic components that he used come from the old [...]
Modern freaking: pull phone numbers from YouTube audio

Posted: February 13th, 2011, 7:01am MST by Mike Szczys

[Charlie X-Ray] is having some modern fun with the phone system by pulling dialed numbers from the audio track of YouTube videos (translated). The first step was to find a video where a telephone is being dialed and the sounds of the keypresses are audible. You can’t tell those tones apart, but a computer can. [...]
Uncrippling lower model speakers

Posted: February 12th, 2011, 12:30pm MST by Mike Szczys

It looks like this low-end Sennheiser HD speaker has the same internals as it’s better-brother but has been altered to reduce sound quality. It’s not uncommon for manufacturers to hobble a product in order to sell more units at a lower price that reflects less features. Linksys WRT54G routers immediately come to mind, or perhaps [...]
Model car additions make us hear Knight Rider theme

Posted: February 12th, 2011, 11:29am MST by Mike Szczys

This collection of model vehicle hacks adds obstacle avoidance in an attempt to make them autonomous. At the front end you’ll find two PCBs which use IR approximation to monitor the road ahead. We’re not familiar with this particular use of these IR receivers (TSOP1738) which we’re used to seeing in remote control receiver applications [...]
SMS controlled irrigation

Posted: February 12th, 2011, 10:28am MST by Mike Szczys

[Mhkabir] built an irrigation system that communicates by text message. The concept is simple, sending a text message to the system will cause it to switch on the water pump. Many times we see text message manipulation via the Internet, or using a GSM module. But in this case an inexpensive cellphone is used as [...]
DIY PIC development board and web server

Posted: February 12th, 2011, 9:27am MST by Mike Nathan

Inspired by a project featured here on Hack-a-Day, [arthurb] bought himself a PIC 24F and started experimenting once he learned the ins and outs of programming the chip. Using a breadboard and a nest of wires was fine for his first few projects, but as he advanced, he began to feel the need for a [...]
Paper accelerometers for pennies in the works

Posted: February 12th, 2011, 7:27am MST by Mike Szczys

Cheap paper accelerometers? Put us down for a dozen to start. They’re not quite ready for mass production yet but it looks like they’re on the way. [George Whitesides] led a team to develop the new technology that uses simple manufacturing methods to produce the sensor seen above. Graphite and silver inks were screen printed [...]
PID controlled Bradley smoker clone

Posted: February 11th, 2011, 2:31pm MST by Mike Nathan

Bradley smokers are coveted for their ease of use, as they require very little interaction from the user once the hopper is loaded with wood pucks and the machine is powered on. The more robust models are quite pricey, so [Maukka] decided to build his own version of a Bradley smoker as an add on [...]
LED dog collar, Christmas edition

Posted: February 11th, 2011, 1:25pm MST by Caleb Kraft

[Aaron] says in our comments that he also made an LED dog collar. This Christmas themed dog collar uses an ATTiny13a and a hand full of red and green LEDs (28?). While the animations aren’t as complex as the collar we posted earlier today, we though you might enjoy this one as well. From the [...]