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Hack A Day (15 unread)

DIY signal generator probe

Posted: October 3rd, 2011, 11:01am MDT by Brian Benchoff

A signal generator is a handy bit of kit and with the right components, it’s pretty easy to build one. Fabricating a proper signal generator probe is another matter entirely. [Frank]‘s DIY signal generator probe does exactly what it claims to, and is very cheap to boot. After [Frank] made a simple signal generator with [...]
Animated turn signals add a little bit of Cylon to your automobile

Posted: October 3rd, 2011, 10:01am MDT by Mike Szczys

[StarfireMX] churned out a fantastic turn signal replacement for his Mustang. When he switches on his blinker, a chasing pattern of amber LEDs is shown on the front corner of his car. Pretty cool, and as far as we can tell this is still street legal. But once he gets onto private property [StarfireMX] can [...]
Resurrecting an XT

Posted: October 3rd, 2011, 9:01am MDT by Brian Benchoff

The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. At least that’s what we’d tell ourselves if we couldn’t find a 30-year-old computer monitor. [Andrew] picked up an old IBM XT on eBay recently and tried to get the video working. He hasn’t seen any success yet, but the way he goes about [...]
Freakyphone has a puzzle for you!

Posted: October 3rd, 2011, 8:01am MDT by Mike Nathan

[Mime] likes to make puzzles and games for his friends to play, often using recycled electronics to construct them. He had been contemplating a sound-based game for some time when he came across an old rotary phone at a garage sale that would be perfect for what he had in mind. He calls his creation [...]
Sustainability Hacks: Bio-diesel motorcycle speed record

Posted: October 3rd, 2011, 7:00am MDT by Brian Benchoff

Sometimes you don’t need a lot of horsepower to win a speed record. In a fluke of no one else competing in the alt fuel class, [John]‘s biodiesel motorcycle set a new land speed record at the LTA event last summer. [John]‘s bike is a junkyard 1978 Kawasaki KZ400. The stock engine was replaced with a [...]
How to build your own cat door

Posted: October 2nd, 2011, 3:01pm MDT by Mike Szczys

[Dino] continues his to satisfy his weekly hacking goal by building a cat door for his pets. He has a Habitat For Humanity resale store nearby that was doing a 50% off sale on doors. So he picked up a six-panel door and set to work. The first step is drawing out the opening and [...]
Robotic arm follows the movements of your own limbs

Posted: October 2nd, 2011, 3:01pm MDT by Mike Szczys

[Alejandro] and his friends recently finished a first prototype of scratch-built robotic arm. They’ve got some nice electronics bench equipment for use with a project like this, but for the actual fabrication work it’s off to the kitchen. As you can see in the video after the break, they’re using PVC as the stock material [...]
[Clement] sees the cargo bike and raises a bicycle cargo trailer

Posted: October 2nd, 2011, 2:01pm MDT by Mike Szczys

[Clement] and his friends were going on a long bike tour and needed a way to carry their gear along with them. They set to work and managed to build this cargo trailer from mostly reused materials. The only part of this trailer that is reused junk is the connection mechanism that lets you attach [...]
Page-turning book scanner roundup

Posted: October 2nd, 2011, 1:01pm MDT by Brian Benchoff

[Daniel] at diybookscanner.org posted a roundup of the best automatic book scanner builds to date. A lot of the comments on our last coverage of book scanners were summed up by [Spork] with, “No automatic page turning = no use.” Turning a page in a book with a robot is really hard, though, and these builds [...]
Star Wars Imperial March Played by Dual Floppy Drives

Posted: October 2nd, 2011, 11:01am MDT by Jeremy Cook

Although many have made some sort of music with improvised electronics, few sound as cool as this Imperial March from Star Wars played by two floppy drives. According to [Pawel], “It’s nothing new” and quite simple. This may be true as we’ve featured an Imperial March-playing floppy drive here before, but it was only one [...]
Bread Head makes AVR programming a snap

Posted: October 2nd, 2011, 9:01am MDT by Mike Nathan

[Quinn] over at Blondihacks has been working with AVR microcontrollers a lot recently, and wanted a quick way to program the ATtiny13a (her current AVR of choice) while the chip is still seated in a breadboard. To speed up code revision and testing, she built a small programming header that she calls the Bread Head. [...]
Sustainability Hacks: Thin client server

Posted: October 2nd, 2011, 7:00am MDT by Brian Benchoff

It’s not environmentally friendly, but most of us run a small home server 24 hours a day. A small server is a useful tool to have that unfortunately wastes a lot of energy. [kekszumquadrat]‘s thin client home server is actually a passable LAMP box that doesn’t draw a ton of power. [kekszumquadrat] started looking at [...]
Getting the lead out of the Arduino runtime

Posted: October 1st, 2011, 4:14pm MDT by Mike Nathan

Ah, the Arduino. Love it or hate it, there’s no denying that part of its accessibility comes at the expense of speed and efficiency. We honestly like the platform as well as all of the others out there, because we believe that everything has its proper place and purpose. The crew over at Make, Hack, [...]
Spamming a label printer with #cookiehammer

Posted: October 1st, 2011, 3:14pm MDT by Brian Benchoff

[John] has always loved stock ticker machines. These machines are highly collectible, so short of finding one that wasn’t hurled from a Manhattan skyscraper in 1929, a stock ticker is out of reach for the casual enthusiast. There is another way to get a stock ticker-like device though: hack a label printer to print out [...]
Incredibly cheap upcycled cargo bike

Posted: October 1st, 2011, 2:14pm MDT by Mike Nathan

What has two wheels, is made from five different bikes, and can carry all of your stuff for miles and miles on end? [Paul Blue’s] DIY Lastenrad, that’s what. (Google Translation) A Lastenrad is a cargo bike where the load sits in front of the rider rather than being towed behind. [Paul] wanted one for [...]