Here’s a weekend junk bin project if we’ve ever seen one. [Pat] used a quartet of computer fans to make his laser Spirograph . Deciding to try this simple build for yourself will run you through a lot of basics when it comes to interfacing hardware with a microcontroller. In this case...
Sure, adding a microcontroller would make this dead simple. All you need to do is program the chip to emulate the printer’s end of the communications scheme. But that’s not the approach taken here. Instead the USB to RS232 (serial) converter also pictured above is used as a reset sign...
The project seen here is a temperature data logger. The frosted diffuser covering everything but the LCD screen and gives you a glimpse of what’s mounted to the back panel. He connected the four different protoboard components, along with a battery pack, to each other use right angle ...
You can look and look, but you won’t find a Super Nintendo inside of this retro gaming rig. [Webrow] is giving his vintage hardware a rest, and taking this all-in-one game emulator suitcase wherever he goes. The machine at the heart of his build is of course a Raspberry Pi. You really...
This isn’t a hack that shows you how to start a car without the keys. It’s a way to ditch the bulky keyring for a set of fold-out keys . [Colonel Crunch] removed the blades from the pocket knife and replaced them with the two keys for his car (one is ignition and door locks, the other...
Ever so slowly, we’re inching towards a world of Internet-based electronic design tools. The state of these tools, including Upverter and other cloud-based solutions, hasn’t been all that great until now; with any new piece of schematic capture and PCB layout software, the libraries w...
This pair of musical keyboard hacks both use light to detect inputs. The pair of tips came in on the same day, which sparks talk of consipiracy theory here at Hackaday. Something in the weather must influence what types of projects people take on because we frequently see trends like ...
![RF switching module can learn new remotes: This breadboarded circuit is [Sergio's] solution to controlling appl...](http://static.openruby.com/assets/pages/01/35/0135e9fa56289375172ff5776e63631b_100.jpg)
The main components include the solid state relay at the bottom of the image. This lets the ATtiny13 switch mains voltage appliances. The microcontroller (on the copper clad square at the center of the breadboard) interfaces with the green radio frequency board to its left. On the rig...
Believe it or not, you can now squeeze wood through the nozzle of your 3D printer . This new addition to the maker’s palette of 3D printer filaments comes from the mind of [Kai Parthy]. The new filament – going by the name Laywood – is a mix of recycled wood fibers and polymer binders...
. They leverage use of low temperatures to slow down the RAM in a device. In this case, the target phone must already be powered on. Booting a phone that uses the encryption offered by Android 4.0 and newer requires the owner’s pass code to decrypt the user partition. But it then rema...
For a few years now, [Michael] has wanted to put the guts of a Game Boy Advance – the small clamshell version with a backlit LCD – into the classic and comfortable DMG-01 ‘brick’ Game Boy. He’s finally finished with his project , and we’ve got to say it’s looking pretty good. The buil...
We’ve seen Arduino-powered Twitter machines, and even some that can send text messages, but how about one that’s a video phone ? That’s what the guys over at Cooking Hacks put together with their very impressive 3G Arduino shield . On board the shield is an internal GPS receiver, micr...
First off… nice work! I really need to get a similar set-up, but I’ve been too busy with other projects to follow up on that need. This gives me something to think about. Second… if attempting to powder coat aluminum, there are a few things to take into account to get the best finish....
Here’s something that’s making its way to the top of our, “why didn’t we think of that” list. It’s called 3Doodler , a device based on the plastic extrusion technology found in 3D printers stuffed into a pen that fits in the palm of your hand. If you’re familiar with 3D printers, the ...
The machine translation makes it a bit rough to understand how this works, but the schematic helps quite a bit. The pair of solar cells, which were pulled from some cheap solar cellphone chargers, feed the bank of capacitors encircling the clock face. If placed in a room that gets ple...
The connector on the back of his head unit is a 2×4 set of pins recessed in a protective plastic ring. It turns out that the audio connector cable for a PC CD-ROM drive has a 1×4 socket that is perfect for this. [Apachem25] simply clipped one of those cables in half and used both ends...
We were surprised to see all of the Christmas gifts that revolved around Minecraft. Seems like there’s a lot of stuff for sale, but we still like the DIY spirit that comes with making your own. [Thacrudd] recently finished this project. It’s a wall lamp that looks like Minecraft’s dia...
[Simon Leblanc] started with a Delta contractor’s saw that was rusty inside and out. The refurbishment began by removing the table and everything from the inside. The rods and gears were all cleaned up before he began to sand away the rust on the table itself. But obviously he didn’t ...
His post gives a general overview of how this works. A Linux box takes a screenshot of the Ruzzle board. After processing the graphics with Imagemagick he uses Tesseract — an Optical Character Recognition program — to figure out which letter is on each square of the playing area. From...
It seems there are a lot of people who have the same complaint about the STM32 Discovery boards; it can be difficult to add external hardware to them. Don’t get us wrong, we appreciate all of the pins being broken out (as opposed to the Stellaris Launchpad which we think has too few a...
designed with OpenSCAD and cut out on a CNC router . [Matthew Venn] wrote about the project because he sees tons of 3D printing hacks that use the software, but almost never hears about it as a tool for laser cutting or CNC router/mill work. When we read that we thought we must have s...
There are two sets of counterweights used in the design. Some marbles, and what look like giant pinballs. The coin chute, located on the left side of the venting machine, funnels the money into the waiting marble. When the marble rolls off it lands on a spoon. The weight rotates the s...
[Jay] was looking for a way to make his own vias on homemade double-sided PCBs when he stumbled across this post from about five years ago. The technique shown here makes mechanical vias and was developed by [Retromaster]. There’s no soldering involved, instead he uses some solid core...
There’s two really useful parts to this hack which involves sniffing the HDMI protocol’s HDCP security keys . The first is just getting at the signals without disrupting communications between two HDCP capable devices. To do so [Adam Laurie] started by building an HDMI breakout cable ...
[Craig Turner] wrote in to tell us about the wireless fireworks controller he just finished building. It has eight total channels and offers the kind of safety features we like to see when working with explosives. The image above details the launcher side of the project. The project b...
Awesome! Reminds me of something I did last valentine.. I already had a little home automation up and running, and one of the things I have hacked is my digital safe. I refitted a new board with an Atmega328 inside and a wireless module at MHz so it could be operated remotely (I imple...
About a year ago, [Anthony] decided to embark on his biggest project to date. He wanted something with a ton of LEDs, so when the idea of recreating the classic electronic Lights Out game came to mind, he knew he had the makings of a killer project. The finished Lights Out arcade box ...
Back in 1991, a young [Backwoods Engineer] and his new wife went to a Valentines day get together. One of the conditions of the shindig was having the guys make – not buy – a Valentines day card. Go big or go home, he though, and after a few days he had a talking Valentines day card t...
![[CNLohr]‘s Microscope Slide Linux AVR Minecraft… thing](http://static.openruby.com/assets/pages/1b/1e/1b1ef28300ae293c82b05017832ab72e_100.jpg)
We’ve been following [CNLohr]‘s process of creating an AVR-powered microscope slide running Linux and interfacing redstone circuits in Minecraft to real world electronic for a while now, but we’re really at a loss for words on how it works. Well, now there’s a video explaining everyth...
With the massive response and blog cred from his QR Code clock, [ch00f] felt it was time to step up his game and update his design to a proper commercial product. His new QR clock is bigger, brighter, cheaper, and in every way better than the old version, but these improvements came a...
