Digital measuring tape

You’ll never come up short with this measuring tape. That’s because there isn’t actually any tape in the device; it measures distance based on the rotation of a wheel. Roll it across the room and you’ll get an accurate measurement of the distance the little bugger traveled. Like the Etch-a-Sketch from Monday this uses the encoder wheel from a mouse as the input. The IR emitter and sensor from the ubiquitous peripheral find a new home on the PCB that hosts the PIC 16F819. It monitors the rotation, turns it into inches, then spits that number out on a 7 segment display. Handy, and cheap!

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STK200 pocket change programmer

A common complaints of beginners to microcontroller programming is the availability of DIY tools that do not require a parallel port. Using not much more than a couple of 74xx series chips and some protoboard, [Rue] was able to create an AVR programmer for less than the cost of some chips it can program – giving parallel programmers a run for thier money. [Rue] used Linux treat the ubiquitous PATA/IDE port as a parallel port. By having avrdude treat the programmer as an Atmel STK200, [Rue] was able to upload a blinky program to his AVR microcontroller through ISP. If anybody can think of an even lower cost unconventional solution give us a shout.

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Don’t put that EPROM in your mouth!

[Jeremy] had some chips on hand that included EPROM. We’re not talking about EEPROM, we mean EPROM that need a UV light source to erase. Most people don’t want to drop a few hundred dollars on a dedicated EPROM eraser, there must be another way.

Boy, EPROM really suck. But so do pacifiers and he already had a solution for exposing those to UV. He pulled out his $30 UV pacifier cleaner and tossed the chip inside. Two times through the cleaning cycle and the data was gone. We’ve looked into using UV LEDs to do the job but some experimentation shows that it doesn’t work. These pacifier cleaners are cheap and easy to get a hold of. The real question is are you still using chips that require UV for erasing?

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Version control for Eagle

[Jeff] set up version control for Eagle libraries and projects. He mentions that Eagle has become the standard for open source hardware projects and he’s absolutely right. We use it for our projects, and we’ve grown to expect that the posts we feature have Eagle files available in most cases.

But Eagle falls short in its library management. There is some amazing work from SparkFun to support a usable parts library, but who hasn’t added parts themselves? [Jeff] setup libraries using github so that changes and additions to the libraries can benefit all and cut the amount of time spent making custom footprints for new components and packages.

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RepRap acrylic extrusion using hotbed

[Nophead] started the year off by successfully extruding acrylic using a RepRap machine. The problem when working with this material is that when the hot ooze hits the cold air the printed material tends to warp, badly. [Nophead] raised the ambient air temperature around the part being extruded by replacing the bed of the RepRap machine with a heated aluminum plate.

We took at look at his build details for the hotbed. The plate itself is aluminum that he had milled by a machinist friend of his. It looks like the heat is produced by a network of power resistors bolted and soldered to the bottom of the plate. The original idea was to produce a controllable SMT soldering platform. Unfortunately this heating method doesn’t have the power needed to raise the temp quickly but that failure turned out to be a RepRap success.

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Powder coating at home

[j_tenkely] wanted to do his own powder coat painting at home so he built everything he needed, including a coating booth and baking oven. The oven is double walled and built around a frame of steel building studs. Electric oven elements are controlled by a digital control panel and thermostat.

A spray booth is fashioned from a large storage bin. The powder coat gun used in this setup is a commercial project. But don’t fret, this is something you can build rather than buy.

[Thanks goat]

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More CNC goodness

[Jerry] retrofitted a Supermax Mill that he purchased from a friend. The main problem consisted of the original controller failing so he used some Pixie boards and a PC to get the system back up and running.

But thats not all. [Jerry] also retrofitted his Monarch lathe (yes, not a CNC, but are you really going to complain) by replacing the original Ward-Leanard motor generator with a 2 kW brushless AC servo.

The Harford HackerSpace group claims their CNC can kick any other CNC’s butt! Currently it lifts up to 65 pounds, but is still accurate enough to make ninja throwing stars. The only problem left is naming their CNC, any suggestions?

[Ciric] has finished up the hardware side of his CNC project. However the software is still being worked on, but because it is his own stepper control board it might take a while. The good news is the controller and software are planned to be released free.

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Old equipment repository

[Swake] tipped us off about a collection of old equipment. The site is packed full of various hardware that was used for electrical and chemical testing, metering, and experimentation. You could use this to identify the dinosaurs found in backrooms of college science departments, or draw inspiration from it. The next time you’re laying out a panel, or working on a steampunk-ish project go to the source to achieve that vintage look. Some of these remind us of the control panel on [Steve Roberts'] bicycle.

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Five updates for the Steadicam

[YB2Normal] has updated his steadicam 5 times! For those that remember the original, it allowed indie film makers to create smooth and steady video. Version 2 implemented a new gimbal based on a throttle linkage in cars. Version 3 allowed the user to easily adjust angles and weights to prevent accidentally knocking the assembly. Version 4 seems to have disappeared. And finally, version 5 updates the gimbal again using a Traxxas U-joint and redistributes the weight. What should come next? We think a handle, holding onto a threaded bolt can’t be good for your hands.

[Thanks Update]

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Need to source Nixie tubes?

Nixie tubes make for fun projects but the fun can’t start until you get your hands on the hardware. Well, [Dieter's] got you covered with his one-stop repository on Nixie tubes and where to get them. We know that Woz’s watch isn’t currently available because of a lack of tiny tubes an obsolete accelerometer. Ladyada’s Ice Tube Clock depends on a rare 8-digit VFD tube. But you can get around parts obsolescence by adapting these designs for an available replacement. So when you take on the Dekatron Timer or a Bottled Nixie Clock you’ll know where to turn for the goods.

Update: Our mistake about Woz’s watch. It wasn’t a tube shortage that put it out of production.

[Thanks Aaron]

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Sugru – moldable silicone adhesive

Reader [James] told us about a new product developed with hackers in mind. Sugru is a silicone-based adhesive that cures at room temperature. It is moldable and once hardened it remains slightly flexible. You can see in the picture above that it has been used to create a hook but the inventor shows off a slew of other uses such as replacing missing feet on a chair, molding hand grips, and waterproofing. One of the most enticing aspects is that Sugru will create a chemical bond with smooth metal.

The product reminds us of the two-part earplug material used to ruggedize electronics from a while back. The difference is that Sugru is one part and is an adhesive. It comes as a satchel full of individually-sized packets. To use it, choose how much you need, cut open the package to reveal the product, then knead and mold the chewing-gum-looking substance to fit your needs. Check out the demonstration video after the break.

Want to try some out? Yeah, so do we but it seems they’ve already sold out of their initial supply (good for them, bad for us) and we haven’t seen word on pricing. We’d love to use this to mold enclosures, and for about a billion other things.

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Tube prototyping station

[Gio] enjoys using vacuum tubes in his projects. He designs the circuits using a CAD program but was finding that there is no substitute for actually building a prototype before heading to a final design. To make this process easier, he built his own tube prototyping station.

At the top of the board he’s got three different sizes of tube sockets with the pins from each wired as common. The nine pins from the sockets break out to a terminal strip where they can be interfaced with a solderless breadboard. For added versatility he’s included terminals to tap into some RCA jacks, as well as a 100 kOhm variable resistor. We’d bet this is not something that you can find ready-made, but it sure does look a whole lot better than a workbench full of components alligator-clipped together.

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R/C Lawnmower

[Johndavid400] built this incredible looking R/C lawnmower. After spending some time repairing broken R/C cars, he wanted to move on to something a little more useful and powerful. He decided to build a mower. He’s using a transceiver set from ebay, with an Arduino interpreting the signal and outputting to his custom motor board. In the video after the break, you can see that the mower looks responsive and quick. He does note, however, that he had some glitches early in the process that left him with a runaway mower. We covered a very similar mower ages ago that used a wheelchair as the base.

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Servo database

Starting a new robotics project and want to find the perfect servo for the job? It can be a real pain in butt sometimes. This is where ServoDatabase.com comes in. They’re compiling specifications and reviews on servos. We love seeing these databases pop up. Remember the online chip reference? You simply can not have too much reference material.

[via makezine]

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Xerox ink will print circuits

Xerox has announced a breakthrough in printable circuits. They’ve developed a conductive ink called “silver bullet” that can be printed on many different types of substrate to create circuits. The key part of the new ink is its lower melting point. Plastic film substrate melts at 150 degrees Celsius but the ink is liquid when ten degrees cooler to avoid damaging the film. This begs the question: how do you then solder components to the circuit?

The benefits of printable circuitry are obvious. Aside from cheaper and easier RFID, disposable circuits like greeting cards, and fabric-based electronics, we’re hoping this will facilitate more environmentally friendly PCB fabrication. That really depends on the ink’s production process and the resilience of the resulting circuitry.

[via Gizmodo]

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Hot air pencil for under $20

Here’s a project from back in 2001 that might be of interest to some of you. It is a guide on how to build your own hot air pencil for SMD soldering. He is using a super cheap 45W soldering iron from “the shack” combined with a pump type desoldering tool and an aquarium pump. He says it works pretty well, and we don’t see why it shouldn’t. This is a pretty elegant solution. There are also some more recent versions of this mod, but the idea is basically the same.

[thanks Stuart]

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Refillable CO2 cartridges

For those who use these little cartridges, you know how quickly the price can add up. [steve] takes us through the process of adding a valve to a spent cartridge so it can be refilled. Over all, it doesn’t seem too difficult, and [steve] offers lots of tips to increase longevity and reliability. It isn’t very often that we show a hack here that doesn’t involve some kind of electronics, so take a break from the resistors and microprocessors for a moment and enjoy.

[thanks Wolf]

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Road sign hacking

We’ve all seen these on the side of the road and wondered how we could change the message. It turns out that it is actually pretty easy. There’s a keypad inside for programming that is often still set with a default password of “DOTS”. Even if the password has been changed, you can reset it right there pretty quickly. We shouldn’t even need to warn you that it is illegal to tamper with these, so unless there really are zombies ahead, you probably shouldn’t mess with it.

[via Neatorama]

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Twittering toots, a chair’s perspective

We might have to add a category of “stuff made to twitter”. The latest installment is an office chair that twitters whenever it gets farted on. The author has a smart sounding description as to why he decided to make this, and he has a pretty good point about twittering interrupting the things you’re twittering about, but it all boils down to the fact that he wants to twitter his farts. We can’t say that we didn’t expect something along these lines. He has mounted a natural gas sensor in his chair, along with a squidbee wireless transceiver. You can download all the code as well as see the construction in the instructable. You can also follow his flatulent adventures on the twitter account of the office chair.

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Power generating backpack

In the military, you have to carry tons of stuff. This is something we hear and see all the time. They are always trying to come up with ways to reduce the weight or quantity of the things that you bring into the field. This power generating backpack harnesses the natural up and down motion of your steps to produce power. This could reduce the amount of batteries carried into the field greatly. That’s what they say anyway, how many batteries do soldiers normally carry around? Aside from that point, we think it is pretty cool. We could see using this to keep our cell phone or GPS charged on long hiking and camping trips. You could also build something of your own to work similarly.

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