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Archives: June 2006

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June 30, 2006

Create an awesome panoramic photo, without special equipment

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KABUKISTAR writes - "This tutorial will show you how to create an awesome-looking panoramic photograph, using a normal point-and-shoot camera, without any special lenses." - Link.

HOW TO - Build your own CNC machine

Coupling-Cnc-Howto
Will has a good starter on making your own CNC machine - "Ready for some hard core gadget creation? If you thought your dremel tool was handy before, in today's How-To we'll start building our own CNC machine. Aside from the geek factor, it can be handy for making things like PC boards without chemicals or maybe some little styrofoam voodoo heads of all your enemies, uh friends. Gentlemen, start your soldering irons." - Link.

June 29, 2006

Ultra TV-B-Gone - 20 IR LEDs + 9V = 90 ft range!

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Here's our next TV-B-Gone mod, bam! "This TV-B-Gone uses a 9V battery to send its signal through a matrix of 20 IR LEDS. This extends the working range of the device to about 90ft (line of sight). Using this in a regular sized room you are pretty much guaranteed to kill the TV no matter where you point it." - Link.

Related:

If you want to build this, seriously, we have them in the MAKE store - Link.
Tv-B-Gone hat - Link.

The Last Supper - made from 20,736 spools of thread

Ls Installation View 540W
The Last Supper - made from 20,736 spools of thread looks amazing - "...a life sized rendering of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper constructed from 20,736 spools of thread strung onto aluminum ball chain. When seen with the aid of optical devices, the spools of thread coalesce into realistic images of Christ and his disciples... When seen with the naked eye, the spools of thread appear as an abstract arrangement of multi-colored blocks/3D pixels, further abstracted by the fact that The Last Supper imagery is upside down and backwards." [via] - Link.

More:
Thread Spool Works, 1999-present - Link.

Make a LED bulb

Ledmounted
Wan writes "Reuse some of your tradeshow LED goodies and make a LED light bulb." - Link.

Nixie-1 complete

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ThePhoton's Nixie clock that we have followed over the last few weeks is done done done, nice work! - "After nearly three months since the beginning of the project the clock is complete. It uses four GNP-17A tubes for the main hours and minutes display, and two IN-16 tubes for the seconds. The case is made from African Padauk with much sanding, cleaning, and coated with Polyurethane varnish all over. After a few months it will be time to start on Nixie-2." - Link.

Modded USB lexar stick

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Here's a clever way to slim down a big USB drive, MAKE Flickr photo pool member Mushmouth26 writes "This was one of those big bulky 1gb Lexar sticks. I cracked the case off of it and dipped in yellow Plasti dip, I bought at home depot.. Fits great in my pocket now and it is super slim. " - Link.

Latex wedge for GPS vehicle mount

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Jason0x21 writes "The "Vehicle Mount" for my Garmin GPS comes with double sided sticky tape for affixing to any flat surface, but who has a flat surface in their car anymore? I decided to cast a latex "wedge" to fit the curved surface of my dash to the flat surface of the mount (using two pieces of double sided tape). It works like a charm, and I taught myself how to cast with clay, plaster, and latex in the process." - Link.

More waterjets and 3D objects

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Simon from BigBlueSaw writes "Lamina Design has software that lets you turn interesting 3D designs made in Rhino or other CAD software into wonderful 3D objects that can be made on a waterjet." [via] - Link.

PONG : - Electronics Australia, May 1976

Ok gang, one more DIY Pong project - "The system plays a two players game which can be varied in several ways. The most common variant is the inversion of one of the paddles, giving a vertical line with a hole. Then, the system can let a paddle (or hole) wobble to make the games more difficult. Then, it is possible to add an "interraction" so that when a player moves his paddle or hole, the other player's paddle or hole moves a little. By combining these options, a total of 32 variants can be obtained, and this does not include the extra variants made by placing one or two holes at specific locations. Here again, this article shows how it is possible to make "variable" games using a few chips." - Link.

Doorbell privacy sentry

Privacy
Here's a project/circuit that will turn on/off a doorbell for 10 hours each day, it was created so one person could sleep during the day and not wake up because of door-to-door solicitors ringing the bell. [via] - Link.

MAKE your own Buck Rodgers 25th century figures...

Xlg Buck
I really like this 1933 ad, they sold kits to make toys and encourage the Maker kids to make REAL MONEY "Get this great outfit! Make toy castings of Buck with his marvelous Disintegrator Pistol . . . Wilma Deering, his faithful Lieutenant . . . and Killer Kane, the arch-criminal of the 25th Century. Paint your castings in bright, lifelike colors. Make all the toys you want. Sell them at a big profit! Millions of people are interested in Buck's adventures . . . and follow them daily in newspapers and radio. Start your own toy business with this complete outfit. Make real money." - Link.

Make Your Own Shoes

Are you sick of overpriced shoes or want some that show off more of your own personality? You can make your own with Mary Wales Loomis' tutorial. Mary has been making her own shoes for years. From the site, "I have always designed and made clothes, and occasionally hats and bags. One day, I looked at my shoes and wondered what was inside them. So I tore a pair of shoes apart with a hammer, screwdriver, and pliers. When I looked at the parts, I realized I could duplicate them." She also has a book out on shoemaking. [ via ] Link.

Mark VIII keyboard

Kif 3518
Russ is working on a really interesting keyboard, check out the different prototypes and build-blog - "This keyboard has no support at the base of the palm. It isn't needed! The keyboard bears directly on the thumb. The main difference between this keyboard, and the others is that the thumb position is lowered. The thumb is now positioned between the index and middle fingers. Most of the bulk of this keyboard is now structural. The kingpin only extends beyond the width of the palm because it's made of cardboard. If it were made of something stronger, it would only need to go 1/4" beyond the palm." - Link.

Laser etched Powerbook

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Here's another neat laser etched Powerbook (Magritte's "The Son of Man" ) [via] - Link.

Related:

Laser etched Powerbook! - Link.
How it's made - Laser etching Powerbooks - Link.

Midi-Controlled Electricity

Midilightning

I finally gave in and decided to post footage of me testing my OMG super secret musical DRSSTC. I designed it last year as a paid commission for a Danish arts group who wanted a chorus of six musical coils that could be played by MIDI. I made a single prototype to test it here, but they ran six coils together in the final system, built by Finn Hammer over in Denmark.

http://scopeboy.com/tesla/finns/musical_test_raw.mpg
http://scopeboy.com/tesla/finns/dazed-and-confrazzled.mpg

What I made was an adaptor board that connected the internal tone generators on a Roland JX-8P synth to one or more DRSSTCs. The board converted the volume envelope to burst length, so the harder you pounded the keys, the bigger the sparks got. Hitting a high pitched note hard would blow the fuses, and the MIDI arrangements had to take this into account.

[Via] [Scopeboy] [Finn Hammer]

HOW TO - Photograph fireworks

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If you're going to take photos of Fireworks for the 4th, here are some handy tips - [via] - Link.

Here's one I took last year (geocoded too).

HOW TO - Make fantastic PCB's everytime

Here's how to make PCBs from the Head-Fi forums - Link.

Pictured here, our Primer on PCBs...

Related:
Printed Circuit Boards. Step-by-step instructions for making your own PCBs at home. MAKE 02 - Page 164 (subscriber's - log in).
Lots and lots of PCB articles and how-tos - Link.

Scrollling LED display that reads RSS feeds

5X7 Led Matrix With Z8 Encore
A Maker in the forums was looking to make a LED display that can read RSS feeds, here's a start - Atharsia writes - "Check out [this site] for a circuit that can be used to drive a matrix of LED's that can be driven to display alphanumeric characters. You should be able to just string multiple segments together to make a display as many characters long as you want, then you just need to find or write a program that can convert the RSS feed into a single line that can crawl the display... - Link.

Attaching a kite aerial photography rig to the kite string

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Toc writes - "This is how I attatch my Kite Aerial Photography rig to the kite string. It is just a cheap caribiner I picked up at the local hardware store at the cash register. The string at the top is the kite string and the stings at the bottom are the line from the picavet rig.

After the kite is up in the air and flying well I open up the caribiner and make a few turns with the kite line and screw the gate shut. If there is any tension on the line the friction between the line and the caribiner keeps it from sliding down the string. If it is a very light wind day I just add a few more turns. It works pretty very well for me." - Link.

Related:

Kite Aerial Photography - Puts Your Eye in the Sky. To take pictures from a kite, you need three things: a kite, a camera, and a special rig that attaches the camera to the kiteline and activates the shutter button on the camera. Here's how to do it. MAKE 01 - Page 50 (subscribers).
Kite Aerial Photography projects and more - Link.