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Archive: DIY Projects
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April 25, 2007
Jackhammer headphones on a new show with Tim Anderson - KNOW HOW!
One of my favorite makers in the world has a new video show called KNOW HOW - Tim Anderson shows how to make an old favorite of ours, Jackhammer headphones -
These home-made hifi headphones work as well or better than Sony or Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Cost: $20 Time to make: one minute. Difficulty: none. As seen in my article in Make Magazine volume 5 Unlike the commercial products, these block outside noise instead of cancelling it. Listen to music or books on tape without hearing traffic noise, screaming babies, etc. I've been making these for more than a decade. People sometimes ask "isn't it dangerous not being able to hear?" No. Talking on a cellphone shuts off most of the brain whereas listening to headphones is no more dangerous than say, being deaf. Lots of my friends use these units and no harm has come to anyone.instructables : Jackhammer Headphones - Link.
Related:
From the pages of MAKE:
Jackhammer Headphones. And a discourse on blind men, chipmunks, whales, and the future. From the column Heirloom Technology. MAKE 05 - page 56. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 25, 2007 07:00 PM
DIY Projects, Instructables |
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Enter the Instructables wallet challenge
There are tons of DIY wallet projects, so it's time for a project contest from Instructables. Eric writes -
You've told us over and over, and we finally got the message: DIY Wallets are hot.Wallet made from a computer keyboard
Paper Wallet
quality duct tape wallet
the Ultimate Duct Tape Wallet
Tyvek FedEx Wallet with Change Pocket
and a whole bunch more...So, we're holding a 5-day Wallet Challenge. Make a wallet, share it on Instructables, and you could win a beta Eye-fi Eye-Film. These SD cards are 802.11g wifi enabled and will upload your pictures directly to some of the major photo sharing and storage services (check out the forum post about them here).
Since this is a short challenge, we're going to judge the Instructables based on their rating and pageviews.
instructables : How to enter the Instructables Wallet Challenge - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 25, 2007 06:00 PM
DIY Projects, Instructables |
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To-Do This Weekend: Re-Make
Remember all those wonderful broken electronics ya'll donated to the Alameda County Computer Resource Center (ACCRC) last weekend? Well, this weekend, they're going to be resurrected. The ACCRC is holding a 24-hour event at which Makers will have access to all the piles of old equipment. The idea is to spend all night rebuilding, reworking, and redesigning 13-years worth of recycled electronics and computers.
The event is free, and will be held at the Upcoming event page.
This is a bring-your-own-tools and sleeping bags event. There will be quite a bit of old hardware to play with, and some of the larger tools, such as the lathe and grinders and the like are already there. Those not sure of what they can build could just show up to help James work on his hydrogen powered 1967 Lincoln. Or they could work on freeing the floppy laser from its case.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 25, 2007 05:00 PM
DIY Projects, Events, Green |
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Finally, CNC toast!
You've wanted it for years and Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories brings CNC toast to the masses -
A few weeks ago, we rounded up a bunch of high tech toasters and wrote about about using a hot-air gun to draw designs, by hand, on fancy toast. We've now mounted the hot air gun to a computer-controlled X-Y control system so that we can use it to print arbitrary images on toast.The hot air gun that we've used is actually intended to be the printing head of our 3D sugar printer, where it serves to selectively fuse the printing media together.
Recently we succeeded in mounting the hot air gun to the carriage of the printer. The next step was testing the XY motion control system without the Z axis installed.
It turns out that you can actually do some interesting things with just the print head and the X-Y gantry. Especially since, as one of our astute readers noted in a comment, "(3D printer - Z axis) + hot air rework station=completely digital toast imaging technology." Our thoughts exactly.
We certainly aren't the first ones to aim for true CNC toast-- A group of students at Olin College apparently were working towards that goal a few years ago, but may have given up in favor of their laser cutter-- which is (we think) cheating on building a CNC toaster. (Don't get us wrong-- We are of course very fond of laser cutters-- they can be used to cut cake, or engrave matza, or just about anything else. Whether merely ablating away part of your bread with a high power CO2 laser should count as toasting is perhaps debatable, but it's certainly an expensive way to make breakfast.)
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories - Finally, CNC toast! - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 25, 2007 04:00 PM
DIY Projects |
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HOW TO - Pre-sliced bananas
Mr. Wizard did this one, now you can - prank your banana eating friends with this pre-sliced nanner - [via] Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 25, 2007 02:00 PM
DIY Projects |
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iLiad and 3G wireless modem
Huh, this is interesting a preview of an existing e-ink reader (ebooks) that can use a 3G modem... drazvan writes -
I have just managed to "convince" my Vodafone Smartmodem (a 3G/HSDPA wireless modem on Vodafone Romania) to talk to the iLiad via USB serial (the usbserial module - see the other thread in this section of the forum). The modem appears to work fine (I can connect to it, send it AT commands, etc). I've also compiled the PPPD package and the kernel PPP modules, tomorrow I will try to make it connect via PPP. If that works, I'll publish the entire procedure and the necessary modules here.As a teaser, I'm attaching a photo of the iLiad hooked up to the Vodafone modem. Looks like an alien contraption but it works.
MobileRead Networks - iLiad and 3G wireless modem - [via] Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 25, 2007 01:00 PM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
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HOW TO - Make electronic spider robot sculptures
I Make Projects shows you how to make some electronic critter art -
Years ago when I was in school, I got most of my parts from snipping or desoldering them off of junked curcuitboards, or from taking apart old equipment. One day I took some of the parts and soldered them into what I wished was a functional spider robot - but even though it didn't work, it was pretty in its own way. It was also fun and inexpensive and fast to make. Since then I have made quite a few, and they never turn out the same.Here I'll show how to make a simple spider-robot sculpture. You can put your own twists on it all you like. I've even made scorpions as well. The best way to be creative is just to work with what you have!
I Make Projects - [via] Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 25, 2007 08:00 AM
Arts, DIY Projects, Electronics |
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Broken snow shovel scoop replacement
Philorr writes -
This last winter broken snow shovels starting appearing everywhere. I tried to track down replacement parts, but it turns out that replacement scoops don't seem to exist. So I set about to make a simple replacement scoop using basic tools and found materials.
instructables : Broken snow shovel scoop replacement - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 25, 2007 05:00 AM
DIY Projects, Instructables |
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DIY indoor football game
Here's how to make a fun and simple old-timey indoor football game. However, you need a suit or a nice blouse to operate it - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 25, 2007 04:00 AM
DIY Projects |
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April 24, 2007
LEGO self tracker
Steam powered I-wei writes -
My live-steam buddies have been bugging me to make a live steam machine that runs ON the rails. Well my response was that I would want to do something a bit different than just a locomotive with some fancy steampunky body. One of the ideas that I had from quite some time ago, was a live steam locomotive which carried, and lay down it's own tracks. It would place a section on track in front of itself, roll onto it, then pick up the section behind itself. A stack of tracks can be stored and sequenced, in a sense it would be a low tech programmable robot, able to be sequenced to do a predefined looping route. If it sounds familiar, it is because the inspiration came from Wallace and Gromit's train sequence :) This is an idea that is way too complex for me to pull off with steam, so I suggested that someone else in the steam community, someone more familiar with locomotives, should tackle it on.I'm sure that everyone thought I was on drugs, except for my friend David Wegmuller. Daivd was one of the lego presenters at last year's Maker Faire (he made the huge crane). He is also a live steam wiz, and a builder of many things. A day after I suggested the silly idea, he built a prototype of it out of legos! This bad boy can pick up curved magnetic tracks from behind, put it in front of itself, turning it in which ever direction. Although very slow, it is just amazing to see a stupid and useless idea, realized as a working prototype, in matter of hours.
It is also worth mentioning David's other creations - lego mini walkers, lego live steam locomotive, large scale live steam build, and a steam powered pencil sharpener (a Burrell traction engine powering a lathe), and much, much more on his site.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 24, 2007 04:00 PM
DIY Projects, LEGO |
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Laser-cut mount for a hot air gun
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories writes -
We made a laser-cut plywood mount to hold the sugar-heating hot air gun for the 3D printer, and it turned out to be a neato project on its own; check out our cool little laser-cut parts!
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories - A laser-cut mount for a hot air gun - Link.
Related:
DIY Hot Air Soldering Iron - Link.
$45 Hot Air Pencil - Link.
HOW TO make a SMT Hot Air Pencil - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 24, 2007 02:00 PM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
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Crystal radios & round up
Kevin Kelly has a great round up of crystal radio builds, free plans and kits (some I haven't seen either) - Link.
Inspired related round up:
HOW TO - Building a crystal radio out of household items - Link.
Refugee Radio - An energy-independent AM-receiver radio... - Link.
Building a radio in 10 minutes - Link.
Crystal radio mousetrap - Link.
Crystal Radio Kit for the Modern Era - Link.
Make a "Cigar Box" crystal radio set - Link.
HOW TO - Make a simple AM radio - Link.
From the pages of MAKE:
DIY Aircraft Band Receiver. Modify an AM/FM radio to pick up air traffic control communications. MAKE 09 - Page 27. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition.
TV Set Salvage. Nothing good on TV? Well, there's plenty of good stuff in a TV. MAKE 09 - Page 138. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 24, 2007 08:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Retro, Telecommunications |
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HOW TO - Make a digital oscilloscope
fpga4fun.com shows how to make a single channel 100MHz/100MSPS (100 mega-samples-per-second) RS-232 based (and USB) digital oscilloscope (an oscilloscope allows you to view signal voltages) - Link.
Related:
- Oscilloscope art - Link.
- Oscilloscope clock - Link.
- PIC Based Oscilloscope with LCD - Link.
- ScopeOnPC - Turn your PC into a an oscilloscope - Link.
- Using an Oscilloscope - Link.
- Open source USB lab instruments (almost) - Link.
From the pages of MAKE:
Gaming on the EDSAC and PDP-1 - Retrocomputing. MAKE 08 - Page 178. From the earliest computers came the first computer games. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition or get MAKE 08 @ the Maker store!
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 24, 2007 07:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
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| Comments (3)
DIY MIDI recording device
Here's a really cool AVR based MINI recorder that uses SD, and LCD and IR (remote) - [via] Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 24, 2007 06:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Music |
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Run an iTunes (DAAP) server in Linux with Firefly
Jason over @ Hackszine shows you how to run an iTunes (DAAP) server in Linux with Firefly -
Firefly, formerly mt-daapd, is an open source digital audio server that can stream your music library to iTunes. Linux appears to be the most supported platform, but there is also beta support for Mac OS X, Windows, and even the AppleTV!Links:One of its cooler features is that it's capable of transcoding your music files on-the-fly to a format that's playable by your iTunes client. So if you've been building up a huge OGG or FLAC library, Firefly will let iTunes know that these songs are available and it will automatically convert them into a format that can be played on the client.
- Firefly Media Server
- Firefly/mt-daapd Wiki - quick-start guides for serveral OSs here
- Running Firefly on AppleTV
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 24, 2007 02:00 AM
Computers, DIY Projects, Music, Online |
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U.S Post office hacking
Ha! This is neat, good ole' Canada -
Many USA ecommerce shops don't send their goods to Russia or to the countries of the Ex-USSR.
Some shops send but delivery costs differ greatly from the homeland ones, they are usually much bigger.So what did some Russians invented? They got a way to fool the delivery.
It's no secret that many bigger shops use electronic systems processing orders. So in order to see if this address is in USA or Canada it uses ZIP code, state or province name and words "USA" or "CANADA".
So what was possible to do is to put totally Russian address in the order delivery form, like: Moscow, Lenin St. 20, Russia in the address fields, usually there is a plenty of space to enter long things like this, and in the field country they put Canada in the field ZIP code Canadian zip code.
What happens next? The parcel travels to Canada, to the area to which the specified ZIP code belongs and there postal workers just see it's not a Canadian address but Russian. They consider it to be some sort of mistake and forward it further, to Russia.
English Russia » Postal Trick - [via] Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 24, 2007 12:02 AM
DIY Projects |
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| Comments (16)
April 23, 2007
HOW TO - Make juggling balls
Burningion writes -
Nice juggling balls can cost over $45. Make better ones for under $5. They're a great way to make money while traveling, just make some balls and then go juggle on a corner. Sell them to kids and teach them how to juggle. Watch the video bellow if you want to skip all boring reading stuff.
instructables: HOW TO - Make juggling balls - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 23, 2007 06:00 PM
DIY Projects, Instructables |
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| Comments (3)
Maker Faire - Invitation to all: Participate in the King of Fling catapult contest!
If you like to build things (and what Maker doesn't?) you can become the Count of Catapults, the Earl of Hurl, or the Baroness of Ballistas.
Announcing the King of Fling Catapult Contest. It takes place May 19-20, 2007 at Maker's Faire at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. We want you to build a real, working catapult and enter it our competition. If you don't know how, don't fret, we'll help you figure it out.
Examples of catapults.
It's fun, exciting, and as easy (or as intricate) as you want to make it. Be part of the excitement.
Download the King of Fling Contest Manual for details! - Link.
There's nothing cooler than a catapult. It's fun, exciting, and as easy or as intricate as you want to make it. Be part of the excitement of Maker Faire.
Register for the contest in the MAKE store! - Link.
Visit building-a-catapult.com for additional ideas - Link.
Maker Faire - Invitation to all: Participate in the King of Fling catapult contest! - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 23, 2007 08:00 AM
DIY Projects, Maker Faire |
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| Comments (3)
The Super Sky cycle kit - a flying motorcycle
The Super Sky cycle kit costs over $37k (USD), has a top flight speed of 100mph / 55mph highway, 300 mile range and can carry a pilot up to 280lbs. It's freaking awesome - [via] Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 23, 2007 07:00 AM
DIY Projects, Kits |
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Open source hardware, what is it? Here's a start...
Open source hardware is a term we've used here on MAKE & CRAFT for describing some of the projects featured as well as some of our electronics kits. It was also the subject of a talk we participated in at the SXSW conference, but what is it?
There are a few definitions, some of which come from "open source software," which is usually considered software's "source code under a license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that permits users to study, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form."
So how does this translate to hardware?
Electronic hardware can be divided up into layers, each of which has different document types and licensing concerns.
Hardware (Mechanical) Diagrams
Dimensions for enclosures, mechanical subsystems, etc. For 2D models, preferred document type is vector graphics file, with dimension prints, DXF, or AI, etc.
Example: Motor-driven screw block from the RepRap 's thermoplast extruder head, an open source 3D printer.
Schematics & Circuit Diagrams
Symbolic diagrams of electronic circuitry, includes parts list (sometimes inclusively). Often paired with matching layout diagram. Preferred document type is any sort of image (PDF, BMP, GIF, PNG, etc).
Example: 3.3V and 5V regulator schematic from Chumby, the open source information device.
Parts List
What parts are used, where to get them, part numbers, etc.
Example: Parts List from the open source Roland 303 MIDI synth clone, the x0xb0x.
Layout Diagrams
Diagrams of the physical layout of electronic circuitry, including the placement of parts, the PCB copper prints, and a drill file. This is often paired with a schematic. Preferred distribution is Gerber RS274x and Excellon (for drills).
These are like PostScript for printers but the primitives aren't text and arcs, they're lines of solder and components.
Example: Board (.brd) files for the MAKE: Daisy Open Source MP3 Player.
Core/Firmware
The source code runs on a microcontroller/microprocessor chip. In some cases, the code may be the design of the chip hardware itself (in VHDL). Preferred distribution: text file with source code in it, as well as compiled 'binary' for the chip.
Example: Open core 8080 compatible CPU code snippet from executing the 8080 instruction set.
Software/API
The source code that communicates or is used with the electronics from a computer.
Example: A screenshot of the Arduino IDE showing a simple example program.
Each level can be open sourced, but the exact nature of what it means to open it varies. In practice, not every layer is fully open. Often only a subset of the layers are released, documented, or open source.
For example, the WRT54GL wireless router only has the firmware open sourced (GPL).
The Roomba robot vacuum has an "open" API (interface).
The Ambient Orb (information device) is not open source, but the schematics and parts list are documented and available for people to tinker with and possibly build their own.
There are ongoing efforts from a variety of groups and people who are trying to figure out how an open licensing of hardware might work too:
Projects are the the fun part: what are people actually doing? Here are a few examples (some previously noted) of projects that are close to "pure" open source hardware projects:
Arduino physical computing platform (just shipped 10,000!) - Link.
Chumby 'glancable' information device - Link.
MAKE: Daisy MP3 Player - An open source MP3 player - Link.
RepRap / Fab@Home - Open source 3D printer - Link.
Open Cores - A collection of VHDL cores for FPGA chips ("often cited as the first example of true OS hardware") - Link.
OpenEEG - An EEG design that is OS & available as a kit - Link.
x0xb0x - Roland 303 clone MIDI synth - Link.
Some of these projects don't provide everything in the most ideal way, or might use a non-open-source tool to modify, but it's a start -- this is all pretty new.
At MAKE & CRAFT, we're trying to foster this nascent hardware movement by encouraging our kit makers to consider open source hardware and a license that makes sense when developing kits with us. So far it's worked out, and we're looking forward to providing not only more open source hardware kits, but electronics that are more "open" than what's out there now.
Why is this a good thing? The most obvious one for MAKE & CRAFT is the educational benefits: an open source hardware project or kit allows makers to build something completely from scratch (etching boards, etc) or assembling a kit almost IKEA-style, but unlike assembling furniture, new skills and understanding of how things actually work can be learned. One could say the building of the electronics is the "compiling" portion of the project, similar to software. Events like dorkbot and our Maker Faire are places for participation, and online, Instructables.com is a great place to look.
What else? Fixes -- new features and the "peer production" of the electronics projects/kits usually lend themselves to better kits, communities, and for some makers making real businesses selling kits - Link.
All this being said, the pace is slow and steady; hardware moves slower than software now: fabbing, which may decrease but is unlikely to fully go away. And hardware seems to be in the same state software was in the 1980s; lots of commercial developers, very few open source developers (or like 1970s when only a few had computers at all). We'd like to see the world of hardware when there are millions of developers.
This is a start. We're interested in your feedback and thoughts, so post up in the comments!
Special thanks to Limor Fried, Nathan Torkington & Eric Wilhelm for their help on this overview.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 23, 2007 07:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Gadgets, Open source hardware |
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