Make: Online: Instructables Archives

Archive: Instructables

November 5, 2009

Beautiful scrap wood butcher block table

I love this. Instructables user wholman has gathered together a bunch of scrap wood from "dumpsters, back alleys, vacant lots, abandoned buildings, recycling yards, and architectural salvage centers" and laminated it together using all-thread. Then he's very carefully smoothed and polished only one side of the finished block, leaving the underside rough to show off the process. Beautiful.

AIRduino guitar

Ever wished that when you play air guitar, it would make real sounds instead of just the ones from your best death metal face? David Fournier, Jean-Louis Giordano, Monireh Sanaei, Maziar Shelbaf and Gustav Sohtell are here to help. They build the AIRduino guitar, a wearable virtual instrument. Open source with full documentation, naturally. [via Fashioning Technology]

November 4, 2009

Ikea hack bookshelf bench

Randy Sarafan writes:

The nice thing about IKEA furniture is that it is cheap and easy to hack. In other words, lets say that you were to buy two cheap $30 Gorm shelving units and assembled them to discover them that one was crooked. Well then, it would be really easy to spend an afternoon converting the crooked one into a solid, stylish and symmetric bookshelf bench. As you probably just guessed, this Instructable will show you how to convert a Gorm shelving unit into a bookshelf bench. With a few extra peices of hardware and a couple of basic power tools, you could be on your way to relaxation and organization all at the same time.

Transformers Soundwave costume

Pretty amazing costume build tutorial from Instructables user Incrxtc.

November 3, 2009

District 9 SPLAT gun replica prop

Instructables user msraynsford presents this detailed tutorial on how to build a prop replica of one of those District 9 guns that makes intelligent, loving, civilized creatures explode with a nauseating SPLAT. I want one!

LED Binary Clock

Here is an interesting LED binary clock by instructables user ElevenOf9. I really like the single sided PCB, and the way the LEDs are arranged. It just looks cool!

This is the second revision of my PIC based LED binary clock. The original version was the first PIC project I attempted, it used a PIC16F84A to do both the timekeeping and control the display matrix, unfortunately it didn't keep good enough time and gained about a minute every week.

In the Maker Shed:

In the Maker Shed: DIY Design Electronics Kit

November 2, 2009

Bicycle handlebar brake lighting

MAKE subscriber Justin Shaw has posted a project on Instructables for a bike brake lighting system that features lights on the ends of a bicycle's handlebars, controlled by an Arduino and a Pololu 3-axis accelerometer. He's even offering a $35 prize to the first person who follows his plans and posts proof of a successful build.

Bar End Brake Light: BEBL

October 30, 2009

Remote control color-changing pumpkin

Ian Lesnet submitted this cool hack-'o-lantern to our Make: Halloween Contest 2009. There's an Instructable here, a Flickr set here, and YouTube video here. It's a color-changing pumpkin full-court media press! The build uses a ShiftBrite RGB LED module, IR receiver, universal remote control, and a PIC18F2550 as the brains of it all.

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Talking Arduino Halloween skeleton

Samuel Seide brings us this animatronic talking skull Instructable. It's motion-activated and uses a Waveshield kit for sound. [Thanks, Sam!]

More from Sam Seide:

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino WaveShield Kit

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

October 29, 2009

DIY netbook stand

This sturdy, portable DIY netbook stand is perfect for smaller models between 7-10 inches. [via liliputing]

In a nutshell, all you need are two IKEA shelf brackets, a drawer handle to hold them together, and some vinyl cabinet brackets to keep the laptop from sliding. You'll also need a drill, screwdriver, and hammer, but I'm going to go out on a limb and predict you've already got those lying around.

October 28, 2009

Ghostbusters proton pack with friggin' lasers

From instructables user depotdevoid comes this awesome Ghostbusters costume tutorial. Besides the proton pack, he made a trap, a pair of "ecto goggles," and the obligatory jumpsuit. "Aim for the flattop!"

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

October 27, 2009

How-To: Massive DTV antenna

Instructables user deceiver lives in southern Maine and needed a big DTV antenna to pick up signals from up to 60 miles away, so he build Big Bertha, a giant dtv antenna, and shows your inquiring minds how to do the same.

More:

October 25, 2009

Speeding up Arduinos...

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Good Instructable for the advanced folks out there, your code won't be portable, but you're advanced, so whatever :) RazorConcepts writes-

Arduino is slow? What? This instructable will show just how slow a part of Arduino is, and how to fix it. It’s true – more specifically, Arduino’s digitalWrite command takes a considerable amount of time. If you are just switching on a LED once or something, you won’t be able to notice it. However, I realized how slow it was while I was trying to use a TLC5947 PWM driver. That requires the microcontroller to shift in 288 bytes each time! Each byte required about 12 digitalWrites, for a total of 3456 digitalWrites each time I wanted to shift in new data to the TLC5947. How long did that take? 30 seconds of just digitalWrite! But there is a solution – using “true c” style commands, or what the AVR GCC (GNU C Compiler) uses. The brains behind Arduinos are ATMega168s or ATMega328s. The AVR community typically uses “true c” commands to program these c

October 15, 2009

How-To: PVC pipe vacuum dust separator

Instructables user neorazz has posted a tutorial on how to build a dust separator attachment for your shop vac. It is described as "cyclonic," which it may or may not actually be (see the comments), but it does, apparently, work quite well at separating out the heavier bits of flotsam (which end up in the bucket) from the actual dust (which goes on to the vacuum).

October 14, 2009

How-To: Analog electricity usage meter

Instructables user pribich writes:

I have used a Kill A Watt electric meter for a while and I decided to build an analog one. This project went from being simple, with a single panel ammeter and an outlet, to full scale with three meters, a lamp socket, binding posts, and switches for all the outputs. Rather than simply mount the plastic meters I decided to remove the movements and reassemble them in a wooden case and make my own numbers for the meters with a piece of tea-stained paper and an old typewritter.

Check out more details about his analog electricity usage meter.

How-To: His and hers matching iPod costumes

Instructables user jtigermask13 has posted a tutorial on making these working children's iPod costumes.

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

October 12, 2009

How-To: Fiber optic star ceiling

Mike Galloway made this star field ceiling, rad!

October 9, 2009

How-To: Copy stand on the cheap

Instructables user Light_Lab writes:

I collect lots of documents as part of my work; recently I decided I should let the sheets of ‘tree stuff’ return to the environment and clear up my living space and office by scanning everything I could. I had recently got rid of a flat bed scanner; it was far too slow and I hardly ever used it. I needed something that was convenient and fast; it didn't need to make ultra high fidelity scans, just readable would do.

Check out the tutorial for this easy and cheap copy stand.

October 8, 2009

LED dog collar with keyboard keys

With the days getting darker earlier, I've been on the search for collar visibility options for my canine companion. Instructables user sheepishlion posted a clever DIY for making an LED dog collar with the extra bling of old keyboard keys. They used the keys to spell out the dog's name, along with the "return" and "help" keys, and they also suggest using your phone number as an alternate safety feature. An Altoids tin and 9V battery were used for the power supply, which could be a bit big for a little dog, though my 65-pound Samoyed mix should be fine with it (and I'm certain she'll appreciate the geek cred as much as I do).

October 7, 2009