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Technology will come and go, if you can come up with a good idea for the dying technology you may be able to create some cool toys on the cheap. That’s the case with pen plotters, from what I have seen most are being phased out and replaced with large roll inkjet printers. Steve invested some time and effort finding an old large format plotter, converted it into a vinyl cutter, made a cable for it and now has a DIY Vinyl Cutter from a HP Draftmaster RX Pen Plotter that would have cost hundreds of dollars more than what he spent on it. Below is an example of the great job it can perform.
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We have all seen the amazing Tesla, it is a beautiful electric car that has some huge off the line power. When I first saw the Tango I thought it was s joke, but on second glance this Tango has some surprising power hiding under that strange body style. This car is half the size of a normal car but has faster acceleration than the Tesla roadster! Even though the tires are tiny have a look at how well it handles piles of snow. I think the main advantage it has in the snow is the weight from the lead acid battery pack. "As far as performance goes, the Tango is no slouch. Since electric cars–especially small ones–are generally thought to be slow and weak performers we set out to blow some minds by designing the Tango to accelerate through the standing 1/4 mile in 12 seconds at over 120 mph and travel from 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds."
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We are going to try a new contest idea that I think should be lots of fun. Let me know what you think of the contest idea. Above is an ad that is quite old, the source and date will not be given to add to the challenge. This contest will run for one week (Jan 17 – Jan 22, 2009) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, leave a comment with your best guess of the item price. If you know the source or date of the ad please do not provide it in the comments. The winner will the guess that is the closest to the actual price, if there is more than one correct guess a random selection will be used to decide on which of the correct guesses will win.
———————————–———- Added January 23, 2009 The price to guess was $2.95, shown below. The winner is Soren (comment 43) ————————————–———-
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Next time you are building a project and find a component running a bit hot you may want to look in your pocket for a few pennies to solve the problem. This Penny Heatsink idea is a nice idea since I can think of a number of times that I have bolted on expensive heatsinks when I only needed a bit of heat dissipation but a large heat sink is all I had on hand. The author suggests that it’s not really worth the effort and a good heatsink should be used but this is not always practical so I think it’s worth a try. "In a recent thread on Head-Fi, someone asked how well a paperclip would work for heat-sinking a TO-220 part. Much speculation ensued (much of it from your humble author), including opinions that a penny might work better, and then the argument moved on to exactly how to use the penny and so on. I eventually decided that experimentation was called for, which lead to this article." |
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We had a number of beehives on our farm years ago. Monitoring the health of the hives was a big job and when neglected could spell disaster. This Beehive Monitoring System could mean the end of that problem. Have a look below for a short list of system features. "This project provides a means to monitor honeybee health parameters in a hive, to allow efficient bee management and research on the quality of the colony. 
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Since this Electric Trike was a school project there were lots of cool tools that were are the disposal of Smegger. By the looks of it the electronics and motors are top notch. "- I used two 12v 32amp batteries – A 75amp 24V speed controller made by 4QD in England- quite pricey but really reliable – 5 LED battery condition meter – Plunger pot for throttle – Lots of cable – Connectors for batteries – Two 24v 300W DC motors"
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Jestin Stoffel and Vince Thompson of the CCCKC have created a cool Wii Balance Board controlled Labyrinth Game which uses an Arduino microcontroller to handle some of the interface. "Currently the game is using two servos and an Arduino to turn the knobs that move the game surface. I bought my Labyrinth game at a Tuesday Morning store for less than $10. The servos were about $10 each and my Arduino cost around $30. I often use the AdaFruit BoArduinos in the robotics workshops I teach which cost $17.50 so that could reduce the overall cost to build this project." Via: Nowhereelse
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