Thanks to Dangerous Prototypes and Gadget Factory for sponsoring the contest this week. They will be providing a project that they jointly collaborated on. The Open Logic Sniffer logic analyzer is sure to make quick work out of troubleshooting your most complex circuit on your bench.

“Features (partial list)

• Capture 50MHz+ waveforms on 32 channels
  • 200Msps captures up to 100MHz waveforms on 16 channels
  • 100Msps captures up to 50MHz waveforms on 32 channels
• 16 buffered channels, 5volt tolerant
  • M74LCX16245DTR2G transceiver tolerates voltages from -0.5V to +7V.
• 216K Block RAM supports following memory configurations*
  • 8 channels with 24K sample depth
  • 16 channels with 12K sample depth
  • 32 channels with 6K sample depth”

This contest will run for one week (July 10 – July 16, 2010) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it.

Please do not give the answer in the comments.

Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with “Name the Thing Contest” as the subject, and the message body consisting of:

• The name of the item in the above picture
• An example of what the item pictured above can be used for

The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.

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Added July 17, 2010

The item to guess was a chalk line

The winner is James H. (there were 624 entries, I am thinking this is a record!)

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Below is a pictures of the prize.

Hacked Gadgets Forum member Alexander125 from Romania is using his ioBridge IO-204 to help him secure his house.

“I’ve been recently working on a sistem to keep my house safe while I’m away.Using the IO-204 module I’m building a simple sistem to monitor power consumption in the house, movement(if there is any) using PIR motion sensors and the doors or windows.
For the interface with the IO-204 I decided to go cheap and make myself some adaptors using perfboard, some connectors and a bit of solid-core 22AWG wire.
For the power consumption, I wanted to put a clampmeter on the wires carying power to my apartment and tap into the circuitry to tell me when the amperage passes over a specific threshold. “

Len Bayles has designed a great looking Meter Clock which is based on the Atmel AT89C2051 microcontroller. The design is similar to the Multimeter Clock that I created.  Len provides the code and schematic on his site so you can make your own.

“The software in the microcontroller handles the count for the time. It “talks” to a 4 channel Digital to Analog converter to derive the voltage to position the needles on the three meters. The outputs of the D2A converters are buffered with a quad amp. Otherwise the current draw of the 1ma meters would exceed the D2A converter.”

Sparkmuseum user on Youtube demonstrates his Wireless Pan Tilt Project. It is so responsive that it looks like it is a wired connection but it is wireless. He is using an xBee to communicate the data generated by a Parallax Basic Stamp over to a Pololu servo module.

Thanks for the tip John.

Looks like Microsoft is trying to make our lives a bit better with their new battery holder design. What is so cool about a battery holder that needs to be talked about? Well this battery holder can accept the battery inserted either way. I know so many people who just slot the batteries into everything and wonder why it doesn’t work… This device would solve this issue since it doesn’t care how it is installed. Not sure about the name though, Microsoft is calling it InstaLoad, I don’t think of a battery holder when I hear that. One of the devices that I wish had this design is my Canon S5IS, it takes 4 AA batteries so I am forever taking them out and replacing them with freshly charged ones. The battery compartment (shown below) has a bit of smarts built into it, there are some plastic ridges that prevent a backwards battery from being placed in circuit.

Makes you think why all the typical AAA, AA, C and D cell battery holders didn’t have this feature from the beginning. Who knows if we will ever see this holder anyway since it looks like there is a previous patent that will probably prevent Microsoft moving forward with this idea.

Via: EEVblog

“Battery Sizes

InstaLoad technology can be used with AA, AAA, C, D batteries. Devices that require cylindrical form factor batteries (disposable and rechargeable) can use the InstaLoad technology, including less common cylindrical battery sizes such as CR123.

Typical Product Applications

Portable lighting, flashlights, battery chargers, toys, consumer electronics, mice and keyboards, and all other battery operated devices using standard off-the-shelf cylindrical batteries can use InstaLoad technology.

General Architecture

InstaLoad is a mechanical battery contact design that does not require special electronics or circuitry. The InstaLoad battery configuration includes a set of positive and negative contacts at both ends, instead of a single positive contact at one end and a single negative contact at the other end.”

Non-Instaload style, batteries need to be installed in the correct manner.

If you are looking to have a bit more fun with your Arduino why not use it to launch some model rockets! That is what the guys from  NortHACKton did. They have a full schematic available on their site.

Thanks Martin.

“It’s a very simple little board, consisting of a driver chip and a relay and the connection to the dot matrix display. I chose to use the ULN2003 to switch the relay primarily because the package already contains a freewheeling diode and can be directly driven from the arduino and secondly because I have 3 tubes of them in the shed already due to a misorder on a previous project.”

This article is for educational purposes only, ripping off a poorly created system is still theft. That being said we can learn lots about how not to create a card payment system. Koala from Because life is a hack was curious what made his laundry card payment system work, after cracking open the case he was surprised to see an EEPROM inside. Using a Bus Pirate and a Openbench Logic Sniffer logic analyzer the workings of the system were soon discovered. He can now easily put any value he wants on the card (for testing purposes of course).

Via: Hack a Day