This small DIY MP3 Player is much like the Apple Shuffle. Not a simple project since it consists of all tiny surface mount parts. The code for the 18F88 is available for download so you can build your own.

“This player features a shuffle mode, basic track navigation, volume control, FAT32 support, fragmented file support, an unlimited number of files on the root directory, and high quality playback. Files at 256Kbps can be played without a hitch. Variable bitrate files are supported with peaks up to 320Kbps.

WAV files are also supported, but they have to be less than CD quality unless you put a faster oscillator in the pic.”

If you are getting tired of your plain old doorbell that just goes ding dong when someone presses the button why not jazz it up with a bit of electronics. Nicholas Skinner has done just that with his Doorbell System.

“Features:

• Sense Bell Press – Allowing for triggering of other events on press, such as additional remote ringers in other parts of the house, computer popup notification and possibly cameras / camera display (e.g. via scart triggering on TV) etc in the future.
• Disable Bell Ringer – From either a remote physical switch or PC (for periods when we do not want to be disturbed by doorstep salesmen).
• Ring Bell – Allowing the bell to keep ringing for a certain minimum duration even if the button is just pressed quickly to save missing callers who do not hold in the button for an adequate duration.”

I have seen lots of great Halloween Prop builds but this Halloween Electric Chair that Robo and his son made for a school haunted house takes the cake. I love the mix of pneumatics and electrical. The sensor is IR which I obviously love since that is exactly how my Stair Lighting System is activated except by a leg not an electrocuted head! The sander under the seat is sure to give the unexpected guest the shock of their life, and if that isn’t enough the burst of air from above will seal the deal. The lighting from above and below the chair is a great effect and dimming of the room lights really enhances the look of the chair in action. Hopefully Robo uploads some build pictures, schematics and code for this cool project so that others can enjoy the idea.

Via: HG Forum

Repairing most electronics these days is pointless unless you are doing it for fun. Take an answering machine for example. You can purchase a new one for $10 but to find a fault in a dead one you could spend days of your spare time. If you have schematics and the manufactures support it can be quick and easy though, I did a short stint as a PCB repair tech many moons ago and I was surprised at how simple it was to trouble shoot very complex systems without much thinking when you had the manufactures documentation and how quickly it became more costly to repair than replace as soon as there was no documentation.

Todd Harrison has been having fun troubleshooting a motor power supply that stopped working. Of course Todd doesn’t have any of the manufacturers schematics or troubleshooting flow charts so he is doing it the hard (fun) way. Have a look at his first post where he goes over the supply and identifies the main parts and tests all of the big obvious stuff. In part 2 he goes through and traces out all of the electrical connections on the board! You can see a small image of it below but check it out in full size for more details. This is luckily a single sided board with well spaced out large components, if the board has is double sided with a mix of through hole and surface mount this challenge would turn into an alternative to completing the largest jigsaw puzzle in the world.

I was betting on a dried our electrolytic capacitor but after reading the comments in part 2 I doubt it is that since it turns out the supply didn’t die of natural causes but rather a shard of metal that found its way into the case. Todd will be revealing what the fault was in part 3.

The Department of Homeland Security has something they call the Threat Advisories, these come in 5 levels. Turns out some people would like to have one of these hanging on their wall so that they can crank up the threat level when they want to.  Michal Zalewski thought it would be a good idea to make a display of his own, the display uses the same concept as the Word Clock we featured yesterday. Michal painted the back of some plastic black and then used a CNC machine to mill the letters into the painted side of the plastic to reveal the letters. The result is a very slick looking display that can easily be backlit using some colored LEDs. I can think of lots of cool uses for this technique!

Thanks for the tip Bob.

This has to be one of the nicest Word Clocks I have seen yet. I am thinking I have to add this to my long list of project ideas! This one is in Polish but changing languages in this design is simple. The lines at the bottom are used to indicate minutes. So that this clock is not only cool but accurate.

Many of us use transistors everyday but don’t take the time to think about how the magic works. Bill Hammack explains how a replica of the first transistor works.

“Bill uses a replica of the point contact transistor built by Walter Brattain and John Bardeen at Bell Labs. On December 23, 1947 they used this device to amplify the output of a microphone and thus started the microelectronics revolution that changed the world. “