If you have had your computer fall asleep at the worst possible time before you know how frustrating it can be. Todd Harrison from Toddfun.com has come up with a solution. He built a simple battery operated Keyboard Keep Alive Circuit that he stuffed in a cute candy tin shaped like a Wiimote. This circuit closes a relay contact every 25 seconds. Next he connected an interface jack to his keyboard to that the relay can “press” a key when the relay closes. He selected an arrow key but a shift key or something like that would have worked just as well. This circuit would be great to hide inside a keyboard and have it press the caps lock key every 5 or 10 minutes, that would be enough to drive someone mad! If you are looking to solve the same issue there is a device called the mouse jiggler that would do the trick, it is a USB device that slowly (or violently) jiggles the mouse, there is also a neat way to make a DIY jiggler using an optical mouse and a watch.

Here is another project idea for one of those old hard drives you have laying around. The Multichord turns your hard drive and some other miscellaneous items into a musical instrument.

“The Multichord musical instrument is an acoustic stringed instrument with a single string, constructed from wood, a hard drive, 20-lb monofilament, and assorted electronic components. It was the culmination of a project to build an acoustic instrument capable of playing multiple notes without fretting or manual, time-consuming retuning. The Multichord achieves this by attaching a hard drive read/write head assembly between the resonant string and a tensioning spring to adjust the tension of the instrument’s string. Careful adjustment was made to the tension of both the string and the spring with the hard drive head in a neutral, unpowered position to ensure a bipolar application of voltage within the safety ratings of the hard drive’s coil could cause the string to cover a full musical octave. In the end, the Multichord was tuned to a C-major scale (no flats or sharps) running from A at 220Hz through (but not including) A at 440Hz.”

I have used some X10 modules in the past and they work like magic, just plug in the module and you have instant remote control of lighting and appliances. In my case I was controlling the boiler of a 30 suite apartment block and it worked great. Robert Oschler shows us that there are more possibilities when it comes to X10 if you use the SDK, it allows your programs to control your devices using your own software. In this case Robert demonstrates how he can make an X10 Camera Turret Face Tracking system.

“The ActiveHome Professional SDK provides you with OCX server DLLs that run on Microsoft Windows PCs. This allows you to script or program the CM15A transceiver from any scripting or programming language that can interface with ActiveX controls. I used Borland Delphi Professional 6 for the utility I created for this article.

X10 commands are simple English text strings that begin with a command type, followed by a module ID, and then by a command verb—although sometimes there may be a few other parameters after that. For example:

sendplc A1 on
sendplc C1 on
sendrf C1 CamCenter

The command type here for the first two commands is “sendplc” which is used when you want to send a power line command. For the third command it is “sendrf” since the X10 camera turrets respond to RF for movement control. This script would be handy for turning on the lights and the camera and then centering the camera in one fell swoop, possibly for remote viewing at night.”

Martin sent in a video of his Hard Drive LED Clock which is based on the original Hard Drive Clock that I built quite a few years ago. Martin is going to change the color of the LEDs and mount all the electronics into the hard drive.

Ryan from JUDD Studio Engineering just completed a very cool iPhone Like Kitchen Touchscreen Computer. His wife wanted a computer in the kitchen, that’s not an odd request these days. But instead of running down to Best Buy to pick up a new computer and mounting it in the kitchen Ryan decided to make his own unit that has a UI based on the iPhone. The result is some great eye candy on the wall of the kitchen. But that isn’t where it ends, this unit is very functional, it can do run Skype, play iTunes, manage a to do list, update your Outlook calendar, get twitter alerts and much more. There are lots of install pictures and a log that talks about some of the issues faced along the way such as adding a few optional cabinet ventilation holes.

“For years my wife has been on at me to put a computer into the kitchen where she can manage her recipes, shopping lists, to do lists and access the internet for looking up various things.  After looking at a couple of pretty basic and well overpriced commercial units we decied to have a crack at doing this ourselves.

Her requirements:
- must be discrete and look like a digital picture frame when not being used.
- must be touchscreen.
- must have internet access.
- must be easy to use and not crash often (shes used to windows vista)
- must have barcode scanner for managing her kitchen database.
- the wires and techo stuff must be hidden and out of sight.
- should be able to view whats on the lounge TV in the kitchen.”

(more…)

The Harford Hackerspace has been building a CNC machine. You can see all the build details here. This machine is a huge success! The Z axis can lift an amazing 65 lbs and it has no problem cutting metal throwing stars. What more testing do you need? I think we can call the build done at this point.

“The CNC machine’s construction has advanced to the point where we can begin to cut items.  Being a bunch of teenagers trapped in adult bodies, someone decided that we should cut a throwing star from sheet aluminum.  One copy of CamBam and 6 minutes later and the star was ready to be cut!  After a few adjustments and a bit snapped in half from being dragged through the metal too fast, the cutting was underway.  The star took about 10 minutes to cut and was an excellent first attempt at metal production.  The next step is to use the CNC to cut more precise parts for itself and help bring about the Robot Armageddon.”

You might remember the Hard Drive Oscilloscope project that was made about 3 and a half years ago (wow how time flies). Over the years there have been lots of people who have been inspired by it and built a project similar to it. Here is one, here is another, and one more for good measure. I was amazed to see that there was actually about 30 of them built! This Dual Hard Drive Laser Drawing Machine works in a similar way but actually uses 2 hard drives to provide more control of the laser beam.

“Lux Vocis works like so: a user speaks into a microphone and my puredata patch picks out the most commonly recurring spectral peaks of the voice.  These frequencies are then used as seeds for a Lissajous figure, which is then drawn on the surface by oscillating the two mirrors attached to the hard drive voice coils.”