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The Geek Group has acquired a retired KUKA robot. They have made a series of videos about taking it apart to see what makes it tick. Lots of the pieces will be re-purposed into other projects that they have on the go. That is one massive robot, I would have preferred to see it brought back to life but it is also interesting seeing how all the bits and pieces interact. We have seen lots of fun things that can be done with KUKA robot arms, there was the Ice Cream Making Robot, the KUKA DJ Robot, and of course all the fun rides made from robot arms!
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If you live in a cold climate freezing pipes is a common concern. A frozen pipe is more than an inconvenience since most pipes are copper and the expanding ice can easily burst the pipe. So even after the pipe is thawed out you have a big job ahead since you now need to repair your plumbing. Viktor from Karosium has come up with a cost effective solution to dealing with the issue. His Microcontroller Temperature Controlled Pipe Heating System turns on an old computer power supply which powers some heat tape only when the pipe needs to be warmed up. Most people who run heat tape will turn it on when it gets cold and let it run all winter, this solution will certainly save lots of electricity. “I designed a controller from what I had on hand. An old ATX PSU and an ATMega8(overkill). The AtMega is powered by the standby voltage of the PSU (5VSB). PSON is connected to PORTB.0 so the AtMega can switch the ATX PSU ON or OFF depending on temperature. (The PSU turns on when PSON is pulled low). The heating cables are hooked up to a 4pin Molex Connector. The DS1621 was actually a thermostat IC and I was considering using it in a standalone configuration but sadly that can’t be done as the thermostat functionality doesn’t start until a “Start Convert” command is sent to the chip through I2c. That meant a microcontroller was mandatory, so instead of relying on the internal functionality of the chip I just implemented the thermostat function in code. This also meant I only had to run 4 wires from the temp probe instead of 5, and I had 4 wire telephone cable lying around.”
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Daniel Eindhoven has designed an interesting new Tesla Coil, this Double Resonance Solid State TeslaCoil has a new coil design which has the capacitor bank integrated into the primary coil. The new coil configuration has been dubbed the Eindhoven Primary. “A new composition of the primary coil for a Double Resonance Solid State TeslaCoil (DRSSTC). It is a combination of wire and capacitors. By making the coil like this you get rid of all the parasitic inductions of the capacitor bank, it reduces wire length and saves a lot of space. Calculating the resonance frequency also becomes much easier.”
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Chris Savage from Savage Circuits goes over the basics of Rotary Encoder and Shift Registers in the second of his new video series called Savage Circuits TV. You can see all three videos here. If you are wondering why there is lots of Parallax gear used in the videos, that is because Chris works for Parallax. To read more about Rotary Encoders have a look at the Wikipedia page that also have a good example of Gray Code. To read more about Shift Registers have a look at the All About Circuits page. “An incremental rotary encoder, also known as a quadrature encoder or a relative rotary encoder, has two outputs called quadrature outputs. They can be either mechanical or optical. In the optical type there are two gray coded tracks, while the mechanical type has two contacts that are actuated by cams on the rotating shaft. The mechanical type requires debouncing and is typically used as digital potentiometers on equipment including consumer devices. Most modern home and car stereos use mechanical rotary encoders for volume. Due to the fact the mechanical switches require debouncing, the mechanical type are limited in the rotational speeds they can handle. The incremental rotary encoder is the most widely used of all rotary encoders due to its low cost: only two sensors are required.”
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I have never seen a project made with a Diffraction Grating before, but this LEGO Diffraction Grating Projector project has a great looking effect. It’s designed by Carl who was featured here before for his RGV Laser System. Those LEGO universal joints have a very wide working angle (watch the video to see what I am talking about). Thanks for sending it in Carl.
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Victor Youk from Razor Concepts has designed a nice DTMF Decoder Board Project. The project is based around the MT8870 DTMF Decoder chip. With this project you will be able to control something from around the block or around the world using a simple telephone. Nice feature of using the MT8870 is you don’t need to program anything, just purchase all the components, stuff them onto a breadboard and have a working circuit in a few hours. Victor has provided a full schematic so you can build your own. MT8870_DTMF_Decoder_Datasheet (PDF) “The heart of this device is the MT8870, which is a DTMF to BCD decoder chip. It takes an analog audio input, and converts that to a 4-bit binary output. Those 4 bits are put into a BCD decoder, and that converts that into the corresponding 0-9 output. Various other devices were needed to complete the board, and can be seen in the board layout below.”
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Thanks to Rocky Mountain Tracking for sponsoring the contest this week. They will be providing a Smart Tracker to the winner. The Smart Tracker is a GPS device that is mounted in your vehicle and can be used to track your vehicle in real time. Great if your car gets stolen or you forget where you parked it. “With our Smart Tracker gps device, you may activate and/or locate the device as the need arises. After a test period the unit will remain inactive until you need to track your vehicle, activation and location can be obtained online, at any time, day or night.
This contest will run for one week (January 30, 2010 - February 5, 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. Winner must have a North American Address. 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 winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries. ———————————–———- Added Feb 6, 2009 The item to guess was a Darlington Transistor The winner is Dane K. ————————————–———- Below is a picture of the prize.
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