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BobS has come up with a creative Hard Drive Camera Stabilizer. We have seen other ways to Gyro Stabilize a Camera but this one is nice because it has the possibility of making use of a hard drive that otherwise would have no purpose. "In an experiment, I connected a loose HD to a computer power supply, and felt the resistance to its change of position. I figured a HD in the horizontal and one in the vertical plane (X- and Y- axis) would dampen almost all unwanted shaking. A single Gyro has its theoretical limits. A strong Gyro in the front / back plane (Z - axis) could dampen shaking, but would not correct rotation. But if rotation around the optical axis is only a minor component of motion blur… , the advantage is less weight and power requirement."
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Back in 1959 this is what you would have been reading if your were an electronics professional. How things have changed from then to now, almost everything you purchase today is made to be disposable since you can produce a new board for less than it would take to troubleshoot and repair it. It is impressive how reliability has changed though since in this article they expect most people to spend at least 40 dollars per year on service calls to repair the TV, at only 5 dollars per service call this means that your TV is expected to break down every month and a half!
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Joe from ProtoDojo has made a NES USB Drive with Security out of his old NES controller. Instead of simply hacking the device with a USB drive he wanted to use the controller buttons to add some extra security to the device. When the device is plugged into the computer nothing happens until you enter in the Konami code. When the code is entered in correctly a relay pulls in and applies power to the internal USB drive allowing it to be seen by the computer. Via: Hack A Day "It’s fairly straight forward. The arduino constantly polls the controller for button states. When you push a button, it stores that value in an array which always holds the most recent 10 values. Whenever you push the start button, it checks the stored array against a separate array which contains the values for the konami code." Retro Gamer Drive (Konami Code NES Controller Flash Drive) from ProtoDojo on Vimeo. |
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Todd Harrison came up with a great way to scare anyone who dares to press the red button nose of his pumpkin. The Honking Pumpkin is sure to be a hit sitting on the front step of your house. "Control board showing the two 555 timers, two MOSFETs, pot to control horn blast timing and other discrete elements. The first 555 timer starts when the red button is pushed and it turns on the red 12v bulbs through the 1st MOSFET (P10NK60ZFP). After 1 second this timer stops and cascades a pulse to the 2nd 555 timer which repeats the process turning on the horns through the 2nd MOSFET and relay."
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Bumblebeepee from the Hacked Gadgets Forum entered the Halloween Project Contest with this cool Hidden Sound Trigger contraption. He used an infrared beam to detect when someone enters the target area, the buzzer output of the beam module presses play on an mp3 player which is amplified to drive some speakers and scare someone. This year he is working with the same module to play some music and light up a pumpkin when someone walks up. Halloween is sure to be a fun time in that yard! 
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There will be two prizes this week (one winner for each prize). The first is a cool remote control watch. Have fun messing with your friends or the TVs at your local hangout. The second prize is two of our new 1 foot LED lighting strips. These 12 volt LED strip lights can be installed anywhere such as under your cabinets, in a shed or in a vehicle. The strips come in 7 different colors so you could also use them for accent lighting. This contest will run for one week (Oct 10 - 16, 2009) . 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. Thanks to Heikki for sending in the images of the item to guess. Don’t forget about the Hacked Gadgets Halloween Contest that is still running, there is still time to get your entry in for that! 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 November 6, 2009 The item to guess was the SAAB HEADLAMP RELAY(thanks to Heikki for sending in the pictures) The winner is Steve B. (watch) and Robert Y. (lighting strips) (There were 55 entries) ————————————–———-
Below is a picture of the the prize product.
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Guysoft shows us how to create a Bumble-b LED Matrix Computer Interface. I have never used a Bumble-b but for $17 how could you go wrong? It seams like one of the best ways to communicate directly via USB to a computer. Via: HG Forum "After getting my LED matrix to display messages, I wanted to make use of the USB port, and get the matrix to work as a USB device, this was much simpler than I expected. Once I had the code to control the matrix, it was simply a matter of copying it and using LUFA. LUFA (Lightweight USB Framework for AVRs) is a library that will let you get the Bumble-b to work as a USB device." |
