Back in the 80s when very few TVs had remotes, let alone automatic shutdown timer, Victor decided to build exactly that for his grandfathers TV. After a set interval an LED turns on indicating that the timer has expired, if a button isn’t pressed within a few seconds the TV is turned off. My grandfather […]
Category Archives: DIY
PCB manufacture using Oracal vinyl film + laser printer
Drones refers us to this short but informative video demonstrating the manufacture of PCBs using a laser printer and vinyl stickers. He notes that the video shows laser printed toner being 100% transferred to a PCB using Oracal brand 651 adhesive vinyl film which is relatively inexpensive and widely available from online distributors and and […]
PID controlled electric smoker
Tom built a PID controlled electric smoker. A closed clay pot with a PID controlled hot plate inside heats to a constant temperature. Bits of wood tossed on the hot plate make the smoke. Via the forum.
DIY photoplethysmographic pulse sensor
Raj has posted a tutorial about a DIY photoplethysmographic sensor for measuring heart rate from fingertip. “The sensor measures the little variations in the blood volume inside finger tissue and outputs a digital pulse which is synchronous with the heart beat.” The sensor used in this project is TCRT1000, which is a reflective optical sensor […]
DIY flux made from pine gum straight from the tree
We’ve posted about homemade flux before, but Tom has taken it to a whole new level. He used pine gum straight from the tree for his Flux recipe. He dissolved the rosin in some 99% isopropyl alcohol, and filtered it using coffee filters. I tried making flux from an even more raw material, pine gum […]
DIY 6502 computer using block transfer engine
Andre Fachat has written a post on his 6502.org blog detailing his DIY 6502 computer build. “I have built a DIY 6502 computer, which is mostly TTL logic only except for 65xx chips and ROMs, but the most TTL-ish part is the blitter: A block transfer engine that DMAs memory area from one location to […]
DIY foot operated switch
This clear foot operated switch is made with a bent piece of acrylic, and a PCB with a tactile switch and mounting holes: This time,i made a lighter version, very simple to make, still with a nice operating feel. I don’t really remember where i saw this design, i think from ebay.
Dithered images on PCB silk screen
Earlier we posted the rendering of Mats’ dithered PCB silk screen. They turned out great. Quite a few more are posted in the forum as well. The dithered image on two of the boards that I wrote about earlier turned out rather good – much better than I expected. Via the forum.
Resistive multi-touch pad prototype
Jeri Ellsworth has posted this video detailing her process for prototyping a resistive multi-touch pad. The process is presented in detail for maximum benefit to those unfamilar with the components of these devices.
Power a microcontroller with frickin laser beams
A cheap laser pointer shining into an LED can create small voltages, the photovoltaic effect. Wardy uses it to power an ultra low power ATTiny5 microcontroller: I may have raised an eyebrow slightly to see 2.50V appear on the screen. Hmmmmmm. I had been expecting something like 0.25V or something in that region, based on […]
Dithered images on the PCB’s silk layer
Matseng sent out some PCBs for manufacture with an interesting silk layer. He added the dithered image to the back of the PCB using a Floyd-Steinberg filter on the original to give him an image on the silk layer with a 6 mil pixel size. The PCB in the image above is a rendering made from […]
ExpeditInvaders: IKEA Expedit shelf modified with RGB LEDs
Michu shared his IKEA Expedit shelf RGB LED mod ExpeditInvaders. He connected 40 RGB LED modules and a keyboard to an Arduino to make a color changing Ikea bookcase: I just finished my project “ExpeditInvaders”, a spiced up Ikea shelf! I added 40 LED modules to it and glued a keyboard on the bottom of […]
DIY Neurophone: Hear music in your brain
The Neurophone is an invention that allows you to transfer sound directly into the brain using either radio signals, or ultrasound. A DIY version of the latter was developed by Andreas using a simple PWM modulator IC TL494 and piezoelectric speakers. The second version of the “Neurophone” used ultrasound instead. By modulating an ultrasonic signal […]
DIY BGA soldering teardown
Andrew decided to write up a how-to on DIY BGA soldering. His article describes why it’s a bad idea to keep the vias unfilled with solder before reflow. Capilary force sucks up the ball of solder into the via, and there is no solder left to make contact between the IC and the pad. After […]
One wire control of HD44780 LCDs
Does the minimum 6 pins needed to control an LCD give your little microcontroller a sad? In the forum we’re discussing low pin-count control methods for common HD44780 parallel displays. This one uses is a simple serial UART adapter similar to our USB and Serial LCD backpack: Here’s a reasonably economical 1-pin Serial interface solution. […]
Hacking a tank toy
Wardy hacked a tank toy he got from eBay. Motors are driven through a L298N dual full-bridge driver, while the tank is currently controlled with an Arduino. Soon the Arduino will give way to a Propeller-based custom board. That toy tank I snagged on Ebay has undergone some surgery to remove the hideously cheap and […]
Recycled VCR head is a page turner
Rohit is an engineer who often wades through lengthy PDF documents online. He found that scrolling through multiple pages with the mouse wheel had a way of wearing out his fingers, so he repurposed an old VCR head and a USB mouse, combining them into a jog wheel/spinner to scroll through long pages of text. […]
DIY simplified version of the ATX Breakout board
Arup built a ATX Breakout board clone. Recycle an ATX computer power supply into a beefy bench tool that powers your projects. The ATX breakout board routes the -12, 3.3, 5 and 12 volt ATX outputs to screw terminals, each protected by a 1.25 amp resettable polyfuse. Just completed one simplified version of the ATX […]
Jeri Ellsworth C64 bass guitar explained
We talked to Jeri (@6:22) at this years Bay Area Maker Faire about her C64 bass guitar. In this video she goes into the internals of her project. Jeri shows a bass guitar she build from an old C64. It uses the original sound chip (SID 6581) for keytar and string sounds.
Using tape as a solder paste stencil
Sjaak shared his experiment using two L-shaped pieces of tape as a solder paste stencil. After he applied the solder paste he separated some of it using a knife. as expected to much paste was applied as the opening was the size of the chip. I expect better result if the opening was the same […]