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January 9, 2009

Aged resistor macro

Macrodustyresistor
From the MAKE: Flickr pool

Flickr member bengt-re serves up this dusty electronics eye candy of a 47Ω resistor in the wild. I sure enjoy me some good ciricuit board macro and this shot has some sweet detail including specs on it's creation -

Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Exposure: 0.5 sec (1/2)
Aperture: f/13
Focal Length: 70 mm
ISO Speed: 320
Exposure Bias: -1/3 EV

- Resistors on Flickr

Posted by Collin Cunningham | Jan 9, 2009 06:00 AM
Electronics, Photography | Permalink | Comments (5) | Suggest a Site

Weekend Project: Portable Spy Scope (PDF)

Use a cellphone camera for espionage that captures long-distance secret activities!
Thanks go to Eric Rosenthal for the original article in Make: Volume 16
View the PDF

Green cellphone biodegrades after two years

This "green" cellphone concept by Je-Hyun Kim takes the dilemma of getting a new phone every two years (which most of go through constantly) into account by integrating a biodegradeable body into the phone. Made to disintegrate when the two years are up, the phone will make you feel a bit better about wanting the newest gear.

via InHabitat

The shape of sound

The shape of sound is a few different experiments in circuit bending and creating simple laser pointer light shows. There are some interesting sounds generated from the hacked toy sword. Also, I like the effect of bouncing the laser beam off of tin foil as opposed to a mirror.

More about The shape of sound

Weeboy: A DIY video game system

This DIY portable game console features a color screen, tilt sensors, and 4 games. Of course you can always program more games if you build one for yourself. Check out the link for pictures of the system stuffed inside a relatively small enclosure. This is a great electronics project that is very well documented.

By pulling together a handful of low-cost parts and building the system ourselves, we have demonstrated that a complete programmable portable console can be had for less than $70, even when purchasing the parts we sampled. Our implemenation runs on a single 9V battery and features tilt-based control, monophonic sound, and 3 playable games. We call it the Weeboy because it combines features of the Nintendo Gameboy Color and the Nintendo Wii.

A lot more information about making a Weeboy [embedds]

alt.CES Sony Vaio P dissected

Vaiop
L Tm 0901Pmb 09
Sony announced a super tiny Vaio, the P series - here are some lovely dissection photos of it - it's amazing what's crammed in there.

Update on twittering power usage project...

3180956837 546D852D8B O
Update for the power geeks - we have a cheap cap which works just as well as a supercap, we fixed a reset issue with slow power, and it's all crammed in the kill-a-watt casing now, so it's working - more soon!

48V Electric Flat Tracker

This is one of the better DIY electric rides that I have come across. It's an amazing 48-Volt, 15 horsepower, bike that uses a Briggs and Stratton Etek motor. It looks like it's a very smooth ride. However, at those speeds I would suggest using a motorcycle helmet. What a great project!

About a year ago, my dad and I had the idea to convert a beach cruiser bike into an electric motorcycle. We purchased the bike and all the parts necessary and got to work. We modified the frame and rebuilt the bike from the ground up. When we finished, we were extremely satisfied with the results - a 48 volt, 15 horsepower board track racer.

More about making your own 48V Electric Flat Tracker

Made in Japan - 1/9/09

MIJ1.9.09.png
This week:
Ardunio-based Anime Sound Glove, World's Smallest Flapping Wing Flyer?, Rubber Band Gatling Gun, IAMAS Gangu Project, A Picture That Changes Depending on the Source of Light, VR Panorama Shots of Make Tokyo Meeting 02, Arduino PS2 Command Sequencer, Arduino Wrist Watch, Carving a QR Code Into Stone, Art Made w/ 5-Yen Coins, After Hours Magazine's Cross-Stitched Cover

Read full story

Why don’t we have… SUN POWER - 1953

Make Pt1586
Interesting question, from over 50 years ago... Why don’t we have… SUN POWER Mechanix Illustrated, 1953-

Old Sol has more energy than all the atom bombs in the world lumped together. And it’s free … if we can find a way to harness it. EVER since James Watt built the first steam engine, inventors have been trying to harness the sun’s heat to stoke their boilers because the sun is the mightiest heat source known to man. Every hour, it floods the earth with a deluge of thermal energy equal to 21 billion tons of coal. Every day, the sun pours more potential power upon our land areas than all mankind’s muscle, fuel and working waterfalls have generated since the beginning of time.
The enormous output of solar energy is almost impossible to conceive. The sun is a monster atomic-fusion furnace, some 109 times the diameter of the earth, with a central temperature of 20 million degrees centigrade. It operates like a continuous, slow-burning hydrogen bomb generating half a million billion billion horsepower per second. As the sun is a sphere, this power radiates in all directions. Most of it flows out through interstellar space with only about half a billionth part of the total being intercepted by the earth. Of this tiny fraction, 50 per cent is reflected back into space by our atmosphere. The rest, partly reflected, partly absorbed by the earth’s surface and plant life, is potent enough to maintain our globe at a livable temperature. If this segment of solar energy seems small, it is only by comparison for it has been estimated that if all our remaining fuel—coal, oil, wood, natural gas, etc., plus the entire supply of fissionable uranium— were set ablaze in one gigantic bonfire, it could match the intensity of the earth’s solar ration for less than three days!

Anatomical laser-cut chairs

From BB:

Lisa Jones's Symbiosis chairs start to get at the potential of cheap and ubiquitous laser-cutters -- the backs are and seats cut with highly intricate designs inspired by human anatomy. Shown here, the Venus Chair from 2006.

Use a BlackBerry as a wireless modem in Linux

If you're traveling and you can't find a WiFi connection, it's handy to be able to route your laptop's traffic through your phone. Windows and Mac users have been able to easily tether their BlackBerries this way for some time, and Linux users can do the same with the help of Barry, an Open Source BlackBerry utility.

Barry is an Open Source application that will provide synchronization, backup, restore and program management for BlackBerry ™ devices. Barry is primarily developed on Linux, but is intended as a cross platform library and application set, targeting Linux, BSD, 32/64bit, and big/little endian systems.

...

Today, it is possible to:

charge your Blackberry's battery from your USB port
retrieve Address Book, Email, Calendar, Service Book, Memos, Tasks, PIN
Messages, Saved Email, and Folders
export Address Book contacts in text or LDAP LDIF format
make full data backups and restores of your device using a GUI
synchronize contacts and calendar items using the OpenSync framework
use the Blackberry as a modem

The device basically simulates a modem connection, and your laptop can connect to it using AT commands and starting a PPP connection. The Barry installer comes with the necessary connection scripts and options files to connect to most networks, including Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

barry - BlackBerry Synchronization For Linux [via OStatic]
Using your BlackBerry as a USB Modem

DIY digital picture frame

The fine folks over at Hackaday have a really nice build of a digital picture from scratch. They have gone through all the trouble of making a custom 2-sided PCB and everything else required for this amazing little piece of technology. Nicely done Ian!

there are a ton of digital picture frame tutorials out there. most are old laptops with crafty case reconfigurations that fit a photo frame profile.
we set out to build a 100% diy, scratch-built digital picture frame. our frame has a 12bit color lcd, gigabytes of storage on common, fat-formatted microsd cards, and you can build it at home. we've got the details below.

More about making a DIY digital picture frame

Grid Chair looks like a wireframe model

01_grid chair.jpg

Designer Jaebeom Jeong built this lovely chair with stainless steel, and walnut, yet it looks like the wireframe 3D NURBS model that you'd see in your design software. It's not the concept, it's the final product. I would love to get an entire dining set done in this style, so that people think we're just trying to improve the framerate. I guess I'd have to hand out HUD visors at the door with the render stats.
via Yanko Design

Alt.CES: green "in" at CES

The Pharos Lens: one "green nutrition label" project

Companies at CES may be starting to equate being green with making green:

Consumers will soon look for more information on how a product was manufactured, what the packaging consists of, and what materials are used inside, according to research published as CES begins.

The report, prepared by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), it suggests people will pay more for truly green products.

"Green is becoming a purchasing factor," said Steve Koening, director of industry analysts at the CEA, which organises the giant annual Consumer Electronics Show. "More than half are willing to pay a little more for 'green'," said Mr Koening. "22 percent said they were willing to pay up to 15 percent more for it."

The conversion to a green mind-state is pushing up the demand for greener gadgets.

Last year's CES -- the largest electronics exhibition anywhere -- ushered in a eco-friendly atmosphere with the introduction of 500 feet of floor space dedicated to cleaner technologies.

This year that space has grown to more than 3000 square feet, featuring companies like Fuji with Environmax batteries, and even Motorola featuring what it claims to be a cleaner cell-phone.

But, the CEA report also said that consumers are very skeptical about the green claims made by hi-tech firms for their products.

More than 38 percent of those interviewed by the CEA said they were confused by green product claims and 58 percent wanted to know the specific attributes that prompted hi-tech firms to label their products green.

One can debate the relative social responsibility of any CES participant until the cows generate biogas. I for one will take any news that companies feel being actually, demonstrably greener helps them make more money as a good sign!

Electrified Monopoly board

Not to be outdone by her sister Kris, Carly DeGraeve sent us this link to her latest electrified Monopoly board. It lights up the four props in the center of the board when you land on the appropriate squares. She used reed switches and magnets to complete the circuit.

Electrified Monopoly - Steampunk Inspired

More:
How To - Make a secret stash box
Kris and Carly dress like cake!

alt.CES: Electro-Harmonix Voice Box

Altces1

I've often considered Electro-Harmonix the coolest mainstream manufacturer of effects pedals and this new product is further proof. The Voice Box is both a vocoder and harmonizer unit with mic and instrument inputs. Along with built in reverb, tone control, and phantom power this unit provides "gender" changing options. From the product page -

The harmony processor creates 2- to 4-part harmonies directly from your vocals, in the same key as your accompanying instrument. Studio-quality reverb lets you independently add depth to your dry and harmony vocals.

The focused 256-band articulate vocoder, designed by the same EMS genius who made vocoding famous, features adjustable harmonic enhancement and controllable formant shift.

Harmonically matches any electric instrument you plug into it
Professional quality pitch shifting algorithm produces realistic harmonies
The Low & High Harmony independently produces two harmony notes: 3rd and 5th
9 accessible programmable presets
Natural Glissando
Gender Bender knob allows for male/female formant modification
Built-In Mic Pre with Phantom Power & Gain Switch
Balanced XLR Line Output: Interface directly with any mixing board or A/D converter
US96DC-200BI power supply included

This device seems prime for experimentation(ie - input swapping, etc), and @ around 200USD seems quite a value. Check out the "user generated videos" tab on EH's site for my examples of what the box can do - Voice Box | Vocal Harmony Machine/Vocoder

Fashioning Technology book excerpt: Sewing Soft Circuits

Fashioning Technology Cover

We've just posted a PDF excerpt from our first Craft book, Syuzi Pakhchyan's Fashioning Technology. The book covers everything you need to know to get started making wearable electronics, smart toys, furniture, and home decor. It's a very cool book that gives you the skills and inspiration to make some amazing things. Here's a taste of the Sewing Soft Circuits section (there's much more in the PDF):

Electronic textiles are dramatically redefining the way circuits look and feel. The increasing availability of raw conductive materials such as inks, threads, and textiles opens a new world of possibilities to experiment with, to better help you craft electronics into fabric. Circuits can now be hand- or machine-sewn, woven, embroidered, inked, or knit; they can be lightweight, flexible, and even three-dimensional. But don't throw your etchant solution and copper boards away quite yet, as it is difficult and time-consuming to sew complex circuitry by hand. For most projects, you will want to combine traditional printed circuit boards (PCBs) with soft circuits, controls, and switches. The following section introduces basic techniques on how to integrate electronics into textiles to get you started experimenting with soft circuits.

Conductive threads and textiles come with varying surface resistivity. Surface resistivity, typically measured in ohms per square, is the resistance of a material to the flow of electric current between opposite sides of its surface. In materials with low electrical resistance, electrons easily flow through or across the surface of the material. Generally, you will want to work with threads and textiles with low surface resistivity.

NOTE: There is a variety of conductive threads and textiles on the market that isn't very conductive, meaning that they have high surface resistivity. Before purchasing any conductive thread or textile, it is important to check the product's specifications to determine its surface resistivity.

Follow this link to download a PDF with a longer excerpt from Fashioning Technology's Sewing Soft Circuits technical primer, including these sections:

Bookbinder's Knot
Sewing by Machine
Sewing Components with Long Leads (LEDs, Resistors, and Capacitors)
Sewing Integrated Circuit (IC) Chips
Sewing Components with Wires

Buy Fashioning Technology by Syuzi Pakhchyan in the Maker Shed today!

This book demonstrates how to blend sewing and assembly techniques with traditional electronics to assemble simple circuits using conductive thread, solder joints for snaps, and switches for buttons. With the sewing machine as a viable substitute for the soldering iron, you can craft a new generation of objects that are interactive, quirky, and fashion-conscious.

Zinc-based audio oscillator

Zincoscillator

Nyle posted this multitrack recording featuring sounds from a homemade Zinc oscillator circuit -

An electronic sound composition is made entirely of sounds produced using zinc negetive resistance audio oscillator circuits. No vacuum tubes or transistors were used to generate the sounds.

Several tracks of the zinc oscillator sounds were recorded one at a time. Some of the sounds were enhanced with the addition of reverb.

The morse code parts were sent in real time by manually keying a J-38 straight key. Yes, I can send that fast with a straight key by using a somewhat unusual technique that I developed.

Interesting research - check out further documentation of his experiments here - SparkBangBuzz [via Matrixsynth]

Whiteboard physics simulator

ArtFall, a collaboration between Brent Bushnell and Eric Gradman @ Mindshare Labs, creates a 2D physics simulation from hand drawn art. Eric explains -

Basically, you draw on a whiteboard; a camera captures what you've drawn and inserts your art into a physics simulator. Objects are then "dropped" from the top of the whiteboard and bounce off your artwork. The simulation is projected as an overlay back onto the whiteboard.

Some interesting variations are demonstrated in the above video - of course many more possibilities remain. Hmmm ... different colored markers for multiplayer whiteboard gaming? Read on for more info - ArtFall

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