These days when something electronic dies the repair bill is usually so high that it doesn’t make financial sense to repair it since there is no guarantee that the repaired out of warranty item isn’t going to fail for some other reason in a week. When Sam from the Parallax forum was faced with this dilemma with a gate opener he decided to scrap the old gate controller and make
The prize this week is a loupe magnifier, this will let you get a close look at whatever you are working on. This contest will run for one week (July 24 – July 30, 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. You don’t need to know the make and
Accepting credit cards can be expensive. If you have a permanent selling location with a phone line or data connection you can use a standard credit card terminal. Or if you are on the go you can use a mobile credit card terminal just like the pizza guy when he comes to your door. With both of these options you need to pay for the equipment and pay some steep
Starlino is building a Quadcopter, the design is based around the Acc_Gyro Board that he designed and is being sold by our friends over at Gadget Gangster. It uses PID along with a simplified Kalman Filter. “I did some tests on the lift force potential of this frame+motors+props, and was surprise to find out it performed better than some entry-level brushless motors. The lift force of this platform is up
Remember the Multimeter Clock article last month? I just got the full build log up. Lots of people wanted the CNC files so that they could cut their own clock, these DXF files are also available on the Multimeter Clock project page. If you want to make your own there’s a kit available. If you missed the video of the clock in action last time here it is again.
Next time you are designing a PCB you might want to try the new kid on the block. DesignSpark PCB is a free PCB design tool from RS. I am currently using Eagle for my PCB designs but I think this software is good enough to give a try on the next design. I still remember making my first design many years ago with Express PCB, I was surprised that
For all you budding entrepreneurs who have a great business idea in your head but think that taking the first step is quite daunting needs to give Entrepreneur Journeys Volume 4 a look. Sramana Mitra who writes for Forbes and is a serial entrepreneur herself shares her knowledge with us to help our business ideas along their way. In the book she interviews many high profile successful executives such as
