2011

Name the Thing Contest - 165

The prize this week is a cable tester, this will help you keep your home network working smoothly. This contest will run for one week (January 29 – February 4, 2011). 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 (more pictures below the prize images). Please do not give the answer in

DIY Electric Car Motor Controller

DIY Electric Vehicles are catching on, Instructables member MPaulHolmes has designed and built this 100 HP DIY Electric Car Motor Controller. You normally see the technique that Paul used when you make a circuit board on a CNC machine. But the reason so much copper was left on the board is because the board is used as power distribution within the controller instead of bundles of wires. So what sort

Smokey Amp Build

John from Crazy but Able built one of those Smokey Guitar Amps and demonstrates how it sounds with his guitar. The Smokey Amp plans are from Dirtbox and is designed to use those strip proto boards. With only a few components you could build it and be playing it in a few hours. Chances are you have all of the parts you need in your junk box. John modified the

DIY PIC Microcontroller Based Digital Tachometer Project

Have you ever wanted to determine how fast something was turning? With a few parts and a microcontroller, monitoring something spinning is a simple task, you just need a way to get an input into the microcontroller so it can count pulses. In this case Chris from Pyro Electric used an infrared beam to monitor a spinning fan, as the fan blades turn they interrupt the IR beam made using

Reverse GeoCaching Project

Looks like these Reverse GeoCaching projects are getting more and more popular. We have seen this type of project before but this one is much more of a cool hack than the others. In this project a GPS receiver with a SkyTraq Venus chipset was used but apparently was not that easy to work with. Full schematics are provided if you are interested in making your own. Thanks to our

SARTRE - Self-Driving Auto Train

This is the car I want, reading a paper and drinking a coffee is my idea of a commute! I just hope the driver in the front who is leading the train of autonomous vehicles doesn’t fall asleep at the wheel, have a heart attack or have a drinking problem. Via: Gadget Blog and Geekologie “SARTRE has been researching and developing a new system that enables a convoy of cars

XBMC runing on the 2nd Generation Apple TV

Now you can run the XBMC on your Apple TV 2nd Generation. Link Here is what you get! Full XBMC install, this is not a remote or thin client streamer. No longer is your AppleTV2 chained to iTunes. Who wants transcoded video anyway? Share files on your network your way. Full hardware decode for 720p/1080p movies. Everything else you know and love about XBMC. “The XBMC team is proud to