September 2013

Open Agitator using a CD-ROM Drive Drawer

      Rohit Gupta needed a way to speed up PCB etching. Heating the etchant and agitating it are both well known ways of speeding up the process. If you are on a DIY budget this normally means you will be stuck sloshing the etchant back and forth for 10 minutes or so. Rohit developed the Open Agitator which uses a CD-ROM Drive Drawer to shake a tray back and forth. A

Espruino Kickstarter - JavaScript Arm Based Microcontroller Platform

  Remember the Espruino we featured back in January? Check out their Espruino Kickstarter. The Kickstarter is fully funded so these will be produced and if you act fast you will be able to snag one for £19 through kickstarter. I am thinking that we will start to see a new group of web programmers that make the plunge to microcontroller programming with this device. This device is tiny and packs

Heimcontrol Home Automation

  If you are looking for some DIY home automation and want to play around with Pi and Arduino have a look at heimcontrol.js. James Bruce used it for a simple setup and you can see his results in the video below. “heimcontrol.js was created to gain experience in Node.js, MongoDB, Websockets and a lot of other great technologies that were used in the project. Take a look in the package.json for

Overclocking an Arduino with liquid Nitrogen

    If you need to squeeze a bit more speed out of your Arduino project Overclocking with liquid Nitrogen might not be the best way but it sure looks like fun! Via: Dangerous Prototypes. “Why CMOS microchips could work faster when cooled? CMOS speed is usually limited by how fast transistors could recharge parasitic capacitances (gate capacitance and interconnect capacitance) via parasitic resistance/inductance of the wires. When cooled wire

 555 Timer Chip Scroll Music Player

  Check out this 555 Timer Chip Scroll Music Player, it  uses scroll that has a bunch of slots cut into it so that metal fingers can selectively touch a contact under it. A rolling system pulls the paper past these fingers and plays music since each contact has a different resistor value connected to a 555 timer. The construction looks great since you can see all of the components.

Papercraft Lamborghini Aventador

  This Papercraft Lamborghini Aventador shows us that the possibilities of Papercraft are endless! Makes me want to get some sheet metal going to build one that I can drive. “Overall I am very pleased with the final outcome of this experiment. I learned many new lessons and the artwork makes a great display on my wall. The completed model measures 8′ x 3.8′ x 2.1′ (627 x 244 x