DIY Hacks

Arduino Ambilight

Don Howdeshell sent in this great Arduino Ambilight project. Sure seems like the Ambilight projects will continue to be popular. This one uses an Arduino at the core and ShiftBrite LED lights. You can see the effects here before the diffusion was added but make sure you watch the video below where the full effects of the lighting system are shown off! “The first challenge was to construct my own

Hard Drive Clock Kickstarter - Hard Drive Tick!......Tock POV Clock

We have seen lots of Hard Drive Clocks, my original one is now looking quite poor in the build quality zone.  Till this point if you wanted a Hard Drive Clock you would need to built one yourself by either taking inspiration from the other builds out there or making your own from scratch. Phillip Smith  is running a Kickstarter to hopefully change this and make a hard drive clock

Hollow Spiral Candlestick

If you have ever wondered how a Hollow Spiral Candlestick is made watch the video above. If this was my setup I’m not sure how long it would stay without some stepper motors running the show. 🙂

How to Interface a Microcontroller to a PS/2 Keyboard

Interacting with your project can be as simple as hooking up an IO pin to a button but if you need greater capability it might be time for a keyboard. In this tutorial Chris from PyroElectro demonstrates how to connect a PIC microcontroller to a PS/2 keyboard. One issue these days is finding a PS/2 keyboard, thankfully before USB came around they were a standard for a long time so

Stoplight used to indicate Server Status

It is nice to be able to see a status of equipment at a glance. A power on light on the power bar, some flashing lights on the router are some things that can be glanced at to ensure everything is operating properly. A server on the other hand is a bit trickier, you might want to see what the load is like on the server, check some ping times,

Brad's Hexapod Video Build Log

Fellow Canadian Brad has been making a video log of the building of his Hexapod. You can see all the videos of the build here on his Youtube channel. “Handmade hexapod running my own handwritten c++ code. Servo’s are a bit squishy due to being underpowered for the time being. Wiring will be cleaned up and main processor mounted within the next few weeks.”

LC Meter using a Microchip PIC 16F628A

This LC Meter was built using a Microchip PIC 16F628A.  It would make life a bit easier when attempting to identify a few of those components that are always left over on the desk after building a project. Mine are often dumped into a miscellaneous box with other various components which makes it even more difficult to identify later…  I think this meter would make a great addition to my