A good soldering station can be a big investment. The biggest drawback from a $20 soldering iron is that the tip temperature is not regulated. An inexpensive iron is simply a heating element that is connected to power, the issue with this is that you ideally would like to solder different types of components at different temperatures, and those temperatures should stay consistent. Many people hook up their cheap irons
UPDATE: The project is complete have a look at everything here. Nerf Gun Hack part 1, part 2, part 3 This is part 1 of a multiple part build of a Nerf Gun Hack which will monitor an area using a infrared beam and fire on anyone who walks through the beam. The goal which is just a loose guideline at this point is to have a microcontroller monitor an
We recently saw this Rotating LED Globe that was built by Csaba Bleuer. Gleb left a comment with a link to 32 LED Spinning Globe that his friend Riko built. The site is in Russian but if you use Google Translator you will be able to see that is going on. The design is interesting, power is being delivered by a rotating coil, an ATTiny is the microcontroller and the
For indoor flight this Quadcopter uses 4 Sharp IR sensors, they are able to determine the range of obstacles by bouncing IR light off an object and calculate the angle of return. The flight is amazingly stable, this quadcopter allows for automatic takeoff, landing and hovering. “For the IR range finder (Sharp GP2Y0A02) I needed to use a separate Arduino Pro mini (again we don´t have any analog input free).
Chris Farnell and Michael Helms built this multi-stage coil gun that has a wireless iPhone (or touch or iPad) interface. The project was a year long build while they were at the University of Arkansas taking Electrical Engineering. “What begins as a simple project grows in the minds of able youth. The credit for the four stage coil gun and the 8051 controlled charging circuitry goes to Chris Farnell. I
If you are looking for a doorbell that you can hear from anywhere in your house have a look at this Train Whistle Doorbell by Pete Mills. He has hacked into a cheap wireless doorbell system for activation. Have a look at the video on his site for the explosive result when it is activated! Pete has a schematic on his site if you want to see how it ticks.
If you are a retro gamer have a look at this cool Typewriter Joystick, no it isn’t just a gutted typewriter with a joystick mashed in. Many of the keys are functional through to the computer that it is connected to. It might not be the most agile gaming interface but it is certainly one of the most creative I have seen! Via: TechEBlog
