Electronic Hacks

Multichord - Hard Drive Musical Instrument

Here is another project idea for one of those old hard drives you have laying around. The Multichord turns your hard drive and some other miscellaneous items into a musical instrument. “The Multichord musical instrument is an acoustic stringed instrument with a single string, constructed from wood, a hard drive, 20-lb monofilament, and assorted electronic components. It was the culmination of a project to build an acoustic instrument capable of

X10 Camera Turret Face Tracking

I have used some X10 modules in the past and they work like magic, just plug in the module and you have instant remote control of lighting and appliances. In my case I was controlling the boiler of a 30 suite apartment block and it worked great. Robert Oschler shows us that there are more possibilities when it comes to X10 if you use the SDK, it allows your programs

Hard Drive LED Clock

Martin sent in a video of his Hard Drive LED Clock which is based on the original Hard Drive Clock that I built quite a few years ago. Martin is going to change the color of the LEDs and mount all the electronics into the hard drive.

Web controlled Wireless Robot

This robotic platform can be drive from the web. It uses an ioBridge IO-204 to link things together. “The robot uses a pair of serial bluetooth adapters to form a wireless link with the ioBridge IO-204. The serial levels of the IO-204 are TTL and a circuit using the MAX-232 was required to allow the serial interface work properly. On the robot is a set of serial servo drivers that

Shizuoka ST-N 3 Axis CNC Machine Rebuild

How luck are you if you can find a CNC machine like this one for a few hundred dollars! That is exactly what happened to Dave Kush of BuildYourIdea.com.  It wasn’t a fully functional machine so like any huge machine like this that’s sold as is who knows if it will take $10 or $10,000 to get it up and running again. Well thankfully Dave designs stepper drivers so he

LEGO NXT Aquarium Temperature Control

In colder climates the indoor temperature is not always ideal for things like aquariums. This is especially true these days when most people have smart thermostats that turn down the temperature when there is no one in the house or everyone is sleeping. So what can be done to solve this issue? Well You can purchase a heater for the aquarium but what is the fun in that? Instead why

Hacked Big Mouth Billy Bass

Next time you are picking out a Christmas gift for someone why not get something that is hackable and improve on the original design. With a ton of electronics stuffed inside this Big Mouth Billy Bass it now makes for the ideal gift! If you are interested in seeing how it was all put together there is a schematic available. “The CPU board has a pair of 18F452 PICs. One