Electronic Hacks

MISA - Touch Pad Digital Guitar

You think the guitar you own is high tech? Well does it have a 500MHz processor? Can you even SSH into it? I thought not. This MISA – Touch Pad Digital Guitar is packed with tons of technology but thankfully it outputs MIDI so you can just jack it into your existing gear and jam away. Thanks Michael “The guitar itself is CNC machined out of solid ABS plastic. This

NicoletoMK Mikrokopter Quadrocopter

This NicoletoMK Mikrokopter Quadrocopter is not your department store variety flying toy. This 4 blade Quadrocopter is powerful enough to lift a 500 gram payload, this means camcorders, cameras or water balloons are fare game for this  machine. It can be flown by an operator or run in autonomous mode which would make it great as an automated surveillance system. There is a video of the unit in operation here

iPhone Like Kitchen Touchscreen Computer

Ryan from JUDD Studio Engineering just completed a very cool iPhone Like Kitchen Touchscreen Computer. His wife wanted a computer in the kitchen, that’s not an odd request these days. But instead of running down to Best Buy to pick up a new computer and mounting it in the kitchen Ryan decided to make his own unit that has a UI based on the iPhone. The result is some great

Volt Meter Clock

I was shocked when I saw this Volt Meter Style Clock,  it is close to a design that is sitting on my bench right now! My design should be done in 2 or 3 weeks. I love the minimal parts count of this project, since it is battery powered there is no power regulation section and that helps keep the circuit nice and simple. If you want to make your

Hexapod Walker

This tiny Hexapod Walker costs only about $70 to build. It is based around the Micro Maestro 6-channel USB Servo Controller by Pololu. It only takes three servos and some paperclip legs to get this thing in motion and with a few distance sensors for eyes it can see obstacles and get around them. Thanks for the tip Paul. “This tutorial shows you how to build a very simple autonomous

Temperature Control using a DS1621 Sensor and a ATtiny 2313 Micrcontroller

This Temperature Control project interfaces a DS1621 temperature sensor to  a ATtiny 2313 micrcontroller, with some AVR Bascom code a relay is controlled based on temperature. This is a very useful project since it has many applications, you could use it to turn on your car block heater when it gets cold, or turn on your attic fan when it gets real hot in the attic. Full code and schematics

Model Train Rotary Dumper using a Parallax Microcontroller

BS2ILH from the Parallax forum posted an interesting project, it’s a Model Train Rotary Dumper. Say goodbye to having to push your train cars around using your hands, instead with a push of a button you can see automation take over and complete the task of unloading all the coal from your model railroad.  You can see lots of build videos here, it is a very well laid out project!