David Prutchi has just put together a DIY Gamma-Ray Probe using a Philips XP5312/SN photomultiplier tube and a piece of scintillation plastic. A paint can was selected as a nice solid enclosure, the tube and plastic are supported by some foam on the inside to protect them from damage. “The probe yields a background count of approximately 1,000 counts/minute (cpm) in our lab, and 7,400 cpm from a 137Cs
You might remember a few years ago when I shared how I monitor my running CNC machine. Looks like Dave from Plastibots has added a cool twist to the idea. Dave uses a wireless IP camera to monitor his equipment but he also came up with a way to wirelessly e-stop the machine by remotely pressing the escape button if the system is acting up. Instead of coming up
 If you like to dig through your bag of skittles to eat all of one color before moving on to the next this Skittles Sorting Machine might be just for you. It uses a BASIC Stamp 2 to control the system. A few sensors and actuators get the job of sorting done. The main thing at work here is a TAOS color sensor, this sensor allows the stamp
 Stephen Cass from ieee Spectrum demonstrates the new Lego Mindstorms EV3 which was just unveiled at CES 2013. Looks like this platform will allow for some great project building. The EV3 runs on Linux and can interface with smartphones through blootooth. It also has a wifi dongle to connect to other wireless devices. Of course they have a gambling demo setup in Las Vegas to show us some
 Ben shows us how he starts one of his hacks. He is talking a midi controller and making it fit into a Guitar sized unit. Lots of work went into moving some sliders and buttons around so that it will work in the new form factor. Ben uses a neat trick to make the new front face fit all of the existing buttons. He takes a scan of the
Our friend Bob Davis has been working with some Signature Electronic Signs. He didn’t like the complex controller that came with the device so he made a controller based on the arduino to control the sign. You can see the code that makes the system work here. These displays are available on Ebay at some reasonable prices, Bob describes some of technical details of the display here where he
Dane from Transistor Man had a Macbook Pro with a GPU that wasn’t working. The system would boot but the display output was dead. Similar to the Xbox 360 BGA problems there are some Macbook Pro computers that have experienced BGA solder issues. The big issue here is that BGA devices have the solder connections under the device itself. Dane used a heat gun and a variac to blow
