Category Archives: Uncategorized

Robotic Etch-a-Sketch Draws Grayscale Images

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[Patrick] decided to make a computer controlled etch-a-sketch. While the idea is not that new, there is always a different way to accomplish a goal. An Arduino is used to control a pair of stepper motors which were sourced for pretty cheap, and even came with their own driver. Next a stand was mocked up using foam board, which helps determine where all the parts should live.

Next was a way to attach the steppers to the knobs, gears would be used and a collet meant for model airplanes was sourced to make the mechanical connection between gear and shaft. With everything set in place via foam board and paper printouts, it is off to get some thin plywood. The plywood is sent though a laser cutter creating most of the stand and gears. Now its all software, a program was whipped up for OSX which converts low res pictures into squiggly lines perfect for the etch-a-sketch to draw on its screen.

The results are quite impressive, join us after the break for a quick video.


Filed under: arduino hacks, news, toy hacks


Steve Jobs angel ad creates outrage – Times of India

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ABC News
Steve Jobs angel ad creates outrage
Times of India
A Taiwanese television commercial featuring a Steve Jobs look-alike angel complete with white wings and a halo has caused uproar. A Taiwanese television commercial featuring a Steve Jobs look-alike angel complete with white wings and a halo has caused ...
Outrage over Steve Jobs angel in Taiwan adEconomic Times
Angelic "Steve Jobs" loves Android in Taiwan TV adReuters
Steve Jobs Imitator with Angel Wings Promotes Taiwanese TabletPCWorld
Los Angeles Times -MacApper -PC Magazine
all 185 news articles »

TRAI to step-in to address tariff woes, says MNP’s the way – Moneycontrol.com

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Moneycontrol.com
TRAI to step-in to address tariff woes, says MNP's the way
Moneycontrol.com
Yesterday, the SC got many heads turning after it revoked the licenses of some 122 telecom companies operating in the country. Just recently, reports also confirmed that cash-strapped telcos were looking at tariff hikes as the way out of the current …
Ruling has some subscribers worriedHindu Business Line
No adverse impact on FDI: JS Sharma, TRAI ChairmanEconomic Times
No first come licence issuance: TRAIindiablooms
The Asian Age -The Nation
all 11 news articles »

How Do I Find a Good Tax Professional? [Ask Lifehacker]

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Dear Lifehacker, More »







Honda car sales in India decline by 70 percent during January 2012 – Rush Lane

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Rush Lane
Honda car sales in India decline by 70 percent during January 2012
Rush Lane
Honda Motors India sold just 1784 cars in the month of January 2012, compared to Jan 2011 sales figures, when Honda India sold 5838 units, this is a sharp 70% decline in sales. Main reason behind this sharp decline is production cuts due to ...
Honda goes the diesel routeBusiness Today
Honda sales continue to suffer due to production cutsOn Cars India
Honda Siel Cars India's sales affected by production cuts during January 2012Wheels Unplugged
Zee News -Hindu Business Line -Indian Cars Bikes
all 9 news articles »

The Evil Android Home Screen [Featured Home Screen]

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Reader Ammar Githam took our evil weeks to heart and made this great looking, informative home screen. More »


Lamp upgrade makes you a hot-head

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[Cameron] decided to give his twenty-year-old headlamp a makeover. He uses it when he’s out for a run and wanted to have more light to see where he’s going, as well as a red tail light on the back. The stock design uses an incandescent bulb on the front of the head band, and a battery pack on the back. He managed to convert the device to output 700 lumens without major changes to the form factor of the unit.

The first change he decided on is to use a Cree XLamp which provides the 700 lumens of light by drawing about 9.5 Watts of power. Obviously the original battery pack isn’t going to do well under that kind of load, so he also sourced a 5000 mAh Lithium battery. A bit of circuit design and PCB layout gives him two driver chips for the four-element LED module, a charging circuit for the battery, and an ATtiny13 to drive the head lamp and flash the red LED tail light. See the blinky goodness in the video after the break.

That’s a lot of light, but we wonder if he experiences a warm forehead from the heat sink used to keep that LED package cool?


Filed under: led hacks


Spawning identities in packets – The Hindu

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The Hindu
Spawning identities in packets
The Hindu
The political tug-of-war over Aadhaar, the ambitious government project that seeks to create a biometric database of citizens across the country, appears to have been resolved for now, with the Government sanctioning enrolment of 40 crore more citizens ...
A question of identityHindu Business Line
UIDAI report dispels data safety doubtIndia Today

all 3 news articles »

Jam a remote helicopter

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The Syma S107 IR is a popular little remote controlled helicopter. When a friend of [Michael]‘s started flying one around the office he decided to try and jam the signal, creating a no fly zone. Luckily some people on the internet have already decoded the IR signals used by the flying menace. From there, a quick browsing of Mouser to source some LEDs, and to whip up some code for a TI MSP430 was all that was left.

The software on the micro controller is set to broadcast a “thrust off” signal, but [Michael] admits he is not 100% sure if the helicopter is actually receiving that, or if the signal from the no fly zone is mixing with the remote’s signal, causing garbage to be received. Either way when the helicopter gets in range of the no fly zone pad it drops from the air.

Things didn’t go perfectly though, overestimating the current capabilities of the MSP was causing the micro controller to reset and crash the debugger. But a simple rearrangement of how the signals are sent quickly solved this problem.

Join us after the break for a quick video.


Filed under: toy hacks


Bending a printer control board to output POV messages

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Confronted with the issue of finding a use for his mounting pile of junk electronics, [Rue] set out to build a persistence of vision device using a hardware state machine. We have a suspicion that his original link may go down if there’s too much traffic so here’s a cached link just in case.

Any board that is MSC-51 or MCS-48 based would have worked for his purposes. This is because the addressing scheme of the hardware makes it an easy hack. The image above shows him cutting off the processor from this board. It was chosen because of a 74HC373; it was a mistake at first but since it’s pin compatible with the 74HC374 that he needed a simple swap did the trick. From there a clock source was added, and the address information necessary to display the message was burned into an EEPROM.

Step twelve of his writeup shows a Morse Code message created by attaching the board to a broomstick and twirling it around in an arc. We took  just a minute to decode the message and believe it’s a shout-out to Hackaday. Nice, thanks for reading [Rue]!


Filed under: classic hacks