FEB7
IR light dimmer v1 published
This is a very simple IR light dimmer that you will wish to have sooner or later, especially those who are lazy enough to get up and turn off the lights. There are two versions of PCB for two sizes of capacitors: 32.5 x 26.5mm and 28.5 x 27mm.
Features of current beta version of firmware: soft start, soft down, learning IR codes from RC5 and NEC remotes, dimming in 10 levels by using only IR remote, previous dimm-level remembering when operating with remote, sleep timer in duration of 1.6min for 60Hz version and 2min for 50Hz version, ON/OFF control with wall pushbutton.
FEB6
Remote controlled basket ball
This remote controlled ball is built inside of a plastic hampster ball. Later it was coated with a real basket ball skin with a help of some expanding foam. Inside a hamspter ball there is a propelling motor, servo motors for direction and gyros for stability.
Although it is possible not to use gyros, in the video you can clearly see the difference between gyro and non-gyro version. All electronics are bought from a hobby shop so all effort was focused on building the mechanics. Yep, it is one freaky basket ball.
Source: prabbit22m
FEB3
Dial controlled RGB moodlight
With this lamp you can set your ambient light color according to your mood. It is based on PIC12F675 microcontroller and it's controlled with a potentiometer and a pushbutton.
Microcontroller reads the potentiometer value with it's A/D converter and sets color change speed (fading efect) or final wanted color, depending on current lamp's mode. Modes are changed with a pushbutton. It sure is a pretty cool mushroom-shaped lamp!
Source: PuffMag1cDrag0n
JAN31
Render PCBs with Eagle layout editor and POV-ray
Eagle layout editor is an excellent program for schematics and PCBs drawings. By using appropriate scripts, you can transform Eagle into a very powerful piece of software. One of them is Eagle3D that allowes POV file to be generated so that you can see what your device will look like in 3D even before heating up your soldering iron. POV-ray is another piece of software that will render a POV file generated by Eagle3D and it will display the resulting image.
The source link will get you to the whole procedure of generating the POV file and links to the required software for this process.
Source: ongissim
JAN30
LED pushbutton
There is a bunch of ways on how to make a lit pushbutton. This one has to be the best one so far. A spring that allows an LED to be movable are actually it's pins that are left a bit longer and coiled under the board.
Underneath the LEDs are pushbuttons that LED rests onto. When you press on LED it will press a pushbutton thus making a contact! This is a very good idea for a lit pushbutton!
Source: pros
JAN27
Deaf dog's vibrating collar
If you have a pet that is loosing his hearing or is completely deaf by now, than you sure need one of these. The idea is to vibrate the motor on dog's neck to get his attention. You will probably need to train your dog a little but he will get the idea pretty quickly. So, it's a Vibrating Caller Collar that is built with RC car's guts: a remote transmitter, receiver and a modified DC motor. The motor needs to be mounted with some kind of off-balanced weight, just like a vibration motor in your mobile phone.
I wish I had one of these a few years ago...
Source: arcticpenguin
JAN23
Soldering press for cables
If you are tired of heating up your soldering iron only to solder a few wires, you should really build one of these. This "press" is built from and old sewing machine pedal with just a few modifications. What solders the wires is actually a current that flows from electrodes through the wire to be soldered.
Amount of current required for this job is 4A and it is supplied from 12V/4A power source.
Source: kruser495
JAN22
Wearable LED VU meter
Here is a very cool device that illuminates 0-10 LEDs depending on ambient sound level. It is a mobile LED VU meter that has integrated microphone that feeds audio signal to LM386 low power audio amplifier. After that, the signal is fed to LM3916 IC which does the job of illuminating appropriate LEDs depending on the audio level.
It was designed to be worn in a nightclub as a replacement for glow sticks and it is powered by 2x3V batteries.
Source: Vlorbschnat
