Friday, June 30
How To MIDI Interface Your Toys
There’s a great number toys in the world, many of which make all manner of pleasant or annoying noises for the entertainment of children. If you’re a musician, these toys may be of interest due to their unique or interesting sounds. However, due to their design being aimed at play rather than performance, it may be difficult to actually use the toy as a musical instrument. One way around this is to record the sounds of the toy into a sampler, but it’s not the only way. [little-scale] is here to demonstrate how to MIDI interface your toys.
[little-scale] starts out by discussing the many ways in which one can interface with a toy. The article discusses how a simple button can be replaced with a relay, or a multiplexer, and be interfaced to all manner of other devices to control the toy. This is demonstrated by using a mobile phone toy which makes sounds when buttons are pressed.
A Teensy 3.6 is used to run the show, acting as a USB-MIDI interface so the toy can be controlled by music software like Abelton. It’s connected to the toy’s buttons through a multiplexer. The toy’s speaker is cut off and used as an audio output instead, allowing the toy to be easily connected to other audio hardware for performance or recording. It’s also fed through a digital pot so MIDI commands can control the volume. A resistor is used to control pitch in the toy, so this too was replaced with a digital pot as well, to allow sample pitch to be controlled.
The project is incredibly well documented, with [little-scale] first tearing down the toy and highlighting the points of interest, before stepping through each stage of interfacing the toy to the digital world. We’ve seen some of [little-scale]’s work before, too – namely, this MIDI DAC for controlling vintage synthesizers. Video after the break.
Filed under: musical hacks
Tips of the Week: Enlarging Washers, Gaffer’s Tape Patterns, Screw Identifying Tools
The post Tips of the Week: Enlarging Washers, Gaffer’s Tape Patterns, Screw Identifying Tools appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.
Dealmaster: Best 4th of July deals including Amazon credits, a $479 XPS tower, and more
Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our partners at TechBargains, we're back before the holiday weekend with new deals to share. In the midst of your Fourth of July festivities, you can snag some great deals including a Dell XPS 8910 Core i5-powered desktop for $479, an XPS 13 laptop with a Core i7 CPU and 8GB of RAM for $1,099, and $10 Amazon credits for Prime members and first-time Prime Video streamers.
Check out the rest of the deals, including some pre-Prime Day savings, below.
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Printrbot Teases Infinite Build Volume Printer
[Brook Drumm] of Printrbot is teasing a new 3D printer. This is no ordinary 3D printer; this is an infinite build volume 3D printer, the Next Big Thing™ in desktop fabrication.
The world was introduced to the infinite build volume 3D printer last March at the Midwest RepRap Festival with a built by [Bill Steele] from Polar 3D. The design of [Bill]’s printer began as simply a middle finger to MakerBot’s Automated Build Platform patent. This was patent engineering — [Bill] noticed the MakerBot patent didn’t cover build plates that weren’t offset to the plane of the print head, and it just so happened a printer with a tilted bed could also build infinitely long plastic parts.
While [Bill Steele]’s unnamed printer introduced the idea of an infinite build volume printer to the community, a few pieces of prior art popped up in the weeks and months after MRRF. Several years ago, [Andreas Bastian] developed the Lum Printer, an unbounded conveyor belt printer. A month after MRRF, Blackbelt 3D introduced their mega-scale tilted bed printer and later started a Kickstarter that has already reached $100,000 in pledges.
Right now, details are sparse on the Printrbelt, but there are a few educated guesses we can make. The belt of the Printrbelt appears to be Kapton film attached to some sort of substrate. The hotend and extruder are standard Printrbot accouterments, and the conveyor is powered by a geared stepper motor. All in all, pretty much what you would expect.
We do know that [Brook] and [Bill Steele] are working together on this printer, apparently with [Brook] in charge of the hardware and [Bill] taking either his slicing algorithm or firmware modifications (we’re not exactly sure where the ’tilt’ in the Gcode comes from) and getting this printer running.
While the Printrbelt isn’t ready for production quite yet, this is a fantastic advance in the state of consumer, desktop 3D printing. You can check out [Brook]’s teaser videos below.
Filed under: 3d Printer hacks
The complete history of the IBM PC, part one: The deal of the century
SSPL/Getty Images
One could claim that the IBM PC was not really IBM's first PC at all. In September 1975 the company introduced the IBM 5100, its first "portable" computer. ("Portable" meant that it weighed just 55 pounds and you could buy a special travel case to lug it around in.)
The 5100 was not technically a microcomputer; it used a processor IBM had developed in-house called the PALM which was spread over an entire circuit board rather than being housed in a single microchip. From the end user's standpoint, however, that made little difference; certainly it would seem to qualify as a personal computer if not a microcomputer. It was a self-contained, Turing complete, programmable machine no larger than a suitcase, with a tape drive for loading and saving programs, a keyboard, and a 5-inch screen all built right in along with 16K or more of RAM.
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Maker Spotlight: Wang Weijiang
The post Maker Spotlight: Wang Weijiang appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.
Graduation Cap Shows Us What It’s Got!
A high school graduation ceremony is well due the pomp and circumstance for making it through one of life’s many milestones. To commemorate the event with their own flair, redditor [PM_(cough)_FOR_KITTENS] hid a 32 x 32 GIF-playing LED matrix in their graduation cap!
The board is controlled by a Teensy hosting a SmartMatrix shield. With the shield’s assistance, the matrix enables scrolling text and GIFs to play across the LEDs, as well as an SD card slot to load up your favourites. Currently, it’s set to a 50-50 chance of playing a gif — one of sixty — or one of the twenty scrolling text lines loaded onto the SD card. [PM_(ahem)_FOR_KITTENS] co-opted his friend’s expertise to write the cold — available here — while he designed the circuit and handled the assembly.
Carefully unwrapping his cap, [PM_(yep)_FOR_KITTENS] reinforced it with thinner and stronger cardboard, cutting slots into it, allowing the boards and wires to — barely — fit inside. A hole in the side of the cap is enough for a barely noticeable USB cable to run down his neck to a 2000 mAh battery which can power the cap for over five hours at 5V and 2A. Check out a demo video after the break!
We’ve previously featured a similar bid to mess with school administrators, as well as an infrared option.
[Thanks for the tip, Nikropht!]
Filed under: led hacks, Microcontrollers
Using Nanotubes to Strengthen 3D Prints
3D printing has brought the production of plastic parts to the desktops and workshops of makers the world over, primarily through the use of FDM technology. The problem this method is that when squirting layers of hot plastic out to create a part, the subsequent vertical layers don’t adhere particularly well to each other, leading to poor strength and delamination problems. However, carbon nanotubes may hold some promise in solving this issue.
A useful property of carbon nanotubes is that they can be heated with microwave energy. Taking advantage of this, researchers coated PLA filament in a polymer film containing carbon nanotubes. As the layers of the print are laid down, the nanotubes are primarily located at the interface between the vertical layers. By using microwaves to heat the nanotubes, this allows the print to be locally heated at the interface between layers, essentially welding the layers together. As far as results are concerned, the team reports an impressive 275% improvement in fracture strength over traditionally printed parts.
The research paper is freely available, which we always like to see. There’s other methods to improve your print strength, too – you could always try annealing your printed parts.
[Thanks 𐂀[d] 𐂅 for the tip]
Filed under: 3d Printer hacks
Chilling a Hot Camera
[Eric]’s camera has a problem. It overheats. While this wouldn’t be an issue if [Eric] was taking one picture at a time, this camera also has a video mode, which is supposed to take several pictures in a row, one right after the other. While a camera that overheats when it’s used is probably evidence of poor thermal engineering, the solution is extremely simple: strap a gigantic heat sink to the back. That’s exactly what [Eric] did, and the finished product looks great.
The heatsink chosen for this application is a gigantic cube of aluminum, most likely taken from an old Pentium 4 CPU cooler. Of course, there’s almost no way [Eric] would have found a sufficiently large heat sink that would precisely fit the back of his camera, which meant he had to mill down the sides of this gigantic heat sink. [Eric] actually did this in his drill press using a cross slide vice and an endmill. This is surely not the correct, sane, or safe way of doing things, but we’ll let the peanut gallery weigh in on that below.
The heatsink is held on by a technique we don’t see much around here — wire bending. [Eric] used 0.055″ (1.3 mm) piano wire, and carefully bent it to wrap around both the heatsink and the camera body. Does the heatsink cool the camera? Yes, and the little flip-up screen of the camera makes this camera a very convenient video recording device. You can check out the video of this build below.
Filed under: digital cameras hacks
An Electric Fence for Snails and Slugs
Anyone with a garden knows about doing battle with pests. Weeds, bugs, rabbits, birds — all of them try to get a bite out of our flowers and vegetables. Some of the worst are mollusks. Snails and slugs are notorious plant attackers. Tomato plants don’t stand a chance when these beasts come to town. Some folks would reach for the pesticide or even the salt, but [wheldot] had a better idea. He built an electric fence to keep these pests at bay.
Much like the electric fences used for large mammals like horses or cows, this fence is designed to deter, but not kill slugs and snails. The design is incredibly simple – two bare wires are strung around the raised garden about one centimeter apart. The wires are connected to a nine-volt battery. No boost circuit, no transistors, just nine volts across two wires. That’s all it takes to turn a slug away.
[Wheldot] didn’t come up with this hack — it’s been around in various forms for years. The nine-volt battery provides just enough current to annoy the slug or snail. The best part is that when not actively shocking a slug, the only current passing through the circuit is the whatever is passed through the wood.
Reddit user [gnichol1986] measured that at around 180 kΩ through wet wood. That means a typical 400 mAh battery would last around 34 days of continuous rain. Even in the UK it doesn’t rain that much. With a little work insulating the wires from the wood, that could be extended to the full shelf life of the battery.
You know, slugs and critters get into electronics too, so don’t forget a waterproof case to make sure your project stays slug free!
Filed under: home hacks
Key to Soldering: Pace Yourself
When writing my last article, I came upon something I thought had been lost to the seven seas of YouTube: the old-school “Basic Soldering Lesson” series from Pace Worldwide.
This nine-episode-long series is what retaught me to solder, and is a masterpiece, both in content and execution. With an episode titled “Integrated Circuits: T0-5 Type Packages & Other Multi-leaded Components” and a 20-minute video that only focuses on solder and flux, it’s clear from the get-go that these videos mean business. Add that to the fact that the videos are narrated by [Paul Anthony], the local weatherman in the Washington DC area back in the 80s and 90s, these videos are a joy to watch.
Even if you know what you’re doing, don’t skip the first video. It’s where the “workpiece indicator” concept, which runs throughout the series, is introduced.
Covering everything from what solder really is to how to correctly solder integrated circuits, this series has it all, even if it’s slightly dated. And, while it’s not a hack, it’s a great way to rejuvenate your soldering skills or give someone a hot start on their soldering journey.
Speaking of which, we’ve seen many things designed to educate, but one size certainly does not fit all. Do y’all know of any well-made sources that teach foundational topics that are as accessible as this series? If so, let us know in the comments.
The first video in the series is after the break. In sum, they’re long but worth it.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Thursday, June 29
Make: Teams Up with Fat Brain Toys for Kid Toy Design Challenge
The post Make: Teams Up with Fat Brain Toys for Kid Toy Design Challenge appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.
Three Magnets Make Fidget Spinners Amazing And Only Engineers Will Appreciate This Hack!
The fidget spinner posts will continue until morale improves. This time, we’re looking at [TannerTech]’s electromagnetic accelerator for a fidget spinner. [Tanner] can spin his fidget spinner electronically using parts he had sitting around and a clever application of magnets and relays! Engineers hate him!
[Tanner]’s build consists of three magnets mounted on the tip of a fidget spinner’s arms, with the North pole facing outwards. The ‘drive circuit’ consists of an electromagnet — an inductor [Tanner] found in an old TV set — a reed switch, and a MOSFET. When the circuit is placed next to the fidget spinner, the reed switch closes, powering the electromagnet, pushing the tip of the fidget spinner forward, and starting the cycle anew. Think of it as the same technology that goes into a particle accelerator or a maglev train. Or a brushless DC motor.
Haven’t gotten your daily fill of fidget spinner hacks and fidget spinner news? Don’t worry, because we got your back, fam. Check out this amazing way to teach STEAM education — the ‘A’ stands for ‘arts’ — with the help of fidget spinner shaped PCBs and a flanged bearing. Is your oscilloscope too boring? Spice it up with some fidget spinner awesomeness. Useless machines are cool, and even [Marvin Minsky], the father of Artificial Intelligence, would say this fidget spinner hack is amazing. Like, share, and subscribe for the latest in fidget spinner news.
It’s great, if slightly ironic, to see people doing something other than fidgeting with their fidget spinners. Who would have thought a fad that began as a few extra skateboard bearings and a 3D-printed blob of plastic would beget so many truly interesting hacks? You can check out [Tanner]’s build video of this amazing hack below.
Filed under: toy hacks
Making Spirographs with LEGO and Math
Master LEGO builder [Yoshihito Isogawa] has been on a roll lately, cranking out a number of robots that make drawings reminiscent of the classic Spirograph toy. For instance, he built an elegant drawbot out of LEGO elements, seen above. At first glance the monicker “spirograph” seems wrong, because where are the gears? However, [Yoshihito] has them stashed underneath the sheet of paper, with magnets controlling the pens.
He also makes use of an obscure part–the 14-tooth bevel gear, last manufactured by LEGO in 2002 and even then it was mostly sold in part assortments intended for the education market. It’s so obscure LEGO doesn’t even provide the gear in their online building program LEGO Digital Designer, though (of course) the LDraw folks re-created it — it’s brick 4143 in the library, seen below.
Spirograph Gear Math
This gear becomes important in spirograph-style projects because tooth count is everything. There really aren’t that many spirograph designs that can be made with LEGO, because there are a limited number of gears and they mostly have the same tooth counts–the smaller ones sport 8, 12, or 16 teeth, medium-sized ones 20 or 24 teeth, and larger ones 36 or 40 — see a pattern? Such predictability may be great for a building set, but it doesn’t engender a lot of spirograph diversity.
When you compute the number of vertices in a spirograph shape, you take the least common multiple of the two gears (or sets of gears) and divide by the small gear. So a 60-tooth turntable turning a pair of 14-tooth gears has an LCM of 420, and you divide by 28 to get the number of vertices: 15. Remove one of those smaller gears and the vertices increase to 30. The challenge in creating new shapes with a LEGO spirograph lays in swapping in new gears, just like the original toy, and having more ways to come up with unusual gear ratios makes for more interesting drawings.
Another that makes the 14-tooth gear so alluring to [Yoshihito] is that it’s one of the few LEGO gears with a number of teeth not divisible by 4. Among other things this means the gear meshes with an identical gear at 90 degrees. Usually the gears have the same number for each quarter of the circumference and meshing becomes a matter of jogging one gear a scosh. This can be a problem because LEGO axles have a “plus” shaped profile, and you may not want everything on that axle tilted as well — having a 90-degree solution makes a lot of sense.
[Yoshihito] has released a number of variants of the spirographing drawbot. What’s next? Maybe a harmonograph?
Also see his equally impressive Circle Pattern Draw3r:
Filed under: toy hacks
Google Photos 3.0 launches with shared libraries, suggested sharing
If you remember back at Google I/O, new sharing features were announced for Google Photos. Most of the features revolved around making sharing easier or more likely to happen, with features like "Shared Libraries" and "Suggested Sharing." Google announced on its blog that those features are finally ready and are shipping now in Google Photos 3.0.
"Shared Libraries" lets you pick a Google Photos contact and automatically share your library with them, including new pictures. This can be either your entire library or just photos of specific people, powered by Google's facial recognition. This feature sounds just a little bit scary, but the idea is to give parents an easy way to share pictures of their children. You can restrict this by date, giving people access to pictures taken after a certain date. The person you share with can pick and choose what photos they want in their library, too. Again, the recipient of a shared library can select options to save only specific people or all photos. To set this up, you should see a "Shared libraries" option in the side navigation panel.
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An ExoArm For The Elderly
Prosthetic and assistive technologies have come have come a long way in recent years. When there are not only major medical research organizations, but individuals getting on board designing tools to improve the lives of others? That’s something special. Enter a homebrew essay into this field: ExoArm.
Attached to the body via what was available — in this case, the support harness for a gas-powered weed-eater — which distributes the load across the upper body and an Arduino for a brain, ExoArm designer [Kristjan Berce] has since faced roadblocks with muscle sensors meant to enable more instinctive control. So — for now — functionality is limited to a simple up and down motion controlled by two switches. It is worth noting that the down switch is currently mounted in such a way that when the user moves their arm down, the ExoArm follows suit, so there is some natural feel to using the arm in its present iteration.
Developed with the elderly — and others who need a boost to physical strength to live a normal life — in mind, this prototype is able to curl up to 10kg in excess of its own weight. Presently, the only motor is on the elbow joint — granting a basic range of motion — with one adapted to the shoulder joint forthcoming! And, costing only $100, it’s a heck of a start.
We’ve featured some impressive individual forays into hackers helping others, humans and animals alike!
Filed under: Arduino Hacks, hardware
June 29, 2007: Waiting at the San Francisco and Cincinnati Apple Stores on iDay
Ten years ago today, folks like our own Lee Hutchinson waited (in line or online) for the first iPhone's formal release. We've been examining the product's impact all week as it turns 10, and today we couldn't help but resurface our version of those infamous "look at that line, tho" stories from a decade ago. These pieces originally ran on June 29, 2007.
CINCINNATI, Ohio—Everyone else is covering the iPhone line in budding metropoli (is that a word?) such as New York City, San Francisco, and Chicago. I hear there were 50+ people in line for the iPhone at the Michigan Avenue Apple Store in downtown Chicago as of 5am. Well, we thought we'd do something different (OK, maybe we had to because we were going to that darn wedding later) and cover iPhone line-waiters in a slightly less popular city... the budding metropolis of Cincinnati, Ohio.
I used to live in Cincinnati, and so I was familiar with the landscape when I arrived. I showed up at Kenwood Towne Center Mall at 7:45am Eastern Time, expecting at least 20 people to be in line. This is what I saw when I got there.
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Making VR Accessible for People with Physical Disabilities
The post Making VR Accessible for People with Physical Disabilities appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.
Ryzen Pro: AMD takes on Intel on the corporate desktop, with one key omission
AMD
AMD today launched Ryzen Pro (styled "PRO" in AMD's branding, but we're not going to do that here), a series of processors designed for the corporate desktop. Close counterparts to the existing line of consumer-oriented Ryzen chips, the Pro parts are aimed at Intel's vPro-compatible processors, which enable a number of additional administrative, security, and management capabilities.
Most of the regular Ryzen models have corresponding Pro versions, albeit topping out at a 1700X rather than the 1800 and 1800X of the consumer parts. This means that at the high end, there's a couple of eight core, 16 thread parts, which is twice the number of cores and threads of comparable Intel chips.
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