[Nothinglabs] built this motor controller as an alternative to using an H-bridge. They call it the RAT controller which stands for “Relay and Transistors”. You can see above that two Darlington transistors along with their base transistors allow logic signals to switch the relay on and off, driving the motor in one direction or the other based [...]

Have a bunch of time on your hands, and about $2,500 sitting around? Why not settle in and build yourself a laser cutter? That’s exactly what Buildlog forum member [r691175002] did, and he told us about it in our comments just a few moments ago. Laser cutters can be pretty cost prohibitive depending on what [...]

The results are in and the new Open Hardware logo has been selected! After tallying nearly 9,000 votes it has been decided that “Golden Orb” by Macklin Chaffe will now represent the OSHW definition v1.0. Rest assured that despite earlier controversy regarding a few users that had submitted a very large number of duplicate votes [...]

[Gregory] wrote in to share his most recent project, an FPGA clone of the PC Engine/Turbografx 16 console. You may remember him from last year, when we talked about his SEGA Genesis FPGA clone. He just couldn’t leave well enough alone, and decided to resurrect yet another 16-bit machine in FPGA form. He has been [...]

The world can be a pretty difficult place to navigate when you lack the ability to see it. There are many visually impaired people across the globe, with some figures claiming up to 40 million individuals affected. While walking canes and seeing-eye dogs can be a huge help, some students at the College of Engineering [...]

[Choi Ka Fai] has been experimenting with neurostimulation for some time now. His body of work has focused on exploring the possibility of using neurostim devices to replay pre-recorded muscle movements. Until now, he has been recording his muscle movements as acoustic waveforms for real-time playback in the bodies of his research partners. This usually [...]

[EmcySquare] is delving into some hobby-blacksmithing by making his own knives. He needs a furnace to heat the metal, and after trying out a few different forge designs he decided to attempt an electric kiln build. The final project seen above is a box within a box. The outer shell is reclaimed using old computer [...]

[Csshop] is setting a new bar for building an inexpensive CNC mill. Not only did he complete his build at a very low cost, but it seems to work quite well too. Check out the video after the break to see the device cut out thin wood parts for a toy plane. The majority of [...]

In his line of work, Hackaday reader [Pedantite] often has to monitor the build status of several continuous integration servers throughout the day. One afternoon, he got the idea to install a set of stop lights in the office in order to monitor the status of the servers, but filed it away as a “wouldn’t [...]

How this one missed us, we’ll never know. [GG] built himself a retro-styled Z80 nanocomputer over two years using all 1980′s tech. Laid out on one of the largest pieces of perfboard we’ve ever seen on a project, the computer uses a vintage Z80 CPU running at 2.5MHz, 8K ROM, 16K RAM, RS-232 and Parallel [...]

[Quinn] over at BlondiHacks is admittedly pretty absent-minded when it comes to household chores such as emptying the dishwasher. She often can’t remember if the dishes are dirty or ready to be put away, so she decided it was time to devise a mechanism that would help keep her on task. She originally considered a [...]

[Oneironaut] is trying out a new GPS module with the prototype seen above. It’s a San Jose Navigation device identified as FV-M8 and sold by Sparkfun for just under a hundred bucks. That’s it hanging off the bottom-right of the breadboard seen above. They’ve packed a lot of power into the small footprint, and made [...]

It was only a matter of time before someone would figure out how to weaponize their Kinect. Hacker [Jonas Wagner] was fiddling with his Kinect one day and thought that it would be cool to launch missiles simply by gesturing. Not having any real missiles on hand, he settled for controlling a USB-powered foam missile [...]

This giant printer was originally constructed by [Komponent/LAB] in 2006 to print some large-format banners for a festival, but has recently been pulled out of storage and updated for the Venture Cup competition. The system received a few mechanical and software updates and was also mounted on tripods in order to make it fully portable. [...]

Hackaday forum member [machinelou] says he’s been fascinated with remote controlled hamster balls for quite some time. Inspired by a ball bot he saw on a BBC show, he finally picked up a 12″ plastic ball and got to work. He used a small drill to provide the power required to roll the ball, and [...]

We’ve been following the Retrode since it was an obscure video on YouTube that we swore was an elaborate hoax. Now, [Matthias] tell us it’s getting its third major upgrade, and it is really starting to resemble a commercial project. The video features the new prototype case for the Retrode II, which has been 3d printed. The [...]

Last summer, [Rajendra Bhatt] built himself a simple PIC-based temperature monitor with data logging abilities and recently got around to sharing it on his site. The sensor is based on a PIC12F683 micro controller and measures the ambient temperature on a set interval, storing the values on the MCU’s internal EEPROM. He used a Maxim [...]

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a debilitating disease that eventually causes the afflicted individual to lose all control of their motor functions, while leaving their mental faculties intact. Those suffering from the illness typically live for only a handful of years before succumbing to the disease. On some occasions however, patients can live for long [...]

Hackaday reader [Daid] posted in our forums showing off a set of electronic dice he recently constructed. Back in January, we featured a similar set of electronic dice built with an Arduino that was way overpowered as far as [Daid] was concerned. Not satisfied with simply saying it could be done better, he put his money where his [...]

We love to see Doom ported to new hardware because it usually means that someone has found a way around the manufacturer’s security measures. But the most exciting thing for us to see this time is that Doom II is played on an epaper display. These are notorious for slow refresh rates, but as you can [...]

[Sean] was screwing around online looking for nothing in particular when he came across a mailbox hacked to notify the homeowner when the mail had been delivered. Since his mail is delivered via a slot in the door, he had no use for the hack as is, but something similar soon came to mind. His [...]

That’s exactly what [Kenneth Finnegan] figured out with his original investigation into low powered MSP430-based circuits. He was able to keep a count-up timer running off of 20F worth of capacitors for over 10 weeks. Although quite impressive by its own merit, many people left comments that questioned whether similar results would be seen in [...]

No one should ever make a potato cannon. They are wildly unsafe, powerful, and can easily shatter your neighbor’s gaudy bay window, you know the neighbor with the mean dog. That said, [Jeremy Cook] made a minature bolt action spud gun! Using a custom machined Delrin bolt, a fitted Delrin reducer, and some PVC, the [...]

This is [Pete Dokter], the fourth employee that Sparkfun ever had and currently Director of Engineering there. As you can see, they’re not letting [Peter] come out of his hole. Instead of designing new breakout boards they’ve given him a camera that he’ll be using to record his occasional pontifications. ‘According to Pete’ will become a regularly [...]

HackHut user [lackawanna] is looking to starting his own compost pile, but as many urban composters discover, things can get quite smelly if you don’t manage it properly. The process of composting is broken up into two phases, aerobic and anaerobic decomposition. The former is the first stage to occur and produces plenty of heat, [...]

Take a moment to think about how many old or damaged computer motherboards you have tossed away over the years. Sure we try to repurpose everything we can, but reclaiming electronic components from complex devices can be overly time consuming if you don’t have the proper means of doing so. Ideally, if we were to [...]

Instructables user [MacDynamo] was thinking about home security systems and wondered how much electricity is being wasted while such systems are powered on, but not activated. He pondered it awhile, then designed a circuit that could be used to turn a security system on or off depending on the time of day, but without using [...]

Smart people don’t put their toys away, they build machines to do it for them. Case and point: this NXT project which can sort LEGO pieces. Just dump a bucket of random blocks in a hopper on one end of the machine. One slice at a time, these plastic pieces will be lifted onto a conveyor [...]

[Erik] was looking for a sturdy robotics platform and was initially considering the iRobot Create, until he found that he could score a Roomba Discovery series for a fraction of the price. The Discovery includes a battery, which is missing from the iCreate, though it also has all of the standard vacuum bits included as [...]

[sparkfun] announced a new board called the IOIO (pronounced “yo-yo”) this week that allows communication from your Android devices to your upcoming projects. The board hasn’t been released yet; [sparkfun] is still pulling together documentation and waiting on their first production run. We do know that the board contains a PIC24F MCU, and will give [...]

With Easter quickly approaching, [Kyle] decided to finally build a project that is as tasty as it is wrong. Behold, the Animatronic “Peep” show! Using nearly a dozen marshmallow Peeps, he constructed a stage for his “performers” and a seating area for their “clients”. The structure was built mostly from balsa wood and foamboard, featuring [...]

Here’s a Geiger Counter that makes itself at home inside of an old Ohmmeter (translated). [Anilandro] set out to built this radiation detector in order to learn how they work. Like other diy Geiger Counter builds we’ve seen, this project assembles a circuit to interface with a gas-filled tube which serves as the detector. [Anilandro] [...]

[Jarek Lupinski] is at it again, this time building a clock using 15 Nixie tubes. Just look at the time…. wait, how do you read this now? It’s not seconds since the epoch, but an homage to a very expensive New York City art piece. [Jarek] took his inspiration from the Metronome art installation in [...]

A few years back, [Gio] decided to try his hand at building a couple of tube amplifiers. The first amp was more of an experiment to see how well a DIY single-ended tube amp would sound. The amp is based off the 6T9 design created by Spare Time Gizmos, and incorporates a pair of 6T9 [...]

AVR chips are convenient because you can program them in circuit at their operating voltage. That is, unless you screw up the fuse settings and they’ll no longer listen to an In System Programmer. If you find yourself facing this problem, just build this circuit on a breadboard and ‘unbrick’ by holding down the button. [...]

[BiOzZ] wanted to try a different keyboard layout than the ubiquitous Qwerty, so he grabbed an old keyboard and converted it to the Dvorak setup. This was accomplished by first popping off all of the keys from the black keyboard seen above, and boy did he find a mess underneath. It was nothing that a [...]

In search of a perfectly-cooked brisket, [Aaron] recently completed this DIY  PID-controlled sous-vide slow cooker. Sous-vide (French for “under vacuum”) is a cooking technique in which foods are typically vacuum-sealed and then cooked in a relatively low temperature water bath for an extended period of time. This is done to minimize temperature gradients throughout the [...]

Hackaday forum member [azazelcrey] recently wrote in to share his portable Xbox 360 build. This is not his first attempt at constructing one of these, as he completed his first portable console a few years back. This time, he has taken what he learned from the first go round, making his newest creation a bit [...]

If you have visited a hospital any time recently, you probably noticed quite a few automated hand sanitizer dispensers scattered throughout the hallways and in each patient’s room. Since hospital-acquired infections are a growing problem, there has been a push for all personnel to use these hand sanitizers regularly to lessen the likelihood of spreading [...]

The first specs we look at when choosing a cellphone are the battery life numbers. We know that eventually we’re going to see performance loss, and [Dr. West] wanted to see if there’s a way to delay the inevitable. What he found is that ambient temperature affects the battery throughout its life. He set out to [...]