Cardboard framed tricopter

March 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Talk about reducing the costs of a build, this tricopter uses cardboard as a frame and has one less motor than its quadcopter relatives. There are almost no details other than those shared in the video after the break so we’re just going to guess based on what we see (feel free to share your own insight in the comments).

The smooth curves of this integrated landing pad makes us thing the frame was cut either with a CNC device or a utility-knife wielding ninja. Two of the three motor supports look just like what is shown above, but the third has a hinged mounting bracket attached to a servo motor. This way the propeller can be tilted around an axis running parallel to the support arm. We’d bet this feature is mainly for adjusting the yaw of the aircraft.

The video comments mention that this can hover when the throttle is at 45%, showing that there’s a lot lift available when needed. That is until you really weigh it down by adding plastic cages around the propellers. It’s kind of neat to see the thing ‘sticking’ to the ceiling at the end of that clip by driving the throttle wide open and using the cages as top-sided landing gear.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: misc hacks Tagged With: , ,

Electric poncho keeps you warm on the go

March 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

electric-poncho

With the mild winter and spring we have had, it might seem strange to think about ways to keep yourself warm, but there’s no better time than the present to prepare for chilly weather down the line.

In his blog [Berto] was thinking about how to keep warm when things cool off again, and decided that a heated poncho would be great to have on hand. He found a dead simple way to craft his heated poncho, requiring little more than a bit of wiring, some thread and cloth, as well as a pair of scissors.

[Berto] picked up a 12V-powered electric blanked, then proceeded to cut a head-sized slit in the middle of it, avoiding the heating coils. He sewed a bit of cloth around the hole to ensure it didn’t end up ripping over time, then he wired the blanket up to a 12V battery he tucked away in his backpack.

The result is a variable-temp poncho that you can use to keep warm in a variety of situations. [Alan Parekh] from Hacked Gadgets says that he thinks the poncho would be awesome on a full-day snowmobiling trip, and we think he’s right!

Continue reading to see a short video where [Berto] explains how to put one of these heated ponchos together.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: misc hacks, wearable hacks Tagged With: , ,

[Ian] shops Seoul, South Korea

March 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

We don’t get a chance to shop some of the cooler electronic component shops here in the States, much less hop on a plane and experience the Hacker’s Disneyland that are the Asian markets. So we’re glad to live vicariously through Hackaday alum [Ian Lesnet’s] adventures. This time around he’s combed through Seoul, South Korea’s electronics markets. That link will take you to the roundup of about a dozen posts he published during his recent trip.

The image above is a screenshot from one of the videos he made of the experience. After the break you can watch him put on the tour-guide hat. We think he did a great job of explaining the experience and showing off what the market is like without letting the video drag on. The shops mostly offer a window display with all of the components they sell. To make a purchase you just window shop, then go inside and they will pull out an order for you from bulk bags stored on floor-to-ceiling shelves. [Ian] also makes a stop at the local Hackerspace where they show off some of their 3D printer builds.

This is not the first time he’s given us a tour like this, go check out his Akihabara trip if you missed it before. He’s also planning to meet up with the Seeed Studio folks to tour the shops in Shenzhen next month. [Read more…]

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Increasing a digital servo motor's range of motion

March 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Unhappy with the 120 degree range of movement for this digital servo motor [Malte] set out to expand its flexibility. He settled upon a hack that alters the feedback potentiometer in order to give the motor a wider range (translated).

The test video (embedded after the break) shows tick marks for before and after his alterations. You can see that the wider tick marks get much closer to the 180 degree range he’s interested in. The control method is no different than it was before, the internal circuitry is still listening for a control signal with pulses between 1 and 2ms to establish the position of the servo horn. [Malte] added resistors on the two outside legs of the feedback potentiometer. This is what that control circuit measures in order to judge the position of the servo horn. He’s using 1.6k Ohm resistors in this demonstration. But he didn’t just drop them in willy-nilly. His writeup discusses the calculations he used to determine the target voltage for the motor position he wants.

[Read more…]

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An inside look on how reed switches are manufactured

March 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

reed-switch

[York] wrote in to share a video he stumbled across while researching reed switches and relays, which documents the tightly controlled process through which they are produced. Like many other electronic components out there, we usually don’t give a lot of thought to how they are made, especially when the final cost is relatively small.

For something often taken for granted, the process is an incredibly precise one, requiring a clean room environment the entire way through. The video follows the production line from beginning to end, including the soft annealing of the contacts to remove magnetic remanence, the sputtering process that applies sub-micron thick conductive coatings to the contacts, through the laser cutting and sealing of the glass tubes that make up the body of the switch.

At the end of the day, the video is little more than a manufacturer’s promotional video, but it’s worth the 8 minutes it takes to watch it, if only to satisfy your curiosity as to how they are made.

[Read more…]

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"Machining" copper parts using Cupric Chloride

March 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[Ben Ardwin] was asked by a friend to help fix an old motor. It needed a new set of brushes. They’re just thin pieces of copper that mount on the motor housing and contact the commutator. The metal is so thin he thought he’d try fabricating replacements by dissolving copper stock.

This is not copper clad board; the raw material used in PCBs that has a copper-covered fiberglass substrate. It’s just thin sheets of copper stock. [Ben] started by covering top and bottom with painter’s tape. This will act as a resist for the chemical etchant. He headed over to the laser cutter to remove the tape mask around the outline of the parts. From there it’s into the Cupric Chloride for about two hours.

The etched parts are a bit rough around the edges so he cleaned them up by hand using a file. When writing to us about the process he suggests a few improvements. The tape used for masking wasn’t ideal and he would try a different method. He would also remove less area around the parts to help speed up the process.

This technique is a really becoming popular as a home-fabrication tool. Recently we’ve seen etched copper used to make a faceplate for an enclosure, and a translucent template for a clock.

Filed Under: misc hacks Tagged With: , , ,
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