Another homebrew Segway clone comes in at under $300

March 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[Matt Turner] tipped us off back in January about his homemade Segway project. Unfortunately that message slipped through the cracks but we’re glad he sent in a reminder after reading Friday’s feature an a different 2-wheeled balancer.

We like it that he refers to this project as being on the budget of a graduate student with a young family. We certainly understand where he’s coming from, and we hope he can ride this to job interviews to show them he truly lives engineering. The control circuitry is a bit higher-end than we’re used to seeing. He chose a Cypress CY8C29466 SoC to control the device. But the sensors are a common choice, using the Wii Motion Plus and Wii Nunchuk for the gyroscope and accelerometer they contain. This is a no-brainer since the sensors are high-quality, cheap and available locally, and communicate of the standard I2C protocol.

When looking for motors [Matt] was happy to find an old electric wheelchair on Craig’s List. This also gave him a gear box, wheels, and tires. He added a pair of motor drivers, with his own alterations to suppress feedback. Sounds like they run a little hot because he plans to add cooling fans to them in the future. But this first iteration is up and running quite well as you can see in the clip after the break.

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Self-balancing transport is Arduino-controlled

March 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[Nick Thatcher] has built several iterations of a homebrew Segway, and the latest version is very impressive. When developing the project he figured there was just no way the thing would ever work, which led to its name, the No-way.

After the break you can catch a video of [Nick’s] test-ride. Looks like the two-wheeler is ready for daily use. You can just make out a red kill-switch on the right side of the polycarbonate body. This lets you disconnect the power if things get out of hand, or just when you’re done riding it. But there is also a dead-man’s switch which we believe uses two sensors where your feet go on the enclosure’s top surface. The handle has some indicator lights built into it, as well as buttons under each thumb which are used for steering. Control circuitry includes an Arduino UNO which reads a gyroscope/accelerometer sensor board from SparkFun. Two 7.2 Ah batteries provide 24V for the pair of electric scooter motors that turn the wheel-barrow wheels.

We love looking at these Segway clone project. So if you’re working on one of your own don’t forget to document your progress!

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Hard resetting your Ford Touch system the easy way

March 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

ford-sync-reset

[Jeff Clymer] owns a Ford Focus, and while he’s generally happy with the car, the “My Ford Touch/Sync” system can be buggy at times. He spends a lot of time in the car each day, so when the entertainment center locks up as it is frequently known to do, he has to turn off the car and pull a fuse to reset the system. Since pulling a fuse while on the road is pretty impractical, he decided to install a reset button, making system reboots a breeze.

He started by disassembling various fuses until he found one with an easy to remove fusible link. Once it was in pieces, he soldered a pair of wires to the fuse terminals and connected everything to a normally closed momentary pushbutton switch. After adding an inline fuse holder and reinserting the original fuse, he installed the button into the back of his glove box

Now instead of physically removing the fuse each time his stereo locks up, he can simply push a button and be on his way. Here’s hoping a software fix is coming for [Jeff’s] car sooner rather than later!

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Sensor rig finds out if motorists are sharing the road with cyclists

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Apparently there’s some cause for concern when it comes to bikes and automobiles sharing the roads in Austin, Texas. [Christopher Stanton] wrote in to tell us there’s a law on the books now that requires motorists to give three feet of space when passing a cyclist. This is pretty difficult to enforce as there’s no solid proof like the radar gun provides when it comes to speed limits. The hardware above is seeking to help by collecting data on passing habits. It measures and records the distance of each vehicle that passes you while on the bike. The goal isn’t to ticket more drivers, it’s to collect statistical data that might help change dangerous driving habits.

As you can see, a front equipment rack hosts the hardware for easy installation on a bike. It has an arm that extends to the side the same distance as the handle bars. The HD camera with wide-angle lens is set to snap a photo which can be used to determine the bike and vehicle positions in the lanes, along with the distance readout from the sensor.

We’d certainly be interested in seeing the numbers for average passing clearance in a heavily traveled urban environment. Even with bike lanes, things can feel pretty tight on a busy day!

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Motorcycle engine hack like having an old F1 between your legs

February 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The difficulty of rolling a 16-cylinder engine into a motorcycle really boggles the mind. But that’s exactly what [Andreas Georgeades] is doing in his garage. It’s two straight-8 engines sandwiched on top of one another with a custom crankcase connecting them. And get this, those custom parts are being milled by hand, using time-tested techniques rather than modern computer assistance.

So, where does the complexity come in? Well first of all you’ve got to solve all of the problems that go along with combining two engines. It sounds like this isn’t a new concept, as older generations of Formula 1 engines used the technique. But we still think it’s the pinnacle of hardcore when it’s an enthusiast undertaking the challenge. Then there’s the issue of weight. The engine is bulky, but needs to balance in the frame. And you still must find a way for the rider to sit on the thing (even the most bow-legged of people won’t be able to get their hips around the thing).

Seems like something out of a Mario Kart game that should have no chance of being roadworthy. But we’re sure [Andreas] is going to prove us wrong.

[Thanks Th3BadWolf]

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Adding footwell and glove box lights to your ride

February 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[KonaStar] shows us that adding some light to you car interior isn’t very hard. It’s just a matter finding some unused space and routing the cables so that they’re out of sight. Here he’s added LED lighting to the footwells and glove box of his car.

He managed to find some depressions in the molded dashboard of the car which were just the right size for a small four-lead LED. He drilled holes for those leads, and soldered some protoboard to them on the inside of the dash. This way there’s nothing unfinished to catch your eye, and the protoboard provides an area to host the resistor and interconnect.

There are switches in the glove boxes that turn the lights off when closed. These work for the footwells too. In addition, the LED lighting harness is wired to the parking lights so they will not come on when the car’s lights are off. Because he started with a lighting harness intended to add ambient light to a vehicle, the system responds to the doors being opened as well.

It’s a nice addition if you don’t mind pulling out several pieces of your interior during the install. We’re more comfortable with something along the lines of this turn signal hack.

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