It’s taken longer than some might have thought, but we’re finally at the point where you can pick up an SLA 3D printer for a few hundred bucks. These machines, which use light to cure a resin, are capable of far higher resolution than their more common FDM counterparts, though they do bring along their […]
LED cubes are all the rage right now, and rightly so given the amount of work that goes into them and the interesting things people find to do with them. Not content to make yet another position-sensitive display or an abstract design, though, [Greig Stewart] opted for something a bit more ambitious: an LED cube […]
On the Hackaday.io page for his gorgeous “Sunrise Alarm Clock”, [The Big One] is quick to point out that his design is only inspired by Japanese lanterns, and does not use authentic materials or traditional woodworking techniques. Perhaps that’s an important fact to some, but we’ll just say that the materials used seem far less […]
Sometimes a clever hack of an off-the-shelf product can come courtesy of its dismantling and hardware modification, but at other times the most elegant of hacks can be made without ever turning a screwdriver. [Brian Lough] was given the request by a friend to replicate a commercial child’s night light that changed colour with temperature, […]
Over the years we’ve seen countless ways of displaying the current time, and judging by how many new clock projects that hit the tip line, it seems as though there’s no end in sight. Not that we’re complaining, of course. The latest entry into the pantheon of unusual timepieces is this ESP32-powered desk clock from […]
Persistence of Vision (POV) is a curious part of the human visual system. It’s the effect by which the perception of an image lingers after light has stopped entering the eye. It’s why a spinning propeller appears as a disc, and why a burning sparkler appears to leave a trail in the air. It’s also […]
In an era where we can see the current temperature with just a glance at our smartphones, the classic “Time and Temp” gadget sitting on the desk doesn’t have quite the same appeal. The modern weather fanatic demands more data, which is where this gorgeous full-day temperature display from [Richard] comes in. The display, built […]
What’s the weirdest computer you can think of? This one’s weirder. [Dr. Cockroach] figured out a way to create an inverting NOT gate from just one LED and two resistors (one being a photo-resistor). The Dr. has since built AND, NAND, OR, NOR, XOR and XNOR gates, as well as a buffer, incorporating light into […]
The humble lamp is a common build for a hacker looking to express themselves creatively. Often, nature can serve as an inspiration, as was the case for [Michael Pick]’s Storm Cloud. (Video, embedded below.) Electronically, the build is straightforward, consisting of an Arduino Uno, an MP3 shield, and a string of WS2801 LEDs. These are […]
Light painting has long graced the portfolios of long-exposure photographers, but high resolution isn’t usually possible when you’re light painting with human subjects. This weekend project from [Timmo] uses an ESP8266-based microcontroller and an addressable WS2812-based LED strip to paint words or custom images in thin air. It’s actually based on the Pixelstick, a tool […]