You can use all kinds of numbers and rating systems to determine whether the air quality in a given room is good, bad, or somewhere in between. Or, like [Makestreme], you could go for a more human visual interface. He’s built a air quality monitor that conveys its information via facial expressions on a small […]
The Universal Serial Bus. The one bus to rule them all. It brought peace and stability to the world of computer peripherals. No more would Apple and PC users have to buy their own special keyboards, mice, and printers. No more would computers sprout different ports for different types of hardware. USB was fast enough and […]
Quadcopters are flying machines. Traditionally, that would mean you’d optimize the design for lightweight and minimum drag, and you’d do everything in a neat and tidy fashion. The thing is, brushless motors and lithium batteries are so power-dense that you really needn’t try so hard. A great example of that is this barebones quadcopter build […]
[Zen Garden Oasis] wanted to heat and light a space using a candle. But candles aren’t always convenient since they burn down and, eventually, you must replace them. So he built copper candles using a common copper pipe and an old glass jar. Of course, the candle still takes fuel that you have to replace, […]
VFDs — vacuum fluorescent displays — have a distinctive look, and [Anthony Francis-Jones] is generally fascinated with retro displays. So, it makes sense that he’d build a VFD project as an excuse to explain how they work. You can see the video below. VFDs are almost miniature CRTs. They are very flexible in what they […]
Which would you rather feel? The blast of a fire hose, or a cool, digital rain? That’s what we thought. Introducing Blue Rain — the fire hose that is the BlueSky feed, falling semi-cryptically down your screen in Matrix-style letter droplets. Ahh, isn’t that nice? Now, the rain doesn’t have to be blue. You can […]
Back in the 1980s, a viable modem cost hundreds of dollars. Even in the 1990s, you were looking at spending a a Benjamin or two to get computer squawking down the phone lines. According to [Cameron Kaiser], though, it’s possible to whip up a softmodem using a Commodore 64 for much cheaper than that. How […]
Touch screen head units are pretty much the norm these days. Many compromise with annoying on-screen volume controls or tiny buttons. If you find yourself with such a unit, you might like to hack in a real volume knob. [Daniel Ross] shows us how to do just that. The build uses an ATMega328 as the […]
You have a project that needs something to move. Should you use a stepper motor or a servo motor? [Matthias] has an opinion, and you can hear his thoughts in the video below. One tip we’ll take away from the video: when working with motors, shoot some high-frame-rate video and slow it down to see […]