[Dimitris] decided to build a homemade alarm system, but instead of triggering a siren, sending an SMS message, or Tweeting about an intrusion, he preferred that his system call him when there was trouble afoot. He says that he preferred a call over text messaging because there are no charges associated with the call if …
This marriage proposal is the best PCB design ever
While you will often see hacks on this site that feature high voltage, fire, and metal, that doesn’t mean that hackers, makers, and electronics geeks don’t have a soft side. In fact, we find the opposite to be true the vast majority of the time. Take for instance [Bill Porter]. You may have seen his …
Broken vintage record player reborn as a portable MP3 cabinet
[Julian] picked up an old record player that was sitting in somebody’s trash pile, and brought it home to see if it could be restored to working order. When he got it home he discovered that it didn’t work at all, so he and his wife decided to modernize it a bit. In an effort …
Light up your workshop with this arcade button light switch
[Pete Mills] was browsing around online when he came across an arcade button light switch and immediately wanted one. He didn’t however want to pay the $35 asking price for the switch, so he decided to build it himself. He says that his solitary arcade machine doesn’t warrant its own room, so he figured he …
Need something in a pinch? SparkFun products now at Micro Center
If you happen to live near a Micro Center retail store, you are now lucky enough to have another choice when it comes to purchasing DIY electronics components – SparkFun is selling their products at all Micro Center retail outlets. While it seems SparkFun announced this change in June, we’re seeing quite a bit of …
Matchbox-sized line following robot
While they are not nearly as complex as their self-navigating brethren, building line following robots is no simple task, especially when they are this small. The creation of [Ond?ej Stan?k], this matchbox-sized line following robot is quite impressive. PocketBot’s 48mm x 32mm circuit board also acts as its frame, supporting the wheels, motors, microcontroller and …
Hybrid control scheme using an Xbox game pad and Kinect
The Kinect is an interesting beast. On one hand, it’s fantastic for hacking – a purpose for which it was not designed. On the other hand, it’s “just OK” when it comes to gaming – its entire reason for being. One of the big complaints regarding the Kinect’s control scheme is that it’s no good …
Fallout brought to life with this working PIP-Boy 3000
[MyMagicPudding] wanted to try his hand at hobby electronics, so he decided to go all-in and build himself a PIP-Boy 3000. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, the PIP-Boy 3000 is a wrist-mounted computer from the popular Fallout video game series. The PIP-Boy is based around an HTC Desire HD mobile phone, which [MyMagicPudding] …
La Crosse weather station wireless data acquisition
Hackaday reader [equinoxefr] posted some images to our flickr pool showing off some modifications he made (Google Translation) to his La Crosse WS2305 weather station. Having built other router-based weather stations in the past, [equinoxefr] was looking for a better way to gather weather data after one of the routers gave up the ghost. With a brand …
Simple transistor tester makes sorting easy
Hacker [Dino Segovis] is back with yet another installment of his Hack a Week series, and it’s looking like he isn’t too worse for wear after hunkering down to face hurricane Irene. This week, it seems that [Dino] is having some problems separating his PNP transistors from his NPNs. After Albert Einstein proves to be …
