Author Archives: Cameron Coward

Unusual 72-Bulb Display Mechanism Found in Vintage Clock

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It’s hard to beat a vintage clock for something that you can hack, and that your significant other might actually let you display in your home. It’s practical and it’s art all at the same time! But, finding that perfect vintage clock for restoration can be a bit tricky. A crowd favorite is to choose something with intricate mechanisms and gears — the motion of a mechanical display is just so fascinating.

[Gavin] managed to find a clock that is every bit as interesting without any moving parts. The clock uses a unique system of bulbs and screen masks to …read more

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Unusual 72-Bulb Display Mechanism Found in Vintage Clock

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It’s hard to beat a vintage clock for something that you can hack, and that your significant other might actually let you display in your home. It’s practical and it’s art all at the same time! But, finding that perfect vintage clock for restoration can be a bit tricky. A crowd favorite is to choose something with intricate mechanisms and gears — the motion of a mechanical display is just so fascinating.

[Gavin] managed to find a clock that is every bit as interesting without any moving parts. The clock uses a unique system of bulbs and screen masks to …read more

Continue reading Unusual 72-Bulb Display Mechanism Found in Vintage Clock→

The Prettiest Darn Arcade Cabinet You’ll See Today

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We see an awful lot of arcade cabinets around here, and so it’s pretty unusual for a build to get much more than a second glance. But, this beauty is just too good not to mention. The entire build, named “Ready Player One” as a nod to the engrossing Ernest Cline novel, is detailed in [scoodidabop’s] post on Reddit.

While it’s pretty enough that we would have made this post on aesthetics alone, the features really seal the deal. It has a complete set of fully RGB LED lit controls for up to four players, allowing you to play virtually …read more

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This NES Emulator Build Lets You Use Cartridges to Play Games

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You may not remember this, but Nintendo hardware used to be a pretty big deal. The original Game Boy and NES both had remarkable industrial design that, like the Apple II and IBM Thinkpad, weren’t quite appreciated until many years after production ended. But, like many of you, [draftmike] had nostalgia-fueled memories of the NES experience still safely locked away.

Memories like lifting the cartridge door, blowing on the cartridge, and the feel of the cartridge clicking into place. So, understandably, reliving those experiences was a key part of [draftmike’s] Raspberry Pi-based NES build, though at 40% of the original …read more

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Oscillating Pneumatic Mechanism Doesn’t Need a Purpose

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It’s true that a lot of the projects we feature here (and build ourselves) are created to accomplish some sort of goal. But, many times the project itself is the goal. That’s the case with [Proto_G’s] self-oscillating pneumatic machine, which he built with no particular use in mind.

[Proto_G] started this project simply as an engineering exercise; he just wanted to see if he could make it work. That’s the kind of spirit we find very admirable — not every project needs to be the culmination of your life’s work. Sometimes, just doing the thing is motivation enough.

Like any …read more

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Get Subpixel Printing With a DLP 3D Printer

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A DLP 3D printer works by shining light into a vat of photosensitive polymer using a Digital Light Processing projector, curing a thin layer of the goo until a solid part has been built up. Generally, the resolution of the print is determined by the resolution of the projector, and by the composition of the polymer itself. But, a technique posted by Autodesk for their Ember DLP 3D Printer could allow you to essentially anti-alias your print, further increasing the effective resolution.

The technique works by using grayscale anti-aliasing on the image projected for each layer. The dimmer gray light …read more

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Have a Laser Cutter? He’s a Cool Combination Lock Box You Can Build!

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Laser-cut plywood boxes are cool. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the free projects out there for people to get started with when they get a laser cutter – it’s obviously a popular genre of project. Laser cut plywood boxes with combination locks are even cooler, especially when the combination is entered on four separate number selectors, on four sides of the very same box.

That’s exactly what [Sande24] has done, and the final result is mesmerizing. 30-40 parts are cut from plywood with a laser cutter, and assembled to construct the lockbox. The design could easily be reused …read more

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What It’s Like to Quit Your Job and Start a Company – Then Fail

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Some of our more dedicated readers may remember me as that promising and talented new writer who disappeared after only a couple of months last fall. Or, alternatively, that moronic new writer who had no idea what he was talking about. But, I’m just going to go ahead and assume it was the former in order to protect my ego. In either case, if you remember me at all, you may have wondered why I left. Was it cholera? Was I drafted into a top-secret CIA program? Did I join a circus as a fledgling trapeze artist?

No, it was …read more

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It’s Not a Bridge, and Not a Tunnel. Or, Maybe it’s Both?

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The gist of the idea is to suspend an underwater tunnel from floating pontoons. By the time you finished reading that sentence, you probably already had a list of things in your head that seem to make this a terrible idea. After all, it does seem to combine the worst aspects of both underwater tunnels and bridges. But, the idea may actually be a good one, and it’s already being seriously considered in Norway.

You see, Norwegians have a fairly serious obstacle to long distance travel: fjords. The tradition way to cross a fjord is by ferry. One simply can’t …read more

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Ever Buy Music From Apple? Use Linux? You Need This Tool

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Sure, you’re a hardcore superuser, but that doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy the finer things in life — like shiny squircles and getting every new app first. But, what’s an OS-indiscriminate person like yourself going to do when it comes time to purchase music? That’s where the recover_itunes tool shines, and if you’re a Linux user with an iPhone, it might just be your new best friend.

iPhones and other Apple products work great when you’ve purchased music from iTunes, but can be a headache when your music comes from other sources. On the other hand, music purchased from iTunes …read more

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