Author Archives: Jamie Navarro

Go Go Camera Slider

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Are your arms getting tired from pushing your camera back and forth across your camera slider? That must be the case with [Max Maker], which led him to convert his manual slider into a motorized one.

The electronics are minimal — an Arduino Micro, a few toggle switches, A4988 Stepper Driver, 12V battery pack, and the ever popular NEMA 17 stepper motor. If you’re wondering why we said ‘switches’ instead of ‘switch’, it’s because 4 of the switches are used to select a time frame. The time frame being how long it takes for the slider to move from one …read more

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A Cold Press Juicer For the Price of a Few Trips to Jamba Juice

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Do you enjoy drinking juice but hate the cleanup after making it? Yeah, we do too. So does [Max Maker], which led to the design and birth of the $40 cold-press juicer. If you’ve been thinking about buying a juicer but the cost has been keeping you from pulling the trigger, you should definitely check it out. This build will save you some serious cash and looks relatively simple to replicate.

[Max] designed this juice press while keeping us common folk in mind who don’t have expensive tools in our humble garage or workshop. For example, to make the tray, …read more

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Giving a Camera Mount a Little (Magnetic) Attractiveness

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It’s probably safe to say that most hackers and makers don’t really want to fuss around with the details of making video documentation of their work. They would rather spend their time and energy on the actual project at hand…you know — the fun stuff.

[Robert Baruch] has been wanting more mounting options for his camera mount to make it easier and quicker to set up.  One end of his existing camera mount is a clamp. This has been working for [Robert] so far, but he wanted more options. Realizing that he has plenty of ferrous metal surfaces around his …read more

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ESP8266 MQTT Remote Gate Entry

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Do you live in an area where you (or your car) are locked in by a gate? If so, you may know how [Alexander Else] feels about letting his guests in and out constantly with a remote control — it’s just not convenient. [Alexander] could have just purchased some extra remote controls and passed them out, but they aren’t exactly as cheap as party favors. Not to mention it wouldn’t make sense to hand one out to every single visitor anyway. Because the gate is a community gate, hacking the actual gate system was not an option. There was only …read more

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Ever hear of the Ford Cylon?

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OK, we haven’t heard of a Ford Cylon either. However, there is now a Mustang Cobra out there that has been given a famous Cylon characteristic. [Monta Elkins] picked himself up an aftermarket third brake light assembly, hacked it, and installed it on said Mustang.

The brake light assembly contains 12 LEDs, which unfortunately, are not individually addressable. Additionally, by the looks of it, the brake light housing was not meant to be opened up. That didn’t get [Monta] down though. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, but he chose to use a hot knife to open …read more

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Light a Fire Under Your…Skateboard?

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Kids, please don’t try this at home. Or at least make sure there’s nothing flammable around.

With that out of the way, we have to ask — who doesn’t love playing with fire? We’re betting that many of you also have enjoyed a little skateboarding at some point in your lives. [mikeasaurus] has married the two beloved activities and made a flame throwing skateboard! The parts count is fairly low, and it looks like everything can be purchased from Amazon if you can’t source all of the items locally.

[mikeasaurus] gives a few useful tips such as how he bent …read more

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Keep the Burglars Away With Some Pi

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Ten years ago, we never imagined we would be able to ward off burglars with Pi. However, that is exactly what [Nick] is doing with his Raspberry Pi home security system.

We like how, instead of using a standard siren, [Nick] utilized his existing stereo system to play a custom audio file that he created. (Oh the possibilities!) How many off the shelf alarm systems can you do that with?

The Pi is the brains of the operation, running an open source software program called Home Assistant. If any of the Z-Wave sensors in his house are triggered while the …read more

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Honey, When Did We Get an Indoor Pool?

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Is it too much to ask for a home to have a little ‘smart’ built-in? If you’ve ever woken up (or come home) to your dwelling being flooded, you’ll know how terrible it feels, how long it can take to recover from, and how stressful it can be. Yeah, it’s happened to us before, so we really feel for [David Schneider]. He woke up one Sunday morning to a whole lot of water in his house. The inlet valve for his washing machine somehow got stuck in the open position after putting a load of laundry in the previous …read more

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