Old Chainsaw Repurposed For Kitchen Use

There are many ways to keep critical appliances running during a power outage. Maybe a UPS for a computer, a set of solar panels to charge your phone, or even a generator to keep your refrigerator or air conditioning working. This modification to a standard blender will also let you …read more

Continue reading Old Chainsaw Repurposed For Kitchen Use

Retrotechtacular: Making Chains

We take the everyday materials of engineering for granted, as ubiquitous components rather than as complex items in their own right. Sure, we know that an integrated circuit represents the pinnacle of a hundred years’ development in the field of electronics, but to us it’s simply a black box with …read more

Continue reading Retrotechtacular: Making Chains

Steampunk-Inspired Art Clock!

Getting paid to do what you enjoy is a special treat. A machinist and fabricator by trade — hobbyist hacker by design — [spdltd] was commissioned to build a mechanical art installation with a steampunk twist. Having complete creative control, he convinced his client to let him make something useful: a giant electro-mechanical clock.

Pieced together from copper, brass, steel, aluminium, and stainless steel, this outlandish design uses an Arduino Yun — a combination Linux and Arduino microcontroller board — to control the stepper motor and query the internet for the local time. Upon boot, the clock auto-calibrates by rotating …read more

Continue reading Steampunk-Inspired Art Clock!