Collaborate Disseminate
Power tool batteries are a convenient portable power supply for all manner of different things. [Zachary Goode] noticed that Ryobi was using them to power soldering irons, but no such …read more Continue reading Portable Soldering Station Runs On Drill Batteries
Sometimes, you move to a new city, and things just aren’t going your way. You’re out of cash, out of energy, and thanks to your own foolishness, your car’s battery is dead. You need to jump-start the car, but you’re feeling remarkably antisocial, and you don’t know anyone else in town you can call. What do you do?
It’s not a problem, because you’re a hacker and you have a cordless drill in the back seat of your car. The average drill of today tends to run on a nice 18 volt lithium battery pack. These packs are capable of …read more
Guitar pedals are a great way to experiment with the sound of your instrument. However, they require electricity, and when you’re using more than a couple, it can get messy. Some will run on batteries, while others are thirstier for more current and will only work with a plugback. There are a great many solutions out there, but most people with more than a few pedals to power will end up going to some kind of mains powered solution. [Don] is here to show us that it’s not the only way.
Mains power is great for some things, but where …read more
Continue reading Power Your Guitar Pedals With Drill Batteries
Imagine trying to make a ball-shaped robot that rolls in any direction but with a head that stays on. When I saw the BB-8 droid doing just that in the first Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, it was an interesting engineering challenge that I couldn’t resist. All the details for how I made it would fill a book, so here are the highlights: the problems I ran into, how I solved them and what I learned.
I had two design criteria in mind. The first was to keep it low-cost. Some spend $1000 …read more
Continue reading My DIY BB-8: Problems, Solutions, Lessons Learned