Collaborate Disseminate
Here at Hackaday, our aim is to bring you only the freshest of hacks, which carries the burden of being Johnny-on-the-spot with our source material. So if something of obvious …read more Continue reading Retrotechtacular: A Closer Look at the VT Proximity Fuze
You’ve got to love a language like German, where not only is it possible for a word or two to stand in for a complex concept, but you don’t even …read more Continue reading Sneeze Into Your Hand, not Your Elbow With This Nose-Shaped Sanitizer Dispenser
We’re all pretty well-acquainted with the obstacle avoiding robot. These little inventions use a proximity sensor to detect an object in front of the robot, then circumvent the object accordingly. Brown Dog Gadgets’ little robot really caught our eye, mostly because it’s kind of cute.
This little robot combines a …read more
Continue reading Maybe One Of The Most Adorable Obstacle Avoiding Robots You’ve Seen
“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”? How we wonder why you’d resort to singing a ditty to time your handwashing when you can use your social isolation time to build a touch-free electronic handwash timer that the kids — and you — might actually use.
Over the last few months, pretty much …read more
Continue reading Handwashing Timer Makes Sure the Suds Stay On Long Enough
Despite appearances, [This Old Tony]’s latest series has little to do with CNC-ifying an Etch A Sketch. Although he certainly achieves that, more or less, automating the classic toy is just the hook for a thorough lesson in CNC machine building starting with the basics.
Fair warning: we said basics, and we mean it. [Old Tony]’s intended audience is those who haven’t made the leap into a CNC build yet and need the big picture. Part one concentrates on the hardware involved – the steppers, drivers, and controller. He starts with one of those all-in-one eBay packages, although he did …read more
Continue reading The Complete Beginner’s Guide To Building A CNC Machine
When [John Saunders] wanted an automatic door for his shop, rather than settle for a commercial unit, he designed and built a proximity-sensing opener to ease his passing. Sounds simple, right?
Fortunately for us, there are no half-measures at Saunders Machine Works, thanks to the multiple Tormach workcells and the people who know how to use them. The video below treats us to quite a build as a result; the first part is heavy on machining the many parts for the opener, so skip ahead to 8:33 if you’re more interested in the control electronics and programming.
The opener uses …read more
Continue reading Touchless Shop Doors Over-Engineered to a Blissful Level
The best thing about owning a 3D printer or CNC router may not just be what you can additively or subtractively create with it. With a little imagination you can turn your machine into a 3D scanner, and using capacitive sensors to image items turns out to be an interesting project.
[Nelson]’s scanner idea came from fiddling with some capacitive sensors at work, and with a high-resolution capacitance-to-digital sensor chip in hand, he set about building a scan head for his printer. In differential mode, the FDC2212 sensor chip uses an external LC tank circuit with two plain sensor plates …read more
Continue reading Custom Sensor Head Turns 3D Printer into Capacitive Scanner
An essential skill for a maker is the ability to improvise or re-purpose existing materials into new parts. Sometimes, one needn’t make many modifications to create something new, as is the case with [Robin Sterling] and his musical pet bowl.
Originally, it was a sealed pet bowl that opened when the proximity sensors detected an approaching pet. Having helped design the bowl, [Sterling] had a bit of an advantage when he decided to convert it into a theremin/light harp-esque instrument for the company BBQ. He routed the PWM outputs from each of the three proximity sensors (in each of the …read more
