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DIY Warriors Saluted And Sought
WaveDave writes "I have found some really inspiring pages out there by folks who are hacking together amazingly cool low-cost hardware/software/etc projects (reminiscent of the old homebrew computer club days). With the cost of IC's, sensors, microcontrollers, and PC's falling through the floor, we've entered a time where the barriers to entry on hacking neat projects are lower than they've ever been. There are a lot of indicators of the excitement in these projects, including the recent announcement of the upcoming Make Magazine from O'Reilly. Initially blown away by Matthias Wandel's projects, I've begun to put together a small collection of links to other creative DIY-ers out there, as well as resources for finding parts, getting stuff made (like PCB's and machined stuff). My current list is here - what are some of your favorite creatives and resources?"
In the past the access to information on how to go about doing this was much more difficult and not all libaries or regeons had that information availible. Since the birth of the internet and it becoming amazingly popular the information has become much more accessible. That is also one the major reasons why there has been a fairly large explosion in the amount of "hackers" out there doing cool things with hardware/software and thier self esteem.
Hold on, you 'first posted' an article about DIY without mentioning duct tape!? And you call yourself a geek...
In terms of DIY, not many people can beat that guy
Maybe I should submit my bookmarks too to slashdot for publications ?
I mean, I got 2000 bookmarks, mostly sorted, I'm sure one can find some nice gadgets there too.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
you can add to your page include:
Creative people and projects:
- http://www.diyaudio.com/ (DIY audio equipment forum)
- http://sound.westhost.com/projects.htm (audio stuff schematics)
- http://headwize.com/projects/index.htm (DIY headphone stuff)
- http://www.hauptwerk.co.uk/pedalboard.html (DIY MIDI pedalboards, just add keyboards and software and you have a MIDI organ)
- http://www.diysubwoofers.org/ (what it says)
- http://www.plasmatweeter.de/eng_plasma.htm (DIY ionic tweeter)
Places to buy stuff:
- http://www.newark.com/ (major electronics retailer)
- http://www.mouser.com/ (major electronics retailer)
- http://www.tubesandmore.com/ (components for vintage electronics)
Getting stuff made:
- http://www.olimex.com/ (cheap PCBs)
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Troll ? What ? You must mean the /. article ..
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Just remember people, there truely is no such thing as an Alpha Geek, so share 'em if you got 'em. But check your ego at the door for a more pleasant experience for everyone, yourself included. TIA for the links.
"Like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."~RAH
mini-itx.com - many of the projects on there are very inventive...
There's a lot of DIY hacks that use Palms and iPAQs. Not seen so many using the Zaurus (which runs Linux). I have one, and would be interested in following someones example to learn myself.
The Zaurus 5500 should be an excellent choice for hacking as it have CF socket (could be used to add a hacked PCMCIA card supplying USB host), IR port and Sharp I/O which can be a serial port or USB client.
Then with the option of QT, Java or C (and even Python and Ruby). It would be easy to prototype on a laptop and then port to Zaurus.
I built a Garmin GPS to Zaurus cable. But that wasn't exactly challenging!
Anyone have any interesting links like this?
For electronic parts, you just can't possibly leave out the Electronic Goldmine. They've been around a long time, and in my experience offer the best surplus stuff you can find while charging the least they can get away with. Their bagged assortments are good, and their Electronic Surprise box is actually a good deal if you don't mind sorting through a box of jumbled parts. They also carry many standard components to round out whatever project you're doing.
If you ever want to build a CNC machine, check out TurboCNC. It's "shareware" in the sense that you are free to download and use the fully-functional, nagless program...and what a program it is. TurboCNC 3 has been used by thousands of hobby CNC'ers, and just recently TurboCNC 4 was released with lots of rewritten code, vastly improved user interface, and better stepping rates. This program will pulse stepper motors up to 30KHz on a junker 486 computer with parallel port, depending on the timer hardware. Version 4 adds Pentium timer support, resulting in pulse rates beyond 100,000Hz. The price rose from $20 to $60 with the release of the new version, but that price is if you feel like supporting Dave and his team, and will get you the full sourcecode to the program.
For cheap PCBs: nobody can beat Olimex. Yeah, they're based out of Bulgaria, and the first setup of payment can be a little tricky. But you'll get a double-sided board with plated holes, solder mask, and silkscreen...about $25 for 6" x 4" board. What's even better is that you can send them a number of files, then give them a sketch of how you want the boards arranged and repeated in the 6"x4" area...and they will panelize and cut them out for you, free. That's impressive if you've ever checked out the costs of doing something similar with other PCB houses. Many of them give the impression that it's like cheating to try to get more than one board out of the standard board size, even if your design only requires a few square inches. With Olimex I've gotten up to ten boards for that cheap price. It kind of makes you wonder what other ways you can use outsourcing, instead of whining about it and trying to make the government give your old job back.
By the way, this list has a long way to go before it's the most exhaustive I've seen. For the ultimate in DIY electronics articles and links, try ePanorama, it's been around a long time.
Ok, when will you stupid fuckers learn not to include links to personal homepages (butt-ugly ones, too) when trolling?
I have noticed scans for a webserver running on my home machine, so I set up one at home to have the fun of watching hacking attempts in my logfiles.
Thank you, but the public part is boring enough.
Back in the days of the Homebrew computer club, you literally did build a PC. These days, whacking a load of PCBs into a case isn't quite the same level of complexity. I remeber telling people I built PCs where I worked and they looked amazed. As far as I was concerned, it was nothing more complex than Lego with static. The hardest part was installing software.
Things have definately changed.
If you are interested in high quality audio, try making a gainclone amplifier - this website has more details:
http://www.decdun.fsnet.co.uk/
I made one and the sound quality is fantastic - better than any of the amps I have previously owned.
i shot some photos last week in seattle, next project is to outfit the dog with a camera for a week.
/.'d :-) aaaaw man, I hope his dog doesn't snif around goatsy type people!
:-)
1: Attach camera to dog
2: make crotchsniffingcam.com
3: get
4: Profit!
I admit, his project are great, but why did he go sticking those shiney things on his PDA!?
I was dissapointed he used VNC to make his PDA work...
The kite pictures are cool though, I might try that with my $11 digicam!
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
And in terms of low-cost, you can't beat Afrotech.
Synergy is your friend
The guys on linux hacker: http://www.linux-hacker.net/ are doing great things with those CVS & dakota digital cameras
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Back in the days of the Homebrew computer club, you literally did build a PC. These days, whacking a load of PCBs into a case isn't quite the same level of complexity. I remeber telling people I built PCs where I worked and they looked amazed. As far as I was concerned, it was nothing more complex than Lego with static. The hardest part was installing software.
:)
Things have definately changed.
Yeah, totally. Which was why I was surprised when I heard that one of my co-workers has designed and built (well, is building -- it's a work in progress) one ompletely from scratch. Although he doesn't mention it on the page, he's written games for it and everything. (I said, "does it have games?" and the next week it did). It's pretty much the most amazingly geeky thing I've ever seen, and seriously deserves to get slashdotted.
http://www.robotroom.com/
Robot info, projects, and stuff.
He writes books also, scroll down a bit for the free content.
Stop the world; I need to get off.
In terms of DIY, not many people can beat that guy
not many but this one, surely, can:
http://www.afrotechmods.com/,
the amazing things this guy does with a computer using only, off the shelf, under a dollar items.
see http://www.afrotechmods.com/reallycheap.htm for really great mods like the ghetto heatsinks or the paper cooled computer.....
Excuse me man, but I did not specifically include a link to my homepage to that special post, it is standard for me and others on slashdot in my profile.
I might have included a link to my bookmarks, but unfortunately the up-to-date version isn't online and I'd have to check the links. Sorry.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
- a bat detector
- a 3kW dimmer to control the ceiling-lights (I'm living in an old classroom)
- an iButton lock on the frontdoor
- lights in my livingroom are controlled by every phone in the house (built from a caller-id box)
- plants are beeping when soil is dry
- can control all my IR with LIRC and by phone
And almost everything is built with parts recovered from old equipment.
So, does this make me a slashdot-approved DIY warrior or am I just another techno-geek?
Niels.
How about some links/information on making your own cool cases? Is it possible to create your own plastic cases, or do shops exist where you can, say, drop your 3d-studio (or whatever) designs, which will then be fabricated into a nice shiny box? Can this be done cheaply? What kind of materials can be used?
Of course, the electronic stuff inside is what really counts, but I can imagine a nice look and feel is also important to a lot of DIY artists out there.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Alltronics deals in surplus and salvaged components of all shapes and sizes. There was a US$15 minimum order when last I dealed with them.
I had some issues ordering stuff, though... after waiting a week and nothing arrived, I e-mailed them about it and said one of the items wasn't in stock and they were waiting for it. Would be nice if they told me that ahead of time... but other than that I have no complaints. (Got my stuff about 5 days later)
=Smidge=
I always love BG Micro's weird catalog. Don't let the yellow background throw you, it's a mimic of the colored paper they print the dead-tree version on. It's significantly less annoying in that form. Don't count on them for production quantities unless they say so, but some of the small lots of surplus stuff are super cool.
American Science and Surplus, formerly known as Jerryco carries a broader spectrum of stuff, including plastic replicas of human organs, glow-in-the-dark everything, millitary surplus and yes, a variety of electrical and electronic weirdness. If the Edmund Scientific catalog is too highbrow for you, Jerryco is sure to amuse.
There are some hardware hackers over at Green Bay Professional Packet Radio whose projects you might enjoy.
I'm also going to suggest del.icio.us as a good way to collectively manage bookmarks like these. Just go play with it.
Double Donkey Kong: http://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/store.pl?action =link&sku=DDKUP
. htm
Galaxian Multigame: http://www.btinternet.com/~mike.coates/multigame3
Atari Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back Multigame
Tempest/Vortex/Aliens Multigame
Sega Vector Multigame (Star Trek, Space Fury, Tac/Scan, Eliminator, Zektor)
Williams Multigame (Robotron, Defender, Joust, Stargate, Splat!, Bubbles)
Q*Bert Multigame (Q*Bert, FHMC Q*Bert, Q*Bert's Qubes): http://www.multigame.com/KITS.HTM
There's a multi-Pacman PCB out there somewhere, but I'm not sure who makes them anymore. I know twobits.com used to sell one, as did multigame.com. But there was some legal problems with Namco that led to them disappearing.
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
I'm throwing everything out. All that "stuff" that you make other "stuff" from, just takes up too much room for today's "less is more" (actually "less is all you get") climate. And less room is one of those things you have less of.
You give a URL for a project involving CVS cameras and you don't tell people to "check it out"?
Don Lancaster has an awsome site at The Guru's Lair
He wrote the 555 and ttl cookbook, used to have a Computer Shopper column on writing raw postcript, and has thousands of links and articals on DIY.
Zektor Vector Generator (a PCI board that plays vector arcade games through a real vector monitor): http://www.zektor.com/zvg/
Atari 2600 supercart, Colecovision hard drive controller: http://www.widel.com/
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
I second that. I finished my [girlfriend's] gainclone over the summer, and it turned out wonderful. The sound truly does have to be heard to be believed. Pics and details at my page: soma.freeshell.org/audio.php
The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. -- ee cummings
Looks like his server has too many connections.
[Insert crap slashbot joke about DIY and slashdotting here]
Anybody have anything on this one?
I want to make an audio amp out of the parts in a PSU. It doesn't have to be super high powered and it could take purchasing an extra part or two.
Anybody have any leads?
This site was mentioned here a few months back. Basically a stripped down games console, which you can buy/build and then write games/whatever to run on the hardware. The software to program the thing is included. Programming it (using assembler) is very similar to coding for the old VCS console. Since there's no video RAM (unless you choose to add it to the hardware), your code directly controls the output as the raster scans across the screen - meaning you have to actually count the clock cycles in your code to ensure you don't end up with electric soup! I think it also has sound hardware, and there's nothing stopping you adding any other mods.
;-)
There are some demos available for download on the site, with full source etc. I don't work for them or anything, but I'm seriously thinking of buying one so I can dive into some retro-coding
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I'm partial to ExpressPCB (www.expresspcb.com) for quick-turn cheap 2-sided PCBs. They provide a rudimentary design tool for free (only works with them, though) and you can lay out a PCB one day and have 3 copies in your hands two days later for around $100.
There's someone who's done DIY duct tape? That I'd like to see!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Free Business idea - create (free ;) Internet Radio Device! Me and my buddies would like to have those but those aren't available yet.
How could you squeeze a PC into a small box and make it Internet Radio Device? Also note that this device should not make any kind of noise (other than the radio broadcast noise of course). I hate the noice PCs have with all those fans.. I just can't concentrate and enjoy those Internet radio broadcasts if there is a huge machine beside me that makes noise.
I really enjoy both of these, some good inspiration (and a lot of perspiration), both are heavy into DIY.....
You got to see some of the home made inventions, just too cool. You can see what having an itch to scratch, a pile of junk and a welder will bring you. A lot of it results in some practical applications, some decent inventions have been showcased. I get the dead trees version, every page I am going NEAT! I want one! etc...
Farmshow magazine
This one is for alternative power, a very good site, Home Power magazine, chock fulla alternative energy products, examples, troubleshooting, resources, etc.
What would be better is a high brightness array of LED lights (white of course) to use as the white light source. Some DIY forums have noted that the problem is focusing the light from the array into a controllable direction and even intensity. This is hard because you need so many LEDs to get enough brightness. If this could be cheaply solved, then it would make a great DIY projector.
Anybody have any luck with this or know any good websites for it?
I'd think that this is obvious, but my fav DIY guy/group has got to be Burt Rutan and the guys at Scaled Composites. I'm dying to see what they do for a follow-up to SpaceShipOne.
blog |
These guys sell a little kit for turning a GBA into an embedded prototyping platform:
/. about 6 months ago.
http://www.charmedlabs.com/
They were mentioned on
They ported their tools to linux and also sell a bluetooth module.
Religion is poison to rationality, and we lose sight of that at our own peril. -- Lurker2288
Nice links. And here's some karma whoring (not that me needs it).
Creative people and projects:
- http://www.diyaudio.com/ (DIY audio equipment forum)
- http://sound.westhost.com/projects.htm (audio stuff schematics)
- http://headwize.com/projects/index.htm (DIY headphone stuff)
- http://www.hauptwerk.co.uk/pedalboard.html (DIY MIDI pedalboards, just add keyboards and software and you have a MIDI organ)
- http://www.diysubwoofers.org/ (what it says)
- http://www.plasmatweeter.de/eng_plasma.htm (DIY ionic tweeter)
Places to buy stuff:
- http://www.newark.com/ (major electronics retailer)
- http://www.mouser.com/ (major electronics retailer)
- http://www.tubesandmore.com/ (components for vintage electronics)
Getting stuff made:
- http://www.olimex.com/ (cheap PCBs)
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
If you were 'hardware hacking' a century ago, you might have used wood, rope, nails, old buckets or glass items. These days, it's often electric/electronic stuff like sensors, stepper motors or ucontrollers. Either way, the hardware is always cheap, like ripped out of old equipment. Tradition wants it that way. If you use all new stuff, you're not hacking, but developing new hardware.
A couple of weeks back, I started off to build my own PC "from scratch".
I found the following information on Intel's website to be very helpful:
http://www.intel.com/personal/resources/index.htm
NOTE: All the above information at this website gives information for building a PC using only Intel branded components (surprise??).
However, for a first-time PC assembler like myself, it was extremely helpful. I did a lot of reading and I assembled my PC with no problems whatsoever.
Next time I build my PC, I'll get more adventurous and try "not so well documented but cool" hardware (i.e. AMD alongwith other cheaper priced motherboards). I bought the components at www.zipzoomfly.com and I loved the free shipping and frugal pricing.
Nice post, I was wandering lately how one could build a DIY personal server: (http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT5772921353.htm l)
based on mini-ITX mainboards (ok they are not so mini anyway...) to Intel xscale chips. The basic requirement for me is that not only i want to store data in an external disk, but i 'll like to share them and use them (the audio files at least) while i am in the move.
The requirements would be to have a wireless connected computer with no display, a 2.5in disk and audio in/out, video out in order to use it wirelessly connnected disk and application server. Main functions would be:
- mp3 listening
- mp3/video/data sharing (running an ftp/samba server or a p2p program for ad-hoc networks)
- storage of the email, using a mail client that stores mail and profiles in external disk and web surfing profile. Moreover one could actually install email and web applications on this personal server and run them through X from the computer they using its time for accessing the personal server.
any ideas for related projects?
place to get cases and stuff made:
http://www.emachineshop.com
All you gotta do is send them a CAD drawing and the material you'd like it made of.
Dude he's done like 7 mods in the last month, how many do you want? On his page the bootable ipod mod is from aug 17 2004. Everything above that ie 7 actual hardware mods are MORE recent. If that's consider 'rarely' then you have some really high expectations.
http://www.iki.fi/teknohog/hacks/gainhog/
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
One of my good Professors here at RIT introduced me and gets copies of the magazine Circuit Cellar. They are a complete computer hobbyist magazine -- very, very good. They have everything from radio controlled robots to how to add USB to your embedded project.
Circuit Cellar
They also host contests constantly which give out free hardware for those with good design ideas! Great for those student needs!
And after all that hard DIY work, sit back and enjoy a Hulk Drop Martini ;-)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Hell, just do a google search on "PIC" plus whatever device you are interested in.
I keep finding more and more goodies to add to my Tricorder project. I found a ton of info on PWM just last night. DAC without a DAC!
Has anybody found a source for solid state radiation detector modules? You can get complete detectors, but I want the "Cadmium Sulfide Photoconductive cell viewing a Gadolinium OxySulfide scintillating phosphor" module itself.
(Sounds like Star Trek techno-babble!)
In 1971 I built a stand-alone ALU out of TTL and won a trip to the International Science Fair (which was in Kansas City MO that year). The Fair was won by a guy who's father worked for Burroghs and who built a full computer out of RTL!
I then built a series of machines using first the 8008, then a completely home-brew SSI (TTL) 8-bit-er of my own design (which amazingly I still own!), then a 6502, an IMSAI (#7) (with my own home-designed floppy disk controller) and finally a 40-bit microword bit-slice (AMD2901) machine that executed UCSD Pascal P-Code!
It always amazes me when I see those old boards and realize how gloriously primitive (and fun!!!) things were in the days just-before and just-starting in the microprocessor business. When the Altir hit in 1975 I knew true "home-brew" computing was at it's peak.
www.ucapps.de / www.midibox.org DIY Midi hardware with GPL'ed firmware... Amazing stuff!
In some ways, DIY electronics is getting harder. Lot's of logic parts are long out of production and getting harder to find. Those that are still in production are packaged in hobbyist-unfriendly ways (e.g. BGA). I know you can work with these packages with various gyrations, but it's a long way from the straightforward ease of DIPs and wire-wrap.
Dunno if there's one in your area, I'll tell you where mine is, outside Atlanta in Gwinnet County, corner of Pleasant Hill and Club Drive. There's a "regular" Goodwill store where they have $20 computers and $10 monitors, and then there's the 99 cent store next to it where they put things that don't sell in a week or two, which is often the same computers and monitors. These vary from 386's to (I got this one) a 400MHz pentium 3 with usually 1 gig drive, but are fully functional (except for a likely borken WinOS installation).
Or, gut the electronics and you have a steel project case for two bucks (more recent cases are plastic with thin aluminum shielding inside) - the perfect thing to do with 486 and older machines.
Tag lost or not installed.
With the cost of IC's, sensors, microcontrollers, and PC's falling through the floor, we've entered a time where the barriers to entry on hacking neat projects are lower than they've ever been.
Kind of...on the other hand, the way electronics are hidden in blackbox-chips now makes a lot of gadgets hard to tinker with, and that used to be a good entryway to more DIY...though maybe I'm just lazy and just need to force it so I can hookup a PC to real world hardware...
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
For the inevitable Slashdotting, the links are mirrored here: MirrorDot.
While we are on the topic...anyone know of a reasonably good open-source PCB autorouter?
Anyone have a good suggestion for test gear?
System X at Virginia Tech...http://www.tcf.vt.edu
Talk about a do-it-yourselfer's dream!
'nuf said.
Tech Techie
How about this high school club that built a radio telescope? http://staff.gpschools.org/maciola/webpages/RATSWe bpage/RATS/index2.html
And an excellent use of new tech to further DIY old tech (with innovation, even!) is the AX84 tube amp guitar project. There are projects of all sizes, an excellent discussion board, and links to lots of goodies. http://www.ax84.com/ Everything from raw schematics to kits.
You'll note that the experience was expensive. Either in cost, or time to gain (following a cookbook doesnt make you a hacker cook, just a script cook). Also as pointed out. Some hardware comes in hacker unfriendly packages. Now how many have designed a chip from scratch? The modern day equivalent of tubes, transisters, and wirewrap.
Building PCs from scratch was cool when there were no PCs at Walmart. But today...much like building a horseless carriage, or a vacuum-tube radio.
This is the same way electric motors used to be cool. I remember when I was a wee lad that every handyman had a few electric motors lying about, one big one usually strapped to the workbench, with a bunch of belts to power a number of different devices. Motors were still fairly expensive and bulky, so they tended to dominate the workbench.
Then electric motors became completely ubiquitous, and they mostly vanished from sight, embedded into everyday devices, hair dryers, coffee grinders, RC Cars. What became interesting was not the motor itself, but all the cool and unexpected things you could do with it once it got cheap enough, and small enough.
So yeah, a DIYer could sit down today and build a motor (or a computer) completely from scratch, but it becomes an exercise in nostalgia, like hand-crafting a canoe, or building a replica of the Wright Brothers plane. Which is cool in it's own way, but somewhat eccentric.
So the moder-day DIYer, like the scientist in Cronenberg's "The Fly," we find ourselves in the role of sythesists, taking off-the-shelf parts to make interesting & unusual new gizmos, or taking an existing technology and bringing it into the realm of the handyman's workshop.
What were you expecting?
For PCBs, be sure to check out Barebones. I've done a couple of runs through them, including one involving a chip-scale BGA package, and they did a great job. They're really a front for one of the previously-mentioned PCB operations, Advanced Circuits. For FPGA and CPLD prototyping, definitely go to Digilent. I've bought a few products from them and have been consistently impressed. Finally, it's probably an obvious choice, but eBay is always a good resource too. Many deals can be had in the "Electronic Components" category of their "Business & Industrial" section.
If you're into machining and CNC-type projects, be sure to check out 5 Bears Research. The author of the site has done some absolutely phenominal work. Be sure to check out his CNC mill section if you're thinking about making your own. Also, there are tons of homebrew jet engine sites, including more than a few that look to be destined for a Darwin Award. None of them is funnier than this site, though. Enjoy.
One of the "silent revolutions" that has happened over the last 10-20 years is the tremendous drop in cost of programmable logic -- highly integrated microcontrollers, CPLDs, and FPGAs. It's really only in the last few years that FPGAs in particular has come down in price to the point where they're feasible to be used in amateur projects. In many ways these have brought back the freedoms that used to exist back when there were no application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs); today, with an FPGA costing in the ballpark of $20 even a hobbyist can build a fairly sophisticated, custom integrated circuit for a project.
http://www.bgmicro.com/
This site doesn't have the greatest selection, but if you keep your eyes on it there are some really sweet deals at time.
These books are always useful:
Everybody accepts credit cards now. There's no problem ordering from real suppliers.
And if you're gonna talk diy cnc, don't forget the most obvious one: ebay. Lots of bargains to be had for the careful shopper - just know your price and stick to it.
I have to point out the incredibly useful Atmel AVR series of microcontrollers. Inexpensive ($2 to $8 each), easy to program (there's a GCC port readily available), entirely Flash-based, and pretty powerful for eight-bit microcontrollers. There's a large hobby development community over at AVRFreaks; if you're interested in homebrewing some great projects, check it out!
seriously, it's run by Rob Cockerham who is my fookin hero. He's hardcore DIY, but not really on the tech side but more on installations for entertaining social engineering (read: pranks).
Also, check his killer Halloween costumes, which are good enough to win at the ILM party!
http://cockeyed.com
evariste the wiseass
I first read articles from Steve Ciarcia in some early issues of Byte Magazine (I subscribed to Byte due to his and Jerry Pournelle's articles.) But those things are history. Go to http://circuitcellar.com/ for some interesting projects.
I have a build script and all the tarballs on my site, in case anyone is interested in hacking with the AVR under Linux!
I'm not yet 30 and I remember the flame wars on Usenet. I regularly lurked the homebrew groups there about 8 to 10 years ago--just before and during the time I was putting together a simple wire-wrapped system consisting of an M68K and mostly 74LS series logic chips. There were two noteworthy camps:
1. The Gods of the geek world--those who'd pat you on the head and say "nice beginner project--good luck and keep it up son" at the site of project like mine. These were the types who could've been founding members of the Homebrew club back in the day, and figured REAL men didn't need a stinkin' processor to make a PC--just a bunch of SSI TTL Logic. If you really wanted to test your mettle you built it using discrete transistors.
2. The AOL generation of "home brewers" who fancied themselves experts becasue they could screw a 486 Motherboard and some cards into a PC case...they were the "home builders" and endlessly posted questions about BIOS configuration, jumper settings and IRQ conflicts.
Sadly, despite the fact that it was stated loudly and clearly in the FAQ and repeatedly in flame posts what the group was intended for, AND despite a group being put together for bome built DOS PCs, the second group still drowned out the first--DRAM refresh circuitry and address decoding was beyond their comprehension, but cross-posting was not.
Now homebrew seems to mean adding backlit LCD status panels, neon lights, cut-out windows and a coat of day-glo Tremclad. This is a fun hobby to be sure and I enjoy what comes out of it as much as I enjoy going to car shows. However, it isn't really homebrew to me. Cramming an ITX motherboard into as many odd containers as possible just doesn't have the same mystique...
DIY grappling dummy (Plus lot's of other homebrew equipment).
Certified. He hangs about in usenet forums like "alternative architecture" and "alternative energy" and espouses some seriously stupid ideas. It's like he's gone from "you can DIY" to "that won't work at all." Very negative, and very weird.
Previously mentioned on /. I built one very similar to the original design (plus camera inverter for floor-level shots) and I love it. Here.
If you use all new stuff, you're not hacking, but developing new hardware.
No, I disagree. If you use "all new stuff" in unforseen, questionable, or previously-considered-impossible ways, then you are most definitely hacking.
Hacking requires passion and looking beyond the limits of existing systems (in this case, hardware components). I don't believe it matters if those components are new or salvaged, if you're bolting them together in brilliant and bizarre ways.
I heard about Phidgets - USB sensors, motor controllers, and the like - from the JMSL mailing list. They look cool - has anyone tried them out?
Kudos to David Merrill for starting this thread. This post has been a goldmine of usefulness even above and beyond the usual /. fare. One thing I haven't seen covered yet is any places that sell (relatively) cheap LCD screens.
Anyone out there know somewhere that sells LCD's either in a totally raw state or in a format that's a bit more usable? This would ideally be an LCD that had some simple power and video input that I could embed in various art projects without having to get a degree in electronics - I could do some basic wiring but I'm not particularly in the habit of hacking together cables and power supplies. I guess I'm looking for either OEM LCD's with very good instructions or some semi-finished thing that doesn't cost what a finished LCD monitor or mini-dvd screen would go for,
Thanks
Superfly
Computer Christmas is pretty much a two-trick pony, but both of those tricks are extremely exciting and have a lot of potential when it comes to interfacing your computer to the real world. One group of projects deals with multiplexing your 8-line parallel port into a 256- or 1000-line switching machine of wonder (think about being able to turn that many LEDs on and off!). The other group of projects deals with interfacing these boards to the mains in clever ways, using triacs and SSRs and the like.
The focus is on Christmas light displays, but you could conceivably use it for all sorts of things... besides turning a plethora of LEDs on and off, you could make pinwheels spin when you have e-mail, or turn your house lights on and off at certain times, or tie a resistor network to a set of pins and make things fade in and out with the volume of your music. Wheeeee!
Standing at the very edge of my imagination, I peered into the inky void and realised -- I couldn't think up a new sig.
Not to toot my own horn or anything ;) Chris Negus and I wrote a book on just this topic called "Linux Toys". Check it out if you're interested.
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
homebrewcpu.com
Chuck Dickman's cool hardware projects including a QBus-ATA adapter
Peter McCollum has just finished a great hack involving a PDP-11 microprocessor (T-11).
you had me at #!
The folks on the various Halloween mailing lists have contributed over 600 DIY project HowTo's which have been collected by a member. Some pretty inovative animatronic stuff there. Take a look at
http://www.markbutler.8m.com/monsterlist.htm
to see how they make their magic. -Chuck-
What's really cool these days is the amount of free software available for DIY electronics. I'm not talking about free as in GNU, but free as in beer. Want to design your own digital chips? Get your free WebPack FPGA design software. Want to do your own circuit boards? Get your free CAD software... Want to program your embedded product? Most chip companies have free development tools.
I could not bear to see such a magnificient collection of exotically machined parts going off to the landfill, so I would snare that printer, copy machine, computer, whatever, and cart it home to take apart.
But the experience? Pure labor. Extremely time consuming. But then, in return, I get to see exactly how the thing worked, and often gain great insights on why it failed, which obviously lead to its decommissioning.
I feel its given me one helluva education of practical machine design, as I have many working designs ( err... "partially working") in my repertoire to call on when I need something similar. If they had failed, I know why and how to sidestep around that in my design.
I figure I must have over a million dollars worth of my time invested in my education via "tinkering"... but then I would rather tinker than watch TV any day of the week.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
One of the coolest DIY projects around is the MegaSquirt DIY EFI kit. Designed by Bruce Bowling and Al Grippo and supported by enthusiasts world-wide, they have created a cheap and highly effective fuel injection computer that you can easily assemble with a soddering iron and a little time.
Check the MegaSquirt project out on the web at http://www.msefi.com/ or check out the software at http://megasquirt.sourceforge.net/ (disclaimer: I am one of the Project Admins). A good resource for those interested in MegaSquirt is at http://www.not2fast.com/ (which has a number of other interesting technical articles and programs), which I host through my site, wryday.com!
I built my Squirt without too much trouble, and I am no electronics whiz. It's a great experience, building your own computer, soldering transistors, resistors, capacitors and chips, and producing something quite useful. I have yet to install my MS into my project rally car (an 86 VW GTI), but you can bet she'll be flying when I dial in the fuel maps!
Bowling and Grippo have also developed other kits for related applications, such as ignition and spark controllers. Check out the http://msefi.com/ site for more info.
Cheers,
-Joe
Fire in the sky
One of my DIY computers from about 1979. Video was 1024x1024 1 bit with a 80 line character overlay. 8080 processor code was downloaded from the main 8080.
t ent/sitebuilderpictures/ht_pictures_012.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/res02dad/sitebuildercon
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
Lots of DIY stuff here.
http://dlharmon.com/sbc.html
http://commonsound.com/
A bunch of whacked out guitar effects you can build in your home using printed out templates glued to cardboard. The ultimate DIY electronics project.
I think casemodding could be cool, but most of them I find seriously boring. Whoopee, we take a square case and add windows and lights! The mini-ITX stuff i find similarly drab with very few exceptions. The one where the guy made an anime girlfriend is cool but not because it's a computer, just because it's a good DIY if you want to learn to sculpt with plastic.
When I was sixteen I was expelled from school because I had skipped so much they told me not to come back. I went to RETS (electronic vo-tech) for a while because I thought I could get some accreditation. I had to spend hours in the library every day so to occupy my time I wire wrapped a 6502 based computer on four vector cards. A few years later I modded my VIC20 into a square box, detached keyboard (six foot ribbon cable from radio shack!) and had a general ball with both, but in the end they were fairly useless because it was "computing for computing's sake." Look what you can do now - take an old (useless, free) PC, attach some motors on the parallel port and make a milling machine, or a motor for your telescope, or a large scale printer that will let you do CNC graffiti on the side of a building - and just about anything else you can imagine... using materials that can often be found on the side of the road.
I like to work with tube stuff too - there's no reason you can't still do ALL this stuff. You also can't trivialize what DIYers can do today with the raw materials at our disposal.
It's not worse or less... it's just different.
There's no CNC simulators. Same with PLC's.
[Tooting my own horn] please see my Circuit Cellar article series at http://fpgacpu.org/xsoc/cc.html:
"The articles present the design and implemention of the XSOC System-on-a-Chip, including the new xr16 pipelined RISC processor core, on-chip bus, bus/memory controller, and integrated peripherals (parallel port, bilevel VGA controller), all in a single Xilinx XC4005XL FPGA, and also describe a port of the lcc4.1 retargetable C compiler, an assembler, simulator, and demos."
Nowadays, with the advent of big FPGAs, Altera and Xilinx system builder products, and Nios and MicroBlaze soft cores, this is more or less "push button".
Let's not overlook the ability to etch your own PCBs amongst the discussion of PCB fabrication sites. The following site is a detailed description of one process for making PCBs, that seems to work well.
http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg/gooteepc.htm
No way am I buying an eMachines computer in the near future.
I am part of a trio that uses motion sensors to perform sound art:
Hypersense Complex
These are custom built microcontroller / USB devices.
We are currently exploring the use of accelerometers, with a view towards full motion capture. However, this is a difficult problem to solve, as gravity provides a constant acceleration offset. Another area we will be looking at is useing wireless chips, eg. the honeywell ROC chips.
Simon.
http://www.aardvark.co.nz/pjet/ http://www.aardvark.co.nz/pjet/images/lh200aa.jpg
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Sorry, I'm not gay, Mr. 217.81.13.85
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