A lot of people like fancy GUIs and nice graphics, but some of us just feel more at home in a command prompt. [nevdull] is one of those people. Instead of just using the Arduino dev tools that are available for download, he wanted the ability to shell into his Arduino, so he created AVR Shell. AVR Shell is a UNIX-like shell that allows you to “log in” to your Arduino/AVR and see what’s really going on; letting you read registers, scale the CPU speed, create/edit/delete variables, and even set up timers. The shell is even user-customizable! Those of…
Hack
GPS USB port repair
[Jair2k4] learned the hard way not to lend out your expensive GPS to untrustworthy people. His Garmin 200 was returned with a broken USB port and unable to charge. Luckily, all it took was some inventive thinking and he had it repaired in no time. By breaking open a Nokia cellphone car charger, he had a source of 5 volts. After that, it was only a matter of soldering the connections. However, not content with the design he pulled out a Dremel and mounted it in his 1991 Suzuki Sidekick. Quick, dirty, and actually working afterwords, just the way…
Automotive
How to Choose the Right Bike Rack for Your Car
Firstly, there are two sources of professional advice you haveavailable to you concerning roof racks. Your car’s manufacturingcompany will often have put together a list of recommendedroof-rack models and suppliers, with fitting information andparticular concerns that may be relevant. A quality manufacturershould not have a problem with discussing these kinds of thingswith you, so try giving them call.Your second source of advice is your local roof-rack shop. Awell-established business will offer impartial advice designedto get you and your bikes on the road safely and securely.However, even when taking advice, it’s good to have somedecisions made beforehand, and to be aware…
Insurance
Best Online Car Insurance Quotes
One of the most cost-effective ways of advertising and marketing is by requesting auto insurance quotes online. Compared to the traditional ways of asking for auto insurance quotes, online car insurance quotes can save clients as much as 30 up to 40 percent off of their vehicle premiums. However, there are still some people who have not done this before. With the accessibility and convenience of the Internet, this is a great time to explore this option. Take your time and do not be confused with all the offers and insurance packages that you see online. Moreover, you must also…
Tech Support
Searching For A Fantastic Present? Try A Remote Controlled Toy
When you enjoy spoiling your son or nephew or cousin, you will want to get some wonderful radio controlled toys for his birthday. These are forever treasured gifts and are lots of fun. No matter what age the boy is, even if they are 18, they will always love a radio controlled toy.
When it comes to remote controlled toys, there are many things that you will be able to choose from. Now, we all know about remote controlled cars, but they have been around for many years, and almost every boy in the world has one of those.
This…
Hack
Pictures from space for $150
Ever wanted to be able to launch a balloon into space, track its location via GPS, take some photographs of the curvature of the earth, and recover the balloon, all for the low low cost of $150? [Oliver Yeh] sent in his teams project, Icarus, which does just that. The group of MIT students found that they could use a weather balloon filled with helium to reach heights of around 20 miles above the earth; their particular balloon achieved 93,000 feet (17.5 miles). Then, utilizing only off the shelf components with no soldering, conjured up a GPS tracker using…
Automotive
Hitch Source LLC Announces a New Line of Softride Bike Racks
Hitch Source LLC announced today that they have released a newline of <a hrefhttp:www.hitchsource.comsoftride.php>Softridebike racks<a>. The bike racks are trailer hitch mounted andcarry up to four bikes. The Softride bike racks incorporate apatented, parallelogram folding mechanism that keeps the bikesperpendicular to the ground throughout the entire range ofmotion. The <a hrefhttp:www.hitchsource.comsoftride.php>Softridebike rack<a> line offers a wide range of improvements overtheir predecessors. First, the bike rack arms have beencompletely redesigned to incorporate a one piece bike cradle.This improves the durability and lifetime of the bike rack.Second, newly designed rubber straps offer enhanced life andstretch. Third, the entire line of <ahrefhttp:www.hitchsource.comsoftride.php>Softride bikeracks<a>…
Hack
Dot matrix clock on the way
[Kevin] sent in his almost finished open source dot matrix clock. Sporting a hefty 40 x 16 display powered by a PIC 18F he has complete pixel by pixel control of the graphics. Combined with with a triple buffer he is at least able to output 15fps, with planned 30fps. While this has great potential for a clock, what about going further? Twitter updates, chat messages, weather updates, the current airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow; it will be tough to beat the competition without some more features. Either way, its an awesome project and we can’t wait to…
Hack
Controlling an R/C car with a pic16F84
[GuySoft] sent in this project. He doesn’t normally mess with electronics, but decided to give it a try. He chose a fairly complicated project to be his first, but seems extremely comfortable with it. This project was to control his R/C car with a pic16f84. That chip was chosen simply because it was the only one available at local stores. Though we’ve seen much more complicated projects in the past, he does a great job of showing exactly what has been done. He shares his thoughts and source code with us as well. He has express a little frustration…
Tech Support
How To Make Money Online For Newbies And Beginners
Can I really make money online? That is the most common question you will be asking yourself if you have decided to jump to the business of online money making. Let me starts off by defining the meaning of the phrase “make money online”. Make money online is an Internet Marketing approach conducted by anyone in the world who has the urge and drive to generate income by working at home.
Just by filling out a few online surveys from a legitimate companies can make you a few bucks, or maybe hundreds. But if you want to make money online…
Hack
Arduino powered delta robot
We spotted this video of a delta robot today that seems to be powered by an Arduino. We were wondering when we would see this, happen. The source code is available on the project page. We really like the mouse control, its just fun to watch. You may recall that we recently covered some slightly more complex delta robots.
[via Makezine]
Hack
Hard drive RGB clock
We’ve brought you an HDD clock in the past, but [mb1988] tried to bring his project to another level by y documenting it (in Polish). Inspired by [dzgdzzh]’s version of the same invention, [mb1988] decided to reverse engineer it (as well as make a few changes) and base it on the powerful ATmega128. Since this clock, along with most HDD clocks, can only display solid lines of radii, it cannot be used to display text. However, color schemes and animations can be toggled using a remote control. The housing itself is also pretty impressive. The back part of the enclosure was molded out of Rayobond,…
