Knitting machine hack by keypad emulation

[Travis Goodspeed] and Hackaday alum [Fabienne Serriere] joined forces to develop an alternative interface for a knitting machine. They’re working with the Brother KH-930E machine. We saw [Becky Stern] use the same model by manipulating data on an emulated floppy drive for the device. [Travis] and [Fabienne] went a different route, and are emulating the keypad using an Arduino and a set of transistors.
They started by reverse engineering the keypad matrix using a continuity tester. Once they worked out the column and row layout they connected each to an NPN transistor. The Arduino sketch simulates button presses to set knitting bits for each row, with just one reset button for user input. This can be used to send data from a PC, or as a standalone system. Either way, it’s not only a great way to add functionality to the kitting machine, but a good example of how to interface with the keypad on just about any device.

Meter clock with pleasing design considerations

[AndyO] embraced his inner geek by building this meter clock. It exhibits a lot of features that you’d want to see in a home-built timepiece, include over-complexity, abundant features, and RGB LEDs. We’re fascinated by the design he put into this. For instance, the two indicator LEDs on the clock face are not poking through the surface, but use brass tubes as light pipes. Also, the three buttons on the top are almost indistinguishable, and have an RGB back light that places a halo around each. The case itself was built by first making a form, then laminating thin sheets of wood (a difficult task due to the tight curves). The needles themselves are not actually meters, like the clock the inspired the build, but are attached to servo motors. This all comes together into a fascinating build, and a great writeup.
[Thanks Graham]

Make your own solenoids, then play the xylophone

Learn to manufacture your own solenoids and then use them to play the xylophone by watching the tutorial video after the break. [Humberto Evans] and the team at Nerd Kits do a great job of not only manufacturing the coils, but the xylophone itself. The bars are machined from some aluminum stock and they take you down the rabbit hole with they why’s and how’s of engineering the keys.
We’re unlikely to replicate this machining process but the solenoids are another story all together. Starting at about 3:30 you can learn about designing, building, and using these little marvels. They’re basically an electromagnetic cuff with a metal slug in the middle. The solenoid seen above uses a body milled from HDPE and wrapped with magnet wire. The slug in the center is steel, with a few rare-earth magnets at the top. When you run current through the coil it repulses the magnets on the slug, witch then strikes the xylophone key. Using a MOSFET and a protection diode, actuating them is as simple as sending a digital high from your microcontroller of choice.
We’ve seen solenoids used to play a vibrophone before, but those were commercial units. Making your own hardware is far more hardcore.

Vacuum forming at home

A little dumpster-diving let [Nick Skvarla] build his vacuum form machine for around $5. He pulled a vacuum cleaner out of the trash, which was tossed away because of a broken power plug. He put it into a box which had been sealed with spray foam and used a piece of pegboard for the top side of the enclosure. He takes a piece of 40 mil PETG plastic from the hobby shop and mounts it in a wooden frame. That goes into the oven on broil until the entire sheet is sagging, then onto the vacuum former. Above he’s making forms out of some figurines which he’ll walk you through in the video after the break.
There’s a whole world of manufacturing processes that use these forms as a starting point. What would you use this for?

Next-Level Robotic Hijinx

Oberon is a wheeled remotely operated vehicle that [LucidScience] built based on an electric wheelchair. The detailed and helpful build log is valuable enough even before considering the vast potential of Oberon’s intended use: strutting around town, scaring the neighbours.
We’ve seen other ROVs before, of course, but none with the same kind of War of the Worlds “real-life invasion” kitch. Running down hapless pedestrians or raining hell upon your enemies are great and all, but once you’ve destroyed the surrounding population you’re out of laughs. Not so with Oberon, with which you can convince Mr. Nutcase down the road to go on wild quests for the glory of the new robot empire. The fun doesn’t stop there–enjoy the Hubbard side of life by starting a cult to worship the great Oberon and enjoy decades of financial payoff and moral depravity…all from the comfort of your own living room!
It would be wicked rad if we could move forward with this idea by combining the abilities of specialized ROVs like this camera-bot and this termite-killer-bot. Face it, who wouldn’t want a smooth-talking camera-snapping chemical-spraying avatar for christmas?

Power All Over Your Body

We know that you can transform the mechanical motions of your body into electrical energy, like when you turn the crank or shake a mechanically-powered flashlight. These types of mechanical motions are quite large compared to many of the day-to-day (and minute-to-minute) actions you perform–for example walking, breathing, and thumb wrestling.
What if we could harvest energy from these tiny movements? Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology are seeking the answer to this question with piezoelectric barium titanate. The electrical output of their devices is very small (in the nanoAmps) but over a long period and over many repetitions it would be possible to run a small electric device–even a biologically-embedded one. An alternative to blood power?
There is clearly a lot of potential in this technology, and we’ll be interested to see if and when we can start messing around with this stuff. Heck, it’s already been used to power a small LED and you all know just how much everyone would jump at the chance to cover themselves in self-powered LEDs…