Posted June 15, 2015 by Chris

"This document captures all the relevant efforts that were made in construction of this quadcopter. The timeframe of the project is January 2011 to April2011."

Posted May 29, 2015 by Chris

"During World War I and slightly before World War II, military fighter aircraft had machine guns mounted to fuselage of the plane. These machine guns were mounted right behind the propeller. The first question that comes to mind is how can the gun fire and not hit the propeller blades as they are spinning? Some planes had special steel plates mounted to the propeller to keep the bullets from shredding the propeller."

Posted May 23, 2015 by Chris

"Now I continue the ‘Out of Boredom’ series with a setup that allows firing a paintball marker (gun) with a command sent from a computer 🙂 This time software stack is simpler – just a small Arduino sketch and uncomplicated WinForms (.NET/C#) application, but hardware requires a bit of electronics knowledge."

Posted May 9, 2015 by Chris

"Spin uses Persistence of Vision to create the illusion of a cylindrical digital display (computer screen), 12 feet tall and 12 feet in diameter. Vertical columns of multi-color LED (light emitting diode) clusters spin around a vertical axis at 90 revolutions per minute. At a radius of 6 feet, they move at 41 miles per hour."

Posted May 8, 2015 by Chris

"This is a simple and cheap homemade laser driver. The LM317 is capable of up to 1.5A, which makes it possible to use it for >1000mW laser diodes. All parts together cost me around 2€. (~2.5$)"

Posted April 22, 2015 by Chris

"To build this tool I’ve used two old CD-ROM writer that lays around in my garage. The X/Y positioning system it is build using the CD-ROM motor assembly. For the engraving laser i use the CD-ROM writer laser. With this hardware the engraving area are will be almost 38mm x 38mm."

Posted April 13, 2015 by Chris

"Ben came over for the weekend a couple of months ago, and we were looking for a project to do in my fledgling machine shop. He’d never really used machine tools, and I hadn’t done any ‘real’ machining in my home shop yet, so we were looking for an excuse to pick up some experience. Ben’s in to paintball, so we decided to try to make a paintball gun."

Posted April 7, 2015 by Chris

"…I have received a few emails asking about controlling a toaster oven using the laminator temperature control board. This is something I have been thinking about myself, so I decided to buy an oven and convert it into a SMD reflow oven. If you decide to do this, do it at your own risk and make sure you, your family, and your friends know to never use it for food!!!"

Posted March 26, 2015 by Chris

"So what is A biomass gasifier? Basically is a chemical reactor that converts wood, or other biomass substances, into a combustible gas that can be burned for heating, cooking, or for running an internal combustion engine. This is achieved by partially combusting the biomass in the reactor, and using the heat generated to pyrolyse or thermally break down the rest of the material into volatile gasses."

Posted March 24, 2015 by Chris

"This week I built a Jacob’s Ladder in a double helix shape! It only takes a neon sign transformer, a block of wood, and some copper tubing."