Drunktender


Clint has been working on this project for 5 months, incredible stuff! Follow all the process and build logs here

Filed under: projects — by adafruit, posted July 31, 2009 at 11:00 pm


Schools (wanna) be jammin’

Looks like a school in Iowa wants to jam the cell phones of students

Ooh, yeah! All right!
We’re jammin‘:
I wanna jam it wid you.
We’re jammin’, jammin’,
And I hope you like jammin’, too.

Ain’t no rules, ain’t no vow, we can do it anyhow:
I’n'I will see you through,
‘Cos everyday we pay the price with a little sacrifice,
Jammin’ till the jam is through

ST. ANSGAR, Iowa (AP) – School officials in St. Ansgar in northeast Iowa are considering buying equipment to jam cell phone signals if they can do so legally.

Filed under: wavebubble — by adafruit, posted at 2:41 pm


.:oomlout:. Arduino & DIY Electronics and kits in the UK – Adafruit distributor

Pt 2082
We’re pleased to announce that oomlout is now one of our distributors in the UK! If you’re looking for the best DIY electronics, Arduino packs/kits and more – oomlout is one of the best in UK, the earth and known universe!

Filed under: announce — by adafruit, posted at 11:39 am


Car cigarette lighter GPS jammer

Ggspy007200 01 L
Hah, this is funny a car cigarette lighter GPS jammer – a via BB. Most likely catering to the folks who are forced to drive a vehicle with some type of GPS/tracking…

Filed under: wavebubble — by adafruit, posted July 30, 2009 at 3:14 pm


TV-B-Gone kit on sale!


Tvbgonekit Lrg
In the distant future we will have a new TV-B-Gone kit, the major difference is that it will be both USA, Asia and European all-in-one. So, we’re looking to clear out our current inventory with a SALE! You can pick up the TV-B-Gone for the low-low price of $15.00! If you’re in the USA this is a sweet deal – tune in, turn on and turn off!

Filed under: tvbgone — by adafruit, posted at 12:00 am


Amazon Kindle design contest: now it’s your turn to decide who wins!

Kindle-Theamazingbookofeverything
Wow! check out the amazing designs for the Kindle laser etching contest we’re helping out with!

Our Kindle contest that we’re running in cooperation with our good friends at Adafruit Industries and Amazon has drawn to an epic conclusion, and there’s simply no other way to put it — we’re blown away. We received literally dozens upon dozens of incredible, art gallery-worthy entries and it was all but impossible to narrow them down to a group of finalists — but after an entire weekend of mulling, debating, and hand-wringing, we’ve done the dirty work and narrowed it down to a group of just twenty-three. Now, dear readers, the fate of five Kindles lies in your hands and your hands alone. The laser awaits.

So here’s what we need from you: pick your favorite by 11:59PM ET on Monday, August 3rd. That’s it. We’ll take the five top vote-getters and award each with a 6-inch Kindle engraved with their design — and of course, we’ll post pictures of the finished products before they go out to their lucky owners.

Follow the break to see the entries (which you can click to see in larger form). Below each design, you’ll see a number — these correspond to numbers in the poll, which you’ll find directly below the entries. Just choose your favorite by number and we’ll take take care of the rest.

Good luck, contestants — and good luck picking from all of these amazing entries, readers!

Filed under: lasers — by adafruit, posted July 29, 2009 at 3:09 pm


Simple solder paste fridge

3769860416 31Fb16Bd46 B
Turn a peltier ‘USB soda can cooler’ into a solder paste fridge. Takes only 5 minutes!

Filed under: random — by adafruit, posted at 1:28 pm


Arduino Mega (Atmega1280 – assembled) & Arduino Mega protoshield

Megaarduino Lrg
By popular demand! We are now carrying the Mega. The Mega is basically a big brother to the Arduino Duemilanove (& similar), with many more pins, UARTs, PWMs, etc. If you’ve run out of pins on your Arduino or you need 128k of flash (compared to 32k!) you will find this a good upgrade!

Megaprotoshield Med
This is an extra large protoshield designed by Arduino for the Mega. We include 2 sticks of 36 pin header, 5 8-pin female headers and a 6-pin female header to allow easy pluggin’



PIR (motion) sensors in the shop!

Pirsensor Lrg
Pirsensorback Lrg
PIR sensors are used to detect motion from pets/humanoids from about 20 feet away (possibly works on zombies, not guaranteed). Usually this sensor comes with a straight 3-pin header soldered on. This makes it annoying to use because its is not easy to plug into a breadboard and you can’t solder wires in. So we requested to leave it off and include a 3-pin right-angle header instead which you can solder in for breadboard use or skip and use wires. Runs on 3.3-6V. Digital signal output is high/low. In the shop now, $10 !



Nokia schematics

Nokia N95 Detail
A soon to be classic post by Bunnie :)

I was wandering around on a rainy Saturday afternoon in the mobile phone market in Shenzhen and I spied a stall keeper working on a phone motherboard. Unlike most of the other folks in the market, he was working from a set of schematics — that got my attention. I asked him where he got his schematics from and he kindly dispatched his young son to walk me over to the small tool shop on the other side of the market where, buried underneath a pile of single-use BGA SMT stencils, was a collection of mobile phone schematics for just about every phone made.

I don’t know about you, but getting my hands on schematics gets me really excited. This is like, the Ultimate Hardware Geek Pr0n. Sure, undressing a mobile phone and revealing its tender innards to my gaze — the sweet perfume of flux residue unleashed, curling into my nostrils — is one level of hardware voyeurism. But, getting the schematics for the phone and peering into its very circuit diagrams — that’s a whole new level, like tearing off the undergarments and ravaging the bosom of the phone. I was excited. I brought the manuals to the clerk and asked how much…wincing at the price I may have to pay to bring these prized morsels back to my hotel room. I breathed a sigh of relief when he asked for only 75 quai — a little over $10 US — for the whole three-book collection. I didn’t even haggle. I grabbed my booty and ran for the nearest taxi.

Alright. Don’t take my double entendre too literally; it’s just fun to write that way. Anyways, on to the manuals…

Filed under: random — by adafruit, posted July 26, 2009 at 5:41 pm


Toys for Bots – Arduino controlled etch-a-sketch

Ardimage

yergacheffe writes -

I had recently purchased a pair of 5V stepper motors and a motor driver shield from the fine folks at adafruit industries which seemed perfect for spinning the knobs. The question was how to connect the steppers to the knobs. As it happens I had also just bought a gear set from American Science & Surplus on a lark and they fit perfectly on the Etch A Sketch shafts and the stepper shafts. So I simply needed a way to line up the steppers over the knob gears.

There are few problems you’ll encounter in life that can’t be resolved with the judicious application of a laser beam. I drew up a set of parts in Corel Draw and popped in to TechShop to cut them out of acrylic with their Epilog laser cutter.

I cut most of the parts out of clear acrylic except for the side guides which you can see in blue acrylic. The side guides hold the Etch A Sketch in place so it doesn’t move around laterally.



Tiny Braitenberg vehicle

L Dsc 0022

Alex writes -

Again a Braitenberg vehicle. This one is even smaller, than the previous one and comes on a custom PCB. It weighs 17 gramms, is driven by two pager motors, powered by a small lipo cell and controlled by an 8-pin ATtiny25V.

Filed under: arduino — by adafruit, posted July 24, 2009 at 4:34 pm


Hooray, the breadboard power supply from Adafruit…

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Catbus has a nice review of our new breadboard power supply kit

Hooray, the breadboard power supply from Adafruit is put together and working. I look forward to not clawing my face off in frustration every time I have to ******* breadboard anything requiring power.

Filed under: kits,power supply,useful-stuff — by adafruit, posted at 2:10 pm


Tri-Vise – metal brace that is a vise

Pt 2076
Pt 2077
An Adafruit customer sent this in – it’s a metal triangle with slots for holding/cutting things, looks pretty simple and handy. Anyone ever use one of these?

Filed under: random — by adafruit, posted at 1:05 pm


Catching satellites on ham radio

Satelliteyagi
Nice how-to from Diana Eng

My favorite ham activity is making contacts via satellites. Not only is there the romantic notion of sending messages into outer space, but you have to trace the orbit of the satellite with your antenna while tuning the radio, to compensate for the Doppler effect.

The satellites AO-51, SO-50, and AO-27 orbit the Earth acting as repeaters. Repeaters are automated relay stations that allow hams to send signals over a greater distance using low-power hand held transceivers. The satellites allow hams to relay messages from Earth to space and back to other hams somewhere on the planet. The International Space Station (ISS) also has a repeater, but occasionally, if you’re lucky, the astronauts turn on their radios to make contact directly with hams on the ground.

The following instructions will get you started listening to birds (satellites) on FM, which can be done with a simple VHF/UHF FM radio with a whip antenna, without the need of a ham license. For better coverage, you can use a Yagi antenna (like the one pictured above) connected to a mutli-mode radio and a license (if you want to transmit). A Yagi antenna can also be used to improve the signal of your hand held radio.

Filed under: random — by adafruit, posted July 23, 2009 at 6:27 pm


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