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Readers of Hackaday may have noticed the weekly posts featuring whatever [Dino Segovis] of Hack A Week has cooked up in the last seven days. For [Dino]‘s one-year anniversary, he’s pulled out all the stops and put together one of his coolest hacks to date. It’s a laser oscillograph that projects waveforms on a screen just like an [...]

Tags:  extravaganza dino hacks laser  

We need to find the kind of friends that [Dino] has. They seem to drop off all of their older, yet totally awesome, electronics with him once they’re through with the devices. One example of this is the Sony Handycam that came into his possession. He decided to crack it open and repurpose the 20x optical [...]

Tags:  kind lens webcam dino sony-handycam possession digital cameras hacks  

Add some fruit to your indoor bounty with this hydroponic strawberry farm. [Dino] whipped this up as his 45th hack a week episode (getting pretty close to his year-long goal). He used parts you probably already have sitting around the house somewhere. But even if you bought everything and used it once you still wouldn’t [...]

Tags:  winter hydroponic fruit dino hydroponic-strawberries strawberry-farm green hacks  

You probably know that if you spin a motor (mechanically) it generates electricity on what would normally be the inputs. This can be a problem when you shut off a spinning motor and is the reason that protection diodes are built into motor driver circuits. But [Dino] isn’t interested in driving a motor, he wanted [...]

Tags:  electricity motor stepper dino driver-circuits stepper-motor diodes classic hacks  

Weekly Hack a Day feature [Dino] is back again, this time with his very own guitar pedal. It’s modeled on a three-transistor Fuzz Face clone and sounds very good in our humble opinion. Fuzz pedals were some of the first guitar pedals on the market, and for good reason. Their easy construction and simple theory [...]

Tags:  face guitar fuzz dino fuzz-face fuzz-pedals guitar-pedals musical hacks  

With winter upon us, and all the windows shut, [Garfield] and [Socks] can get a little restless. But [Dino] is determined to keep his furry friends entertained through the cold dark months. He hit the junk box, and used some interesting fabrication techniques to build the Chase-a-Mouse motorized cat toy. The toy is popular with [...]

Tags:  pep toy cat socks dino garfield junk-box house-cat cat-toy home hacks  

Lots of people buy noise makers for New Year’s eve, others opt to sing Auld Lang Syne – then there’s these guys. The crew at Stone Brewing Company throw an annual bash at their brewery in celebration of New Years, and while [Dino’s] countdown timer is great for intimate settings, they needed something bigger to [...]

Tags:  new doomsday year dino auld-lang-syne countdown-timer radness holiday hacks  

[Dino] wanted to make this New Year’s celebration a bit more interesting, but he can’t make it to New York for the ball drop. Instead, he decided to make his own mini display in his workshop. Obviously he’s working with a slightly smaller budget than the folks at Times Square, but we think his display [...]

Tags:  mini drop ball eve dino new-york times-square ball-drop mini-ball arduino hacks  

Looks like [Dino] is getting the band back together. After a junkyard tube amp and a DIY tremolo stompbox, he’s back again, this time doing a bit of sound treatment in his studio. Most rooms naturally have a bit of flutter echo. You’ll notice this when you move into an apartment or new house – [...]

Tags:  sound bit studio dino tube-amp junkyard tremolo musical hacks  

There’s a lot of builders around whose first foray in electron manipulation was building effects pedals for guitars. It looks like [Dino] might be getting back to his roots with his tremolo effects box how-to. Last week, [Dino] found an old 5-watt tube amp in someone’s trash and decided to bring it back to a [...]

Tags:  guitar fabbing tremolo dino guitar-tremolo watt-tube tube-amp musical hacks  

Why, oh why, oh why do people toss out awesome retro hardware?? Luckily, [Dino] visited the junk depot himself at just the right time. Even though you’re not supposed to take things others have dropped off he poached the retro portable turntable that was just sitting there. He cracked it open and figured out how [...]

Tags:  junkyard gold retro dino portable-turntable tube-amp musical hacks  

[Dino's] latest weekly hack plays right into our Kitchen Hacks theme. He’s sharing some obscure tips and tricks involving eggs. It should come as no surprise that he knows a thing or two about using eggs. After all, he keeps chickens and you’ve can’t just let good eggs go to waste. Which is where his [...]

Tags:  kitchen egg hacks dino chickens eggs cooking  

Typically, when people hear that you’ve made a Halloween costume for your dog, the statement is met with the eye rolling and polite lies about how cute the outfit is. There are few exceptions to this rule, and [Dino’s] latest creation is one of them. For this week’s entry in his Hack a Week series, [...]

Tags:  hacks halloween week dino halloween-costume dogman holiday hacks  

It looks like [Dino] is getting settled into his new digs, and while the moving process has kept him pretty busy, he’s slowly but surely getting his workshop area set up. One thing that he really wanted from his new bench was a better way to record video, for both his Hack a Week series [...]

Tags:  camera workbench overhead dino camera-boom overhead-camera new-digs digital cameras hacks  

[Dino] continues his to satisfy his weekly hacking goal by building a cat door for his pets. He has a Habitat For Humanity resale store nearby that was doing a 50% off sale on doors. So he picked up a six-panel door and set to work. The first step is drawing out the opening and [...]

Tags:  goal door cat dino habitat-for-humanity-resale-store cat-door habitat-for-humanity home hacks  

[Dino] is back with another installment of his Hack a Week series, and in this episode he is taking on what he promises will be the last transistor-based project – at least for a little while. In the video embedded below, he shows off a homemade voltage detector circuit that he constructed using a trio [...]

Tags:  detector voltage installment dino voltage-detector transistor hack tool hacks  

This week, with a little help from a Roomba, [Dino] built a guitar pickup and preamp that sounds marvelous. A pickup takes vibrations from the guitar and turns them into an electrical signal which can then be amplified and broadcast. He grabbed a long-dead Roomba which has slowly but surely been donating its organs for [...]

Tags:  preamp guitar pickup dino guitar-preamp guitar-pickup jfet musical hacks  

Hacker [Dino Segovis] is back with yet another installment of his Hack a Week series, and it’s looking like he isn’t too worse for wear after hunkering down to face hurricane Irene. This week, it seems that [Dino] is having some problems separating his PNP transistors from his NPNs. After Albert Einstein proves to be [...]

Tags:  simple transistor week albert-einstein irene dino dino-segovis hurricane-irene pnp-transistors transistor-tester tool  

You know them, you love them, you take them for granted – they are single push button on/off switches. As [Dino] explains in the most recent episode of his Hack a Week series, they are typically implemented in the form of IC logic switches nowadays, but it wasn’t always that way. When they first came on [...]

Tags:  push button episode dino logic-switches transistor push-button misc hacks  

For this week’s hack, [Dino] was working on a mechanical cat toy, but the project fell apart towards the end for some reason or another. With time running out, he had to come up with something on pretty short notice, using whatever he happened to have on hand. Luckily he picks up some seriously weird [...]

Tags:  week toy cat c-hexababy dino mechanical-cat cat-toy nightmares robots hacks  

[Dino] got his hands on an FM transmitter “bug” kit via a friend, and thought it would make for an easy and fun Hack a Week project. The kit is simple two transistor half-wave FM transmitter, which the manufacturer suggests could be used to bug a room, hence the name. After poking a bit of [...]

Tags:  kit bug transmitter dino wave-fm half-wave fm-transmitter radio hacks  

The Parallax Propeller is a pretty powerful MCU as [Dino] recently discovered in his latest Hack a Week installment. He wanted to build a simple robotics platform that he could use for testing out various sensors, and he figured he might as well learn about a different type of micro controller in the process. He [...]

Tags:  avoidance robot propeller-based dino object-avoidance micro-controller mcu robots hacks  

[Dino's] project of the week is a backup alarm for your car. This is a feature that has become popular on many large vehicles like SUVs where visibility is an issue when moving in reverse. But it doesn’t sound like he was motivated by the need to have this in his own car. Instead, he [...]

Tags:  backup alarm car dino backup-alarm own-car suvs transportation hacks  

When we first heard of [Dino]‘s all-terrain Roomba, we hoped the ‘stair-climbing Roomba’ problem had finally been solved, but the final build turned out much cooler. A year ago, [Dino] built a small robot based on a rocker-bogie suspension. This suspension system has been used on every Mars rover, including the huge Mars Science Labratory [...]

Tags:  mars rover roomba dino mars-science labratory mars-rover robots hacks  

[Dino's] latest Hack a Week project, the WALL-E Robot shows quite simply what you can create from a few dollars worth of toys from garage sales and cheap stores. When he found the WALL-E toy at a garage sale, Dino decided that he had to give it a brain. Using the geared motors from some [...]

Tags:  wall-e garage robot dino garage-sale garage-sales arduino hacks  

[Dino Segovis] wrote in to share yet another installment of his Hack a Week series, though this one is quite timely. It was 131 years ago today that [Alexander Graham Bell] unveiled the Photophone to the world. A precursor to fiber optic technology, [Bell’s] incredibly important invention can be easily replicated in your garage, as [...]

Tags:  photophone anniversary installment alexander-graham-bell dino dino-segovis fiber-optic-technology classic hacks  

[Dino Segovis] is at it again!  For this week’s installment of his “Hack A Week” series [Dino] is holding a guitar pickup winding 101.  Professional guitar pickups can cost hundreds of dollars, but are all essentially a permanent magnet wrapped in a bunch of wire. Using some cheap headphones, magnet wire, and a spare bolt [...]

Tags:  week pickup guitar dino dino-segovis magnet-wire permanent-magnet holding-a-guitar musical hacks  

[Dino] is staying true to his goal of hacking one project every week. This time around, he’s working on a toy that will amuse and delight his cats. The project centers around a mouse house that has two holes where mice can stick their heads out. When they do, a little LED lamp illuminates their [...]

Tags:  hacking enjoyment project dino led-lamp mice home hacks  

[Dino], who has become a regular face here on hackaday, sent us one of his weekly projects that we thought was pretty cool. He wanted to shoot some video of photographs to commemorate his late mother. The goal was to achieve the “Ken Burns Effect“, but in hardware instead of just doing it in software.  [...]

Tags:  hackaday camera face dino ken-burns ken-burns-effect camera-dolly axis-camera digital cameras hacks  

[Dino] didn’t want to keep the baby chickens cooped up when he was at work, but he didn’t want them to escape, or become a juicy treat, either. His solution was to build this chicken tractor. It’s a complete chicken ecosystem with wheels, kind of like a double-wide trailer for our feathered friends. On one [...]

Tags:  tractor didn chicken dino baby-chickens chicken-tractor double-wide-trailer home hacks  

A while back, [Dino] built an automatic ball launcher for his dogs, but he wanted to revise it to make it smaller and a bit more user-friendly. While watching an episode of “Prototype This”, he came across a great idea to improve his launcher, so off to the workshop he went. He repurposed a power [...]

Tags:  ball bit launcher dino prototype dogs home hacks  

[Dino] recently sent us some info on his latest project, a 555 timer-based slider synthesizer. The synth was built to emulate the sound made by playing a slide whistle, and also as an entry into the 555 Design Contest, which is quickly coming to a close. If you’re not familiar with a slide whistle, just [...]

Tags:  slide synth fun dino slide-whistle fun-slide design-contest contests  

While it is only the middle of February, it might be a good time to start thinking about your plans for April Fool’s day. [Dino's] Screamer Doll is his submission to the upcoming 555 Contest.  This fun little circuit can be used to easily annoy your cube or house mates and is perfect for all of the [...]

Tags:  screamer doll prank dino april-fool mates misc hacks  

[Dino] is an auto mechanic and needed a way to test out fuel injectors. Commercially available tools start well over $100 and go up from there, but he built his own for about $20. The injectors have a coil in them that needs to be tested. His design calls for a series of 0.008 millisecond [...]

Tags:  injector fuel tester dino auto-mechanic available-tools fuel-injectors tool hacks  

Enjoy this 20 minute video dissection of a Roomba 4000. There is lots of great information here, as [Dino] does the dirty work. It is pretty dirty too. Remember, the Roomba is a vacuum. What a pleasant way to waste 20 minutes of your morning. Part 2 is after the break. [...]

Tags:  enjoy dissection roomba dino video-dissection dirty-work home hacks