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If you want to run your Raspberry Pi from something other than a mains power converter, and you’ve got some courage to spare, this hack is right up your alley. [Tom] wrote in with a switch mode power replacement for the RPi’s stock linear regulator. This is the first hack we’ve seen where the RPi’s [...]

Tags:  raspberry regulator power tom pi-power switch-mode-power mains-power Rasberry  

[Adam] and [Jeremy] took on the challenge of designing a system that would make it easy to control appliances from the Internet. We’ve seen the concept many times before; it involves some method of switching mains power and connecting that mechanism to the Internet. This design is both well planned and nicely executed. We’re always [...]

Tags:  internet backend challenge adam jeremy mains-power appliances home hacks  

[Mike] dropped us a tip to show off a system he has built to control some power sockets based on his proximity.  Initially the project started as a parallel port controlled box to switch the mains power.  Then he got the idea of turning this into a little more interactive of an automation tool. He [...]

Tags:  controlling power bluetooth mike power-sockets mains-power automation-tool classic hacks  

[Eberhard] wanted his own reflow oven but didn’t really want to mess around with the internals that control the heating element. He put his microcontroller programming experience to work and came up with an add-on module that controls the oven by switching the mains power. The image above shows a board in the midst of the [...]

Tags:  oven reflow control eberhard mains-power microcontroller-programming toaster-oven tool hacks  

For years, [Rasmus] has left his computer connected directly to the mains power so that he can turn it on via Wake on Lan. While powered down, it would still continuously consume about 6W of electricity, but now that he didn’t need it to be on standby so often, he wanted to make it more [...]

Tags:  strip electricity power lan rasmus electricity-consumption mains-power wake-on-lan home hacks  

[Michael] took a battery charger meant to be connected to mains power and converted it to work with a solar panel. This was a traditional 4 cell charger which charges the batteries in pairs. He kept that functionality, but added USB charging with a special over-current feature. That’s because his Android phone has a fast [...]

Tags:  mains-power cell-charger solar-battery green hacks  

[RB] at Embedded Lab sent in a great guide on how to control appliances with a remote control using a really clever implementation of a decade counter and IR receiver. The build itself is very simple – just a relay connected to mains power and a handful of resistors and transistors. The device is controlled [...]

Tags:  clever-implementation decade-counter mains-power classic hacks  

Living in a brushfire-prone area, [Erich] had a set of roller shutters installed to protect his home. Mains power can be spotty in emergencies, so the shutters are powered by NiMH batteries which are housed inside the shutters’ remote control units. After encountering a good handful of dead batteries, he decided it was time to [...]

Tags:  fixing shutter window erich roller-shutters window-shutter mains-power home hacks  

[Ladyada] is working on a tutorial series covering power supplies. If you’ve ever built an electronic project you’ve used some type of power supply but we think that most people have no idea how you get from mains power to the DC voltages that most small projects use. So if you want to learn, get [...]

Tags:  experience ladyada power mains-power dc-voltages misc hacks