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226 items tagged "transportation"
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want [+],
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trees [+],
tread mill [+],
trckrx [+],
travel backpacks [+],
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train [+],
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thor [+],
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temperature readings [+],
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technology [+],
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suzuki v strom [+],
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suvs [+],
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summer [+],
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steering wheel [+],
steel cable [+],
steel bar [+],
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stair [+],
spray paint [+],
spokes [+],
spite [+],
spider [+],
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solution [+],
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skywalker [+],
ski lift [+],
ski [+],
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simon [+],
silverton oregon [+],
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shift registers [+],
shapes and sizes [+],
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sailboat [+],
s.i.n. cycles [+],
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ribeiro [+],
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rainbow [+],
railways [+],
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needle [+],
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munich [+],
moving sidewalks [+],
mountainboard [+],
motorizing [+],
motorized bicycle [+],
motorized [+],
motorists [+],
motorcycle engines [+],
motorcycle engine [+],
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motions [+],
monkey powered [+],
mondo [+],
moms and dads [+],
mistake [+],
misjudgment [+],
minivan [+],
minimalism [+],
military conflicts [+],
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mechanical engineers [+],
mech eng [+],
meaningful improvements [+],
mayor [+],
matthew riese [+],
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matt [+],
mario mauerer [+],
many horses [+],
manager cve [+],
management [+],
man exhibitions [+],
main rotor [+],
main goal [+],
maiden voyage [+],
mac mcalpine [+],
maastricht [+],
lule [+],
lot [+],
look [+],
longboard [+],
london [+],
local security [+],
little jewel [+],
little bit [+],
lithium polymer [+],
lithium cells [+],
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list [+],
light [+],
lift [+],
lifepo4 [+],
life [+],
leds [+],
lead acid batteries [+],
lcd screen [+],
lcd display [+],
lcd [+],
lawnmower [+],
lawn chairs [+],
launcher [+],
lastenrad [+],
last decade [+],
laser [+],
laminating wood [+],
lai [+],
ladder [+],
kurt [+],
kraken [+],
knife [+],
kilo [+],
kick scooter [+],
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kart [+],
kaj [+],
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john wayland [+],
john graham cumming [+],
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iteration [+],
isle of man [+],
iron phosphate [+],
iphone [+],
ioan [+],
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internal combustion engine [+],
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information [+],
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indicator lights [+],
imu [+],
impressive range [+],
igor [+],
ignition [+],
hydrofoil [+],
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human powered helicopter [+],
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hovercraft [+],
hoverbike [+],
hoth [+],
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honda vtr 250 [+],
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heel [+],
headlight assembly [+],
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hazmat [+],
hassle [+],
harbor freight [+],
hans [+],
handlebars [+],
hand cranks [+],
hand built [+],
hall effect sensors [+],
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gt3 [+],
gsxr 600 [+],
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gravity bike [+],
gravity [+],
gravitation force [+],
graffiti [+],
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google maps [+],
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golf cart [+],
golf [+],
goal posts [+],
glove control [+],
glove [+],
globars [+],
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glen [+],
german words [+],
gas turbine engine [+],
gas tank [+],
gas [+],
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gabriel cain [+],
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full suspension [+],
free weekends [+],
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forest moon of endor [+],
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foot pedals [+],
focus [+],
flip tricks [+],
flight record [+],
flat tire [+],
fixing [+],
fixed gear bike [+],
final frontier [+],
ferrari f50 [+],
ferrari [+],
feedback panel [+],
fan powered [+],
fan [+],
factory settings [+],
exotic materials [+],
everything [+],
esuperbike [+],
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enhance [+],
emile [+],
electronics engineer [+],
electronic ignition system [+],
electronic devices [+],
electronic cart [+],
electronic bicycle [+],
electrical vehicles [+],
electric wheelchair [+],
electric vehicles [+],
electric vehicle [+],
electric tricycle [+],
electric transportation [+],
electric kart [+],
electric honda [+],
electric bikes [+],
electric bicycle [+],
elbow grease [+],
efficiency [+],
edward [+],
ed zarick [+],
eatc [+],
easy travel [+],
earplugs [+],
dutyharbor [+],
ducted fans [+],
ducted fan [+],
duane flatmo [+],
dspic [+],
ds1820 [+],
dry ice [+],
drum brakes [+],
drop [+],
drool [+],
drone [+],
droid [+],
driving cars [+],
driver [+],
drive wheels [+],
drive shaft [+],
drill powered [+],
dream ride [+],
dozen [+],
down from the mountain [+],
don [+],
doesn [+],
doctor wily [+],
docking system [+],
dock [+],
diwheel [+],
dino [+],
digital speedometer [+],
digital circuitry [+],
digital [+],
different components [+],
diamond plate [+],
design [+],
desert [+],
derailleur [+],
delorean [+],
degree of freedom [+],
deep cycle batteries [+],
debrah [+],
deathtrap [+],
daymak [+],
davvik [+],
davis [+],
datsun 1200 [+],
datsun [+],
data sources [+],
data logging system [+],
data logger [+],
daniel [+],
dan mattox [+],
d.c. [+],
d printed [+],
cylinder engine [+],
cyclists [+],
cutting angle [+],
custom exhaust [+],
custom [+],
culvert pipe [+],
crazy art [+],
crawler [+],
crankcase [+],
crank [+],
craigslist [+],
craig carmichael [+],
countless details [+],
copenhagen [+],
controller board [+],
controller [+],
control scheme [+],
contraption [+],
construction techniques [+],
connection mechanism [+],
concept [+],
computer interface [+],
comfort bus [+],
cold air intake [+],
coffee [+],
coaster [+],
cnc [+],
clymer [+],
climbing [+],
clement [+],
city [+],
citroen 2cv [+],
cincinnati [+],
chrome moly [+],
chris neal [+],
chinese hacker [+],
chibikart [+],
chevy volt [+],
chevy cavalier [+],
chevrolet volt [+],
cheap electric scooters [+],
charles guan [+],
chainring [+],
chainless [+],
chain tension [+],
chain [+],
center stage [+],
cell battery [+],
case [+],
carlos [+],
cargo trailer [+],
career [+],
care [+],
cardboard [+],
card [+],
car puccino [+],
car expert [+],
car door [+],
car computer [+],
canon 5d [+],
canoe [+],
canada [+],
caliber gun [+],
buzzer [+],
button [+],
busy parents [+],
bus arrival [+],
burning car [+],
building [+],
build [+],
budget [+],
buddy [+],
bruce land [+],
british columbia [+],
bright sunlight [+],
breeze [+],
brazilian native [+],
brass tubes [+],
brass [+],
brain driver [+],
brain [+],
brad [+],
boston transit [+],
boston [+],
boot to the head [+],
boat [+],
board [+],
bmw e36 m3 [+],
bmw [+],
bill porter [+],
bill caswell [+],
biking [+],
bike tires [+],
bike storage [+],
bike ride [+],
bike frame [+],
bike data [+],
bigdog [+],
bicycle tires [+],
bicycle design [+],
bicycle computer [+],
bicycle commuters [+],
bicycle built for two [+],
bezels [+],
ben nelson [+],
ben katz [+],
bells whistles [+],
being a good parent [+],
becky stern [+],
becky [+],
battery pack [+],
battery cell [+],
battery [+],
barry millman [+],
bamboo poles [+],
bamboo [+],
balance [+],
backyard [+],
backwoods [+],
backup alarm [+],
backup [+],
backlit display [+],
axis [+],
awesome projects [+],
awesome [+],
auxiliary data [+],
autonomous vehicle [+],
autonomous [+],
autonomos [+],
automotive battery [+],
automatic temperature control [+],
austin [+],
attitude [+],
art exhibit [+],
arrival [+],
arms and legs [+],
arduino controlled [+],
apocalyptic movie [+],
answer [+],
andres [+],
andreas georgeades [+],
analog comparators [+],
amp battery [+],
amash [+],
aluminum tubing [+],
all terrain [+],
alarm [+],
air train [+],
air horn [+],
aging family [+],
aftermarket [+],
aerofex [+],
aerial drone [+],
aerial [+],
adelaide university [+],
adding power [+],
acura nsx [+],
acura [+],
accelerometer [+],
acceleration [+],
abhor [+],
a. but [+],
1989 honda vtr 250 [+],
16th birthday [+],
car [+],
bicycle [+],
motorcycle [+]
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22:00
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Hack a Day
Petrol engines dominate the world of the automobile, while electric propulsion races to take an ever larger market share. Despite this, some still hold a flame for steam power. Such aficionados would hold this build in high regard, from the recent past of 2014.
In steampunk, finish is everything.
The bike is of a recumbent design, featuring a relaxed riding position well suited to the sophisticated nature of a steam-powered vehicle. Sporting a wooden frame, the build carries a strong steampunk aesthetic. The flash boiler packs 100 feet of copper pipe, and there’s an electric pump and controller to handle water delivery from the stylish brass tank. The setup is capable of producing steam within 30 seconds of startup. Motive power is courtesy of a 1.5 inch bore single-cylinder steam engine, connected to the rear wheel via a belt drive.
There’s something intoxicating about the sounds and smells of a working steam engine, though the threat of catastrophic burns does temper the excitement just a touch. Steam power isn’t going away any time soon – and it’s not just limited to transport applications, either. Video after the break.
[Thanks to sangimmie for the tip!]
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13:00
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Hack a Day
All of us dream of reaching a point in life where we have the knowledge, skills, energy and resources to pull off builds that match our wildest dreams. [Mike Patey] is living that dream and with a passion for engineering and aviation that is absolutely infectious, he built Draco, the world’s most badass bush plane.
Draco started life as a PZL-104MA Wilga 2000, which already had impressive short take off and landing (STOL) capabilities for a 4 seater. Its original 300 hp Lycoming piston engine failed catastrophically in 2017, very nearly dumping [Mike] in Lake Utah. He decided it was a good excuse to start building his dream plane, and replaced the motor with a Pratt & Whitney PT6 turboprop engine, putting out a massive 680 hp.
Almost the entire plane was upgraded, and the engineering that went into it is awe-inspiring, especially considering that [Mike] did most of it himself. This includes a redesigned fuel system, enlarged wing and control surfaces, new avionics, oxygen system, upgraded landing gear and an array of lights. The wing tip landing lights are actually from a Boeing 737. [Mike] estimates that the upgrades cost somewhere in the region of a million US dollars. All the highlights of the build is documented in series of videos on [Mike]’s YouTube channel. What we would give for a personal workshop like that…
Try not to let your jaw hit the floor when watching the video after the break.
[Mike Patey] has quite a bit of experience with crazy planes. One of his previous builds, a race plane named “Turbulence”, holds a US transcontinental speed record and the average speed record (438 mph / 704.9 km/h) for a single engined turboprop.
We have covered some home-built aircraft before which are slightly more accessible for the average aviation enthusiast. But always remember that just because your dream build is crazy doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
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8:30
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Hack a Day
If you’re enjoying a Western Canadian summer, two of the best ways to do so involve a hammock, or a boat. Seeking to improve on this mighty duo with a hammock-boat combo, [Jarrett] describes his progress at Vancouver Hack Space.
The boat he chose was a one-person catemaran with an aluminium frame and what appear to be inflatable pontoons, while the hammock is one designed for a garden or patio with a steel tubular frame. A design goal was to not modify or destroy the structure of either item, so the challenge was to securely mount the two frames together. A variety of false starts involving bent steel or aluminium were tries, sollowed by a final success with the aluminium tubes reinforced with more tube inside them, and the hammock attached with U-bolts.
The testing took place on what appears to be a public lake, and the contraption floated well. When it had been pushed out to a landing stage our intrepid adventurer boarded the hammock — and promptly the whole edifice tipped itself over, depositing him in the drink. Further experimentation revealed that balance was critical, and a revised position could achieve a stable boarding. He paddles off into the sunset as you can see in the video below the break, though as his friends remind him, without his beer.
Commercial hammocks are surprisingly expensive for what they are. Don’t worry though, if you find them to be beyond your budget you can always make a frame for one yourself.
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16:00
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Hack a Day
It takes a lot of energy to push a car-sized object a few hundred miles. Either a few gallons of gasoline or several thousand lithium batteries will get the job done. That’s certainly a lot of batteries, and a lot more potential to be unlocked for their use than hurling chunks of metal around on wheels. If you have an idea for how to better use those batteries for something else, that’s certainly an option, although it’s not always quite as easy as it seems.
In this video, [Kerry] at [EVEngineering] has acquired a Tesla Model 3 battery pack and begins to take it apart. Unlike other Tesla batteries, and even more unlike Leaf or Prius packs, the Model 3 battery is extremely difficult to work with. As a manufacturing cost savings measure, it seems that Tesla found out that gluing the individual cells together would be less expensive compared to other methods where the cells are more modular and serviceable. That means that to remove the individual cells without damaging them, several layers of glue and plastic have to be removed before you can start hammering the cells out with a PEX wedge and a hammer. This method tends to be extremely time consuming.
If you just happen to have a Model 3 battery lying around, [Kerry] notes that it is possible to reuse the cells if you have the time, but doesn’t recommend it unless you really need the energy density found in these 21700 cells. Apparently they are not easy to find outside of Model 3 packs, and either way, it seems as though using a battery from a Nissan Leaf might be a whole lot easier anyway.
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16:00
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Hack a Day
Your garden variety car generally comes with four wheels, plus a spare in the boot. It’s a number landed upon after much consideration, with few vehicles deviating from the norm. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other possibilities however, and [RCLifeOn] decided to experiment in just such a manner.
The result is a gyro-stabilized two-wheeled RC car, or as we might have put it, a motorcycle of sorts. A brushless motor drives the rear wheel, while steering up front is handled by a servo controlling the front wheel. A large spinning disc acts as a gyro in the center of the vehicle, and it’s all packaged in a simple 3D printed frame.
Results are impressive, with the gyro making a demonstrable difference to the vehicle’s performance. While it can be driven without the gyro enabled, it requires continual steering corrections to stay upright. With the gyro spun up, it rides much more like a bicycle, with few stability issues.
It’s a fun project, and a great way to learn about gyroscopic stability. Of course, there are great primers on the topic, too. Video after the break.
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8:00
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Hack a Day
[Tom Stanton] is well-regarded in the maker community, and has put much effort in over the years on a variety of electric vehicle builds. In the process of upgrading his e-bike last year, he ran into some issues with the main drive pulley. Rather than rely on guesswork, he threw engineering at the problem.
Static weight tests were carried out in combination with FEA to determine the root cause of the problem.
The problem concerned the mounting bolts on the pulley’s hub, which would pull out under high torque. [Tom’s] initial finite element simulations had suggested the design was sound, but reality was proving otherwise. After further analysis and testing, [Tom] determined that his analysis hadn’t properly simulated the bolt pull-out condition. With this corrected in the software, it was readily apparent that there simply wasn’t enough material around the bolt holes to hold the torque load.
With the simulation now more closely agreeing with reality, [Tom] was able to correct the design. New parts were created with a strengthened mounting section, and the pulley was successfully able to deal with the loads in service.
It’s a great example of using engineering simulation tools to solve a problem quickly, rather than simply guessing and hoping things will hold up. We’ve seen [Tom]’s work before, too — like this fun backyard trebuchet build. Video after the break.
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Hack a Day
Electric vehicles are everywhere now. It’s more than just Leafs, Teslas, and a wide variety of electric bikes. It’s also trains, busses, and in this case, gigantic dump trucks. This truck in particular is being put to work at a mine in Switzerland, and as a consequence of having an electric drivetrain is actually able to produce more power than it consumes. (Google Translate from Portugese)
This isn’t some impossible perpetual motion machine, either. The dump truck drives up a mountain with no load, and carries double the weight back down the mountain after getting loaded up with lime and marl to deliver to a cement plant. Since electric vehicles can recover energy through regenerative braking, rather than wasting that energy as heat in a traditional braking system, the extra weight on the way down actually delivers more energy to the batteries than the truck used on the way up the mountain.
The article claims that this is the largest electric vehicle in the world at 110 tons, and although we were not able to find anything larger except the occasional electric train, this is still an impressive feat of engineering that shows that electric vehicles have a lot more utility than novelties or simple passenger vehicles.
Thanks to [Frisco] for the tip!
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Hack a Day
The only thing limiting the range on any electric vehicle isn’t really battery technology, but cost. Customers don’t want to pay more money for an electric car or van that does essentially the same thing as one with an internal combustion engine. This in turn limits the amount of batteries manufacturers put in their cars. However, with enough money, and thus enough batteries, electric cars can get whatever range you want as [Muxsan] shows with his Nissan e-NV200 that gets over 400 miles on a single charge.
The Nissan e-NV200 is a battery electric vehicle (also available as a badge-engineered Chevrolet van in North America) with a drivetrain from the Nissan Leaf. This means that all of the components from the Leaf basically plug-and-play in this van. [Muxsan] took an extra 45 kWh of batteries and was able to splice them in to the existing battery pack, essentially tripling the capacity of the original 24 kWh pack. Some work was needed to the CAN bus as well, and the car’s firmware needed to be upgraded to reflect the new battery pack, but a relatively simple modification otherwise, all things considered.
While watching the video [Muxsan] also notes how much empty space there is all around the van, and Nissan could have easily upgraded the battery pack at any time to allow for more range. It also took the car 10 hours on a 6 kW charger to charge completely, but that’s not unreasonable for 430 miles of range. If your high voltage DC chops are up to snuff, it’s not impossible to find old Leaf batteries for other projects, too.
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Hack a Day
There are some utility bicycles on the market, some with electric motors to help carry a good bit of cargo. If you really need to haul more weight than a typical grocery-getter like this, you’ll want to look into a tricycle for higher capacity loads. Nothing you’ll find will match this monstrous electric tricycle hand-built by [AtomicZombie] out of junkyard parts, though. It’s a mule.
Since [AtomicZombie] sourced most of the underpinnings of this build from the junkyard, it’s based on an old motorcycle frame combined with the differential from a pickup truck, with a self-welded frame. He’s using an electric motor and a fleet of lead acid batteries for the build (since weight is no concern) and is using a gear reduction large enough to allow him to haul logs and dirt with ease (and dump them with the built in dump-truck bed), and even pull tree stumps from the ground, all without taxing the motor.
[AtomicZombie] documented every step of the build along the way, and it’s worth checking out. He uses it as a farm tractor on his homestead, and it is even equipped with a tow hitch to move various pieces of equipment around. Unlike a similar three-wheeled electric contraption from a while back, though, this one almost certainly isn’t street legal, but it’s still a blast!
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Hack a Day
Electric bikes may be taking the world by storm, but the world itself doesn’t have a single way of regulating ebikes’ use on public roads. Whether or not your ebike is legal to ride on the street or sidewalk where you live depends mostly on… where you live. If you’re lucky enough to live in a place where a bicycle is legally defined as having fewer than four wheels and capable of being powered by a human, though, this interesting bike from Russia might be the best homemade ebike we’ve ever seen. (Video embedded below the break.)
While some of the details of this build might be lost on those of us who do not know any Slavic languages, the video itself shows off the features of this electric vehicle build quite well. It has a custom built frame with two wheels up front, each with its own independent suspension, allowing it to traverse extremely rough terrain with ease even a mountain bike might not be able to achieve. It seems to be powered by a relatively simple rear hub in the single rear wheel, and can probably achieve speeds in the 20 km/h range while holding one passenger and possibly some cargo.
The impressive part of this build isn’t so much the electrification, but rather the suspension components. Anyone looking for an offroad vehicle may be able to take a bit of inspiration from this build. If you’re more interested in the drivetrain, there are plenty of other vehicles that use unique electric drivetrains to check out like this electric boat. And, if you happen to know Russian and see some other interesting details in this build that the native English speakers around here may have missed, leave them in the comments for us.
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Hack a Day
It is rare to find a car these days without some mechanism for charging a cell phone. After all, phones need charging all the time and we spend a lot of time in our cars. But what if you spend a lot of time on your bike? Five teens from Lynchburg, Virginia decided to build something to charge their phones from pedal power.
This isn’t a new idea, of course. Your alternator is charging your phone in your car, and bikes have had alternators connected to them for lights and other purposes. According to the team, you need to pedal about 4 miles per hour to get enough voltage to charge the phone. You can go faster though, because the circuit has a regulator. We especially liked how they determined the speed versus the voltage using a tachometer and an electric drill. We also liked the 3D printed parts such as the handlebar mount that you could probably repurpose for other things.
Our only thought would be to use a boost/buck converter so that even lower voltages could generate enough voltage to charge the phone. Sure, the current would be less — there’s no free lunch — but at least you could get some charge.
Perhaps the best thing though is contemplating a summer camp like this and watching the enthusiasm of the team in the video below. When’s the last time your face lit up like that when a project started working?
We’ve seen bike chargers like this before that did use a DC voltage and a boost converter. We’ve also seen a bike powered up with solar cells. It would be fun to connect one of these to an exercise bike so you could feel as though your exercise was accomplishing something.
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Hack a Day
They say you can’t manage what you can’t measure, and that certainly held true in the case of this bicycle that was used to measure the speed of cars in one Belgian neighborhood. If we understand the translation from Dutch correctly, the police were not enforcing the speed limit despite complaints. As a solution, the local citizenry built a bicycle with a radar gun that collected data which was then used to convince the police to enforce the speed limit on this road.
The bike isn’t the functional part of this build, as it doesn’t seem to have been intended to move. Rather, it was chosen because it is inconspicuous (read: rusty and not valuable) and simply housed the radar unit and electronics in a rear luggage case. The radar was specially calibrated to have less than 1% error, and ran on a deep cycle lead acid battery for around eight days. Fitting it with an Arduino-compatible shield and running some software (provided on the github page) is enough to get it up and running.
This is an impressive feat of citizen activism to provide the local police with accurate data to change a problem in a neighborhood. Not only was the technology put to good use, but the social engineering involved with hiding expensive electronics in plain sight with a rusty bicycle is a step beyond what we might have thought of as well.
Thanks to [Jo_elektro] for the tip!
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Raising young children is hard work, and parents need all the help they can get. There’s a whole industry catering to parents who are willing to pay to make their lives a little easier. Then, we have hacker minded parents like [Sam Pearce] who build his own solutions like joystick-controlled motorized strollers. His kids have fun taking their first steps into independent autonomy, dad has freed up his hands from pushing strollers, and everyone wins!
We were impressed when we saw [Sam] and his StrollerController zipping along at Maker Faire Bay Area 2019. Normally the only way young children get to control their own vehicle is in a field of bumper cars or a constrained track like Autopia. These lucky kids can drive around without being constrained by pen or track. This will give them a great early start on their driver’s license test, assuming autonomous vehicles haven’t taken over by the time they grow up.
The StrollerController we saw is a two part affair, each capable of independent operation:
StrollerController v1 is a stroller enhanced with motor gearbox from cordless drills driving rear wheels. Its top speed can be constrained by a limiter depending on the child pilot’s driving proficiency. It also has a bright red emergency stop button on top, plus a remote controlled kill switch held by a supervising adult.
StrollerController v2 is a pusher module equipped with much faster wheelchair motors under an grownup-sized standing platform. Welded to the front is a pair of brackets to dock with either a regular non-motorized stroller or StrollerController v1. The linked system delivers expedient travel for both parent and child.
For such a display of inventive ingenuity and resourcefulness, this project won a well-deserved Editor’s Choice ribbon from Maker Faire. We hope such recognition and enthusiasm from other Maker Faire attendees helped motivate [Sam] as he continues to improve StrollerController.
Strapped a crate to the top of the #StrollerController and the kids drove themselves to the park while I drank my tea pic.twitter.com/Ilo2Pf9O3i
— Sam Pearce (@ScarceSam) May 27, 2019
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Hack a Day
If you only need to travel at around 25 mph around town or to get a short distance to work, an electric bicycle might just be the best thing you can ride. It’s cheap, quick, and fun, and sometimes a great way to get some exercise too. If you want to dial up the amount of excitement, though, you’re going to want something with a little more power and speed. Something like an old dirt bike converted to a 6 kW electric motorcycle.
This is the latest build from [Boom Electric Cycles] and uses the frame from an early-90s Suzuki dirt bike as the foundation. From there it’s all new, though, as the engine was removed and replaced with 3 kW hub motors in each of the wheels. A 72-volt custom battery with 240 18650 cells pushed the amps through the motors, making this bike able to keep up anywhere except the fastest highways (if it’s street legal at all…).
Having about eight times more power than is found in a typical electric bicycle is sure to be a blast, but this build isn’t quite finished yet. Some of the trim panels need to be finished and the suspension needs to be adjusted, but it looks like it’ll be out and about any day now. Until then you’ll have to be satisfied with other projects that managed to cram in 3 kW per wheel.
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Hack a Day
If someone tells you they have seen a rotary engine, the chances are that you will immediately think of a Wankel engine, as you might find in some of the more exotic Mazda sports cars. But there is another rotary engine that has a prior claim to the name, and it can be found as the power unit for many early-twentieth-century aircraft. In these rotary engines the cylinders are arranged radially around a stationary crankshaft, and it is the engine itself that rotates. They have the advantage of extreme simplicity, smooth power, and a low parts count, at the expense of total loss lubrication, a relatively large rotating mass, and some difficulty in controlling their power. These rotary engines were largely obsolete by the 1920s, but recent upsurge of interest in WW1-era aircraft has led to the creation of a small demand for them. New Zealand based Classic Aero Machining Service have stepped in to fill that gap and are remanufacturing the Gnome radial engine, the most numerous design of that era.
For anyone with an interest in internal combustion engines, the Gnome is a fascinating study. It’s a nine-cylinder design that runs a four-stroke Otto cycle, but instead of the two or more valves you might be familiar with from your motor vehicle it has only a single valve. The so-called Monosoupape design uses its valve for both fuel and exhaust, opening it on the inlet stroke as well as the exhaust stroke. The simplicity of a single valve and no carburetor is thus offset by a difficulty in varying its power , so rotary engines would frequently reduce the number of firing cylinders in lieu of throttling back.
The CAMS Gnome is a faithful copy of the original, but with modern metallurgy and the addition of an electronic ignition system. The original castor oil is still used — it seems classic aviation buffs like the smell — but becuase it is notorious for leaving sticky deposits in the engine they are evaluating modern alternatives. They have some technical details on their website, and there’s a good chance you my hear one of their engines one day at an air show near you.
Thanks [Itay] for the tip.
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Hack a Day
A Jeep is fun offroad, a motorcycle perhaps even more so. Diehard renegades go even further and get about in Unimogs and on snowmobiles. [amazingdiyprojects] might just have topped them all however, with his latest project – the astonishing Inflatable Car.
Despite the name, it’s a vehicle that defies clear …read more
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Hack a Day
Crashing one’s bike is a childhood rite of passage, one that can teach valuable lessons in applied physics. Assuming the kid is properly protected and the crash is fairly tame, scrapes and bruises are exchanged for the wisdom to avoid sand and gravel patches, and how to avoid a ballistic dismount by not applying the front brakes harder than or before the rear brakes.
But for many of us, those lessons were learned long ago using a body far more flexible than the version we’re currently in, and the stakes are higher for a bike ride that includes braking mistakes. …read more
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Hack a Day
Bikes are a great way to get around. They’re cheap compared to cars and can be faster through city traffic, and you can get some exercise at the same time. The one downside to them is that the storage capacity is often extremely limited. Your choices are various bags strapped to the bike (or yourself), a trailer, or perhaps this bicycle side car made from a beer keg.
Sidecars are traditionally the realm of motorcycles, not bicycles, but this particular bike isn’t without a few tricks. It has an electric motor to help assist the rider when pedaling. With this …read more
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Hack a Day
If you happen to live near Phoenix, Arizona, have a spare US$10,000 or so kicking around, and have always fancied your own true-to-life commercial flight simulator, today is your lucky day. With just over a week to go on the auction, you can bid on a used flight simulator for a Bombardier CRJ200 regional jet airliner.
The CRJ200 jet was produced between 1991 and 2006, first being introduced in 1992 by Lufthansa. It’s a twin-engine design, with about 50 seats for passengers. With a length of more than 26 meters, 12,500 km (41000ft) ceiling, 785 km/h (487mph) cruising speed and …read more
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Hack a Day
[Timo] recently purchased himself a Acton Blink Qu4tro electric skateboard. Performance-wise, the board was great, but the controller left a lot to be desired. There were issues with pairing, battery displays, and just general rideability. Like any good hacker, he decided some reverse engineering was in order, and got to work.
Initial results were disheartening – the skateboard relies on various chips of Chinese origin for which documentation proved impossible to come by. However, as it turned out, the board and controller communicated using the common NRF24L01+ transceiver.
Initial work focused on understanding the pairing process and message protocol. With …read more
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Hack a Day
When designing model aircraft of any shape or size, it’s useful to know the performance you can expect from the components chosen. For motors and propellers, this can be difficult. It’s always best to test them in combination. However, with the numbers of propeller and motor combinations possible, such data can be tough to come by. [Nikus] decided it would be easier to just do the testing in-house, and built a rig to do so.
The key component in this build is the strain gauge, which comes already laced up with an Arduino-compatible analog-digital converter module. Sourced for under $10 …read more
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Hack a Day
[Andrew Rossignol] has a slightly unusual plug-in hybrid vehicle, a Cadillac ELR, and his latest project for the car sees him building a battery-powered portable mains charging pack for it in an attempt to increase its range. If this seems to be a rather cumbersome exercise, his write-up details the work he put in trying to hook up directly to the car’s internal battery, and how a 4 kW mains inverter and an off-the-shelf mains charging station were the most practical alternative.
His first impulse was to hook a second supply to the car’s high voltage bus from a supplementary …read more
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Hack a Day
Electric vehicles of all types are quickly hitting the market as people realize how inexpensive they can be to operate compared to traditional modes of transportation. From cars and trucks, to smaller vehicles such as bicycles and even electric boats, there’s a lot to be said for simplicity, ease of use, and efficiency. But sometimes we need a little bit more out of our electric vehicles than the obvious benefits they come with. Enter the electric drift trike, an electric vehicle built solely for the enjoyment of high torque electric motors.
This tricycle is built with some serious power behind …read more
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Hack a Day
A few months ago, several companies started deploying electric scooters on the sidewalks of cities around the United States. These scooters were standard, off-the-shelf electric scooters made in China, loaded up with battery packs, motors, and a ‘brain box’ that has a GPS unit, a cellular modem, and a few more electronics that turn this dumb electric scooter into something you can ride via an app. Dropping electronic waste on cities around the country was not looked upon kindly by these municipalities, and right now there are hundreds of Bird and Lime scooters in towing yards, just waiting to be …read more
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Hack a Day
Solar vehicles are getting more and more common as the price of solar panels comes down, and the availability of motors and controllers for all of these vehicles rises. Making a solar-electric bike from a kit is one thing, but this solar-powered boat is a master class in hacking at all levels, from the solar drive train to the pontoons, and even the anchor.
[J Mantzel] has many videos about his boat on his channel, and watching them all will likely leave you wanting to build your own. He builds almost everything on his boat from scratch from things he …read more
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Hack a Day
Kayaks are a some of the most versatile watercraft around. You can fish from them, go on backpacking trips, or just cruise around your local lake for a few hours. They’re inexpensive, lightweight, don’t require fuel, and typically don’t require a license or insurance to operate. They also make a great platform for a solar-powered boat like this one with only 150 watts of panels and a custom-built motor with parts from an RC airplane.
[William Frasier] built his solar-powered kayak using three solar panels, two mounted across the bow of the boat using pontoons to keep them from dipping …read more
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Hack a Day
Owning and flying your own small airplane offers a nearly unmatched level of freedom and autonomy. Traveling “as the crow flies” without having to deal with traffic on the ground immediately shrinks your world, and makes possible all sorts of trips and adventures. Unfortunately the crippling downsides of plane ownership (storage and maintenance costs, knowledge that you might die in a fiery crash, etc), keeps most of us planted squarely on terra firma.
But not [ITman496]. His dream of owning an ultralight has recently come true, and he’s decided to share his experience with the world. He’s got a long …read more
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Hack a Day
[Ran D. St. Clair] has created a unique flying machine in the Flex 9. It’s not every day that you see a completely new and unusual aircraft, but the Flex 9 definitely fits the bill. [Ran] took 9 radio controlled planes, connected them together, and made one giant plane — and with an 18-foot wingspan, giant isn’t a misnomer.
The planes that make up the Flex 9 are simple aircraft – foamboard wings, a boom, and a basic tail. The individual planes only have elevator control – no rudder, no ailerons. Power comes from a standard LiPo battery, ESC and …read more
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Hack a Day
More and more electric bikes have been rolling out into the streets lately as people realize how inexpensive and easy they are to ride and use when compared to cars. They can also be pedaled like a normal bike, so it’s still possible to get some exercise with them too. Most have a range somewhere around 10-30 miles depending on battery size, weight, and aerodynamics, but with a few upgrades such as solar panels it’s possible to go much, much further on a charge.
[The Rambling Shepherd] had a tricycle (in the US, generally still considered a bicycle from a …read more
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Hack a Day
Ah, the simple pleasures of a bike ride. The rush of the wind past your ears, the gentle click of the derailleurs as you change gears, the malignant whine of the dual electric jet turbines pushing you along. Wait, what?
Yes, it’s a jet bike, and its construction was strictly a case of “Why not?” for [Tech Ingredients]. They recently finished up a jet engine build using a hybrid design with electric ducted fans as compressors and fueled with propane. It was quite a success, and pretty spectacular, but left an embarrassment of riches upon its passing in terms of …read more
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Hack a Day
This is Thanksgiving weekend in the United States; the country’s most congested travel weekend of the year. It’s common knowledge, and it’s easy to infer that this holiday weekend is one of the busiest for air travel. But can you prove it empirically? Apparently so. [Bertrand Fan] filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the WiFi traffic at San Francisco International Airport and used the access point data from the past year and a half to show which days were most congested in the airport.
FOIA actually has its own website which boils down the act as follows:
The
…read more
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Hack a Day
As hackers, our goal is to reuse something in a way in which it was not intended and [Rulof Maker] is a master at this. From his idyllic seaside location in Italy, he frequently comes up with brilliant underwater hacks made of, well, junk. This time he’s come up with a wind-powered pump to move air through a hose to a modified scuba mask.
The wind turbine’s blades look professional but you’ll be surprised to see that they’re simply cut from a PVC pipe. And they work great. The air compressor is taken from a car and the base of …read more
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Hack a Day
Being able to coast on a bicycle is a feature that is often taken for granted. The use of a freewheel was an improvement made early in the bicycle’s history, for obvious reasons. This also unlocked the ability to build bikes with multiple gears, allowing higher speeds to be easily reached. On a unicycle, however, there’s no chain and the pedals are permanently fixed to the wheel’s axle, meaning that there is (usually) no freewheel and no gearing. [johnybondo] wanted to get some more speed out of his unicycle, though, and realized he could do this with his own homemade …read more
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Hack a Day
Sometimes a successful project isn’t only about making sure all the electrons are in the right place at the right time, or building something that won’t collapse under its own weight. A lot of projects involve a fair amount of social engineering to be counted as a success, especially those that might result in arrest and incarceration if built as originally planned. Such projects are often referred to as “the fun ones.”
For the past few months, we’ve been following [Bitluni]’s DIY electric scooter build, which had been following the usual trajectory for these things – take a stock unpowered …read more
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Hack a Day
Some of the earliest automobiles weren’t powered by refined petrochemicals, but instead wood gas. This wood gas is produced by burning wood or charcoal, capturing the fumes given off, and burning those fumes again. During World War II, nearly every European country was under gasoline rations, and tens of thousands of automobiles would be converted to run on wood gas before the war’s end.
In the century or so since the first car rolled on wood gas, and after hundreds of books and studies were published on the manufacturing and development of wood gas generators and conversion of internal combustion …read more
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Hack a Day
Everyone remembers popping their first wheelie on a bike. It’s an exhilarating moment when you figure out just the right mechanics to get balanced over the rear axle for a few glorious seconds of being the coolest kid on the block. Then gravity takes over, and you either learn how to dismount the bike over the rear wheel, or more likely end up looking at the sky wondering how you got on the ground.
Had only this wheelie cheating device been available way back when, many of us could have avoided that ignominious fate. [Tom Stanton]’s quest for the perfect …read more
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Hack a Day
In today’s world of over-the-air firmware upgrades in everything from cars to phones to refrigerators, it’s common for manufacturers of various things to lock out features in software and force you to pay for the upgrades. Even if the hardware is the same across all the models, you can still be on the hook if you want to unlock anything extra. And, it seems as though Suzuki might be following this trend as well, as [Sebastian] found out when he opened up his 2011 Vstrom motorcycle.
The main feature that was lacking on this bike was a gear indicator. Even …read more
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Hack a Day
If you’ve followed these pages over the last few weeks, you’ll have seen an occasional series of posts featuring the comedic electric vehicle creations of the British Hacky Racers series, which will make their debut at the forthcoming Electromagnetic Field hacker camp. So far these intrepid electro-racers have come largely from the UK hackerspace and Robot Wars communities, but it was inevitable that before too long there would arrive some competition from further afield.
[Jan Henrik] and [Niklas Fauth] are a pair of prolific German hardware hackers whose work you may have seen from time to time in other fields. …read more
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Hack a Day
Electric bikes are getting a lot of attention lately. Pretty much anyone can buy a kit online and get a perfectly street legal ride with plenty of range. But if you don’t want to take the kit route, and you’d rather take a tack that will get you noticed more around these parts, take some notes from [Jule553648]’s recent build that definitely isn’t using any parts from a kit.
The motor from the build is an electric power steering pump from a junkyard car. This gets mounted on a one-off rear bike rack and drives the rear tire with help …read more
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Hack a Day
A couple of weekends ago on a farm in rural England with a cider orchard and a very good line in free-range pork sausages, there was the first get-together of the nascent British Hacky Racers series of competitions for comedic small electric vehicles. At the event, [Mark Mellors] shot a set of video interviews with each of the attendees asking them to describe their vehicles in detail, and we’d like to present the first of them here.
The Selby is unique among all the Hacky Racers in being a six-wheeler. It’s the creation of [Michael West] of MK Makerspace, and …read more
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Hack a Day
We’re producing an occasional series following some of the miniature electric vehicle builds currently underway at a feverish pace to be ready for the upcoming Electromagnetic Field hacker camp in the UK. Today we’re going down to Somerset, where [Rory] has produced a very serviceable machine he calls the Dustbin 7.
The Hacky Racers series stipulates a £500 budget along with a few rules covering vehicle safety and dimensions, so he had to pick his components carefully to allow enough cash for the pile of LiPo batteries he’d have to buy new in the absence of a convenient surplus source. …read more
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Hack a Day
Electric vehicles are getting more traction these days, but this trend is rolling towards us in more ways than just passenger vehicles. More and more bikes are being electrified too, since the cost of batteries has come down and people realize that they can get around town easily without having to pay the exorbitant price to own, fuel, and maintain a car. Of course there are turnkey ebikes, but those don’t interest us much around here. This ebike from [Andy] is a master class in how to build your own ebike.
Due to some health issues, [Andy] needed a little …read more
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Hack a Day
The triangular frame of a traditional mountain bike needs to be the most rigid structure, and a triangle can be a very sturdy shape. So [Colin Furze] throws a spanner in the works, or, in this case, a bunch of springs. The video is below the break, but please try to imagine you are at a party, eyeballing some delicious salsa, yet instead of a tortilla chip, someone hands you a slab of gelatin dessert. The bike is kind of like that.
Anyone who has purchased springs knows there are a lot of options and terminology, such as Newton meters …read more
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Hack a Day
A Tile is a small Bluetooth device which you can put on your keychain, for example, so that you can find your keys using an app on your phone. Each Tile’s battery life expectancy is one year and after that year you’re expected to trade it in at a discount for a new one. Right away your hacker senses are tingling and you know what’s coming.
[Luis Rodriguez] had switched to Samsung SmartThings and had accumulated box of these Tiles with dead batteries. So he decided a fun project would be to put a Tile in his wife’s car to …read more
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Hack a Day
It seems to be a perennial among humans, the tendency among some to expect the End Times. Whether it was mediaeval Europeans who prepared for a Biblical Armageddon at the first sight of an astronomical phenomenon, 19th-century religious sects busy expecting a Noah’s flood, cold-war survivalists with bunkers under the lawn, or modern-day preppers buying survival gear, we have a weakness for thinking that Time’s Up even when history shows us repeatedly that it isn’t. Popular culture has even told us that the post-apocalyptic world will be kinda cool, with Mad Max-style rusty-looking jacked-up muscle cars and Tina …read more
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4:00
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Hack a Day
If you are fortunate enough to live in a tiny settlement of no significance then perhaps you will be a stranger to bike sharing services. In many cities, these businesses have peppered the streets with bicycles secured by electronic locks for which the “open sesame” command comes through a Bluetooth connection and an app, and it’s fair to say they have become something of a menace. Where this is being written there are several competing brands of dubious market viability, to take a trip across town is to dodge hundreds of them abandoned across pavements, and every one of our …read more
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8:00
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Hack a Day
It’s probably a dream common to many groups of friends among the Hackaday readership: go away together to a sunny island some time in the summer, take a load of beer and maybe a BBQ, and build something. Some of us get close to it at hacker camps such as Toorcamp or EMF, but few do it as well as [KristianKalm] and his friends. Their time on an island resulted in a boat, and what a boat it is!
To be fair, this is not a craft you’d sail the high seas in, its unique hull design rendered in single-skin …read more
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22:00
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Hack a Day
If you’re a fan of endurance racing motor vehicles, there’s one that puts the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Dakar Rally, and the Baja 1000 to shame, and the race doesn’t even involve cars. Indeed, the vehicles used for this massive trek from France to China are electric bicycles, powered only by solar panels. This is the epic Sun Trip endurance race, and one of its competitors built a unique tandem bike that is powered both by pedaling, rowing, and the solar panels.
The tandem bike is interesting on its own since the atypical design uses a back-to-back layout …read more
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1:00
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Hack a Day
Most Hackaday readers will have heard of [Clive Sinclair], the British inventor and serial entrepreneur whose name appeared on some of the most fondly-recalled 8-bit home computers. If you aren’t either a Sinclair enthusiast or a Brit of a Certain Age though, you may not also be aware that he dabbled for a while in the world of electric vehicles. In early 1985 he launched the C5, a sleek three-wheeler designed to take advantage of new laws governing electrically assisted bicycles.
The C5 was a commercial failure because it placed the rider in a vulnerable position almost at road level, …read more
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22:00
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Hack a Day
First things first: the tease on this video, that an electric supercar can be charged from a massive lemon battery array, is exactly that – a tease. Despite that, it makes for an interesting story and a great attempt to get kids exposed to science and engineering.
The story goes that [Mark] was approached by Volkswagen to help charge the batteries on their entry for the upcoming Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, the annual “Race to the Clouds” in Colorado. Racers are tortured by a 4,700′ (1,440 m) vertical climb over a 12.42 mile (20 km) course that features 156 …read more
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13:00
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Hack a Day
What do you do when you suddenly find you have some free time because you’re waiting on parts or have run up against other delays for your current project? If you’re [James Bruton], you design and build a mini electric bike.
Being a prolific builder, [James] already had the parts he needed. Some of them were left over from previous projects: a small motor, a 24 volt LiPo battery, an SK8 electronic speed controller, and a twist grip for the handlebars. He cut a wooden frame using his CNC machine and 3D printed various other components. Normally he uses ABS …read more
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19:00
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Hack a Day
Where do you travel every day? Are there any subtle ploys to manipulate your behavior? Would you recognize them or are they just part of the location? Social engineering sometimes gets a bad rap (or is it rep?) in the mainstream, but the public-facing edge of that sword can keep order as it does in Japanese train stations. They employ a whirlwind of psychological methods to make the stations run like clockwork.
The scope of strategies ranges from the diabolical placement of speakers emitting high-frequency tones to discourage youthful loitering to the considerate installation of blue lights to deter suicides. …read more
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16:00
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Hack a Day
[GreatScott] has now joined the ranks of Electric Bike users. Or has he? We previously covered how he made his own lithium-ion battery pack to see if doing so would be cheaper than buying a commercially made one. But while it powered his E-bike conversion kit on his benchtop, turning the motor while the wheel was mounted in a vice, that’s no substitution for a real-world test with him on a bike on the road.
Since then he’s designed and 3D printed an enclosure for his DIY battery pack and mounted it on his bike along with most of the …read more
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4:00
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Hack a Day
If you’re really interested in aircraft and flying, there are many ways to explore that interest. There are models of a wide range of sizes and complexities that are powered and remote-controlled, and even some small lightweight aircraft that can get you airborne yourself for a minimum of expense. If you’re lucky enough to have your own proper airplane, though, and you’re really into open source projects, you can also replace your airplane’s avionics kit with your own open source one.
Avionics are the electronics that control and monitor the aircraft, and they’re a significant part of the aircraft’s ability …read more
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22:00
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Hack a Day
[Leo Sampson Goolden] is a boatbuilder and Sailor. He’s a prime example of a dwindling group of shipwrights who build sailing vessels the traditional way. In 2017, he was given the opportunity to buy Tally Ho, a Yacht built back in 1910. Once a proud ship, Tally Ho now sat as a shell under a shrink-wrap tarp. Her deck was rotted, her keel cracked. Any sane person would have moved on. Thankfully [Leo] is not quite sane, and began a quest to bring this history ship back to its former glory.
Tally Ho isn’t just an old boat. She is …read more
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4:00
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Hack a Day
They say necessity is the mother of invention. But if the thing you need has already been invented but is extremely expensive, another mother of invention might be budget overruns. That was the case when [klinstifen]’s local government decided to put in countdown clocks at bus stops, at a whopping $25,000 per clock. Thinking that was a little extreme, he decided to build his own with a much smaller price tag.
The project uses a Raspberry Pi Zero W as its core, and a 16×32 RGB LED matrix for a display. Some of the work is done already, since the …read more
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15:01
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Hack a Day
Here’s proof that you can build cool stuff with simple tools. This self-balancing unicycle uses an Arduino and a five degree of freedom IMU from Sparkfun to keep the rider upright. Well, it’ll keep you upright as long as you have good side-to-side balance. But that’s true of any unicycle, right? The Raptor was built by [Nick [...]
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14:01
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Hack a Day
What does a hacker do when going into battle for the freedom of their country? He builds a tank from scratch, of course. It’s a little bit of a stretch calling it a tank as it lacks treads. But it’s got a high-caliber gun mounted on top and has been heavily armored. There is room enough [...]
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3:00
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Hack a Day
[Glenn] had an old electric scooter/motorcycle in his garage that had long ago given up the ghost. Without a working battery and motor controller this scooter wasn’t beyond repair, but [Glenn] thought he could use it to build something much, much cooler. What he came up with is a self-balancing unicycle that borrows inspiration from a [...]
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4:00
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Hack a Day
[Kurt] wanted an electric car, and always wanted to drive a Porsche. Killing two birds with one stone, he decided to combine these wishes and convert a 2002 Porsche 911 into an electric vehicle. After removing the engine, fuel tank, exhaust, radiator, and all the other things that make an internal combustion engine work, [Kurt] installed [...]
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9:01
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Hack a Day
[João Ribeiro] is an electronics engineer by day, but in his free time he likes to ply his trade on everyday items. Recently he’s been integrating his own microcontroller network to unlock and start his car via RFID. In addition to the joy of pulling apart the car’s interior, he spent time designing his own [...]
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13:06
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Hack a Day
This bicycle has no pedals and really nothing that resembles a seat. It’s not so much a way to get around as it’s a way to get down. Down from the mountain, and down low to the pavement. This is a gravity bike built by the guys at S.I.N. Cycles. The frame is a long [...]
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9:02
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Hack a Day
From this view we would think the handmade wooden roadster (translated) was street legal. But it’s missing a few items that are required to take it out on the highway. The teenagers that built it were pulled over the other night (translated) and cited for driving without a speedometer or side indicator lights. The image above shows the [...]
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7:43
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Hack a Day
The folks from MIT made their way to the NYC Maker Faire, and of course brought a pair of Chibikarts. [Nancy Ouyang] wouldn’t allow those portable go karts take center stage at the MIT booth though; her Hexarideablepod (yes, that’s what she calls it) saw much more action from the kids clamoring to take something for [...]
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6:01
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Hack a Day
As a member of the Repair Cafe in Maastricht, [Bertoa] sometimes needs to take a few tools out into the field to repair mechanical and electronic devices. His previous solution to the problem was a toolbox in the trunk of his car, but he knew he could come up with a more environmentally friendly solution. He [...]
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14:01
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Hack a Day
This kayak to sailboat conversion is well done and makes for an interesting project. But even if you’re not going to be hitting the water on one of your own, the construction techniques are a useful resource to keep in mind. Many of the alterations were done with a plastic welding iron. [RLZerr] shows off [...]
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4:00
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Hack a Day
[Juan] dropped us a note to let us know about a little project he’s working on. A few years ago, he bought a Honda S2000. It served him well, but now he’s converting it to electric power, and it’s going to be a beast. [Juan] is using 104 battery packs each containing 4 cells in [...]
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11:01
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Hack a Day
[Mike Holden] has been on the hunt for a display that is easy to read in bright sunlight. He wants to use it to read out navigational data on his sail boat. The best option is an ePaper display. He managed to build a system that will feed updating NMEA 0183 data to a Nook [...]
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8:01
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Hack a Day
Next time you’re taking a vacation anywhere that resembles the planet Hoth, you might want to take the time to build a snow speeder sled before you go. As you can see in the video above (at around the 1:00 mark), the sled looks great, even as it “flies” down the slopes. We were fairly [...]
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14:01
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Hack a Day
[Kaj] wanted to help out an aging family member by building them an electric tricycle during international Hack Day back on August 11th. He mixed in some reused parts with some new ones and ended up with bike that lets the rider troll other cyclists. Apparently when serious riders see an older man on a trike [...]
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10:01
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Hack a Day
The LA Times posted a story about a company called Aerofex that built a real-life hover bike very reminiscent of the vehicles embedded in the redwoods of the forest moon of Endor. The bike itself is a pair of ducted fans, with the pilot straddling the craft amidship. Aerofex claims the ducts on their hoverbike prevent the recirculating flow [...]
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17:00
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SecuriTeam
Oracle Transportation Management is prone to a remote vulnerability in Oracle Transportation Management. .
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13:01
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Hack a Day
You can do some neat stuff to the way your Ford Focus Mk2 works, but first you have to gain access to the data system. If you know some Russian, and don’t mind a bit of dongle rewiring, this guide will have you hacking the car’s CAN bus in no time. It was written by [...]
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7:03
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Hack a Day
If your whip is a Honda, Toyota, BMW, Chrysler, VW, or Mini made in the last decade or so, the Car Kracker is for you. This project allows you to connect directly to your car’s computer system, allowing you to display messages on your stereo, play music off an SD card, and even override factory settings [...]
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8:01
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Hack a Day
When, born hacker, [Kathryn] was 12, she approached her parents with an interesting proposition; she wanted to restore a Pontiac Fiero before her 16th birthday. So, using her babysitting money, parental guidance, and an enviable attitude, she has set out to do just that. The build log linked above is incomplete as she has not yet reached 16, but is a [...]
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16:01
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Hack a Day
Reddit user [tkgarrett101] recently did away with expensive exotic materials for his bike frame and opted for a somewhat less processed form of natural building material, bamboo! The bike consists of a regular metal bike frame with a majority of the structural beams cut and replaced with bamboo poles. The bamboo is fit snug first [...]
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8:00
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Hack a Day
If you’ve ever had to replace a bicycle, [Izhar Gafni] is your man. He created a bicycle made completely out of cardboard that is strong enough to support the largest riders and costs about the same as combo meal at McDonald’s. [Izhar]‘s bikes are made from varying thicknesses of cardboard, the thickest sheet being about an [...]
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6:01
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Hack a Day
Inspired by a non-existant yet still cool illuminated bicycle handlebar project, [Becky] over at Adafruit came up with her own version of light up handlebars. Not only is her project actually real, they’re also a pretty cool build that brings a little lightcycle ambiance to twilight bicycling. [Becky]‘s light up handlebars are inspired by the GLOBARS [...]
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9:03
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Hack a Day
Check it out, this is a Boston transit pass — or at least the parts of it that matters. [Becky Stern] got rid of the rest in a bid to embed the RFID tag inside her cellphone. The transit pass, called a CharlieCard, started out as a normal credit card shaped tag which you might [...]
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13:01
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Hack a Day
Travel backpacks are so passé. All the cool kids, like [Niklas Roy] are using scooter trunks for easy travel. Think of it, not only does it remove the need to carry your heavy baggage, but you get to coast along for the ride as well. We wonder what the officials at air, train, and bus travel [...]
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12:01
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Hack a Day
This all-terrain electric scooter can destroy the speed limit in a school zone without even trying. [Ben Katz] built from the ground-up and did an amazing job of documenting the journey. He strated by redesigning the suspension of a plain old kick-scooter to use these large inflatable wheels. This includes a suspension system that helps cushion [...]
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15:01
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Hack a Day
[Mikey] got a real deal on some A123 Pouch Cells. These are large Lithium cells that tolerate 100A discharge and 50A recharge currents, with 20 AH of life off of one charge. He’s been doing a bunch of testing to find out if the cells can go into an expandable battery pack and be made [...]
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14:01
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Hack a Day
It’s obvious this bike has some extra parts. But look closely and you’ll see the chainring has no chain connecting to it. Pedaling will get you nowhere since [PJ Allen] rerouted the chain in order to drive this bicycle using an electric motor. He’s got beefy motor which pulls 350 Watts at 24 Volts. For [...]
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7:01
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Hack a Day
If you decide to fly into town on this bicycle-powered quadcopter your arms and legs really will be tired. That’s because this athlete had to give it his all to power the rotors through the foot pedals and the hand cranks. You can see just one of the rotors on the right side of the [...]
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11:01
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Hack a Day
This skateboard concept lets you travel down stairs almost as smoothly as gliding down a hill. This seems to be the eighth iteration in [PoChih Lai's] attempts to add functionality to a board which will make it the ultimate ride for an urban outing. Check out the video after the break to see just how well [...]
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8:01
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Hack a Day
So if you had to launch a car through these goal posts how would you do it? Certainly not with a slingshot (although we might have gone with a steam-powered catapult a-la an aircraft carrier). That maroon car with the white stripe is about to make the flight thanks to a very powerful pneumatic launcher. [...]
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6:15
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Hack a Day
[Nabil] sent in an awesome electronic bicycle derailleur. Now, instead of pulling a steel cable with a shifting mechanism, [Nabil] can change gears electronically. As a bonus, the derailleur can be controlled by a small bicycle computer, so he’s always in the right gear. The new electronic derailleur is controlled by a pair of servos [...]
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7:01
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Hack a Day
[cHaRlEsg] posted a rant, then posted full instruction on how to build this electric go-kart for yourself. Now the rant calls this an unobtainium-free sibling to the Chibikart. We’re sad to report that the unobtainium he’s talking about are the hyper-awesome hand-wound hub motors that powered the original kart which left us dumbstruck after seeing [...]
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15:01
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Hack a Day
Bicycle commuters are often in a battle with drivers for space on the road. [Hammock Boy] does all of his commuting on two human-powered wheels, and is quite interested in not getting hit by a car. He decided to ply his hobby skills to build a device that helps keep him safe. It’s not just [...]
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15:01
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Hack a Day
[Glen] built this shiny party machine out of a pretty sad-looking scooter. We’d bet you’re wondering why we think it’s a party machine when it looks so common? The only real giveaway in this photo is the custom exhaust, but hidden in the body of the beast is 720 Watts of party power plus a [...]
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4:01
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Hack a Day
Over the years bicycle design has changed. Materials were upgraded as technology advanced, and accumulated knowledge helped bicycle builders make improvements along the way. But deep analysis with the intent to make meaningful improvements has not been widely embraced. Reasearchers at UC Davis are looking to expand into this frontier by letting the bicycle tell [...]
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10:01
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Hack a Day
You’re not going to be doing any flip-tricks with this board, but it’ll let you get around without getting sweaty. The ZBoard is a motorized skateboard which is in the pre-order stages thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign. It’ll set you back $500 now or $600 later. With that kind of budget wouldn’t it be [...]
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12:01
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Hack a Day
The folks over at the Cincinnati hackerspace Hive13 were wowed last week by an electric motorcycle built by one of their own. [Rick]‘s new ride is built from a 1989 Honda VTR 250. After removing the 24 HP motor, the frame was loaded up with four deep cycle batteries and a DC golf cart motor. Even [...]
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12:01
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Hack a Day
If you want to see what kind of abuse you’re causing your body when out on those single-track rides this system is just the thing. It’s an Arduino data logger that [Wdm006] takes along on the rides with him. When he gets back home, a Python scripts captures the data dump and graphs it. It [...]
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8:01
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Hack a Day
While it may only be [ioan]‘s first ‘real build’, we’re loving his DIY teardrop travel trailer built from the ground up. The trailer started its life as a Super Duty Harbor Freight utility trailer that [ioan] managed to put together in a day. After mounting a wooden frame on the utility trailer, [ioan] fabricated the body of the [...]
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12:01
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Hack a Day
So yeah, this thing exists. Well, at least some pretty interesting looking prototypes of it do. It’s the C-1 from Lit Motors (anyone else think that’s a reference which belongs in /r/trees?). The idea here is that the small form-factor of a motorcycle is very efficient and easily maneuverable. But the cage protecting the passenger from [...]
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4:02
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Hack a Day
The Chevrolet Volt is one of the top contenders in mass-market electric vehicles. Now you can get a look at the components that make up the electrical system with this Chevy Volt teardown article. The adventure starts with a look at the 288 cell battery. It forms a T shape and takes up the space [...]
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18:01
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Hack a Day
The original story is in French, and the Google translate is very rough. Please forgive us if we don’t get this completely accurate. While traveling through the desert somewhere in north west Africa in his Citroen 2CV , [Emile] is stopped, and told not to go any further due to some military conflicts in the [...]
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6:01
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Hack a Day
[Matthew Riese] got frustrated waiting for the future to arrive so he could have his flying car. He decided to take things into his own hands and construct the closest thing he could. This turned out to be a hovercraft. Not only that, but he thought that the most fitting shape for this thing would [...]
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7:09
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Hack a Day
Whoops… Looks like we covered this already. My mistake. In case the name didn’t tip you off, this fun little kart was inspired by MarioKart. The goal was to build a functional go kart that could be controlled via the Nintendo Wiimote. They did a pretty good job and kept it fairly simple too. They [...]
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9:11
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Hack a Day
There are awesome projects, and then there are things that make us drool on the keyboard. We just got done wiping up our mess after seeing this go-kart which uses four hub-motors as direct drive wheels. We’ll admit, this is more artwork than a hack as these guys are mechanical engineers and know what they’re [...]
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8:30
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Hack a Day
There is a long tradition of hacking transportation to work on the rails. People have done it to all kinds of things for many reasons. Some are for rail maintenance, others are simply to enjoy the tracks. With as much unused railways as we have, it seems a shame to waste them. This hack turns [...]
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13:56
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Hack a Day
[Thor] sent in an awesome motorized bike build he found coming from the fruitful workshop of [Jim Gallant]. It’s an incredible piece of work built nearly entirely from scratch. [Jim] welded the frame together on a home-built jig that keeps all the chrome-moly tubes in alignment before they’re pieced together. With the jig, the frame was kept [...]
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5:01
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Hack a Day
After reading a bicycle-powered hydrofoil build we posted a few days ago, [James] sent in the project that earned him an iron ring from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. It’s a pedal-powered hydrofoil made of carbon fiber and a Titanium drive shaft [James] and five other students in a mech eng senior design class [...]
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12:01
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Hack a Day
We’ve seen a few different versions of the “trampofoil” before. That’s the contraption that utilizes a hydrofoil and human power to scoot you across the water above the surface. It is somewhat difficult to explain, so just check out the first video after the break to see how the original works. Today, we stumbled upon [...]
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11:01
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Hack a Day
[Bruce Land] sent in this cool final project for ECE 4760 at Cornell University. Dubbed TrckrX, it is an OBD-II tracking and data logging system built into a BMW E36 M3. The car in question is being used in some auotocross competitions. The driver wanted instant access to some data as well as a log [...]
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14:01
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Hack a Day
[Debrah] is taking his next project out to the garage. He built his own CAN bus reader using a dsPIC. The nice thing about working with Control Area Network is that it’s a universal standard found on every modern production line automobile. And because of this, the chip you need in order to communicate using [...]
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8:01
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Hack a Day
Reddit user [davvik] made an album to show off his custom all aluminum longboard. The whole setup weighs about 12lbs, which is not exactly light for a board. In spite of the added weight [davvik] comments that it is actually pretty responsive. The design is not uncommon but seems to have opted out of the [...]
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12:40
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Hack a Day
[TheChadster] was kind enough to explain that the air horn he attached to his bicycle is not actually as loud as a train horn. This one can only be heard from a half a mile away. But we’re sure the ringing in your ears will seem the same… the video after the break proves this [...]
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7:01
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Hack a Day
[Paul McGuinness] owns a Series III Land Rover, and as the vehicle as formerly used by the British military, it’s lacking some of the modern amenities he was accustomed to. Overlooking the lack of power steering and all-around drum brakes, the one item that [Paul] really missed was a buzzer that let him know when [...]
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13:53
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Hack a Day
[Martyn] is restoring a 32-year-old Honda motorcycle, so when the ancient speedometer broke last year he thought it was prime time to start of a digital speedometer project. We’re loving the results so far, and would love seeing it on a nicely restored bike. Instead of the relative horror of driving 40 LEDs with a [...]
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15:31
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Hack a Day
[John Graham-Cumming] was all set to start a new project based on the Raspberry Pi. Well, that was until shipment was delayed due to manufacturing issues. Not to fret, he transitioned over to a router board which displays the arrival countdown for mass transit bus service. He based the build on a web page the Transport for [...]
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12:35
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Hack a Day
[Matt Turner] tipped us off back in January about his homemade Segway project. Unfortunately that message slipped through the cracks but we’re glad he sent in a reminder after reading Friday’s feature an a different 2-wheeled balancer. We like it that he refers to this project as being on the budget of a graduate student [...]
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15:22
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Hack a Day
[Nick Thatcher] has built several iterations of a homebrew Segway, and the latest version is very impressive. When developing the project he figured there was just no way the thing would ever work, which led to its name, the No-way. After the break you can catch a video of [Nick's] test-ride. Looks like the two-wheeler [...]
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9:01
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Hack a Day
[Jeff Clymer] owns a Ford Focus, and while he’s generally happy with the car, the “My Ford Touch/Sync” system can be buggy at times. He spends a lot of time in the car each day, so when the entertainment center locks up as it is frequently known to do, he has to turn off the [...]
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7:02
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Hack a Day
Apparently there’s some cause for concern when it comes to bikes and automobiles sharing the roads in Austin, Texas. [Christopher Stanton] wrote in to tell us there’s a law on the books now that requires motorists to give three feet of space when passing a cyclist. This is pretty difficult to enforce as there’s no [...]
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12:01
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Hack a Day
The difficulty of rolling a 16-cylinder engine into a motorcycle really boggles the mind. But that’s exactly what [Andreas Georgeades] is doing in his garage. It’s two straight-8 engines sandwiched on top of one another with a custom crankcase connecting them. And get this, those custom parts are being milled by hand, using time-tested techniques rather [...]
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15:01
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Hack a Day
If you own a cabin in the mountains of British Columbia what do you do during the warmer summer months? Well, we’d probably mix of a cocktail and string up a hammock, but [Darrin] is quite a bit more motivated. He planned for the snowy season by building his own ski lift. He shared the [...]
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8:31
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Hack a Day
On the list of things we’ll build ‘when we get a few free weekends,’ an electric motorcycle is right at the top. With a 20-mile range, they may not be as versatile as a car or truck, but we can’t imagine a vehicle better suited for making a quick jaunt around town. [Ben Nelson] just finished [...]
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12:39
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Hack a Day
[Iron Jungle] just finished building this gear indicator for his motorcycle. It uses a red 7-segment display to show the rider what gear is currently engaged. This hack is pretty common and makes us wonder why all motorcycles don’t come standard with the feature? But then again, if they did you wouldn’t have a reason [...]
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7:01
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Hack a Day
The headlight enclosures on [Bill Porter's] 2004 Passat had yellowed with age and were not outputting the kind of light they should. He decided to replace them with some aftermarket modules that also incorporated LED strips. When they arrived he was surprised at how easy there were to drop into place. But when testing he [...]
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7:01
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Hack a Day
This project really puts an end to arguing over who has to ride in the back of the tandem bicycle. We challenge you not to smile while viewing the maiden voyage that [Carlos] and his daughter take on this side-by-side bicycle. The video can be found after the break. It certainly makes a bit more [...]
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6:01
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Hack a Day
The only problem with this self-balancing unicycle is it’s inability to balance itself. You see, it automatically balances along the axis that is parallel to the line of travel. But since there’s only one wheel the rider is responsible for balancing perpendicular to travel. This is really not too much different from a bicycle; balancing while in [...]
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9:01
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Hack a Day
[Brad Graham] wrote in to let us know about his electric bike data dump over at atomiczombie.com, written just for us! Last we heard from [Brad] he was building some serious robots and freakishly tall tallbikes but since the weather has turned for the chilly its time to focus on indoor projects. Using a combination [...]
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15:12
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Hack a Day
It’s been a while since we looked in on a TED talk but this one is fantastic. [Yves Rossy] is interviewed about his jet-powered flight wing at the TED conference. He designed the unit as a form of personal flight. He straps it on, jumps out of a plane, then flies across the sky until [...]
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7:01
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Hack a Day
We’ve seen quadrocopters galore over the past few years. We’ve never seen one big enough to lift a person until now. [Thomas], [Stephan], and [Alexander] of e-volo have been working on a gigantic, human-lifting multicopter for a few years now. A few days ago, their prototype took to the air carrying a fully human pilot. [...]
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10:01
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Hack a Day
[Ameres Valentin] was looking for a less expensive way to get around after spending in excess of 100 Euros a month on public transportation in Munich. His solution is an electric bicycle powered by a washing machine motor. It’s a 300 Watt motor that runs on 24 Volts, capable of around 3000 RPM. We’re used [...]
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9:01
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Hack a Day
There have been many self-driving cars made with different levels of success, but probably the most well-known project is the Google car. What you may not have heard of, though is the autonomous Google cart, or golf cart to be exact. The first video after the break explains the motivation behind the cart and the [...]
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13:01
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Hack a Day
[Knife141] lets this monkey push him around all day long. It’s a whimsical touch for his scratch-built electric scooter. He started the build without a set of plans, cutting angle iron and clamping it together until the frame looked about right. Once the welding was done, he began adding all the parts to make it [...]
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6:00
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Hack a Day
Although minivans are a staple of moms and dads that drive their kids to school, soccer practice, and the like, this vehicle imagines a time when maybe they won’t even have to. Autonomous cars have been in development for some time, but the video after the break gives a nice close-up view of how this [...]
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11:01
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Hack a Day
Last summer, we saw [Andres Guzman]‘s electric mountain board tearing around the University of Illinois campus. He’s back again, only this time the board isn’t controlled with a PlayStation controller. [Andres] built a wireless glove to control his mountain board. An Arduino and power supply is mounted to the glove. A 2.4GHz transceiver serves as [...]
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7:01
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Hack a Day
[Mykle Hansen] is an avid cyclist, and safety is a big concern for him. He says that bicyclists often receive a lot of honks and grief from passing motorists because they perceive them as moving far slower than they really are. According to [Mykle], this misjudgment can result in “right hook” collisions, which kill several [...]
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15:25
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Hack a Day
It’s always interesting to see new and innovative means of robot locomotion. At the recent “Innovation Japan 2011” conference researchers from Osaka University unveiled the Omni-Crawler, which is aimed at changing the way both robots and people move. The Omni-Crawler’s movement is provided by Omni-Balls, an Osaka University creation that moves in all directions, not [...]
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13:01
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Hack a Day
[Clement] and his friends were going on a long bike tour and needed a way to carry their gear along with them. They set to work and managed to build this cargo trailer from mostly reused materials. The only part of this trailer that is reused junk is the connection mechanism that lets you attach [...]
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13:14
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Hack a Day
What has two wheels, is made from five different bikes, and can carry all of your stuff for miles and miles on end? [Paul Blue’s] DIY Lastenrad, that’s what. (Google Translation) A Lastenrad is a cargo bike where the load sits in front of the rider rather than being towed behind. [Paul] wanted one for [...]
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12:38
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Hack a Day
Above you can see Doctor Wily a Chinese hacker starting up one of the propellers on his octocopter. It seems that the man is using a collection of eight motorcycle engines, each with its own wooden propeller to create an eight-bladed helicopter. We were able to locate some video footage of his experiments, which you’ll find [...]
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15:01
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Hack a Day
I had a lot of fun at Burning Man 2011, from the sculpture to the crazy art to the insane kinetic vehicles, the whole experience was something completely out of this world. With near 50,000 people out there in the Nevada desert it is impossible to see and experience everything the festival has to offer. [...]
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6:00
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Hack a Day
Forget the Tesla Roadster, we want an electric car like [John Wayland’s] White Zombie! If it wasn’t plastered with sponsor stickers and the like, you would never realize that this otherwise unassuming ‘72 Datsun 1200 is an absolute beast of a car. The gas engine that used to provide a mere 69 horsepower was swapped [...]
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8:00
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Hack a Day
This is a picture of the guts of a diy Segway project (translated). Everything fits into a tiny space under the platform upon which the rider stands. It’s tight, but makes for a sleek look when the diamond plate is covering up all of the internals. An ATmega644 controls the vehicle. It does so by [...]
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6:02
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Hack a Day
Drones come in many shapes and sizes, but now they can also be 3d printed! To make these drones, the [Decode] group used a selective laser sintering process which is pretty interesting in itself. Once the printing process is done, these little planes are built with only five structural and aerodynamic components. Because of their [...]
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12:01
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Hack a Day
Someone let [Tane] play around with welding equipment and bicycle parts and look what happened! He built a diminutive velocipede. Now that’s just a term for a human-powered land vehicle, but the term fits a bit better as this is missing most of the stuff you’d expect to see on a bicycle. He started with [...]
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15:01
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Hack a Day
[Petter] built himself a DIY Segway out of a couple of cheap electric scooters. We’ve seen a couple of very nice Segway builds in the past like the all analog Segway, or the creepy walking version, [Petter]‘s Segway build seems like it would be a useful human transport device. The motors, chains, gears, and wheels are [...]
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8:04
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Hack a Day
Toyota recently ran an ad campaign touting “Ideas for Good” in which the actors speculated uses for Toyota Synergy Drive hybrid systems in non-automotive related applications. One idea that was floated involved using the car’s regenerative braking system at an amusement park, in an effort to reclaim and use some of a roller coaster’s kinetic [...]
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9:20
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Hack a Day
We abhor vandalism, but we love art. Here’s a skateboard hack that lets skate punks young and old tag their turf while they ride. [D*Face], a multimedia street artist who grew up in London, added a mounting system to the bottom of his skateboard which includes a can of spray paint. We’re a bit surprised that there’s room enough [...]
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6:03
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Hack a Day
[Rajendra’s] car had just about all the bells, whistles, and gauges he could dream of, but he thought it was missing one important item. In an age where cars are heavily reliant on intricate electrical systems, he felt that he should have some way of monitoring the car’s battery and charging system. To keep tabs [...]
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11:20
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Hack a Day
[PJ Allen] built a meter to display gravitation force in an easy to read way. Good thing it’s easy to read, because he’s added it to the dashboard of his car. That way he gets instant feedback when he puts the pedal to the metal. We’re hoping this encourages safe driving practices. But since it [...]
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8:08
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Hack a Day
[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 [...]
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15:01
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Hack a Day
When traveling around the city or even rural areas in a wheelchair, we imagine it can be pretty easy to get overlooked. [Rui] was asked to add some lights and sounds to an electric wheelchair in order to ensure that its rider remained visible to those around him. The system uses several different components to [...]
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14:01
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Hack a Day
[Nicolás] often rides his bike in the city, and on more than one occasion has ended up with a flat tire. A flat tire might not sound like a big deal, but imagine if you are a few miles from your destination and running late – now your day has gone from bad to worse. [...]
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6:06
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Hack a Day
The Air Kraken is a bicycle for demon spawn. Well, that’s what it reminds us of anyway. [Gabriel Cain] took his inspiration from burning man and also had several reasons for building it, but the one that we just love to hear is ‘because I can’. The over-grown tricycle built for two is more than [...]
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10:12
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Hack a Day
After three huge mutant vehicle builds, [Tom Wilson] thought: “why not build another?” This time he decided to weld together a (comparatively) smaller more agile two-seater he calls the Boxer. We covered [Tom]‘s previous quadbike, Big Dog, which features a similar tube frame, full suspension, and the familiar culvert pipe wheels. This time around [Tom] [...]
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8:36
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Hack a Day
While the Segway enjoyed a few years of fame before falling off the radar, [Marcelo Fornaso] is hoping his creation has quite a bit more staying power. Inspired by the Segway’s ability to balance itself, he started thinking about how the concept could be improved. He felt that one of the Segway’s shortcomings arose out [...]
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5:05
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Hack a Day
While the Isle of Man typically plays host to an array of gas-powered superbikes screaming through villages and mountain passes at unbelievable speeds, the island’s TT Race is a bit different. Introduced in 2009 to offer a greener alternative to the traditional motorcycle race, organizers opened up the course to electric bikes of all kinds. [...]
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16:01
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Hack a Day
Using a scanning laser similar to those used in industrial safety systems, a new wheelchair developed by Sweden’s Luleå University of Technology allows those who are visually impaired to drive it without assistance. A driver is given haptic feedback as a navigation aid, reportedly similar to using a cane. Although something like this is good [...]
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12:01
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Hack a Day
If there was a competition for coolest transportation device for the future, the diwheel would be at the top of the list with hover cars and teleportation. Over the past 3 years students at Adelaide University have been working on an Electric Diwheel With Active Rotation Damping or EDWARD. EDWARD is an entirely electric diwheel, [...]
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11:44
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Hack a Day
[Matt's] boat had a trim plate that could be adjusted by hand. The problem with this setup is that the trim angle of a boat changes as you speed up or slow down. Last year he never really went over 35 MPH because of this issue, but he set out to correct that by adding [...]
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10:01
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Hack a Day
A team from the University of Maryland will be taking their human-powered helicopter to the air tomorrow. The current flight record for this type of vehicle is just over 19 seconds of flight at a height of about 8 feet. What surprises us about this attempt is that they’re not pedaling just one main rotor. It [...]
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4:01
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Hack a Day
We believe that some of the best things in life are built from half-assed ideas and held together with duct tape. Take this fan-powered Razor scooter [Charles Guan] built, for example – it’s chock full of both. Having built a ducted fan-powered shopping cart in the past [Charles] is no stranger to ridiculous ideas. After a [...]
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11:43
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Hack a Day
[Michael Thompson] has been hard at work for well over six months building a bicycle made entirely of wood. The project started as a bet between two friends, and has become much more over the last few months. The SplinterBike, as it is being called, has been constructed solely from wooden parts, as well as [...]
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15:30
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Hack a Day
[Igor] drives a 4th generation Volkswagen Golf, and decided he wanted to play around with the CAN bus for a bit. Knowing that the comfort bus is the most accessible and the safest to toy with, he started poking around to see what he could see (Google translation). He pulled the trim off one of [...]
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6:05
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Hack a Day
The Mayor of Silverton, Oregon is a hacker and wants to use roll-your-own hardware in the town’s parking meters. It’s not that he thinks he can do a better job than companies selling modern meters (although there have been notable problems with those), but he wants to retain the sentiment of the 1940′s era parking [...]
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1:00
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Hack a Day
So you’ve swapped out your car’s motor or added new tranny. Perhaps you’ve rewired your ancient VW bus from 6v to 12v. Do you think that makes you a car expert? [Orismar de Souza] might beg to differ. The homeless Brazilian native has spent the last four years of his life building a car from [...]
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10:03
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Hack a Day
The AutoNOMOS labs project has found a new way to maneuver its vehicles, your brain. We have looked at a previous version that uses a mostly computerized van under remote control from an iPhone. This one however, named “Brain Driver”, places the operator in the driver’s seat with an EEG strapped to their head. Going [...]
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12:02
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Hack a Day
Instructables user [samsmith17] wanted to cover his bike with EL wire for this year’s Burning Man, but he didn’t want to mess with the hassle of using batteries as a power source. Instead, he decided that his EL wire bike would be powered solely by the rider. In the interest of keeping things green, the [...]
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8:36
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Hack a Day
[Steve] wanted a dock for his Droid phone but couldn’t bear to put cheap-looking parts in his nice BMW. He decided to build his own in order to satisfy his functional and stylistic needs. His main goal was to have a dock with no wires showing, but it also needed to be removable and have [...]
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16:30
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Hack a Day
[mudlevel] built this rainbow graffiti producing robot for an art exhibit in San Diego. While there are no build details we can easily pick this apart from the pictures. Looks like the brains are an arduino, the drive is a power drill with the trigger removed, and a few other servos for firing the spray [...]
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7:10
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Hack a Day
Is there a place in the dashboard of your high performance automobile for this Engine Control Unit feedback panel? There’s several methods of showing information at work here. The row of LEDs at the top of the bezel provide RPM feedback. The two red LEDs with chrome bezels are alarm indicators. But that big OLED [...]
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14:00
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Hack a Day
We know what you’re thinking. “I have this Acura NSX, but my friends just won’t think I’m cool unless I have a Ferrari F50.” You know what? You’re right. To save yourself from that kind of ridicule, you can simply carry out a ridiculous body mod to make your poor NSX live up to your [...]
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8:00
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Hack a Day
[Ed Zarick] built a module to control his vehicle which he calls the Jeeputer. The name’s a mash-up of Jeep and Computer; the device itself is a combination of Arduino, character LCD, and a collection of shift registers and relays for interfacing. Watch the video after the break to see what this can do. We were surprised [...]
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4:48
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Hack a Day
Feeling brave and ready to strap on this jet pack? Well, that’s not all of it. What you see above is just the manifold with two nozzles that can be aimed for control. The gas turbine engine that is being designed for the project will attach to the large circular coupling on top. The finished [...]
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10:54
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Hack a Day
[Brad Graham] enjoys building bikes. He threw together a tall bike called the SkyWalker and then shared the build details. It’s got everything you’d expect in a fixed-gear bike; a seat, pedals, steering, and two wheels. You’ll have to do a bit of climbing to get into the saddle but the incorporated ladder doubles as [...]
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8:00
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Hack a Day
There’s the quiet serenity of paddling through the backwoods in a canoe, and then there’s this. It’s a lawnmower motor powered canoe that comes complete with steering wheel, throttle, and a stereo system. To keep the craft balanced the driver rides in the front seat while the motor is hanging off the stern of the boat. The [...]
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4:19
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Hack a Day
Want to put 100 horses into your golf cart and then take it to the Dragstrip? Why not? [Mac McAlpine] did just that by dropping a 2007 GSXR 600 EFI into a 1987 gas-powered Yamaha golf cart. After the break you can see a video of the test run, as well as an overview of the [...]
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10:03
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Hack a Day
The Segfault is a balancing transport similar to a Segway, but it uses analog comparators instead of digital circuitry. On board you’ll find no less than twelve LMC6484 op amps. They take signals from the gyroscope and the accelerometer, balance and filter them, then drive the motor h-bridges accordingly. [Charles], the guy behind the Segfault, is [...]
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12:30
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Hack a Day
If you’ve got an expensive bike and don’t mind carrying around a whole bunch of extra weight in your courier bag you’ll like this concept. A design team built a pole-climbing bike rack in about 14 days. The video after the break shows the prototyping process as well as the finished “lock” in use. It’s [...]
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15:00
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Hack a Day
This little board serves as a current gear indicator for a motorcycle. It was designed with the Suzuki V-Storm motorcycles in mind as they have a sensor built into the gearbox. Other gear indicators rely on sensors on the shifters themselves, but reading the voltage level from a gearbox sensor gives much more reliable information. [...]
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10:05
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Hack a Day
Here’s an interesting take on augmenting a car’s dashboard. [Daniel] is using a button blank to house a 1″ OLED display in his Jetta. It shows auxiliary data such as boost pressure and several sets of temperature readings. The display itself has a tiny little circuit board with a PIC 24 to drive it. A [...]
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7:37
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Hack a Day
Scooter fans should start sharpening their chisels if they want to undertake this project. This Vespa is the work of a master carpenter and a lot of time. Through the build log photos you can see that it all started with a frame made by bending and laminating wood layers together. Veneer adds the stylish [...]
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15:00
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Hack a Day
[Ah2002] didn’t like the shaky needle in his car’s speedometer so he replaced it with a ring of LEDs. The old speedometer had a cable which rotated along with the gearbox for mechanical speed measurement. By connecting the stepper motor from a printer instead of this cable, a voltage is generated that fluctuates with the [...]
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13:51
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Hack a Day
We’re rather surprised at how popular it has become to build your own motorcycle computer. [Mario Mauerer] tipped us off about his shiny motorcycle computer (translated) for his Yamaha XTZ 750. It uses an ATmega644 microcontroller to pull a variety of data together and display it on this white LED backlit display. He connected a [...]
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8:00
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Hack a Day
Focus Designs has a new version of their self-balancing unicycle for sale. This improves upon their original design in several ways. The battery pack has moved to LiFePO4, which is becoming more common in electric transportation. There’s also regenerative braking and fall protection which kills the motor when you fall off. We’ve embedded their marketing [...]
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14:00
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Hack a Day
Part one and Part two of Hackerspace Pumping Station: One taking on the Scion challenge are up and ready for your viewing pleasure. The team at Pumping Station: One built a Tron themed bicycle that when setup properly, would churn ice cream that turned your urine neon in about 6 minutes by using dry ice [...]
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12:19
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Hack a Day
This recumbent trike was built using parts from three salvaged bikes and without welding. These bikes are a bit easier on the back and neck than the traditional riding position. This one also allows for a shorter pedal crank which was a concern for the creator, [Barry Millman]. Not only did he do a fantastic [...]
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8:09
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Hack a Day
[D.C. Boyce] just finished a very involved project to replace the controller board on his electronic motorbike. He’s working with a Daymak Austin but the controller has been designed to work with any three-phase brushless motor and battery configuration. This is thanks to all the features that he crammed into the device. Take a look [...]
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16:32
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Hack a Day
[Tom Wilson] has finished his latest human powered quadcycle. The BigDog, as its called, seats 4 persons in lawn chairs who pedal to their destination. We say latest, for [Tom] also made a slightly smaller version called The DogSled. Some improvements include being taller (8 feet total), larger (11 feet by 6 feet), and surprisingly [...]
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13:00
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Hack a Day
[Ben's] added some nice goodies to his Volvo in the form of an in-dash computer. The system monitors two pressure sensors for boost and vacuum, as well as reading RPM, O2, and exhaust directly. All of this is tied into the touch interface running on an eeePC 900A. But our favorite feature is that the [...]
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6:23
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Hack a Day
This scooter has been fitted with a three-phase induction motor. It reminds us of the sound effects from vehicles in the Jetsons. Right now they’re using lead-acid batteries and get about 15 miles of range from one charge. Once they switch over to lithium polymer they calculate the range will be closer to 45 miles [...]
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8:17
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Hack a Day
[Craig Carmichael] has been hard at work on his electric hub motor for cars. Unlike typical electrical vehicles the plan is to bypass the transmission, differential, and everything else all together by connecting directly to the hub of the wheel. The goal of giving greater thrust and still allowing the use of a gas engine [...]
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14:04
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Hack a Day
We had to call it an electric motorcycle in the title because electric unicycle just sounds lame. But the video after the break shows you that this prototype is anything but lame. It takes minimalism to the extreme when you’re talking about powered transportation. The self-balancer is reminiscent of a Segway but the rider sits [...]
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10:09
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Hack a Day
The video above is the final working DIY Segway from [sb-scooter]. The website and build log don’t have a lot of information at the moment, but you can still gawk at several pictures of the construction (and a picture is worth 1000 German words). For those looking for the nitty gritty, with some quick math [...]
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13:00
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Hack a Day
This on-wrist navigation system uses Google Maps and something called… paper. This is a throwback to scroll-based directions from the 1920′s and 30′s that [Simon] built. He soldered a couple of brass tubes to a brass back plate, then added sides and a face crystal. Now he prints out step by step direction from the [...]
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7:59
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Hack a Day
This is Precious. Precious is a bike that the folks over at BreakfastNY have anthropomorphised for a good cause. By adding sensors for a variety of data sources to the bike, and transmitting them back to a server via a cellular module, Precious can spit out cheeky comments about the ride on its Twitter feed. [...]
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13:09
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Hack a Day
[Garote] has been extremely busy. Busy building an electrical system into his bicycle, and even busier writing a monumental post about it. He covers an impressive range of topics, starting with the goal of adding a generator, battery, charging system, lights, and accessories to the bike. From there he clicks off one thing at a [...]
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8:28
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Hack a Day
Here’s an interesting way to fill the second seat on your tandem bicycle. It seems no one ever wants to be the stoker, so this gentleman decided to build his riding partner. JouleS powers the bicycle from the back using the same motions a human would. It’s not the easiest way to make an electric [...]
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13:00
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Hack a Day
This hack seems simple enough: 1. Open hatchback 2. Insert jet engine 3. Profit Actually, the guy who added a jet engine to a VW Beetle has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford. He claims this is street legal, and even has a snapshot of the police trying to figure out what to charge [...]
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9:00
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Hack a Day
[Andres Guzman] is chauffuering himself around the University of Illinois campus thanks to his wirelessly controlled mountainboard. He added a brushless motor to drive the rear axel with the help of a chain. Power is provided by a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery which we’ve seen used in other electric vehicles due to its lightweight properties. [...]
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10:00
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Hack a Day
[Henry Herndon] is working on building an electric kart, mostly with surplus parts. He’s got some experience with electric vehicles but that doesn’t mean the build is going without a hitch. So far he’s come up with a way to make the peculiar motor shaft play nicely with his rig but once everything was put [...]
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4:11
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Hack a Day
Wireless controller, more powerful custom-made motors, stronger frame, and with a name like DeathBlades, we can’t think of a single reason why you would prefer heel treads, well everyone was young at one time. [Charleg] has been testing out a slightly new frame, despite having only half the motors necessary, and is getting great results [...]
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13:00
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Hack a Day
Motorized treads as a replacement for the heel of your shoe? Okay, remember how The Jetsons had moving sidewalks everywhere so you wouldn’t have to walk at all? Well, there’s a much more efficient way to do it and Treadway Mobility seems to have figured it out. In the video after the break you can [...]
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6:37
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Hack a Day
A 48 volt power house pushes this mountain bike at speeds up to 30Mph. That’s a bit of a boost from many off the shelf E-bikes. [Jennifer Holt] wanted speed, and to retain the off road capabilities of her bike, so she made a custom one. As you can see in the video, this thing [...]
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9:01
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Hack a Day
Finally, an answer to the problem of sidecar dorkiness. [François Knorreck] spent ten years hand crafting a sidecar with a beautiful design and a luxurious interior for two. The frame is aluminum, the body is mostly carbon fiber, and there are countless details such as automatic chain tension control and steering for the sidecar wheel [...]
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6:00
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Hack a Day
We normally advocate wearing a helmet when biking in case you get hit by a car. In this case the guy on the bottom of this double-decker bicycle should wear a helmet to avoid a boot to the head. When we started watching the video after the break we thought that [James] had just built [...]
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9:00
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Hack a Day
[Howard] built his own replacement speedometer for his truck after the original speedometer cable broke. He’s using surface mount components and produced a two-board design that is quite nice. When he tipped us off he mentioned that this is Arduino powered and uses a hall effect sensor. There’s not talk of this in his writeup but we [...]
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16:10
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Hack a Day
Well, maybe the title is not so true. This “Porsche” GT3‘s construction is a bit unorthodox, the chassis looks to be aluminum tubing, with bicycle tires and other man-powered parts for propulsion. The body is entirely plastic and tape, yeah…gold…foil…tape. Hey, when you really really want to turn someones head. Regardless, the car even comes [...]
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13:00
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Hack a Day
[Vassilis Papanikolaou] just finished building a gear indicator for a motorcycle. This quite a simple implementation compared to some of the other vehicle information displays we’ve taken a look at. You should be able to build and install your own without breaking the bank. An ATtiny25 microcontroller reads data from a couple of hall effect sensors [...]
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13:00
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Hack a Day
The Electronic Automatic Temperature Control Module on [Dan Mattox's] 2000 Ford Taurus bit the dust. The junkyards in the area didn’t have a matching replacement and a new one is pretty hard to come by so he built an EATC replacement from an Arduino Mega. It includes a solenoid controller board for the vent selector, [...]
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8:50
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Hack a Day
[Ben] bought a remote starter for his car but needed a way to make sure the manual transmission was in neutral when starting. He built this infrared sensor frame to detect the position of the stick. It uses four beam paths which will tell him the exact gear or neutral position of the shifter. For [...]
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13:00
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Hack a Day
We’ve had a few folks send us info about their vehicle display hacks after seeing [Will O'Brien's] motorcycle computer a few days ago. On the left we have a display for an electric vehicle. [S1axter] is using a 4.3″ TFT screen to display charge information for each battery cell in the car. An ATmega88 collects [...]
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7:57
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Hack a Day
Hackaday writer of yore [Will O'Brien] has been working on this hardware for his motorcycle. Speed, voltage, gear, and temperature data is displayed on a 16×2 character LCD. The speed is pulled from the bike itself and the gear is calculated by comparing engine RPM to wheel RPM. He’s using the popular DS1820 1-wire temp [...]
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7:07
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Hack a Day
We’re all for putting a GPS where it doesn’t normally go, but we’re not sure [Roberto's] version* is the best of locations. Take for example [Jair2k4's] GPS. It doesn’t block out 50% of his vision of the road and the impending accident in front of him.
Regardless, the solid aluminum and seamless mounting really does make [...]
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12:00
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Hack a Day
[Pieter] is in the process of adding a turbo package to his ride. He needed a status display for the boost but didn’t have a good way to mount an additional display. He came up with the idea of using the LCD screen that’s already in the dashboard, but the specs for it were not [...]
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12:42
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Hack a Day
[Knuckles904] was tired of waiting for the bus. His town had installed GPS units on the buses so that riders could track their locations via the Internet so he knew there should be a way to avoid the wait while also never missing the bus. He developed a sketch for an Arduino to check the [...]
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13:39
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Hack a Day
Here is something we didn’t expect (NSFW). The machinima crew behind RedVsBlue, Rooster Teeth, actually did a hack!
The idea is simple enough, how could you experience driving a vehicle like in a video game – aka, third-person. With some steel bar, Canon 5D camera, and a 15inch monitor inside of a blacked out cab, they [...]
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9:00
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Hack a Day
A Nixie tachometer is new to us. We’ve seen tons of various displays, but not a tachometer. After having extensive annoyances with the factory ignition timing system in his totally awesome Holden Gemini, [Brett] installed a MegaJolt electronic ignition system. To top things off and add that extra bit of flair, he built a nixie [...]
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7:14
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Hack a Day
[Chris Neal] is starting his hacking career young. He built this fan-powered skateboard for his fourth grade ‘Invention Convention’. The ideas were his own but he had some help with the construction from his uncle who owns a repair garage. On the back of the board there’s a motorcycle battery that powers the fan. We’re [...]
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6:11
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Hack a Day
…and wins. Well, 3rd in class, but still surprisingly well for such a cheap entry. This is truly a show that with enough elbow grease and headlight fluid anything can be accomplished money just makes it a ton easier.
Everything from the roll cage to the 5 minute gas tank fix was fabricated by [Bill Caswell]. [...]
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8:06
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Hack a Day
While surfing one of our favorite websites, we came upon this little jewel. We can’t really tell if this is hack-worthy, or just a deathtrap, so to help decide…
Mechanics crawler + 80cc motor – safety concerns = deathtrap
It’s really that final “Brakes? Why would I need to stop?” that puts this project over the edge. [...]
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15:06
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Hack a Day
[Thomas] and a buddy were sucking down a few brews when they decided to hack their 2001 Chevy Cavalier for a bit better performance. If they could find a way to bring cooler air to the engine they speculated that they’d see an increase in efficiency. Instead of routing the air intake to a hood [...]
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14:08
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Hack a Day
This vehicle is aptly named the Mondo Spider. It’s not from some apocalyptic movie, but seen here at Burning Man. Like a lot of Burning Man exhibitions, it was built for the joy of the build and with a rather extreme budget: $15,000. We’ve embedded one of the many videos after the break, as well [...]
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14:29
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Hack a Day
We can only imagine how amazing this coffee burning car smells at it speeds down the highway at a maximum of 60mph. Don’t jump out of your seat so quick to get your own, while the idea sounds fantastic, the mileage will bring you back to earth rather quick. At 3 miles per kilo of [...]
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11:17
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Hack a Day
Reader [Jacob] tipped us off about a project the aims to make the final frontier open source. The mission of the Copenhagen Suborbitals is to launch a man into space. What they’re not interested in is turning a profit, carrying hazmat or weapons, or keeping what they learn to themselves.
Surprisingly enough, isn’t this the next [...]
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8:00
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Hack a Day
Hub motors put the power inside of the wheel. [Teamtestbot] goes deep into the hows and whys of building these motors, from parts, to windings, to the math behind the power ratios. The working example puts an electric motor inside the rear wheel of a Razor scooter. Past projects used belts to transfer the work [...]
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15:26
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Hack a Day
If wheels aren’t your thing you should really consider this tank-tread retrofit. It comes with two ramps so that you can drive your car up onto the tread platform. At first we thought this worked by chaining the vehicle’s frame to the tread frame and transferring power through a tread-mill interface. That’s not the case, [...]
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11:38
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Hack a Day
Here we have a toy car modified to use a drill as the powertrain. [Hans] has thrown a 12v 4.5 amp battery in to power the motor and it tops out around 9 miles per hour. This is similar in concept to the trash-based go cart from last week but this time there’s video. He’s [...]
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9:00
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Hack a Day
A quick lesson on being a good parent. If you make an awesome electronic cart out of trash that may not necessarily be stable, or even fully capable of stopping once it gets going, you MUST put your children on it and insist that they drive. Did we mention that the system is full acceleration [...]
