DIY Guitar Tuner

HackaDay has a fun little project up for those of you who play the guitar and have a do-it-yourself mentality. This little device can be used like a guitar pick. Using the buttons to select your note will cause the LEDs to flash at that frequency. The light will only be visible on the string when it’s in tune.

Self Sharpening Pencil

This mechanical pencil from Japan has an internal gear system that automatically rotates the lead as you go, keeping it sharp at the tip. I’m he kind of person who will just walk into a pen store and spend fifteen minutes trying them all out to find the best ones. I can’t stand writing with those gummy-inked bic pens. that always leak, fail, and skip. It’s about time the rest of us started to appreciate quality again. It’s one of the things that made this country great. What we purchase makes a difference to what is made, who succeeds, and who does not. Buy quality. Buy Innovation. It will lead to more of the same.

This Kuru Toga pencil can be found at amazon, or go straight to the source and buy it from J-List, which if you haven’t been there, is well worth looking at. They have all sorts of awesome Japanese stuffs and if you buy enough to make thge shipping worth it, their prices are very competitive.

Electrically Conductive Wire Glue

If you ever have a delicate electrical project where you are afraid that the heat of soldering will damage tiny components or melt nearby materials, you should try out this electrically conductive Wire Glue. It isn’t terribly easy to work with, being runny and inflexible. but if you are in a delicate position, or you are trying to solder to things that solder just doesn’t like to stick to, it becomes an invaluable addition to any geek’s toolbox, and it is lead free.

Update: The stuff is water based, but after using it to glue together the leads for the under water portion of an electrolysis unit pulling around 80 volts, it has held up fine for weeks of under water load (as long as you let it fully cure first). It worked as advertised for our uses, but we haven’t tried replacing the ink in our inkjet and printing out a circuit board or anything. We leave that bit of fun to you.
 

The cheapest place I’ve found it is through ThinkGeek Gadgets

Amazon also carries Wire Glue, and it is still cheap enough you could just toss it on your next order and not feel like you spent anything.

Not Your Grandpa’s Legos

Legos may have lost some of that box of blocks charm over the years, but they have become a toy that, rather than being left behind as a child, will continue to grow with you. The Mindstorm series of Legos is a serious step into the world of robotics and computer programming.

(via GeeksAreSexy)

See also:

Mindstorm Madness

Smart Tweezers

Whenever I go into a store like Radio Shack (great marketing on the name guys), I’m always a little shocked at how low tech it has remained. Behind the cell phones and overpriced video connectors that obviously are all that keeps them in business, there is a small section of simple electronic components and tools that look like they were some kind of Chinese surplus from the 80’s. Somewhere in the mix there will be a boxy over sized multimeter with a few functions on it and some giant tangly contacts. This is not an acceptable way to deal with modern electronics.

Enter the Smart Tweezer. The tips measure  capacitance, resistance,  inductance, and voltage. It will even graph out time varying voltage on the built in screen and identify components.

Unfortunately they aren’t cheap. They run about $300, when they are in stock.

Honorable Mentions for Jan 09

A few things that caught my eye but didn’t merit a post to themselves:

How to use butane and fire to mount a tire that has come off its rim

The Ibex has now set two huge scientific records. It was the first animal to be cloned after extinction, and subsequently the first animal to ever become extinct twice. Better luck next time guys, this has great promise.

USB drive that masquerades as a floppy drive for those annoying things like bios updates that still tend to require them.

Salad Sunrise: Oil and vinegar container that takes advantage of their relative weights to serve them from a single container.

Flashlight hose nozzle. Why you would garden in the dark is beyond me. Most people have lights in their yard. This thing needs to be water powered at least.

Barbie digital fingernail printer. Pick your pattern, stick your finger in the printer. Instant manicure.

Washing machine built to take the whole basket. It looks great, but the more I think about it the less impressed I am.

Toaster Trebuchet catapults your toast with great accuracy.

Please consider this to be an open post as well. Feel free to post a link to your blog, throw up a link to something you think should be featured on this site, or talk about what is on your mind. All comments will be moderated, so don’t be spammy.

HUD for Billiards

These are some top notch geeks. They built a setup to compute and project the trajectories of pool shots directly onto their table. It doesn’t work terribly well, but I think it is mostly a problem of low end hardware and strange setup. Why didn’t they put the webcam by the projector, pointed at the mirror?  By having it in the corner they make things immensely more difficult to compute. For more info and the code, go here.

I think once Surface goes mainstream, innovations like this will come in a flood.

Cold Heat Alternative

Instructables just posted an awesome DIY Cold Heat Soldering Iron project. If you haven’t heard of these irons, they use the heat caused by electrical resistance to heat the work directly, rather than heating the iron. I think I actually happen to have everything required for the project lying around the house, and unlike the original, there are no batteries to replace. It runs off of an old computer power supply.

I think the only thing I see that I would change for my first attempt is the conductor for the tip. I’d switch out the mechanical pencil lead for carpenter pencil lead. It is wide and flat, and much stronger. It would likely heat less at the copper connections and could be sharpened to near any tip shape. How to get the graphite out of the pencil? Throw it in the fireplace. They use the stuff in cooling rods for nuclear reactors, I hardly think a little fire will hurt it.

Or, if you are too lazy to build your own,get the original ColdHeat soldering iron here. There is also a more powerful variant at ThinkGeek Gadgets

Waistband Stretcher by Inch-Master

It seems like every year after thanksgiving I’m going through my favorite old clothes and none of them seem to fit any more, which leads me to an unfortunate conclusion: The best clothes shrink with age!

If I were a retailer, the first thing I’d be putting on my cyber-monday sale flier would be this waistband stretcher by Inch-Master. It takes care of those shrinking clothes by returning their waistbands to a size that fits, just like they used to.

The Egg Cuber

Just think of how much more efficiently you could store your eggs if they were square! All neatly stacked. No more eggs rolling off of your plate, and they fit perfectly on a triscuit. Amaze your friends with tales of your new genetically engineered chicken. all this for a mere three dollars.

To use it, just hard boil your eggs and remove the shells. While they are still warm, drop one in the (preferably chilled) cuber and screw down the lid until the egg becomes square. Unscrew the lid and push up on the base plate to remove your now cubetacular egg. Repeat until you have a nice stack of eggs.

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