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.

Pro-Ketch MouseTrap Review

Several years ago I had a mouse in my apartment. Being sadly catless, I found myself being awoken every night by skitterings and chewings. Every night, mulling over different mouse trap concepts in my head.

You see, the mousetrap is a sort of DIY right of passage into inventorhood. It pits the wits of man against those of mouse. Mano a mouseo.

After awaking one night to find the little bastard dragging one of my candles away, I started building. What I ended up with was a contraption built of cardboard boxes, fishing wights, levers and brass tubing. It was hardly Alcatraz, but it was effective enough as long as I got to it quickly after it was sprung.

Catching the little guy came with quite a feeling of accomplishment (and relief). I can’t stand poisons. My neighbors once put out some poison only to have the rat die in my wall. It stunk for months. Poisons come with a horrible death and I worry about the risk of the mouse staggering off only to be eaten by a pet.

The other day we started hearing a scrabbling and squeaking coming from the attic. It’s all full of insulation, so tossing the cats up there wasn’t going to be effective. My previous cobbled together solution wasn’t going to hold up long enough to do the job, and I really didn’t know what manner of animal I was dealing with, so I went shopping.

I started under the assumption that I had a roof rat. Unfortunately, the only rat traps I could find were either big electrocuting steel jawed death machines, glue traps, or really poorly made havahart-style traps, but there was a really great mouse trap at Harbor Freight.

The Pro-Ketch(pictured above) is a bit bigger than an old timey video cassette and has two cleverly designed entrances. It’s designed to be put along a wall to appeal to the natural tendency for rodents to run along the edges. It supposedly doesn’t need bait, and is made of steel with a clear plastic window in the top. The entrances have a steel ramp that see-saws on a central hinge. Laying over the bottom of this ramp sits another smaller one, hinged at the base. When the rodent is climbing the ramp, it is standing on the secondary ramp, but when it steps off, it is already past the central pivot of the first ramp and things start to tip, lifting the second ramp to block the exit. Going the rest of the way into the trap causes the smaller ramp to push the main ramp back into the original position, thus priming the trap to catch any addition rodents that are attracted by the first.

I only have tro complaints about the Pro-Ketch trap. First of all, while it comes in a few configurations for location, it really only comes for one size of rodent: small. Second, it doesn’t have a latching mechanism. There isn’t much to stop a mouse from just pushing open the whole lid.

After mostly unsuccessful attempts for a couple nights with various bait, I baited the trap with sunflower butter, putting a thin row of it up each ramp, and a bigger glob in the inside of the trap. I also added a rubber band to ensure it stayed closed. This did the trick almost immediately. Within a couple hours I had caught my mouse and could hear her trying to chew her way out of the metal box. It turns out she was just a cute little house mouse making a lot of racket.

And what became of our unwanted guest? We went for a little walk a few blocks away, where she will now likely be frequenting the home of a particularly irritating neighbor.

There is another nearly identical version of this trap (available with very quick shipping via amazon), the Tin Cat by Victor. Or you could build your own.

Awesome Case Mod

This case mod (origin unknown, likely Russian) is like an AtomPunk Norman Rockwell, or the Barbie geek dream house.  I love the little LED lamp, the cozy looking couch and chair, the little touches of home. I think that rug is one of those mouse pads.

I’d love to come up with a case mod, but I’ve got a case curse. As soon as I put a case on a computer, it breaks and I have to take it apart and fix it again. My microchips live wild and free.

Jedi Animals

The empire of cute animal sites continues to grow. Sometimes the domain name says it all. AnimalsWithLightSabers.com is a site that needed only be thought up to be a success.

The content is user driven, so if you have some animal pictures or a desire to brush up on your Photoshop skills with a fun little project, check it out and make a submission. I did.

Related Posts:

Upside Down Dogs

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

How to Get Your Stolen Car Back

Alan Heuss was sitting in his BMW in Ohio one night. ”Some young man came up and opened the passenger door and stuck a gun in my face and told me to get out,” Heuss said.

The thieves got away with Heuss’ car, cell phone and some cash.

Later that night, one of his friends got the brilliant Idea to use the stolen phone to get back the stolen car. His friend texted the stolen phone: ‘I’m going to tell them I’ve got a bunch of hot chicks, as if I’m texting you, and that we’ve got some drugs, too.’”

The thieves took the bait and arrived in the stolen car, only to find cops rather than chicks and drugs.

(va 10tv)

A New Way to Keep the Cat Off the Table

 

Do your cats like to jump up on the table? Of course they do! You’ve tried scolding them, but now they just wait until you aren’t looking. Let Newton lay down the law with this table constructed out of two by fours and skateboard trucks. The three sided construction keeps the glass from sliding around, while letting it spin freely. 

Available from thefutureperfect for about $1800, or for quite a bit less made from that stuff you have been meaning to throw away in your garage; such is the the lot of the inventor who finds their brilliance in simplicity.

When the cat keeps jumping on my table, I just put some strips of scotch tape on it, sticky side up. They hate that. It only takes a couple applications to make them quit for years.

Laser Communicator

The coherent nature of laser light, combined with its low-divergence beam, makes it perfect for all sorts of fun projects. This is one you can do at home with simple, cheap parts. When you speak, the microphone picks up your voice and converts it into a signal that is used to vary the output of a  laser pointer.  The receiver is a solar cell attached to a piezoelectric speaker. With a pair of each, you can stay in communication as long as you have line of sight. It has the benefit of being hard to eavesdrop on as well. Pdf with instructions here. (Via crunchGear)

a similar project could be made to use the reflected light of a laser pointer off of a window to pick up vibrations and transmit sounds from distant buildings.

Pneumatic Muscles

 

Instructables has a good tutorial up on how to make pneumatic muscles out of latex tubing and a braided sleeve. They work a bit like that extendable fist cartoon characters are so fond of. The latex expands and forces the lattice of the braided tube to turn the length into width, while preventing the latex tube from rupturing. They can be cheaply made out of readily available materials, and can lift 400 times their own weight. It occurs to me that since the air doesn’t have to be lost in order to flex the muscle, a closed system with an air bulb might be used to remove the requirement for an air compressor. It would also provide the potential for a certain amount of tactile feedback on the strain the muscle is under.

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