Sonic Screwdriver Shuts Off Mains

-

In the world of Doctor Who, the sonic screwdriver is a versatile tool with a wide range of capabilities. [Hartley] wanted some of that action for himself, and built a device of his own.

Unable to recreate the broad swathe of features from the show, he settled on something easier. The device is fitted with an ATTiny85, and a 433MHz transmitter. It’s programmed to switch wirelessly controlled mains sockets on and off. This lets him control appliances in his house with a flick of a screwdriver. Power is supplied by the classic AA battery, with a boost converter stepping it up to 5V to run the electronics.

It’s all wrapped up in a 3D printed case, that was carefully designed to fit all the parts inside. A paper mockup of the PCB layout was also used in the design phase. [Hartley] took full advantage of CAD software, to ensure everything fit correctly first time.

It’s a fun project, as sonic screwdrivers often are. Video after the break.



from CommaFeed - Real Time Trends Network http://bit.ly/2YTM9xW
via IFTTT

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Takeaways from the outcry over Dior’s Johnny Depp perfume ad: Tuesday Wake-Up Call

-
Welcome to Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. You can sign up to get an audio version of this briefing on your Alexa device. Dior pulls a perfume ad starring Johnny Depp Yet another luxury brand just had to backtrack after a culturally insensitive move. Dior on Friday pulled an ad for its “Sauvage” perfume, as Business of Fashion reports ; the spot starred Johnny Depp playing guitar in the desert while a Native American dancer, Canku One Star, performed in traditional dress. The company portrayed the spot as “an authentic journey deep into the Native American soul.” But the brand was quickly accused of cultural appropriation. Critics seemed most troubled by the juxtaposition of Native American imagery with the word "Sauvage"—which means “wild” in French, but which also evokes the history of labeling indigenous groups as “savages.”  LVMH-owned Parfums Christian Dior had apparently tried to proceed cautiously. It coo
Read more

When the coronavirus infodemic strikes

-
Image
Social media sites are stepping up their efforts in the war against misinformation… specifically, the coronavirus/COVID-19 infodemic . There’s a seemingly endless stream of potentially dangerous misinformation flying around online related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that could have fatal results. It’s boomtown in fake-news land riding high on the wave of people being left with their tech devices 24/7. I myself regularly see everything posted online from “hand gel is an immunizer” (nope) and “children can’t be affected” (not true) to “UK rules mean domestic abuse survivors have to stay with their abusive spouse” (absolutely not true at all and hugely dangerous to claim).  We even have engineers being spat on thanks to 5G conspiracy theories potentially resulting in transmission of coronavirus . Turns out a global pandemic is a lightning rod for pushing people to conspiracy theories galore, to the extent that some folks have to go hunting for guides to wean their family members a
Read more

Patch, Or Your Solid State Drives Roll Over And Die

-
Image
Expiration dates for computer drives? That’s what a line of HP solid-state drives are facing as the variable for their uptime counter is running out. When it does, the drive “expires” and, well, no more data storage for you! There are a series of stages in the evolution of a software developer as they master their art, and one of those stages comes in understanding that while they may have a handle on the abstracted world presented by their development environment they perhaps haven’t considered the moments in which the real computer that lives behind it intrudes. Think of the first time you saw an SQL injection attack on a website, for example, or the moment you realised that a variable type is linked to the physical constraints of the number of memory locations it has reserved for it. So people who write software surround themselves with an armoury of things they watch out for as they code, and thus endeavour to produce software less likely to break. Firmly in that arena is the size
Read more