DIY UPS system *FEATURED*

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Where I live, short power cuts are fairly frequent and can be very irritating. I have also wanted to experiment with CCTV for some time. After experimenting with test UPS systems using cheap inverters and old car batteries I decided to scale it up.
When homes have an alarm system installed it usually contains a backup battery in case of power failure. These batteries need to be replaced every few years to ensure the system performs correctly.
The waste batteries are usually sold to scrap dealers for their lead content, but alarm installers are usually happy to give/sell them to you for an incredibly low price. We have picked up 7AH batteries for less than 50p each.
The project was designed, tested and built by myself and Dom.

Check out the video:

A full how-to is availible at http://www.instructables.com/

I am proud to announce that he write up has been featured by the authors of Instructables on their homepage and has also made appearances on Hack A Day and Life Hacker. Gaining the project well over 10 thousand hits (not including hackaday)!

If you like the project please vote for us to win the Green Tech contest on Instructables.com (Vote button in header of page). Thanks!

Novagrow

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Novagrow; part of plastics specialist Novaplas. I was approached by Mr Reeve to design a fun and quirky website to match his new product “The Pod”. The Pod is a new type of Propagator designed to get children into gardening. The website features an image upload section where children that have used the propagator can upload their photos into a competition.

Link: http://novagrow.co.uk

FaceTable

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Facetable is a “Social School” utility developed by Chris Stubbs to allow 6th form students at The Sandon School to manage their time tables and compare lessons with other students. It allows students to browse who has free periods at the same time as them so they can arrange to study and socialise together.

I have also had some valuble iPhone programming experience by building an app for the website.

Link: http://www.facetable.co.uk

ATTiny13 programming & servo data interception

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After a digital out put from your hobby RC reciver on the cheap? You could glue a microswitch to a servo, or you could read those servo commands using an ATTiny in the Arduino programming enviroment. Then you can control your digital outputs according to the position being sent, without the need for a servo!

Before jumping straight into reading pulse signals. Lets get started out with the basics of the ATTiny13.

Programming:

Coding:

Testing:

For the full write up, please take a look at my instructable.

Prusa Mendel RepRap 3D Printer

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After having a interest in CNC machines for a while now, and playing around constructing things like my modified Cannon Pixma IP3000. I have decided to build a RepRap Mendel. This should be more successful than my previous CNC attempts as it uses widely available parts, and any special/custom parts i can download from RepRap.org and print on the RapMan 3.1 printer at college

I will post updates in the form of images of the build on my Flickr account

Great success! 3D printer is complete and working well: Flickr

Homing axis:

Time lapse of printing a “Footed Vertex”:

I was having troubles with my steppers jumping, i have now moved on to Sanguinololu electronics.
Trimming the current pots seem to help with jumping motor problems.

I have adapted several hot end designs in order to make parts as simple as possible to produce.

 

.NET Gadgeteer Gadgesketch

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This is our end of UK pilot scheme competition entry from the Cambridge event back in January 2012.

Built and coded by myself (Chris Stubbs) and Dom Taglialvore, students of The Sandon School 6th Form.

The casing is made from vacuum formed acrylic and uses the standard FEZ Spider board.

Graphics are at first drawn to memory before being displayed on the screen to help prevent flickering.

The Gadgesketch lets you draw an image using the two potentiometers, then save it to an SD card to share.

Microsoft have taken the gadget over the USA to show their colleges an example of what students have been making.

Some clips from the Microsoft event can be seen below

Code: http://chris-stubbs.co.uk/Gadgeteer/EtchASketch%20Bitmaps.zip

Link: http://www.netmf.com/gadgeteer/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=2386

USB Robot *Instructables Robotics Week Winner*

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We won! The prize is a “Robotics starter pack”. Will post the contents when i get it!
Update: The pack contained an Instructables badge and some stickers, 3 packs of “sugru” silicone putty and a copy of Autodesk SketchBook Pro! Thanks Instructables!
This instructible will describe the processes required to build a system for interfacing with a robot (and the basics of building a robot) around the velleman K8055 USB interface board (availible online or at maplins) The robot is built mostly from scraps i had at home and parts from a car breakers yard the whole project cost around £50 but will be much less if you have parts at home

Link: http://www.instructables.com/id/USB-Robot/