Author: John

Cheap ‘n Easy Digital Picture Frame

Sub $100 digital frame

 

 

 

Add one part Sony PS1 LCD screen and one part SanDisk Digital Photo Viewer bake for half an hour in a slow oven and you get a sub USD$100 digital picture frame. (I’m kidding about the oven part). I have an TFT LCD screen that I wired up as a remote TV monitor a few years ago that would be perfect for this. I’ll have ro find one of those SanDisk Digital Photo Viewers and build one of these. Funny, I remember seeing one in a store and I thought that it would be the perfect thing to load up and send to the relatives for them to see pictures of the kids. Now I can add a screen and presto! Zero instalation (ok, grandma will have to attach the wall wart, but that’s pretty easy). With 32 MB CF cards costing next to nothing this might be fun to do.

[via MAKE] 

Cheap ‘n Easy Digital Picture Frame

The Arc Wing VTOL

Arc wing VTOL

This could be the next evolution of aircraft:

The Arc Wing VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) Airplane, is absolutely unique in being a true V/STOL as a fixed wing aircraft with the high cruise speed. This plane requires only the basic elements of fixed wing aircraft for VTOL or cruise flight, namely, full span flaps and high installed power usable in both VTOL and cruise. It has no need for heavy, costly, encumbering systems for conversion from one realm to another, no multiple rotors, no rotor folding devices, no cross shafting, no extra gear boxes, no “black boxes” for programming, no wing tip or tail jets, no tail rotors, no lift fans or lift engines.

 

[via Flight Nest] 

VTOL

DIY – Alcohol Backpacking Stove

Penny alcohol burner

As many of you might have seen I recently posted a project for gutting an old light bulb in order to make other things out of it. Well one of the  great uses a resurrected light bulb has is as a small vessel to boil liquids in. As long as you don’t confine the gasses crated by the boiling you should be OK, the glass is thin and won’t take all that much pressure. This DIY camping stove would make a great heat source for boiling water in a light bulb. Plus, you can take it with you when your in the woods. How neat is that?

[via Google] 

Penny Alcohol Backpacking Stove

LED Christmas Lights Hacked to Low Voltage

LED Christmas lights

I saw this and just had to share. You know those very neat LED Christmas lights that you could find on the clearance tables a few months ago, you remember them now because your going to kick yourself for not buying a crap load of them. Anyway, ‘ol Joe has a tutorial on how you can hack them to run on low voltages, like 12VDC. Just like the voltage you get from your computers power supply. I think you can see where this is going…

Red-tag Joe’s introduction to LED lighting and how to connect 120 volt LED christmas lights for low-voltage applications redtag