DIY Cintiq LED Drawing Pad

DIY Cintiq LED Drawing Pad

Yeah, so why should you buy high tech toys when you can build your own? This is a very sweet project I hope to see other people try this as well.

"This is hybrid screen/graphics tablet which makes me drool. The price however makes me weep, £2000ish for the 20" version. They also do a thing called the PL at 17" for a more reasonable £500ish. Occasionally they appear on the site in their bargain basement ex-demo section. Still hard for me to justify though.

Then I had one of those "spang" moments. None of the tech involved is new and all is readily available second hand, it’s just a matter of putting it together. My Wacom at work will happily operate with the stylus off the surface, after that it’s just an LCD screen, right? Anyhow where’s the fun in just buying something?

Experiment – what depth does a tablet work to? Stack of paper says 9mm before accuracy starts to suffer noticeably. An LCD with an EL film backlight has to be thinner than that.

So here’s the challenge, What is the least amount of money I can build a Cintiq style device for?

[via MAKE] 

DIY Cintiq

North Dakota is Famous for Something Very Tall

KVLY tower

 

 

 

 

 

This brings back memories… I grew up in Fargo and I remember driving past this massive tower a number of times. All the photos you see of it just don’t do this structure justice. When I was a kid the TV station was called KTHI-11 but the name was changed a few years back to KVLY-11. The tower is still just as impressive as it once was and is once again the worlds tallest supported structure. It was pushed to second tallest by a transmitter tower in Poland in 1974 but that tower collapsed in 1991. At a height of 2,062 feet it serves the North Dakota and Minnesota area with a footprint of over 190 miles in diameter.

[via digg]

The KVLY-11 TV Tower – Tallest in the world

Wikipedia – KVLY-11 Tower

Homemade Cathode Ray Tubes

DIY cathode ray tubes
First the Sparkmuseum post and now this. What a fantastic month for mad scientists this has been! This has got to be the coolest home brew page I have seen in years.

This guy makes cathode ray tubes from scratch! This has officially buried the needle on my clever meter. Using phosphor from common florescent tubes he coats the inside of a glass tube and evacuates the air. When an electron beam exits a small hole in the discharge tube that is mounted inside the phosphor glows. He has even added deflection coils (magnets) to create an oscilloscope! You can see some videos here, here, and here. 

His other projects include a photo cell made from salt water and copper , a rectifier made from borax, and even a Homemade Tunnel Diode and RF Oscillator. He also has built his own vacuum tubes. Talk about hardcore!

Hack A Day

Spark, Bang, and Other Good Stuff

Ghost Towel

Ghost towel

 

 

Why someone didn’t think of this sooner is beyond me. A towel that will turn you into a ghost. Brilliant! You can either buy one for $30 or grab some scissors and make your own. Perfect for kids that like to play at bath time or if your drying off in an Islamic country (apparently exposed skin drives them mad with uncontrollable lust).

[via core77] 

Ghost Towel

StarTrek – Behind the Scenes Restoration

Star Trek restoration project

If your a fan of the classic Sci-fi TV series Star Trek your going to love this.
Once cinematographer and now graphic artist, Curt McAloney has set out to compile and restore the aging behind the scenes photos and clips. This is good stuff! His attention to detail makes this a true labor of love. And this project couldn’t come at a better time, with the 40th year anniversary of the original series being marked by the airing of restored episodes of this classic (check out the side-by-side comparisons) these photos are just what the good doctor ordered. You can’t have enough Trek in your life can you.StarTrek

StarTrek – Behind the Scenes Restoration

[Shore leave and an extra ration of Romulain ale to Bill for sending me this link]