Category Archives: rgb

A Lightsaber, With Rave Mode

Posted on September 17, 2017 by Fernando Gomes

How often after being exposed to Star Wars did you dream of having your own working lightsaber? These days — well, we don’t quite have the technology to build crystal-based weapons, but tailor-made lightsabers like redditor [interweber]’s are very much real.

Piggybacking off the Korbanth Graflex 2.0 kit — a sort of bare-bones lightsaber ready to personalize — [interweber] is using a Teensy 3.5 to handle things under the hilt. Instead of taking the easy route and cramming everything into said handle, a 3D printed a cradle for the electronics and speaker keep things secure. The blade is made up …read more

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Posted in custom, led hacks, lightsaber, prop, replica, rgb, star wars, weapons hacks | Leave a comment

Boredom + Lasers = Projector!

Posted on August 29, 2017 by Fernando Gomes

[Krazer], a post-doctoral researcher at MIT, loves him some lasers. When out of boredom one afternoon he hatched an idea for a laser projector, it grew until a few years later he wound up with this RGB laser for a projector — Mark IV no less.

In addition to 3D-printing the parts, the major innovation with this version is the ability to re-align the lasers as needed; tweaking the vertical alignment is controlled by a screw on the laser mounts while the horizontal alignment is done the same way on the mirror mounts. This simplifies the design and reduces the …read more

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Posted in laser, laser hacks, mirror, projector, rgb, White Light | Leave a comment

Edge-lit Pendants Show Two Layers are Better Than One

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Fernando Gomes

Engraved acrylic lights up nicely with LED lighting. Simply engrave clear acrylic with a laser engraver, then edge-light the acrylic and watch the engraving light up. This badge made by [Solarbotics] shows how they used this principle when creating some pendants for an event that performed particularly well in the dark.

The pendants they created have two engraved acrylic panels each, and that’s about it. Two LEDs and a CR2032 battery nestle into pre-cut holes, and the engraved sides are placed face-to-face, so the outer surfaces of the pendant are smooth. By using some color-cycling RGB LEDs on one panel …read more

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Posted in acrylic, badge, coin cell, cr2032, edge lighting, edge-lit, how-to, instructable, Laser cutting, laser engraving, laser hacks, led, led hacks, pendant, rgb | Leave a comment

How Hot is Your Faucet? What Color is the Water?

Posted on November 6, 2016 by Fernando Gomes

How hot is the water coming out of your tap? Knowing that the water in their apartment gets “crazy hot,” redditor [AEvans28] opted to whip up a visual water temperature display to warn them off when things get a bit spicy.

This neat little device is sequestered away inside an Altoids mint tin — an oft-used, multi-purpose case for makers. Inside sits an ATtiny85 microcontroller  — re-calibrated using an Arduino UNO to a more household temperature scale ranging from dark blue to flashing red — with additional room for a switch, while the 10k ohm NTC thermristor and RGB LED …read more

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Posted in ATtiny Hacks, attiny85, home, led, microcontroller, rgb, sink, Temerature, visual, water | Leave a comment