DIY Techno-hacksOld hard drive platters make wonderfully good drinks coasters - they look dead smart and expensive and you've stopped people reading your old data into the bargain.
Have you taped all your remotes together, peep-show-style? Have you wired your doorbell to the toilet? What enterprising DIY have you done with technology?
Extra points for using sellotape rather than solder.
(
chthonic, Thu 20 Aug 2009, 12:30)
« Go Back
Door bell/alarmOur doorbell broke. At the same time we were thinking of investing in a house alarm. To (almost) resolve both issues in a cheap way I came up with the mat-bell-alarm.
First I created a small pressure pad by having two sheets of plywood, cunningly flexed to create a gap between them, and electrical contacts on the internal faces. When placed beneath the (outside) door mat the circuit would be made when someone stepped on the mat. All I had to do was connect this to a bell or buzzer, but I had neither. However I did have Meccano (the proper metal stuff, not the girly plastic stuff they sell nowadays grumble humf).
So I built a simple buzzer from Meccano and an electromagnet (also home made by wrapping a wire round a bar of iron). Very simple but an interesting little circuit.
I connected my buzzer to my pressure pad and hey presto - the buzzer sounds when someone comes to the door and also when the obliging burglar stands on the front door mat. It lasted approximately 2 days before it broke, but for that short time I was a happy man.
(, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 16:55, Reply)
« Go Back