DIY geekery.
Recently I got three stepper motors (motors with low torque and high precision) from old hardware like printers and floppy drives. These fuckers can be controlled from a serial port or USB. Since I don't have a serial port I decided to try use the USB ports to make something useful with the junk. I looked through how to output signals and stuff with C/C++ via some native driver.

But when I opened the floppy and got the motor, I lost motivation. The junk is now in some drawer somewhere. I've lots of other half finished DIY stuff as well.

This is utterly uninteresting, I know.
(Archeleus hates cabbage, Mon 28 Jun 2010, 11:00, 7 replies)

What were you planning to do with them?
If it was to build a USB-controlled sandwich-delivery system, for example, or an automatic bottle opener, it could be quite interesting.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 28 Jun 2010, 11:24, closed)

I really didn't know that.
The ideas are cool but the motor doesn't give that much torque to open a bottle. It can be used to make a primitive printer or something. I was thinking about a webcam controller, with four directions of movement and 1.6 rad/tick precision.
(Archeleus hates cabbage, Mon 28 Jun 2010, 13:34, closed)

dig them out!
surely you could build yourself a CNC or 3D printer something really cool?
(sailorspoon started wiping his own arse from, Mon 28 Jun 2010, 12:52, closed)

Yeah you guys are motivating me again
I may make something like that but I think I'll start at the basics. CNC's and printers would require more work.
(Archeleus hates cabbage, Mon 28 Jun 2010, 13:36, closed)

how about combining those two ideas:
Build a CDC maker, you could turn out hundreds of these per hour to adorn b3ta member's sheds the length (ooh-err!) of the country
( The Incredible Sulk Finally remembered his password on, Mon 28 Jun 2010, 15:33, closed)

How about
writing a program that rotates an object on a turntable, and after every step takes a photo (easiest is probably to grab a frame from a webcam, though quite a few digital still cameras can be remote controlled over USB). You can then use the resulting photos to make one of those interactive 360° view thingummies that are so popular on product websites.

I started working on that project myself a while back to take photos of my other electronics projects, but got bored and went back to working on those projects themselves. ;-)
( benryves Now I'm radioactive! That can't be good!, Mon 28 Jun 2010, 17:08, closed)

I'm on it
I'll start when I've some free time and a good camera.

Cheers
(Archeleus hates cabbage, Tue 29 Jun 2010, 7:31, closed)