Electronics

My Custom CA-53W (Wristwatch)

I’ve made it a habit to wear a watch whenever I go out and I’d like to share the certain modifications I’ve made to suit my needs. CA-53W The watch I choose to wear is the Casio CA-53W-1 Black Data Bank Watch. It’s a digital calculator watch introduced in 1988 that’s still being manufactured and sold to this day. While many calculator watches with even more features preceded it, the CA-53W was aimed away from the luxury market and designed to be affordable. This helped it to become the only calculator watch (to this day) to sell over a million…
Pepe LED Neon Sign

A friend wanted to decorate their room and suggested a neon Pepe the Frog sign to hang on their wall. I decided to make one for them. Initial Research The very first step is to find out what LED strips to use. Real neon signs are made using glass tubes filled with neon gas and extremely high voltages but diffused LED strips make for a great substitute. They can be inserted into 3D printed tracks, wired together and mounted on a wall. Much cheaper, lighter, safer and easier to make. I found a listing on Aliexpress (apologies if listing goes…
Animatronic Crow

Inspired by Mr Chicken’s Animatronic Raven, I created set out to create an animatronic crow of my own. At time of writing as well as when I was researching for the project, his DIY kit for it is sold out. Prototype For the outer shell of the shell, Mr Chicken uses a vacuum formed shell to minimize weight without sacrificing detail or strength. Unfortunately, not only did I not have access to a vacuum former, I also did not have a 3D model let alone a buck to form over. As my 3D sculpting skills were not quite up to…
4D Glasses (Proof of Concept)

I invented (as far as I’m aware) a way to make glasses that let you see a 4 dimensional object in a 2 dimensional image. This project is about an unsuccessful prototype I made. Anaglyph 3D Bullies were different in the 1950’s The classic red and cyan 3D glasses we’ve been wearing since 1853 (you read that correctly) uses a technology called anaglyphs. Humans use binocular (2 eyes) vision where each eye receives a slightly offset image which is perceived by the brain as a single 3D image with depth. The illusion of depth can be created through stereoscopy; each…
Cult of the Lamb Red Crown

I made a prop replica of the Red Crown to wear to INDOCTRINATE, a Cult of the Lamb themed party run by its Australian game studio Massive Monster. While there are plenty of examples online of people recreating the crown, I found that all of them had static eyes, sometimes with led lighting. The crown is supposed to be a very expressive and alive creature and I knew I had to give my prop the ability to look around and blink. This was an opportunity for me make the first Red Crown in the world with an animated eye (as…
Air Raid Siren Alarm Clock

I used to have a problem trying to wake up to my alarms so I tried to think of something that no one could sleep through. How about an air raid siren? The Alarm Clock On Aliexpress, I found a small 12V air raid siren which upon second viewing, is probably intended for cars but for what purpose I don’t know. Regardless, I found that the iconic British WWII Blitz airstrike warning signal uses a 2-tone sound created using sirens in pairs. So I bought 2. I designed very minimal additional 3D printed pieces to house the equally minimal electronics…
Bluetooth Nunchuk Mouse

The hierarchy of laptop pointing devices puts external mice above touchpads but perhaps a joystick belongs on a tier even above that. I often find myself in situations where I have just enough space for a laptop but not enough for a mouse, so I decided to make myself a Bluetooth joystick mouse. Part Selection The Wii Nunchuk was the perfect base which I could use for the project. Genuine Nintendo Nunchuk’s contain an analog joystick, accelerometer and 2 buttons. Even more conveniently, it uses I2C communication with the Wiimote which can very easily be tapped into. While it was…
Wiimote Control Car

Mario Kart is THE party game to play when you have friends over and Mario Kart Wii is THE definitive Mario Kart Experience*. While I’ll concede that no one who plays competitively will ever use motion controls (and neither do I anymore), the intuitive skeuomorphic controls of the Wiimote makes the game accessible to even the most lives-under-a-rock non-gamers. That got me thinking, why aren’t there RC cars that use tilt to steer? *I’ll also admit that the Wii version is incredibly unbalanced but the courses they introduced are absolutely iconic and beautiful. I’m talking Mushroom Gorge, Toad’s Factory, Coconut…
TV Remote Control Robot

My little brother had a little robot toy that was controlled with a wired remote which I was really annoyed by. What’s the point of a tethered walking toy? When he was gonna throw it out, I wanted to modify it to be remote control and thought it’d be interesting to use a TV remote. Beep Boop TV remotes use infrared (IR) light to communicate. The remote has an LED that flashes IR light on and off in a binary sequence (an IR code) that can be detected by an IR sensor and translated in the TV. My robot needed…