HOW TO Build Your Own Underwater ROV
Great project- My ROV, “Bob” is based on the “Sea Fox”. It uses 5, 500 gpm Johnson Bilge Pumps ($10 Each) for thrusters. Unfortunately these pumps have increased in cost to $20 since I built Bob in 2002. If you have more time than money you can convert bilge pumps to use propellers similar to a boat and then reverse wire the so you can reverse them. Since each motor can produce forward and reverse thrust you can design and ROV with only 3 motors. The control is an old Atari switch type joy stick ($10 on ebay), that now houses a 9 volt battery, and is wired to mechanical relays on the ROV using Cat-5 (Standard 4-pair Computer Network) cable. An extension cord provides power to the ROV from a 12volt trolling motor battery”. [via] Link.
Why would you want to interface the Keyboard? The IBM keyboard can be a cheap alternative to a keyboard on a Microprocessor development system. Or maybe you want a remote terminal, just couple it with a LCD Module. Maybe you have a RS-232 Barcode Scanner or other input devices, which you want to use with existing software which only allows you to key in numbers or letters. You could design yourself a little box to convert RS-232 into a Keyboard Transmission, making it transparent to the software.
The Fourth Street hotspot is part of a communal wireless project called Neighbornode, started by then New York University grad student John Geraci as a way to add a community-building aspect to the common practice of using a neighbor’s Wi-Fi network to get online. Anyone with a broadband connection can start a Neighbornode. When someone uses the node to access the Web, he is first directed to a home page with a message board, classified section and photo page to help locals recognize one another. Here’s how to do it in your hood’
MAKE flickr pool member mrbill is tinkering around with an AVR Butterfly 4- Atmel AVR Butterfly microcontroller evaluation kit. Also has temperature sensor and speaker. The best thing – it’s only $20! In the photo, he spells MAKE!
MAKE Flickr pool member wirehead writes “I’m bringing up the gen2 circuit board. This should be the sort of thing that a qualified electrical engineer would whip out in a matter of minutes. But, I’m a programmer who likes to mess around with technology, so things sometimes take a little longer than they ought to. Or I connect power to ground and ground to power. I do that sometimes, too. But now, I can program this board to do stuff, once I get the LEDs all soldered up. Soon, you will start seeing this board in my light art”…