Contraptions

Electronic and Mechanical Gadgets and Small Tools.

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A Typical Hardware Hobby Enthusiast is a Hacker when he starts learning, it is sometimes given the name of reverse engineering in another context. The Hardware Hobby Freelance hacker is better off, he is doing it for Learning and Education. Students should be given new and challenging projects in well equipped labs, to augment their skills and make them productive in their jobs from day one.

Hobby Projects – Insulation tester, LED Circuits, Meters.

Hobby DIY Electronics and Making Things at delabs

We all learn by breaking up things, to see how it works, then Fix things around Home etc. Later Create and Innovate perhaps, thats the way to go. To Invent something someday.

Circuit Diagrams Archives Reference

Here are some people doing just that, inspire you to create useful things for your Home. We should never become over dependent on others for everything, this will erode our knowledge base, skills and freedom.

Silicon Chip – Electronics Hobby DIY Magazine, Projects to Build and Kits too.

Nuts and Volts – Aimed at the electronics hobbyist, with articles covering amateur radio, cellular. communications.

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Here are some Metal Detector Projects that are quite interesting for the purpose of education and experiments in the Art of electronics. This site may be as old as Y2K, but the url / domain may have changed.

Metal Detector Projects

If you are interested in the theory behind the mag I can highly recommend the book The Magnetics Measurement Handbook by J.M. Janicke. Besides a good coverage of magnetics theory, it contains much of what you need to build a useful fluxgate Magnetometer, plus other devices.

Traditional Geophysical instruments include ground-penetrating radar, earth resistivity meter, infrared, and sonar, to name a few. Currently, earth resistivity projects are the most practical for the do-it-yourselfer, although some people have been tinkering with side scan sonar.

Metal Detector Projects

Detection of Gold

Just the Jeohunter really works and directly detects Gold – see below screen. And even gold-worth 9-15cm diameter cannon-balls get detected as “Gold” (golden ring & cannonball analyses has identical values), but thats because of the huge metal mass and special shape – alot MDs have “problems” in such situation and perhaps only a magnetometer really works here. btw. there is no difference if you search with Ground Balance minus 200, zero or plus 200, the gold detection always remains the same.

Detection of Gold - Metal Detection

There are historical records of DIY Enthusiasts having created what is known as the “Donkey Kong Gold Hunter”. This Gold Detector uses a Nintendo Unit after many Mods.

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I  was enlightened about this Battery Less wonder. This is a boon for rural areas and an emergency tool which depend only on your will and your tendons. I found this bright flash of information when i was looking for supercap vendors.

Learn about Supercaps, dynamo and White LED

Richard J. Nelson on the LED Forever Flashlight. – The future of low power lighting is in the use of the Light Emitting Diode, LED. Sooner or later you will buy one or more LED lights or lamps. The two primary advantages of an LED light source is it’s efficient light generation (exceeding that of fluorescent lamps) and long life, typically 100,000 hours. That is 50 to 100 times more life than most of the bulbs in your house.

Learn about the Eternal Torchlight

This is a Linear Dynamo LED Torch which uses a SuperCapacitor to store the energy. Easy to repair and maintain if necessary.

It uses no batteries and requires only the single LED included. You can even leave the flashlight unused in your car’s glove box for years and you’ll always get that all-important light when you need it most. Forever Flashlight lll pays for itself quickly by saving you the cost of batteries and bulbs.

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Sometime around 2008 i wrote this. It is more of Humor and less of Reality.

Vibration  Pressure are Related, Pressure is related to Temperature, Sunlight has Infra Red & Heating Ability. This should Ring some Bell.

You have Heard of Solar Cells and Panels, Sunlight to Power. Heard of Piezoelectric Energy, Vibration to Electricity

Solar Calculator

Solar – Heat – Pressure – Vibration – Electricity !! New Hybrid Solar Cell ! Someone has to just Invent it. It should Flash a few Lamps.

Micro Mech Lithography. Tiny Cantilevers, Tiny Silicone bulb of Volatile Liquid. Mini Lens Heats the bulb. Cantilever is bent a few Microns.

Pressure sensitive valve deflates Bulb suddenly, The Piezoelectric Cantilever goes Twang. The Electric Pulses charge a Supercap and battery.

The Vaporized Liquid has Condensed, it goes back to the cells by Gravity, The Shrunk Bulb draws the liquid. Ready for next Cycle.

If it works, credit me, else all credits go to Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Once upon a Time –  by delabs

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IC Engines or Internal Combustion Engines are used in all types of Motor Vehicles. They convert Organic Fuel to Motion by tiny combustive explosions in a Cylinder-Piston arrangement. The use of Electricity here is only the spark for ignition.

Revolutionary Balloon Anti-gravity Car

Balloon Antigravity Car

These have a very low efficiency analogous to the Incandescent Tungsten Filament Bulb, The traditional bulb is being replaced by the emerging Energy Efficient LED Lighting Technology.

If we can convert Ethanol Fuel to heat by combustion, that is easy. Then the entire heat is absorbed by Thermoelectric Cell Arrays, like the Solar Cells absorb The radiation from the sun. The EMF from the Thermoelectric Cell Array can be a cascaded to generate enough electricity to charge the Rechargeable Batteries in an Electric Vehicle.

The most important thing is ….. The Material/Compound that can give a good Heat to Electricity Conversion, has still not been discovered. This has be as good as a Solar Cell.

Some Breakthrough in Semiconductor Physics, Nanotechnology, Material Science or Electrochemistry by the Scientists in Fundamental Research and Applied Science, can make the Internal Combustion Engine Obsolete.

Thermal Electricity can also make possible, ‘on the fly’ Electricity from anything that can burn. Coal, wood, twigs, dried leaves, biogas, ethanol can fire Mini Thermal Engines; that make Heat into Electricity to drive Electric Motors backed up by supercaps or rechargeable batteries.

The only other way is to offset gravity as shown in the right, this was a graphic i made in 1999 for a poem on my website.

delabs – 2006

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There are places like your Backyard, outdoors, a village… where your Gadgets will stop working !!!

You will feel suffocated when your Smartphone or Tablet fails to respond to your caring strokes. Your Dupey is perishing due to Undernourishment. All you need is “Electronic Solar Umbrella” which was invented by me delabs on June 1st 2014.

Electronic Solar Umbrella

The Red Light is for Data Networking SmartUmbrellas using Advanced Multi-Threaded Infra Red Technology.

SUN – Smart Umbrella Networking

I just invented the SmartUmbrella – My Drone is Rushing to the Patent Office.

(Keep this confidential till my drone returns safely, the beagle boys are using Blimps with Large Magnets to capture Drones.)

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This is a simple charger you can build for devices. It can be modified for any device. This may need no modification for devices that are charged using PC USB port.

Power Electronic Circuits

Charger for Portable Devices

This is a Schematic Doodle called Schoodle. Use it for Learning and understanding. Build and test only when you have practiced and gone beyond simple electrical and electronic circuits. Mistakes can damage your portable device or even waste your components. Hence take care, work systematically, not like me. See the mess i have created below.