what cool tech projects have you done?

[adarw]

doesnt have to be cool to you, or maybe its only cool to you, what cool tech projects have you done?

 

[Radium_Angel]

Built a LEGO robotic arm (from scratch, this was before the advent of the mindstorm stuff) connected to an Atari 800XL and ran via a (very) primitive ASCII "GUI"

[WhitetailAni]

ArmorBot II. It's a modification of the EV3RSTORM. This is (so far) my only finished tech project.

The goal if it is to be a tanklike thing. Almost everything is shielded; the ball launcher used to but I must have changed something because it no longer mounts correctly. I might fix it if I remember.

 

The original ArmorBot collapsed under its own weight since I accidentally removed some of the leg supports to add some things and wasn't able to get them back in without redesigning and rebuilding 80% of it. So I took it apart and build something else that I forgot the name of. Last summer I revisited the project and made it into this.

 

It's not done yet, as I still need to add the laser tracking (laser housing from an NXT touch sensor), and I want to add on a motor multiplexer and add functionality for it to raise or lower its eyebrow at will (you can see that I've got a bit of an idea for that, look at the side picture)

Spoiler

This thing eats up every Mindstorms part I have - all motors, all sensors. I ran out of sensor ports too so I bought a sensor multiplexer. I might get a motor multiplexer too and allow the left arm to swivel left to right too, though it'll be tricky to get it to work since the motor that lets it move up and down isn't close by to the arm.

 

Each tread is geared down 3:1 for maximum moving power so the thing will actually move. I could probably get away with 2:1 or even 1:1 if I added the red rubber tread thingies but I don't have any.

 

I also want to get it an EV3 ultrasonic sensor so its eyes glow in the dark.

 

Yes, the gyro sensor is functional. I have it set to measure if it tilts too much (I think it's set to 30 degrees) and if it does, stop everything until it tilts back unless I press a button combo to override. The light sensor doesn't do much right now, but I'm hoping that it'll be able to see reflected laser light and thus aim the robot. No way to test yet.

 

 

 

[adarw]

2 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

snip

this is sick!

[Kilrah]

My custom designed and 3D printed PC case might qualify.

 

Although I've been wanting to add an internal 7-port USB hub, have had it for more than a year, and never managed to kick myself into doing it because it needs a complex bracket designed to be able to hold it in place. And it's annoying since I could make use of it right now, so will try to get to it when I get back from this work trip...

 

[adarw]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

My custom designed and 3D printed PC case might qualify.

 

Although I've been wanting to add an internal 7-port USB hub, have had it for more than a year, and never managed to kick myself into doing it because it needs a complex bracket designed to be able to hold it in place. And it's annoying since I could make use of it right now, so will try to get to it when I get back from this work trip...

 

THATS SICK what is that psu tho? lol

[Kilrah]

https://www.amazon.com/Athena-Computer-Power-AP-MFATX50P8-Supply/dp/B073JXM2K2

 

With fan replaced by a 40mm noctua (stock was LOUD)

Specs are in my signature

[adarw]

8 hours ago, Kilrah said:

https://www.amazon.com/Athena-Computer-Power-AP-MFATX50P8-Supply/dp/B073JXM2K2

 

With fan replaced by a 40mm noctua (stock was LOUD)

Specs are in my signature

is it reliable tho?

[YoungBlade]

Are we only counting hardware or does software count? I've coded a few video games in 72 hours for the Ludum Dare competition: https://ldjam.com/users/youngblade/games

[it_dont_work]

Build the offgrid solar array for my house and workshop does that count? it's more basic building and electrical than 'tech' 

[Kilrah]

16 hours ago, adarw said:

is it reliable tho?

Well it's almost 2 years old now, so I guess yes

[Anghammarad]

moved my Amiga 1200 from its keyboard case to a bg tower and resoldered every outgoing connection, adding fastscsi II, 2 cd roms, 3 Harddrives, together 3 CPUs and a whopping 8 megs of fastram. 

 

Nothing prebuild to just "eumel" it in, needed to make a new motherboard tray, do all the wiring to the external connectors, build a scandoubler to be able to use multisync vga screens... that was my first bigger "project"...

 

second one designing a whole companies IT, lan/wan/client/server

 

third socksifying a squid proxy server (done at the same company as above)

 

else several companies IT migrations, setups, just right now building a whole companies IT from scratch... lan/wan/client/server/san/firewalling/domain setup/etcpp...

 

and some little sideprojects like my home server, and such things...

 

jep I'm a nerd ^^

[Whispre]

Currently setting up a 12 node Hyper-V cluster connected to a PURE All Flash array with 420T of usable storage.... 

 

[adarw]

48 minutes ago, Whispre said:

Currently setting up a 12 node Hyper-V cluster connected to a PURE All Flash array with 420T of usable storage.... 

 

what are you using it for?

[Whispre]

7 minutes ago, adarw said:

what are you using it for?

It will host approximately 450-500 Servers running a wide mix of applications, everything from file servers, domain controllers, SQL/application/web servers etc... 

[adarw]

10 minutes ago, Whispre said:

It will host approximately 450-500 Servers running a wide mix of applications, everything from file servers, domain controllers, SQL/application/web servers etc... 

so your selling the power?

[Whispre]

Just now, adarw said:

so your selling the power?

No, its a tech project I'm working on at work, in my companies datacenter (which I also built, but that was a few years back)… just internal use. Also fun is automating not just software updates and reboots of the hosts, but firmware updates as well. Every node on the cluster and both controllers on the SAN are automatically updated as soon as new updates are cleared on the Dev clusters... zero downtime to the VM's running on them.

 

 

Last big tech thing I did at home was build a new wall mount desk with built in wall mount open air PC...

 

 

 

Most of my home time now is spent working on upgrades on my Jeep, After over 25 years as a sysadmin, working in tech so at home is less fun than it used to be, doing things like installing hydro-assist on the Jeep is more satisfying and more challenging.

[RollinLower]

1 hour ago, Whispre said:

Currently setting up a 12 node Hyper-V cluster connected to a PURE All Flash array with 420T of usable storage....

done something pretty similar at work. i get to build these kind of clusters pretty regularly. Love it!

[Whispre]

1 minute ago, RollinLower said:

done something pretty similar at work. i get to build these kind of clusters pretty regularly. Love it!

What PDU are those? Haven't seen those or the plug type before. The servers look familiar though

[RollinLower]

4 minutes ago, Whispre said:

What PDU are those? Haven't seen those or the plug type before. The servers look familiar though

The servers are Dell R6515's, not ultra powerful but this cluster doesn't need to be, it's just a 16A rack.

PDU's are Schleifenbauer units which are made to order for our DC. plugs are schuko, normal stuff for the EU (this is in the netherlands)

 

We use 19" PDU's in this rack because it's too narrow to facilitate 'normal' long PDU's. In other 32A racks we have comparable PDUs to your pic, but also schleifs and 32A using C13(14?) plugs.

[Whispre]

31 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

The servers are Dell R6515's, not ultra powerful but this cluster doesn't need to be, it's just a 16A rack.

PDU's are Schleifenbauer units which are made to order for our DC. plugs are schuko, normal stuff for the EU (this is in the netherlands)

 

We use 19" PDU's in this rack because it's too narrow to facilitate 'normal' long PDU's. In other 32A racks we have comparable PDUs to your pic, but also schleifs and 32A using C13(14?) plugs.

Awesome OK thanks... they look like good units though, I like the offset layout, (cords at 45 degrees).