Mother nature provides us with countless ways to produce our electricity. The tricky part is harnessing it. Learn how to install solar panels and wind turbines to generate all the electricity you’ll ever need.  Also, check out our energy efficient 110v LED light bulbs.

DIY Wind Power Tutorials:

• GotWind.org is probably your best bet. It’s loaded with useful information to guide you.
• Another fantastic resource to help you is wind power generation.
• To start small, start out with some science fair level projects.
• Ready to move on? Try a dirt simple turbine.
• After that, move up and build your own backyard turbine.
• Canada even published a lengthy article on how to build a turbine.

  

DIY Solar Power Tutorials:

• Build it Solar has plenty of great information to help get you started.
• Before you build, be sure to ask yourself some of these important questions.
• Next, check out this detailed tutorial for an example of the steps you’ll be taking.
• For a far more simple project, learn to generate free heat using pop cans and plexiglass.

If you’re craving even more info, see our DIY Free Electricity section. Need solar panels? We’ve got dirt cheap prices at the HacknMod store. Join the thousands of satisfied DIYers today!

More DIY Free Energy Tutorials:

• How to DIY Solar Panel Installation
• Free Electricity? Yep – Build your own Wind Turbine
• Next Gen Wind Energy you have Never Seen
• Put Wind Powered Wifi on your Roof

Here’s another fantastic tutorial from Jay, a DIY lasers expert. See all of our DIY Laser Projects.

I finally finished my 7 color laser! For the guts of the project, I followed this great Laser tutorial on HacknMod. (by rog8811)

For the housing, I decided to go with a clear enclosure using ‘push on / push off’ clicky buttons. (I needed something with room for my build, which has heatsinks on all of the lasers – still pretty small though) The polycarbonate material is scratch resistant. It’s cool to be able to see inside the assembly of the three lasers and sled!

Important: This is a class 3B laser and should be used with care. Proper eye protection is recommended. It can instantly damage the eye if it is pointed directly into the eye. Even reflections can cause eye damage.

Parts:

• Translucent polycarbonate enclosure
• Adjustable sled mount/heatsinks – Must have!
• 405-G-1 glas lens modification for blu-ray
• FlexDrive
• Green Modules

I just went for the 7 color laser, not the spiro. How Rog gets all of that to fit into his small box is beyond me. I thought I would share just a couple of things I found out doing this build. First, the pictures:

The Build:

I found out that this project is much more difficult than I had anticipated. Rog makes this kind of thing look easy, but it is very difficult to get all 3 lasers lined up perfectly!

Power Settings and Diodes:
I stayed pretty close to the recommendations by rog8811 from the tutorial linked above. Here are my settings…

• Red – Sony/Senkat – 92mA’s (measured 42mW’s with AixiZ acrylic back opened)
• Blu-ray – PHR – 118mA’s (measured 110mW’s with AixiZ acrylic back opened)
• O-like 10mW green – I picked the best one I had, which measured 9mW’s with a CR123.
• You lose a lot through the optics in the sled. And it must also depend on the color of the laser, as to how much of it reflects off of the coatings on the PS3 turning mirror.
• The Red started out at 42mW’s, and comes out at 26mW’s.
• The blu-ray started out at 110mW’s and comes out at only 20mW’s.
• The green started out at 9mW’s and comes out at 4mW’s.
• Now just do the math for the ‘in-between’ colors! (yes, I tested them)

* Turquoise – 24mW’s

* Yellow – 30mW’s

* Magenta – 46mW’s

* White – 50mW’s

Notes:

• I bounced the dots off a mirror in the other room so that on the ’round trip’, the dots would be close to me. That way I could see if they were aligned. Because you want them to align at distance.
• Also, they must be aligned at the aperture as well! This is easy for the red and blu-ray, because they are pointed at the splitter cube, but check for this when setting up your green, which must meet the other beams through the PS3 turning mirror.
• I went with a little thread lock on the lens threads at both the focus ring, and the module. (get perfect focus before it dries)

I did this because the assembly needs to be so precisely aligned, that even the smallest movement can put the dots out of alignment at distance. Anyway, this is the coolest project I have done yet!

There is a kit available for adjustable sled mount/heatsinks that is a MUST HAVE for this build. Updated and more powerful version. (358mW’s) Good build tips!

Final Results:

(Beam shots – with some smoke)

The alignment is definitely the key to the build, and is the most difficult part. Above, I mentioned a couple of things that I found useful for helping with this, but no matter what, it will be a chore to get it perfect. Very happy with these results! Thanks to rog8811 and Hack N Mod for showing his laser tutorial for the guts of this great project! – Jay

This post was submitted by a Hack N Mod fan, just like yourself. If you’d like to earn money from your projects, feel free to contact us.

Related Posts:

• Powerful Blu-Ray Laser on a Keychain
• Incredible Coil Gun with LEDs and Lasers
• Our entire collection of outstanding laser builds

Using nothing but a few threads and a projector, you can create what’s called a wiremap which is a 3d visualization of light. For such a simple setup, the results are downright fantastic.
The video above is just a small sample of what the technology can do.  For more video samples and check out this wiremap tutorial and learn to build your own.

But wait, there’s more!

Whatever you do, don’t miss out on our LED and Light projects collection and especially don’t miss our Top LED and Light Projects.   Get hacks via RSS or email –> subscribe now.

Learn to control the power to a normal AC outlet using 5 volts DC. When dealing with low voltage electronics such as iPods or cell phones, it may seem hard to make the jump to AC powered, high voltage appliances and machines. Â  For example, take a look at the “blender defender” above.  Actually, controlling these high voltage beasts isn’t too difficult with the help of a relay (pictured below).

A relay uses a switching mechanism that essentially says if 5v input received, then release 110v to outlet or appliance.  This fantastic, detailed tutorial can tell you all you’ll ever need to know.

Further Outstanding Tutorials:

• How to: DIY Home Automation Tutorial
• Use the Wii and iPhone to Control an RC car
• DIY RC Plane that Drops Water Bombs

Don’t know about you, but physically getting up and turning on my lights is far too much work.  Home automation is surprisingly simple actually and we’ve compiled plenty of resources for you to create your own home of the future.

How to DIY Automation Projects:

1. Automation products are incredibly expensive so you can pick up supplies way cheaper on eBay. Main brands include x10 automation and Insteon.
2. On a budget? Learn to use your parrallel port to control your home.
3. Linux lover?  Use your skills to automate your home.
4. For the occassional party or rave, the emergency party button is for you.
5. Pimping your Christmas light display is a must.
6. You can also remotely control your Tivo.
7. Install a pop up TV hidden in your dresser.
8. Automation can be accomplished with a basic microcontroller too.

Home Auomation Videos:

Further Resources:

• Discuss your projects in the home automation forum.
• Browse the “complete directory of home automation websites.
• Here’s a similar database.
• Finally, we have DIY automation tutorials.

Tutorials:

• Instructional video – Installing VMware on Windows.
• The U of Alberta has more detailed information about VMware.
• Run multiple OSes with free VMWare Player
• You can also learn to install the VMware server on Ubuntu.

1. Pros
   1. Can run all versions of Windows, Linux, FreeBSD fairly well
   2. Good for someone who wants to run Windows to access Office or compile and test Windows applications (except games) or run an application (not a game).
   3. Good for testing out a new version of a system.
   4. Good for “help desk” in some cases.
   5. Good if you have to have a Windows machine but still want the use of linux without having to dual boot
2. Neutral
   1. needs lots of memory
3. Cons
   1. Cannot emulate all your devices
   2. does not support game playing very well
   3. sound is poor (but supposed to be better in version 4.0)
   4. usb support is behind (only version 1.0 usb ports)