Introduction: Project BLEnDer
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About: Scurvy, the A140 road and parsnips are three of the things that do not describe me. Funambulist, on the other hand, neither. Thank you.
To get the Hacktivity* started at Hack42 (Dutch Hackerspace in Arnhem) I decided to go for it and build the idea I had spinning around in my head (pun very much intended).
I bought this very cheap fan with an LED strip at a local store (Action) for fun and I happened to have an old blender lying around being useless; I thought to myself: why not combine the two?!
After drilling through some sort of safety screw (to prevent me from opening the blender) I, well, opened the blender... Next followed 10 minutes of hacking away at the guts to make enough room for the fan, while making sure I kept the motor (<-definitely reusable) and all exterior parts in one piece.
Now that I had enough room in the blender for the fan I took apart its casing for a test fit. Perfect! With a little help from BugBlue I figured out which wire should go where so that I could start the fan with the original switch in the blender. I also soldered in some connectors so that I could power the device with a battery that we had in the hackerspace's stash.
Another test, and, unbelievably, it worked! Immediately! Somehow I managed to hot-glue the fan in place and screw the entire bLEnDer together while giggling like a little child. Now all that was left was to take some "Finished!" pics and a short video...
*Hacktivity is our brand-new periodical activity where members get together and hack away at cheap electronics bought by the ones organizing the activity.
I bought this very cheap fan with an LED strip at a local store (Action) for fun and I happened to have an old blender lying around being useless; I thought to myself: why not combine the two?!
After drilling through some sort of safety screw (to prevent me from opening the blender) I, well, opened the blender... Next followed 10 minutes of hacking away at the guts to make enough room for the fan, while making sure I kept the motor (<-definitely reusable) and all exterior parts in one piece.
Now that I had enough room in the blender for the fan I took apart its casing for a test fit. Perfect! With a little help from BugBlue I figured out which wire should go where so that I could start the fan with the original switch in the blender. I also soldered in some connectors so that I could power the device with a battery that we had in the hackerspace's stash.
Another test, and, unbelievably, it worked! Immediately! Somehow I managed to hot-glue the fan in place and screw the entire bLEnDer together while giggling like a little child. Now all that was left was to take some "Finished!" pics and a short video...
*Hacktivity is our brand-new periodical activity where members get together and hack away at cheap electronics bought by the ones organizing the activity.
