Maker Projects

Video

Silent Meditation Timer for a Singing Bowl

In 2014 I had another idea about a meditation timer for singing bowl (Klangschale). A clapper which automatically hammers after a specified amount of time.

I had some features in mind:

  • It needs to fit on a wide range of bowls.
  • The mechanics needs to be silent.
  • The timer needs to be adjustable
  • Maybe it can also bell in adjustable time intervals, like Tich Nhat Hanh’s mindfullness bell

Motors, servos and solenoids are all too noisy. So I made some research and found electric muscles. I ordered two from sparkfun. And I made some scribbles how it can look like.

I think it would be nice that the time can set by a rotary encoder, combined with a little display, maybe 7-segment led or a small oled, like in the MicroView

The latest thing I made is a paper prototype with a simple button. I was amazed, the mechanics works perfect. And it’s really silent.

 

The click in the video is just the button press. The NanoMuscle itself is very silent.

Galerie

New Enclosure for my Knob

In 2013 I started designing a nice enclosure for my knob. But unfortunately I never finished it. I designed it by layering laser cutted acrylic glas.

It has the followong features:

  • Li-Po battery power
  • Wireless charger
  • Stand for iPad and iPad mini
  • Bluetooth Audio connection
 

Here are the vector files which i have used for cutting.

TheKnobCutFiles.zip

 
Video

THE KNOB III – BlueTooth 4.0 aka BLE

4 Comments

Here is a new Version of my rotating Knob. It now uses Bluetooth Low Energy aka BT 4.0 to communicate to the iOS device. I’m using the BLE Shield by RedBear Labs. I also coded a native App to have access to the iOS music library. So now it kan be used as a replacement for that cool, but expensive, infotainment systems integrated in cars. Mine doesn’t have one. On the other side Toyota’s infotainment systems aren’t cool. Hey guys take a look at Audi or BMW. And last but not least it has a new case with an aluminium knob. It looks very nice now. In addition it is enough space to put in a 9V battery to use it completely wireless.