9 Kick-Ass DIY Projects to Get Your Hack On. These 9 amazing DIY projects will give new meaning to your old hardware Techies are too often tempted by the lure of new technology, leaving perfectly good hardware drifting in the wake of compulsive upgrading. And while we love getting new gadgets as much as the next geek, we also like how a new purchase gives us the opportunity to take apart and tinker with our older gear in the Lab. Whether it’s by soldering circuit boards or loading open-source firmware, we pride ourselves on being able to stretch the lifespan of older electronics by performing undocumented (and sometimes warranty-breaking) hardware hacks.
The projects we’ve included here range from relatively safe software tweaks to more challenging technical exercises. You’ll learn how to bend USB connections to your will and imbue home routers and digital cameras with robust new features. So, let’s get hacking! First, a quick primer on USB power. Case-Fan Desk-Fan (image A) (image B) (image C) Book-Light Case-Light (image D)
Kipkay Videos - Home. Build the Perfect PC! Step-by-Step Illustrated How-To Guide. Maker’s Mark is of course the name of a fine Kentucky bourbon whiskey, but the phrase also applies to the stamp that skilled artisans apply to their creations. When you’ve finished building your custom PC, we’d encourage you to stamp it with your own maker’s mark; after all, the one-of-a-kind creation you’ll have wrought will have nothing in common with the mass-produced rigs that mainstream manufacturers churn out by the millions. That’s one of the most exciting aspects of our hobby. Automobile buffs can tune and customize their factory-built cars and trucks, but computer geeks like us get to build something new and unique almost entirely from whole cloth. And it’s so easy that you have to wonder why anyone would buy a preassembled PC in the first place. Intel has AMD on the run in the CPU front, but AMD is poking Nvidia in the behind in the graphics processor market.
The result: ever more powerful, ever less expensive videocards. Jump to: Motherboards Videocards CPU Coolers & Cases Stop. DIY: The First-Timer's Guide to Building a Computer from Scratch. 5-Minute Project Video: iPod Hat Trick. 15 Incredible Do-It-Yourself Gadgets You Wish You Made. 15 Incredible Do-It-Yourself Gadgets You Wish You Made For those of you who are DIY fans out there, we’ve got a special treat for you this week!
Ordered from least to most difficult projects to undertake, this list of hot DIY gadgets is going to blow your mind! The most notable is the Vertipod DIY One-Man Hoverflyer and most resourceful is the Laser Listening device. The coolest and most retro one is the Plasma Arc Speakers that have been around since the 80s. Check them all out below! DIY Laser Home Defence SystemEver wanted to secure your home the way the spooks at the CIA and other high-security agencies do? How to make a Physical Gmail Notifier at j4mie dot org. Or: how to turn this.. into this.. I was given a lovely glowing cube by the generous people at Linden Labs as a freebie at a job fair yesterday, and I decided that it was far too attractive to simply sit there on a shelf, pulsating forlornly until its batteries went flat.
How about making it useful, while maintaining its visual appeal? The following guide is deliberately fairly high-level, because the exact details will vary depending on your operating system and particular hardware setup. I did this with my Mac, but hopefully there'll be enough information here for you make it work on your system, perhaps with a little Googling. If you don't happen to have a glowing cube lying around, you can modify this to work with almost any output device you could think of, from a simple LED, or a buzzer, to something far more clever like moving a servo (Gmail Notifier Robot, anyone?) The basic system has three components: Hardware Connected up to the Boarduino for testing: Software <? News, Projects & Tutorials. How to Make a Disco Ball With CDs. Edit Article Edited by Flickety, Krystle, Sondra C, Rabbit8888 and 43 others You can still dance to old CDs even if you don't like the music on them any more.
Just turn them into a disco ball to boogie under! It's a smart and fun project to recycle all those unwanted freebie CDs and turn them into something funky and new. All you need are some CDs, a styrofoam ball, shears, and some glue! Ad Steps 1Find your unwanted CDs. 8Done. Tips You can color the pieces with permanent marker to give the ball a multi-colored effect.Some CDs are silver on both sides; keep the shiny side out when gluing such CD pieces.Get a toy motor (for example, one from building block sets) to turn your disco ball. Warnings The CD pieces may be sharp.When using a hot glue gun, keep a bowl of ice water handy for dipping in your finger in immediately if burned, to ward off the pain.
Make Bath Bombs and Fizzies - Main. If you’re a beginner to making bath bombs, here is a quick overview of the ingredients and process. You will see that there’s nothing to it — seriously. Three whole ingredients for the basic bath bomb! Of course, it’s pretty boring, but this is the foundation of bath bombing. Everything else, the color, fragrance, oils, corn starch, etc, is just icing on the cake, so to speak. Ingredients 2 cups Baking Soda 1 cup Citric Acid (Sour Salt) Spray Bottle with Tap Water Optional: 5 – 20 drops liquid food coloring Optional: 1 or 2 teaspoons of massage oil, grapeseed oil, olive oil, or almond oil Optional: 1 tsp. skin-safe fragrance oil Why do I say those last three are optional? Combine your oil, fragrance, and dry ingredients in a large, wide mixing bowl.
Start with two or three spritzes of water into the bowl, and rub the mix between your palms. When the bath bomb mix packs easily, but still doesn’t feel wet, it’s time to mold ‘em. I have to warn you, plastic stuff doesn’t make the best molds. Hacker's Bench .com. DIY Led Mood Lamp. Update (10/2009): Steve Rougier improved the software and schematics, see Conclusion below After making my pyramid mood light with 12 high power leds, i decided to make a bigger and better version, without the emphasis on the low budget.. After all, the pyramid mood lamp was more of a proof of concept with its shortcomings. I wanted the new mood lamp to be more powerful, so it could also be used in daylight conditions. I did this by using a z-power 3 watt RGB power led. This one led is far more powerful than the 12 ones combined i used before.
Offcourse a video says more than pictures, so here you can see the different operation modes. I also was not that satisfied with the diffused look of my previous led lamp in the shape of a pyramid. And i found the perfect housing! They come in two sizes: 31 and 45 cm high. Here is a list of the components i used for making the led mood lamp. Here you see the z-power led mounted on a heatsink i took from an old video card. Thanks Steven! RFID-Zapper(EN) - 22C3. How-To: Rackmount your gear for cheap.
Our simple network rack is an easy project that can really clean up a home network installation. Just a few square feet of floor space now keeps our cable modem firewall, Ethernet switch, server, wireless AP, KVM, monitor, keyboard and UPS neatly tucked away -- in a (decently well ventilated) closet, for example. It's also built to support rack mount hardware of shallow depth, like a router (the real kind) or network switch, so if you want to clear off that folding table in the basement, check out today's how-to. For today's How-To you'll need: kitchen rack from Target ($30) 3/4-inch wide, 1/2-inch deep aluminum channel ($6.50) 11/64 drill bit 1/4-inch drill bit m5 x 0.8 tap ($3.50) four 1-1/2-inch 1/4 x 20 bolts, washers and nuts ($1) m5 x 0.8 rack mounting screws (probably came with your rack mountable hardware) We bought this rack at Target for about $30.
It's nearly the perfect width for adding rack rails. The posts of the kitchen rack are 18 3/4-inches apart. Comments. Electronic Gadgets for Radio Control, by VA3AVR. Magnetic Refrigerator Lights. Windows Screen Saver Programming. Spark Fun Electronics. DIY Mods: Feature: Lighten your keychain Archives. The hardware keylogger page. Try a hardware keyboard logger device! Program the keylogger microcontroller firmware first. Start your programmer software, pick the AT89C2051, and burn the flash with the binary file or the hex version. You may also recompile the source using the source code and an 8051 compiler.
Soldering is probably the most difficult part of the project, as the keylogger hardware should be made as small as possible. The keylogger hardware schematics below show how connections should be made between components. Solder the components together starting from the microcontroller and the EEPROM. Before pulling the thermal tubing around the hardware keylogger, a good idea is to let some glue or resin in between the components, to make the device more rigid. Phidgets - USB sensors, USB robot sensors, robot kits, hobby robots, robot parts. Simple amp. WikiHow - The How-To Manual That Anyone Can Write or Edit. How-to make a ‘usb battery’ - cellphones hacks - cellphones.hackaday.com _
HOW-TO: Rebuild your laptop battery - Engadget - www.engadget.com. Admit it. Come out of denial. You know your laptop that was supercool 2 years ago now gets 15 minutes of battery life. It sucks and we all share the same problem eventually. Laptop batteries (and many others) will start to lose their total charging capacity after awhile. It's slow so we usually don't notice it until years later. So what do you have to do? Now before we go any further, let me issue a warning. Allright so lets get started. ....which will reveal something like below. Individual cells. If you have a powerbook like me, itll look like this: So. Get out your xacto knife, wire cutters, etc. for this. Take out all the metal contacts etc. until you have yourself a blank battery tray. Chances are your battery cells will come with wires on there for connecting it to something. Next, you need to get contact going.
Almost there. Much thanks to electronics lab, and reader [surfer] for the tips and pics! Comments. The Etherkiller. The Poor Man's Raid Array. GRYNX » Part 2 - New IR LED. The problem The solution The components The result Disclaimer The problem So, in part 1 I tried to use 10 regular IR LED’s (CQY99) as illumination for my modified Philips PCVC740k webcam.
The solution So, I found a LED called HSDL-4220 with a brother called HSDL-4230. The continuous electrical specifications for them are 875nm centre, max 100mA, 1.5V. Now, let’s have a look at the test rig and the pictures of the emitted light from the IR LED’s. GRYNX » Webcam in the dark, IR. Have you ever been using a webcam in a room with low light? Or have you ever wanted to have a webcam monitoring your dog, driveway or baby? Well, I have - both. Using a webcam in a room with low light usually works bad, and in most cases it doesn’t work at all. You can get around the problem in low light by using a webcam with high sensitivity, like the Philips PCVC740k or PCVC840k (they’re actually the same inside!). But what do you do if you have even less light? Professional spy cams and night goggles use an infrared light source and then use a camera with high sensitivity without the IR filter and then the camera will record the IR light as visible light.
So, what I thought was - why not remove the IR filter from my Philips PCVC740 and then build my own IR light source? Try this - set up your webcam or digital camera and then point a remote control towards the lens at the same time as you look at the resulting picture on the computer or LCD viewfinder. PrimeHacks, Mods, Hacks and DIY. Projects - mini-itx cluster. The "Mini-Cluster"By Glen Gardner, USA - Posted on 25 February, 2004 Introduction Early supercomputers used parallel processing and distributed computing and to link processors together in a single machine. Using freely available tools, it is possible to do the same today using inexpensive PCs - a cluster. Glen Gardner liked the idea, so he built himself a massively parallel Mini-ITX cluster using 12 x 800Mhz nodes.
The machine runs FreeBSD 4.8, and MPICH 1.2.5.2. After working with his machine and running some basic tests, Glen's cluster looks to be equivalent to at least 4 (maybe 6) 2.4Ghz Pentium IV boxes in parallel on a similar network - achieving a performance of around 3.6 GFLP. With the exception of the metalwork, power wiring, and power/reset switching, everything is off the shelf. The "Mini-Cluster" I built a Mini-ITX based massively parallel cluster named PROTEUS. The construction is simple and inexpensive. The original 6 node configuration. The completed 12 node cluster. How to build a Stable Plasmoid at one atmosphere. How to build yourself a One Atmosphere Plasmoid Advanced Reduced Drag Aircraft projectBy Jean-Louis Naudincreated on February 23th, 2000 - JLN Labs - Last update February 27th, 2000 I am glad to present you a very simple experiment that you can conduct yourself with common material that you already have in your house.
This experiment will allow you to see and check by yourself that a stable Plasmoid ( an artificial Plasma Ball ) can be created in air ( at a pressure of one atmosphere ). This simple and basic experiment is one of the main part of the working principle of an enhanced EHD Plasma reactor used in some advanced flying crafts ( see the Active GDP skin principle )... This experiment has already been tested successfully by many ball lightning experimenters in the world. I am grateful to Alexandre Szames for this fascinating experiment that he has recently suggested to me.
To conduct a successful Plasmoid experiment, you need only : Click Here Email : JNaudin509@aol.com. GRYNX. How-to: ‘usb battery’ v2 - hack a day - www.hackaday.com _ Never forget to water your garden again with an automated drip system : Lifehacker. Last summer I spent many mornings watering my garden, plants, and lawn with a garden hose. On the hottest, driest days I was up at 6 AM, walking around in a daze getting everything soaked.
During one record-breaking heatwave, we were out of town on vacation and when I returned I found a slightly dried out lawn and plants, but my vegetables were toast. The tomatoes took it hardest, looking close to dead after just a few days of drought. This year when we planted large stands of tomatoes, squash, and peas, I vowed to make sure this didn't happen again. Here's a flickset of my first drip line About the most complicated part is getting the start of the system right. The overall system is fairly simple, built off the parts described along with a 1/2 and 1/4 inch tubing system and various dripper, bubbler, and sprinkler heads. After setting up the head, you simply lay 1/2 tubing down and stake it where you'll want to irrigate.
How to build a catapult! Jim Watters - Technical - CD Lamp. The 5-in-1 network admin's cable. PoE (Power over Ethernet) How To - NYCwireless. How to Make a RJ45 Cable Tester. Make your own RJ45 dongle for many PCMCIA network cards. Sparking machine. USB Flash Cassette Mod - a photoset on Flickr.