I knew this was coming out, but [mike] was kind enough to remind me. [Ben Heckendorn]’s latest How-To is up on engadget. He provides a method of building your own A/V switch with as many inputs as you want, cheap. Each input uses a $.50 bus switch – literally, you could build one with 20 inputs if you really wanted to. (add some shielding if you do) If you’ve got too many game consoles, this might be your ticket. You can probably use the same trick to build a component video switch if HD’s your thing.
Month: March 2007
Simple Capacitance Meter
[Mike] sent in a project he’s been working on lately. This little circuit can measure the capacitance of a capacitor by generating a frequency that’s inversely related to the capacitance. He originally got it working with his o-scope, and followed up by building a stand alone version that uses an ATTiny2313 and a text LCD.
Ultimate Dance Pad V2
[Jared] sent along his latest on inventgeek. The most interesting piece of the project has to be the stainless steel/teflon pressure switch. Otherwise, it’s probably every DDR fan’s wet dream. Oh, and congratulations on geek 2.0 [Jared]!
Printer Hacking Roundup
Today’s roundup is in honor of all those inkjets, laser printers and plotters that have been cracked open and modded to perform unspeakable tasks. This is a bit of an experiment, so let me know what you think.
First, there’s the classic DIY CD printer. Aside from dremeling the back of the printer, making the cd cartridge from a decent material is probably the most difficult task. I used to print on my DVDs, but now I just rip ’em to my media server.
Not really a hack, but someone discovered that they can get ever nicer photo transfers if they use an inkjet instead of a laser printer to create the transparencies.
Not to be forgotten, using the fuser from a laser printer to transfer laser printed artwork onto PC boards.
If you missed it, [Volkan] and [Stefan] gutted an Epson C84 to make a direct to PCB etch resist printer. The feed the board in and get a printed design, ready for the etch tank. (once it’s dry, of course) Someone else is working on the same hack with a C87.
If you’re evil, there’s the classic paper shredding printer.
You could use an old network printer interface to control something else.
If people you work with actually read the lcd, you might have some fun exploiting the displays on those HP workgroup printers.
You could pick up an old pen plotter and convert it to cut vinyl for your nefarious custom stickers.
Speaking of plotters, there’s the ‘scribbler bot‘ – AKA diy pen plotter.
Of course, maybe you just want to fix your old printer after you completely dissassemble it. (Via zedomax)
Maybe you can make your own waterfall printer. (If you pull this one off, let us know)
Digital Caliper Modding
This particular hack is actually used in a kit design, but it’s still pretty sweet. This is a digital read out unit that’s a kit sold by shumatech. I’ve even mentioned it in passing before. The design takes in the pulses from inexpensive chinese made digital scales/calipers, and allows one stop calibration and ouput of three axis’s of measurement. Using the interface and a usb enabled pic, and you could make your own usb digital calipers… (Hmm, I might have to make some.)
Cheap Balancing Skateboard
[Tony] submitted his site showing his recent projects. Besides his balancing scooter, and light creations, I thought his take on the balancing skateboard was interesting. The drive components came from a pair of $10 cordless drills, and the motor controller consists of a pair of relays and mosfets.(There’s a pic controller, gyro and accelerometer behind them) It’s not elegant, but these sorts of hacks are great for inspiring those on a budget.
Don’t forget, the new revised US daylight savings time is coming.
Friday Night Extra
I’ll be busy with my soldering iron tonight, but I thought it was time for an extra.
[Joe] notes that if you’d like to put up some graffiti you probably won’t get arrested for, you might light projection bombing.
[Emil] noted that [mark] successfully upgraded his ipod mini to run an eight GB CF card. (He’d previously put a 4GB flash card in.
[XanTium] notes that several patches have been released for the Linux 2.6.20 kernel specifically to support XBox 360 hardware. A Linux loader is soon expected to be released to exploit the Hypervisor vulnerability.
[CtrlAltDefeat] pointed out an interesting DIY camera card to hard drive memory dump device.
[Bobby] sent in a teaser of his DIY bluetooth Sony MDR 300 headphones.
