Commodore 64 Laptop

c64

[Ben Heck] has just completed one of his more unique laptop game consoles. This time around it’s a Commodore 64, which he’s been attempting since 2006. Recently he scrapped everything and started fresh on what turned out to be the fastest build yet. While it certainly looks similar to his other laptops, he put in a lot of effort to give it the appearance of an 80’s computer from the beige color to the texture. He used an original C64C motherboard since it was the final and smallest revision and coupled that with an original keyboard. A 1541-III-DTV allows use of an SD card as a floppy device. Just drag any disk image onto the card and it’s ready to go. Check out a video of it in use below.

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Spider Fire Flashlight Upgrade

fire

[PodeCoet] sent in this mod he did to a Spider Fire flashlight. These things are unbelievably bright, they use Cree LEDs that are so intense, they can ignite paper. [PodeCoet] notes that they run on fairly expensive batteries. Instead of buying some rechargeable ones, he decided to customize and hack his torch. He added a custom charging circuit and a Lilon battery as well as a boost-converter circuit and a status LED.  We like the idea of having a rechargeable lamp, but he has lost his water proofing. If anything, you should go there to see his nicely done smd charger pcb as well as the pictures of his test run, burning some paper.

As some people have pointed out in the comments, this flashlight could not have started that fire. This one could though.

Toddler Computer Remote

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbLjz-c4LE]

[Killerdark] has built a simple remote for his toddler to control videos on a PC. He gutted a USB number pad, built a new enclosure with the necessary buttons clearly labeled, and mapped the buttons in software.  He could have possibly done better with larger color coded buttons, but really, it seems to work well as is. This reminds us of the giant iPod remote from back in 2006. Good job [Killerdark]

Bots 4 Tots Charity Launched

Bots 4 Tots

If you feel the same way that we do about robotics, you probably wish that you had more experience with them when you were a kid. [Don] felt that way too, and he decided to do something about it. So [Don] and his partner started the Chicago based organization Bots 4 Tots, with the mission of introducing inner city kids to robotics. [Don] told us that his organization plans on starting the kids with snap together projects like OWI’s Jungle Robot. After a few snap together projects, they plan to introduce the kids to soldering and hope to eventually move on to a larger collaborative project that all the kids can work on. Of course, doing all of these things requires money. Thats where we, as the DIY community, come in. So feel free to hit up the Bots 4 Tots site and make a donation to support their worthwhile cause, we know we will.