Wireless microcontroller/PC interface for $3

uc

Sending data from a microcontroller to a PC usually requires some sort of serial connection, either through fiddly on-chip USB, FTDI chips, or expensive radio ICs. [Scott] didn’t want to deal with this when creating a network of wireless temperature sensors, so he hacked up a few cheap 433 MHz radio transmitters and receivers to transmit data to a PC … Read the rest

AM tube radio restored and given MP3 playback too

mp3-antique-radio

This AM radio looks a bit like it did coming out of the factory. But there are a lot of changes under the hood and that faceplate is a completely new addition. The project really is a restoration with some augmentation and [Michael Ross] did a great job of documenting the project.

The Kenyon radio was built in 1946 … Read the rest

Console radio given new life with a WiFi router retrofit

tube-radio-wifi-router-retrofit

[Craig] did a great job of restoring the case of his antique console radio. But he wanted to bring the guts up to modern standards. The fix ended up being rather easy when it comes to hardware. He based his internet radio retrofit around a wireless router.

We laughed when we heard that he removed about eighty pounds of … Read the rest

Tube radio husk gets a web radio transplant

tube-radio-web-radio

[Dominic Buchstaller] found this German Greatz tube radio at a flea market. It only cost him about €35 and was in a bit more rough condition than the finished product you see above. He also found that a portion of the original circuitry was missing, making it completely non-function. He cleaned up the case to improve the wife-acceptance-factor, and outfitted Read the rest

SqueezeBerry: a Raspberri Pi powered Squeezebox appliance

squeezeberry

We like the look which [Emmanuel] achieved with his Raspberry Pi based Squeezebox client. It’s got that minimalist slant that makes it seem like a commercial product at first glance. But one more look at the speakers without grates, the character LCD, and the utilitarian buttons, knobs, and switches tips us off that it’s filled with the hardware we … Read the rest

Writing new firmware for a handheld radio

HAM

When playing around with a cheap, handheld, dual-band radio, [Lior], a.k.a. [KK6BWA], found a schematic for a similar and even cheaper radio. He realized the programming pads were very accessible and the dev tools for the radio’s microcontroller were available from the manufacturer. After these discoveries, there really was only one thing to do: write new firmware for a $40 Read the rest

Futaba 10C radio modified for Spektrum module compatibility

futaba-radio-modified-to-fly-spektrum

The Futaba 10C radio (non-module version) is [Tom]‘s transmitter of choice. Unfortunately,  it isn’t compatible with the Spektrum DSM2 technology modules he wanted to use. So, being the crafty guy he is, he decided to hack it so it was.

Upon opening the Futaba transmitter, he realized that the non-module version of the 10C didn’t really seem that different … Read the rest