[Dave] has an ASUS tablet PC with a little problem. The device is charged via the docking connector’s USB cable when plugged into a special wall transformer. The problem is that the wall unit tends to overheat, and is shut down by a thermister inside to avoid permanent damage. The word on the Internet is to drop it in a zipper bag and chill it in the freezer for a bit. Although this works, it’s not the permanent solution that he was looking for. Instead, he hit the parts bin and built his own power supply replacement without buying anything.

The device is simply looking for 12V on the power pin (pin 1) of the USB cable. [Dave] dug through his mountain of unused AC adapters and found one that fit the voltage and current specs of the stock unit. He also grabbed a dusty old motherboard and plucked the USB ports off of the back. A bit of protoboard makes for a good base to connect the AC adapter wires to the ports, which was then covered with one big shrink tube. The result is seen above, and demonstrated in the clip after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

[Kevin Haw] is the proud owner of a brand new Kindle Fire. But to protect the investment he wanted a nice looking case and decided that DIY was the way to go. He ended up repurposing a Moleskine journal as a table cover.

You can do this one yourself in under an hour. Most of the pages in these journals are sewn in place and [Kevin] started by cutting the strings with a hobby knife. Once removed, he used a utility knife to separate the pages that were glued to the cover; this leaves you in the state seen above.

Obviously this unfinished look just won’t do. [Kevin] used some red duct tape duct tape to cover the unsightly spine. This adds strength, and does the job of cleaning up the area, but we might have also applied felt (or microfiber cloth) to the entire inside area for a bit more finished look. The final part is mounting the tablet which was accomplished with adhesive Velcro strips. These can be removed from the back of the Kindle Fire later on if you decided to use a different enclosure.

Most of the time, CNC machines are used for very precise and exacting. There is another way that allows for a more “hands on” approach to routers and mills that allows for a lot more creativity and freedom. The touchCNC these guys whipped up allows anyone to finger paint with a friggin router.

From the forum post the guys sent in, they wrote a simple Android app for a tablet that allows for router control via a touch interface. There are three parts to the software. An Android app sends finger positions to a java server running on the CNC computer. This server dumps gcode into a text file. A vbscript inside the router software keeps reading from the specified file. With all this, finger movements are translated directly into machine movements.

The controls are fairly simple, like a real-life representation of Microsoft Paint. Of course there’s a ‘tap GOTO’ command that moves the router to a specified position. The router bit is lowered onto the work piece with a ‘long tap’ and stays lowered until the finger is released.

You can check out the code for touchCNC, but the guys are working on a few additional features like converting the tablets gyro output to gcode. Until then, enjoy the videos the guys posted after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

Behold the uWave, a microwave oven that plays YouTube videos while it cooks. [Kevin] and three classmates at the University of Pennsylvania developed the project for the 2011 PennApps hackathon. It uses a tablet computer to replace the boring old spinning food display microwaves are known for. Now, an Arduino reads the cook time and sends that information to a server via its Ethernet shield. The server then searches YouTube for a video that approximately matches the cooking time, then pushed that video to the tablet to start playing. The video demonstration embedded after the break shows this, as well as the tweet that the machine sends at the beginning of the process.

It’s an interesting concept, and we think the code used to push a video to the tablet has a lot of other applications (we’re keeping this one bookmarked). On the other hand, we wonder how long it will take for public microwaves to become ad-supported? We’re thinking it’s hard for companies selling antacids, acid reflux medicine, Cup ‘o Soup, and Hot Pockets to resist this opportunity.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re looking to build a really big Android tablet the trick is not to start from scratch. [Peter] pulled off a 23″ Android Tablet hack using a collection of easily acquired parts, leaving the hard work up to hardware that was designed to do it.

He didn’t really build a tablet, as much as he built a big touch-screen add-on for one. He already had a couple of inexpensive tablets on hand to play around with. One of them has an HDMI out port, which let him easily push the display onto a 23″ monitor. He knew the tablet was a 4-wire resistive touchscreen, but he didn’t know if other touchscreens with the same number of connectors and be directly swapped and still work. To test this, he cracked open a second tablet device and connected its touchscreen to the first one’s hardware. When he was met with success it was time to source a couple of 23″ touchscreen overlays to test with the external monitor. As you can see in the clip after the break, it works like a charm!

[Peter] was inspired to write about his experiences after seeing the 23″ Android tablet video in our recent links post.

Read the rest of this entry »

As devices get smaller and smaller, it becomes a bigger challenge for engineers to squeeze a product’s components into an ever shrinking footprint. [Bulgarien] certainly found this to be the case with his Asus Eee Pad Transformer. He was not impressed with the volume or clarity of the tablet’s audio, so he disassembled it to see if he could somehow improve its performance.

Once he got the Eee Pad apart, he noticed that the tiny speakers were mounted directly against the back of the tablet’s LCD screen, muffling the audio. He flipped the speaker over to face the back side of the tablet in hopes that it might improve the sound just a bit, but he didn’t think that was a sufficient solution. Using an old speaker as a template, he drilled through the Eee Pad’s case to create his own speaker grilles, lining the inside with a fine cloth to prevent dust from getting inside the case.

He says that the tablet’s audio is far clearer than it was originally, which makes this a pretty compelling modification for anyone that uses their Transformer on a daily basis.

The hackers over at the xda-developers forum always seem to have something awesome brewing, and [fosser2] is no exception. He bought himself a Viewsonic G-tablet, but was a bit disappointed in its lack of a GPS module. He pried the tablet open in hopes of finding a spot where he might be able to cram one in, and was happily surprised at what he found.

It turns out that either Viewsonic had plans to include a GPS module and scrapped them, or they are planning on adding GPS to a future SKU. The tablet’s mainboard already had a spot laid out for the module, as well as the GPS antenna. He carefully soldered in a compatible module from Digikey, and then got to work adding the various other components required to get it working properly.

While the hack doesn’t require that you add a ridiculous amount of parts to the board, you had better make sure your soldering skills are up to snuff before giving it a shot. Those who can’t reliably solder SMD components should probably stay away from this one.

[via Engadget]

[Enigma-penguin] built a tablet computer out of a Core2Duo Macbook circa 2007. The battery exploded, damaging the case and a few components inside. But there was hope for a new life as a tablet computer. He removed the screen and tested to make sure the computer would still function without it by using the video out port.

Putting the whole thing back together as a tablet proved to have some headaches. He worked through problems caused by the addition of a touchscreen between the LCD and the bezel and made the connections work with the screen flipped. The finished product looks so good because the bezel has not been turned around like on other tablet builds. Instead, a viewing window was cut in what would have been the case behind the screen.

There’s a little more to be done yet. The black USB cable seen above is the connector for the touchscreen which he plans to internalize. The magnetic sleep sensor has been relocated to the headphone jack. Inserting a plug (no cord necessary) puts it to sleep for transport. There’s also an on screen keyboard and the ability to change the screen orientation from landscape to portrait. After the break we’ve embedded one of [Enigma-penguin's] demonstrations. Read the rest of this entry »