Month: March 2006

How-To: Real Controls For R/C Flight Simulation

March 14, 2006 by 7 Comments

r/c controls

I’m sure many of you remember me recruiting a new writer to work with me on how-tos for Engadget. Will O’Brien was one of the many who answered the call and has been cranking out quality projects. Today’s is modifying a standard R/C transmitter for use as a computer joystick. This “trainer” can be used with flight simulation software so you can practice flying without risking your plane. This is the first step in a future project.

Check out Will’s previous posts: Surface mount soldering iron, Popcorn popper coffee roaster, and Scaling video for better HDTV viewing.

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VW CD Audio Interface Adatpter

March 13, 2006 by 13 Comments

vwcdpic

I had been meaning to post K9spud’s VWCDPIC audio interface adapter ever since our first auxiliary input hack… and today I finally remembered to. It really is one of the best out there. Normally the the Volkswagen OEM head unit has the CD changer channels muted unless you’ve got a factory changer. The VWCDPIC interfaces with the already present CD changer plug and fools the head unit to connect any audio device you want. It also provides remote control of your audio device using the head units buttons. It’s very clever and can work with any audio device.

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Build An RF Connected Project

March 12, 2006 by 10 Comments

rf pair

[Refik Hadzialic] has updated is site with a how-to that could be rolled into many different projects. Using a receiver and transmitter pair from Laipac he demonstrates how to communicate wirelessly between two microcontrollers. The pair costs about $12 and operates at 315MHz. He’s got a chunk of commented code in the article to give you an idea of how it works.

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Macro Photography With A Disposable Camera

March 11, 2006 by 7 Comments

macro

[Greg Lipscomb] from DIY Live gave us the heads up on his latest project: Macro photography with a disposable camera. While playing around with the Kodak Max outdoor camera he discovered that the lens was behaving similar to a jewellers loupe that he had. He figured that it could probably take macro shots with some tweaking. He disassembled the camera and then drilled a larger aperture since F11 would have been too small. Then he attached the assembly to the lens from his Canon 10D and fired away. He’s got example pictures on his site; they’re pretty good for something held together by scotch tape.

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1-Wire Wireless Router

March 10, 2006 by 7 Comments

one wire

1-Wire is a low speed communications bus. OWFS is the 1-wire filesystem for Linux. Combine the two with a WRT54G and you’ve got a cheap wired/wireless network enabled data collection platform. 1-Wire devices are really low cost, only need one wire plus ground, are bus powered, and can even be wired in a branching pattern instead of a normal straight run. OWFS lets you check the status of the devices like they were parts of your filesystem (it’s built on FUSE). So, you can do really easy data collection just by writing some file management scripts.

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Irongeek’s Wall Of Social Science Majors

March 9, 2006 by 21 Comments

wall of social science majors

If you’ve ever read a story about Defcon, the lede probably had something to do with The Wall of Sheep, the giant pojection of every plaintext username and password crossing the network. You may have even seen one of your favorite sites fall victim to it. One of my favorite people, Irongeek, decided to whip up a little PHP script so that anybody could set up their own Wall of Sheep style system. The backend is powered by the near-magical Ettercap and the script just parses the output into an easy to read format. I think this would be a great warning sign to place on your hotspot’s splash page.

[via PaulDotCom]

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