Google Maps Wristlet Navigator

August 14, 2010 by Mike Szczys 50 Comments

This on-wrist navigation system uses Google Maps and something called… paper. This is a throwback to scroll-based directions from the 1920’s and 30’s that [Simon] built. He soldered a couple of brass tubes to a brass back plate, then added sides and a face crystal. Now he prints out step by step direction from the popular mapping website and winds them onto scrolls. We’re not sure that we’d take the time to do this, but hey, at least the screen resolution is fantastic and you don’t have to worry about battery life.

Hacked AC And Ash Filter

August 14, 2010 by Mike Szczys 26 Comments

Moscow is in a bit of a hot spot right now, dealing with a heat wave and enormous wildfires. The combination of smoke, ash, and heat was driving Andrew up a wall so he built a contraption to provide some relief. It has two chambers, the bottom houses ice water, the top is an air baffle. A small DC fan pumps air into the upper chamber where it encounters the water being sprayed in from the lower reservoir. What results is a heat exchange similar to other diy AC setups we’ve seen. But Andrew also notes that after running the device for a while the smell of smoke and ash is gone. Can this setup be seen as an effective way to trap airborne smoke particles?

Portable WiFi Penetration Testing

August 14, 2010 by Mike Szczys 25 Comments

Inside this box you’ll find a La Fonera wireless access point. [Emeryth] and his band of miscreants built this portable device for WiFi security testing. The AP is running OpenWRT and has been set up to use the 16×4 character display as a terminal. An ATmega88 connects the LCD as well as six buttons to the UART of the La Fonera. From there, a set of Ruby scripts takes care of the communication protocol. As you can see after the break, this setup allows you to scan the area for WiFi, showing channel, SSID, and MAC information. Although not specifically outlined in the video we suspect there’s some more devious tricks up its sleeve too.

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RS232 And RS485 Networking – No Code Required

August 14, 2010 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

Here’s a serial to Ethernet module that you won’t have to write firmware to build. It uses a Lantronix XPORT module which takes care of all the work for you, including an embedded webserver. Both RS232 and RS485 data buses are connected to the XPORT serial input via a level converter to step the signal down to 3.3V. This solution comes at a price because of the ethernet module, but it would make a nice prototyping tool for testing projects that work on the two serial protocols.