Author: Eliot

1332 Articles

Floppy Drive Heliostat

November 29, 2005 by 16 Comments

floppy drive

This is an ongoing project to build a heliostat from a floppy drive. Heliostats are used by solar arrays to track the sun. This mod uses the main logic board to control the head stepper motor. The board will power up with 5V and consumes 1Watt when the motor is running. There are a couple quirks to the motor operation since this a floppy drive; large head movements require a backtrack every so often. Luckily, this device doesn’t move too far or fast. Two sets of LEDs are wired on opposite sides of a reflective strip. They’re wired opposite each other so that the device will track back if it overshoots.

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Manual Focus Screen For A Digital SLR

November 28, 2005 by 11 Comments

focus screen

Most modern digital SLR cameras use matte focus screens with their autofocus systems instead of the split circle manual focus screens found in non-digital SLR cameras. Although not factory endorsed, there are replacement manual focus screens which can be very expensive. Reader [Jan-Erik Skata] decided to save some money by salvaging the focus screen from a Miranda dx-3 film camera. Removing the screen proved extremely difficult and the Miranda would have been a total loss if it had been functional. Once out, the screen was sanded down, cleaned and then placed in a Canon EOS 300D. It’s hard to take a picture of the screen through the view finder to prove that it works, but I’m sure Jan-Erik is taking some great photographs having completed this upgrade.

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Optical ADB Mouse

November 27, 2005 by 15 Comments

adb optical

Here’s an easy hack compared to our usual craziness. Reader [Alex Dawson] was having issues with his Apple Pro Optical mouse. The new mouse had broken its USB cable connection internally due to insufficient strain relief. Cases for these mice are epoxied together and working on them is a one-way trip, never to return to their original state. He salvaged an ADB mouse and disassembled it with ease. The optical circuit board fit into the ADB case without any trouble. The button switch on both mice is exactly the same and almost in the same position. The optical sensor does not line up with the hole though. Once the ball ring was fused in place, Alex cut a new slot for the sensor. That’s all it took to end up with modern performance and old school flavor.

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Xbox 360 First Impressions

November 27, 2005 by 110 Comments

I feel the need to include a disclaimer before getting into this: I don’t own an original Xbox, I own a Playstation 2, I consider myself a casual gamer, I’m a fan of Open Source and not Microsoft.

I purchased this box on the first day because early versions of consoles are generally easier to modify. With the PSP ver. 1.0 it was easy to run homebrew code, but with each successive firmware version, Sony makes it harder. The original Xboxes that are being sold now make it almost impossible to run Xbox Linux because of a hardware change.

Before we get to my experiences, here are some links that you might find interesting.

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Cooking With Processors

November 26, 2005 by 30 Comments

egg

 While contemplating how to turn my new heat pumping Xbox into a foot cozy, I remembered some links that [h-tech] had sent in.

The first is cooking an egg on a processor in a functional PC. The proc in question is an AMD Athlon XP1500+. The tray is supported by a stack of 1p and 2p sterling coins. After approx. 4 minutes of warm up it took 11 minutes to cook the egg.

The second is a hotplate constructed from 7 Cyrix chips. The chips are wired in parallel to an AT power supply. A piece of cookie sheet is attached to the surface with thermal paste and the power supply is enhanced with

GameCube Linux

November 25, 2005 by 17 Comments

GameCube Linux

I know this week belongs to the Xbox 360, but sometimes you need a break from all of the hype. Once the Xbox Linux team got a mature system established they decided to move on to GameCube Linux. They’ve made a lot of progress:

The GameCube Linux kernel has working drivers for PAL and NTSC framebuffers, the Broadband Adapter (network card), audio, ARAM, Real Time Clock, gamepad, keyboard, DVD, MMC/SD cards (through the SD card adapter) and reset button. It has also preliminary support for memory cards.

Just last month they released instructions on how to build your own bootable disc.

[thanks h-tech]

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Total Christmas Light Control

November 24, 2005 by 11 Comments

christmas light control

Now that Thanksgiving is in full swing, I think I can safely mention Christmas without receiving the beat down.  In this project, Christmas is just an excuse to build a parallel port connected control box capable of switching 320 individual circuits. The interface is constructed out of two types of chips: the 138 decoder and the 374 flip-flop. Each flip-flop is attached to an individual serial port that is connected to an 8 outlet switch box. Along with this system the site features lots of other home built and modified controls.

[thanks yo_tyler]

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