[Jock] sent in HALO, a nice diy high altitude recon project. Taking a page from the Kite Arial Photography guys, they mounted the camera on a servo tilt mechanism, had radio modem control and SMS gps position updates. I’m waiting for someone to put together a similar package that glides back to home base after the balloon is released.
By the way, if you’ve got a newer CRT RPTV, you might be interested how I fixed mine.
[Matt] sent in this excellent wifi finder reverse engineering project. The goal is to enable custom embedded apps that take advantage of the independent operating mode of the wireless adapter. One of the chips lacked any useful manufacturer markings, so he got some guys at a lab to etch the top of the chip off and get a partial chip id. So far he’s got boot-loader access, so now it’s just a matter of some development.
[Artur] sent in this instructable showing how to make your own back-lighting for LCD displays. It’s a simple process, but I thought it deserved some attention given the cost difference for back-lit LCDs. It’s also a good exercise if you’re building your own projector and considering removing the polarizing film.
This isn’t quite a traditional Hackit, but I think you guys will dig it. Here’s the challenge: Given a budget of $600, put together the best hacking workbench you can. Don’t include computers or the actual bench in your budget. Oh, and you have to spend it all.
By the way, the best five submissions will get a chance to win a secret prize that I’ll be announcing around the end of next month.
[C.K.] passed along this impressive writeup on modding an eeePC for just about everything you can think to add. This one’s got two four port USB hubs, internal GPS, bluetooth, 56k modem, FM audio transmitter, 4gb USB flash drive and a 801.11a/b/g/n card with a spare antenna for full 802.11n support. The wiring job looks excellent – very clean and well done. The only thing missing is a touchscreen.
[Forrest] sent in his Hammonator Organ that he resurrected into a guitar amp. He re-used several of the original parts, and designed the amplifier around them. Tubes were chosen to fit the sockets, and the original transformer was adapted to run on the 120V usually found today.
I’ve been getting back into wine, and ran across this handy one wire wine cellar monitor. Aside from the usual iButton air temp sensor, they built a simple immersed 18S20 sensor to monitor liquid temperature as well. (I’d toss some sulfites in the water to prevent mold) To keep an eye on air conditions, they used a TAI8540A humidity probe. Looks like just the thing for the geek wine cellar.
