Lab Power Supply

powersupplyfinal
Here is a great power supply project. No, it isn’t just some simple case mod with binding posts. A lot of thought was put into this, plus a lot of disclaimers. I wouldn’t be too scared though, Andy Batts has got a lot of information covering most everything you need to know: Dell’s weird wiring, expected current, using a sandbar load, and not poking around inside while the thing is plugged in. I’m going to do this to a couple power supplys because it is sure to make future projects a lot easier.

[thanks momotarosan]

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Hackaday Lazy Afternoons

Lazy Afternoons

good news. lazy afternoons will continue in full effect. so that means more hacks, more fun, more nuttiness. now, usually on lazy afternoons i’m asking you guys something. so let’s get right to it:

how do you beautiful readers feel about podcasting hackaday? we’d take Q&A, discuss subjects, talk about new hacks, interviews, news, etc. I feel like it could be a lot of fun and we could have a lot of interactivity with you the readers and it’d be a lot of fun. so. be sure to comment and let me know what you think about that. because that’s even MORE hackaday fun comin atcha.

so let me know. please! comment, e-mail, carbomb me with fireworks spelling out “YES!”

oh man. let’s start off with this. we got outselves a mirror…made out of wood thanks [yamana]

it doesn’t stop there. check it out, it’s another alternative fuel method. through carbon and fusion reactions and other half-life-esque stuff (no seriously, check out the “fuel”) I love it! Looks dangerous but whateverrrr. thanks [eric]

and yeah, there’s more cooling mods out there. [activitie]
Look! [Zsk009] made a hackaday firefox search plugin! thanks!

the mac mini just got better, bigger, stronger (I love saying that)

now, of course we need an EZ to do hack right for you all right? well yesterday i wrote up a short HOWTO for engadget showing all the DS (or GBA SP) lovers out there how to make a very simple external  battery pack (and yes, it’s small and looks nice). the pack isn’t for another 8 hours of gaming, but rather as a backup battery. if your DS is about to die and you have another level to go before you beat your game, then this is what will save you from a mid-life crisis because you couldn’t get all the stars in your rehashed copy of super mario 64 (oooh, below the belt).

eng-charger

HOW-TO: quickly whip up an external Nintendo DS/SP battery pack

allright, the afternoon is young. im lazy. i’m going to eat some pizza and pass out…but in my slumber, i hope you all think about the podcast and respond with feedback on the idea of having one. you guys could really send in some great questions and what not so have at it. comment away.

until friday which is my birthday so send me gifts this has been a hackaday lazy afternoon

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Asterisk Pbx On Wrt54g

wrt54g hack
the linksys wrt54g has been the target of many hacks taking it far beyond its original intended mode of operation; now going so far as becoming a personal telephone company. David DeLauro has set up an asterisk pbx system on top of the the openwrt firmware package. asterisk is a fully featured pbx system. in theory this set up could allow you to wire your whole house through one voip connection. you can even script the dialing sequence so that certain prefixes are handled by different carriers. the router has limited storage space, but you could probably use the voicemail features by mounting network storage. with enough ingenuity you should be able to pipe all of your communications and entertainment over ethernet.

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Hackaday Links

Links

mmmm links. tasty, fresh, links from the “webnet” as i like to call it. we’ve got some good ones today and I also want to ask you to pay close attention to tomorrow’s lazy afternoon post as we’re going to be asking you readers something important. we appreciate it.

vegetable oil for cooling? we roll with mineral oil here fool. [JB]

[weirdguy0101] gives us two tasty links to choose from (hot or mild baby):
–use just about any hard drive in your PS2
–then use your ps2 as an ftp server (if you’re that desperate)

if you’re using the smoothwall firewall, add some LEDs to it to pimp it out. [anona-dork]

gameboy emulation on the psp is now possible (to an extent)
us gov. confirms they were  compromised (read: 0wn3d) by some hacker last year
firefox still full of holes and what not
a must have for the frequent modder

don’t forget, you can still cop an xbox by hacking iis 6 at http://www.hackiis6.com/
oh yeah. sorry we forgot to mention that PSP’s UMD format got cracked

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Fully Submerged Cooling

oil bath computer
Markus Leonhardt has taken the shortest route possible to liquid cooling.

  1. throw motherboard in fish tank

  2. cover in vegetable oil

  3. there is no step 3

Markus has been using this system for over a year. it is quiet and is cooled by the still functional fans circulating the oil. he has swapped components and even successfully used pulled hardware in other pcs. the pages are in the process of being translated to english, but the english forum is already up with links to other projects. I’ve got some extra hardware and fish tanks are cheap, so I’ll give this a try some time. I doubt my roommate will feel this is an improvement over my plan of just nailing the motherboards to the wall.

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Hackaday Links

Links

oh my gosh, look what we have here: some links. bet you guys didn’t see that coming did you?

now aside from cnet stealing certain ideas from around here, they’re also reporting that pgp has announced full hard-drive encryption. thus making it harder for hackers to get in.

and as for copy protection required by federal law? pshhh, forget it. Them 0, Us 1.
the uk is on the right path, how long until we catch on?

laser keyboards are up there with the piano necktie [zinquaff]
a $14 steadicam? you can’t beat that when you DIY [john]
tell your pc to take a chill pill using dry ice
violins, speakers, and sounds oh my

two things left. one is important, the other is really important.
important: lego jewelry is available…do you dare make your own?
really important: next time we have ourselves a lazy afternoon (read: wednesday), the senate will be voting for the real id bill. this isn’t good (despite it’s flashy graphics and sim-card-esque features) because freedoms are limited (once again), so check this out: unreal id

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Remote Controlled Orb

poplight
Check out this wet and wild spring break story. Actually, Nate True spent his break hacking a tap light to make it emulate an Ambient Orb. It is wireless and you have full control over the color. You could have it indicate almost anything: new mail, rss feed activity, cpu temperature.  It isn’t a perfect copy of the orb: it is $100 dollars cheaper and you don’t have to pay any monthly fees. I guess that just means you’ll have more money left over to throw at other executoys, or you could save it and take a real trip next year.

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