home entertainment hacks

796 Articles

Happy Halloween Extra

October 31, 2006 by 8 Comments


[Update: pumpkin carved by Team Hack-A-Day member mastershake916]

We’ve got plenty of tricks around here, and I’ve got a treat coming up – you’ll hear about it in the next podcast.

[Ronald Schaten] sent me his USB LED fader. ATMega, PWM lit LEDs, he uses it to indicate status on his pvr.

[computerguru365] sent in his cell phone car charger turned USB cable

[steve] sent in this over the top C64DTV mod.

[Everett] sent along his button activated PSP shoulder lighting.Nice tiny soldering work for that on.

[Jorge] sent in his friends latest junk art metal lathe. Not an easy thing to build – Nice!

[gijs] sent me this crazy bent Casio SK-1. We’ve had a few of these on Hackaday before.

[seniorcheez] sent in his iPod shuffle dock with integrated power and tunecast.

DIY Projector Redeux

October 17, 2006 by 16 Comments


My latest how-to is up over on engadget – I’m writing up my build of a HD projector – This one features DVI-D with HDCP support along with component, VGA and on board tuner. This is one of those projects where you can make all sorts of compromises, but I’ve gone all out on the hardware. Pro lenses, electronic ballast, 6500k lamp… If you’ve been considering building one of these, you should check it out. When it’s done I’ll give it a good going over – is the picture quality worth the effort? Peace of mind at using a $50 lamp instead of a $300 one?

Ipod Tube Dock

October 16, 2006 by 23 Comments


Kurtis Berry sent in his response to all the ipod speaker docks out there. Instead of buying one, he built one. It’s really a combination of several projects, and it looks great. He used a monoblock tube amp kit to provide 8 watts of excitement to a well known diy speaker design, all encased in oak. He’s hit that wall we all know – that point where we quit because it’s working so nicely as it is. Still, I’m not sure that adding a second channel would add too much to the sound experience with his speaker unless he wants to build a matched set. (I can’t give him too much grief, I’m jealous.)

Saturday Morning Extra

October 7, 2006 by 12 Comments

Storage element keychain. Allright, it’s cool, but almost criminal.

Hack a wireless doorbell into a remote relay. It’s allright, but I like the Mr. House + APRS tracking better.

[Josh and PsychoRNGD] both sent in the mindstorm NXT laser hack (Replace the LED in a light unit with a laser pointer diode)

Matt sent along his XBox 180. I dig it just because it gets rid of all those friggin wires.

[XanTium] points out that MS’s latest drive in the 360 takes things to a few extremes to block firmware hacking.

[Mike] let us know that after all the grief he got here, he built an aux to female ipod cable for his sound-dock. (He got his femal ipod connector from Ridax, but Sparkfun now carries a surface mount version)

You guys sent in some great tips this week. Keep em comin. I’ve been busy, but I’m going to hunt down the floating ads and get them taken care of.

USB Alien DAC

October 5, 2006 by 20 Comments


[blip] let us know about this nice little project. The Alien DAC Project is basically a DIY USB sound card/interface. [Pictured is one built by cook on head-fi.org] It uses a TI PCM2702 at its core with some supporting chips for power regulation and virtual ground for the analog audio signal. It’s small and should do the job. If you’re really interesting in taking it to the next level, check out the DAC-3. It’s like the big mean older brother of the Alien DAC. That thing is rack mounted, has Optical, Coax and USB inputs.
[If you run across any more floating ads, let me know. They shouldn’t on the site, and we’re trying to take care of them.]