Misc Hacks

4181 Articles

Homemade Tube Screamer Clone

August 13, 2008 by 5 Comments


[jonboytang] documented his construction of a clone of the famous Tube Screamer overdrive pedal from a set of plans found at tonepad. The tonepad site says you can use the plans to build either a TS-9 or a TS-808, both of which have been classic staples in every guitar player’s setup since the 70s. Although the old parts are no longer available, these new variants still have a really nice sound.

This project is really just a look into [jonboytang]’s etching and enclosure building process, but it may be useful for someone. The build and the circuit look really simple so this would be a great project for guitar players looking to learn how to etch their own PCBs. If you need more information on etching, we would suggest starting out by reading our How-To on etching single sided PCBs. If you are lazy and would rather spend a little money, check out tonepad’s online store. They have a board for this project and many others.

Arduino Tux Plant Care

August 13, 2008 by 3 Comments


Some of us need a little help keeping our green leafy friends happy. The Arduino Tux (translated) plant care system was built to make things a little easier.

The author had a broken tux toy laying around and wanted to do something fun with it. He cut a hole in the front to mount an LED matrix and connected it all to an Arduino. A couple of metal rods serve as a resistivity sensor in the plant’s dirt.

When you water the plant, tux flashes some hearts and a smiley face. As the moisture drops, tux gets less happy with the end result being a big frown.

These are the same people who brought you the Arduino Photolab.

[via Hack a Day Flickr Pool]

Motherboard Walls

August 13, 2008 by 14 Comments
[Chris Harrison] and a friend created these motherboard walls for Carnegie Mellon professor [Scott Hudson]. According to [Harrison], he amassed over 150 pounds of motherboards, most of them off of eBay, to create this surreal project. Nearly every inch of the lab is covered with motherboards, of different lengths and varying shades of green, silver, and black. We think it’s pretty festive.

[via Neatorama]

Miniature Balancing Robot

August 10, 2008 by 12 Comments


It might not be as elegant or technologically-advanced as a Segway or a motorized unicycle, but this easily constructed 2-wheeled robot might be a fun project for a free afternoon. The heart of the balancing mechanism is an SPDT switch with a button cell attached that reverses the motor when the robot begins to tip in one direction. It’s not controllable and it tends to fall over quite a bit, but it’s a good starting point and could be refined by lowering the center of gravity or figuring out a simple way to change the motor speed based on how far the robot has tipped over. There are no accelerometers or tilt switches so the components could be sourced from a parts bin, and its simple design definitely leaves a lot of room for improvement.

Free Parking Garage Access

August 10, 2008 by 21 Comments

This hack is an interesting twist that will allow you to get in or out of some parking garages when the attendant isn’t looking. Using something metal to trip the parking lot’s proximity sensor that is meant to let cars out automatically you can get into the garage or vice-versa without opening your wallet. A magnet from a hard drive might work a bit better because it is able to trip multiple types of sensors, but for this hack any kind of metal will work. This proximity sensor is a high–frequency oscillation type, so anything that attenuates, varies the frequency or stops the oscillation trips the sensor. When you can’t find a place to park, this hack will certainly impress your friends more than this method, but your street credibility could quickly turn into never lived down stories, if you end up driving over tire strips and ruining your tires, get a huge parking or trespassing ticket, or worse yet get your vehicle towed!

Fun With Barbie Karaoke Machines

August 9, 2008 by No comments


[Peter Edwards] at Casper Electronics built a modular synth and integrated it with the Barbie karaoke machines we saw at Notacon last April. The complete unit consists of 25 modules which are wired together using banana cables. He’s using this homebrew step sequencer to control the bent karaoke machines which then feed into the rest of the synthesizer. If you’d like to bend your own barbie karaoke machine, [Peter] was kind enough to post schematics and instructions for his bends.

Black Hat 2008: French Hacking Failure

August 8, 2008 by 19 Comments


French reporters at Black Hat crossed the line when they sniffed fellow reporters’ login info on the designated “safe” wired network. Proud of their handiwork, they were nabbed when they tried to get their spoils posted on the wall of sheep, which is used to publicly post attendees credintials. It turns out that monitoring communications without informing one of the parties involved is a felony, so although it is legal to sniff convention goers’ login info with their knowledge, hacking reporters covering the event is a no-no. An FBI agent we ran into commented that in his experience, they’d probably just turn it over to the local US attorney’s office to see if they wanted to proceed with an investigation.

We’re in the Defcon press room today and there’s still a buzz about these “sleazy” French reporters. We’re tunneling through our cell connection like any sane person at a security conference.