Hack-A-Day got a little upgrade. We’ve got comments back, a major blogsmith update and a new server. In celebration I’m whipping up a short late night extra.

[max] sent in his ethernet temperature monitor.
I had some interest in my Tie Fighter VR joystick, so I ressurected the design.
[Todd] sent in a makeshift pizza sauce can furnace for melting metals.
We keep getting the time fountain submitted – uv leds and florescing dye.
[Kmangwing] sent in a pen sized omni 2.4ghz antenna
I don’t even know what to say about this one.
[Wiesi] sent in his linksys EFG120 NAS device hack

With all the changes things are bound to be wonky. Point, laugh and let us know what you think. The site is driven by tips, so shout out if you’ve got one.

Phil sent in his sweet Korg Kaoss Pad guitar mod. The Kaoss Pad is a sound effects processor/midi controller with a touch interface. He mounted the touch interface into an Epiphone Les Paul and connected it with a DB9 cable to the pads body. If you’re not quite sure what it does, Phil does a nice demo in his youtube video, and the guitar looks killer with the glowing pad.

Dive gear has become so commercialized that DIY diving equipment is almost frowned upon. The dive light group that lives on msn is full of design ideas and how-to’s for building some custom dive gear. My favorite is the HID cannister dive light. The light head is made from a maglite flashlight. Either a HID lamp/ballast made for ATVs or a cheap MR16 halogen is used. The batteries are contained in a seperate waterproof cannister. (Yes, I love to dive. I’ll be building some of these as soon as I buy a mini-lathe.)

Ian wrote a nice instructables how-to on building a USB thermometer using a PIC 18F2550. It’s surface mount, but that’s doable with a very fine tip and all parts are available through-hole. The controller provides all the I/O needed for the USB interface and the data collection. It looks like a great intro for building USB interfaces to your projects. He also wrote up how to syndicate the data for the web.

Dylan Field sent us our first Chumby hack tip. Oh, and I got a new daughter too. (So I’m a little tired.)

Continue reading “USB Thermometer Datalogger” →

Project parts aren’t cheap. Scrounging them from old hardware presents some challenges. Derek Anderson pointed us to this short but sweet how-to on hot-air desoldering using a heat gun from Home Depot. Looks like a great way to fill your parts bins.

Continue reading “Hot Air Desoldering” →

We’re fond of Team Hack-A-Day, so I wanted to point out the AOL CD lamp that Team Hack-A-Day member Figgy built. CD lamps are a fairly popular project: If you don’t have a cold cathode, you could build a compact florescent version. I really like the clean look of Neil’s version. Russel Jone’s added an external power connector to his Antec case to power his lamp.

I wonder what will happen if I combine the power of the AOL cd tesla generator and the AOL CD throne…[Sorry about the lack of comments, They’ll be back ASAP.]

Continue reading “Cd Lamps, Etc” →

The guys at invent geek posted their latest project. They