[Jock] sent in this photo gallery showing a Lego Mindstorm automated microscope. I dug up the paper that was published about this hack to find out just what the idea was. It’s a proof of concept showing off automated data collection – the Mindstorms are used to allow the intel QX3 microscope to take data over a grid area. It’s an interesting idea for collecting time series data. The computer interface is a bit overly complex, but the Lego’s make this sort of project accessible to the amateur roboticist.
Peripherals Hacks1590 Articles
Replace Your LCD Power Supply
[Computer Guru]’s LCD power supply went out, making it a useless pile of plastic. He used an old computer PSU to replace the defective one. After he identified the outputs on the built-in supply (The one’s I’ve pulled apart were labelled) he stripped down the replacement PSU to provide the necessary voltages.
Make Your Own Roll Up Keyboard
[Auger] sent in this nice little hack. The instructable says to get a USB keyboard (it looks like a Dell USB keyboard to me), gut it and label the flexible membranes inside after you join them together. If you’ve got a supply of this style of keyboard, it could be a cheap source… or better yet, maybe you can use the guts to produce high quality custom keybads.
The JediPad AKA Uber-gyro-mouse
[Samu] sent in his freaking awesome JediPad mouse creation. It’s got seven touch-point style mouse buttions, as well as a pair of gryroscope sensors. Each touch-point has it’s own micro-controller and the signals are input to the computer via USB. He’s looking for help, so shoot him an email if you’re interested.
Check out his demo video after the break.
DIY LED Multi-touch Panel
IPod Transmitter Radio Modem
[Eric] sent in his iPod transmitter radio modem hack (Internet Archive). Given the short range of these FM modulators (and FCC rules) I’d call this an academic exercise. Combined with a few mods, it could be useful for bursting data from a micro-controller. (Think APRS)
Asus EeePC Bonus:About a week ago, [johnx] added (Internet Archive) a 16GB flash drive and a bluetooth adapter to his. Yesterday, [ta2cba] showed off how he squeezed (Internet Archive) a four port hub inside his – allowing a pair of devices to live in the extra min-ipcie bay and leave two ports to spare for later add-ons.
Silence Your Mouse: No Clicky.
[PaulJ] sent in this older, but excellent little hack to silence your mouse. Don’t like the click that your mouse makes? If your mouse has the right kind of switch inside, it can be quieted down with a quick soldering job. Just remove it, turn the upper half around and re-assemble.
