Peripherals Hacks

1540 Articles

WL-700gE Serial Port Mod

January 17, 2007 by 14 Comments


The Asus WL-700gE is an interesting device. It provides NAS, streaming and routing services thanks to linux. In their quest to modify the WL-700gE to a more flexible platform, [Eric] documented adding a serial port to its not so spacious innards. (FYI, Standard serial/RS-232 signals are around 5 volts ok, more like 12. I was thinking of the max 232/n variety) Asus was kind enough to provide through hole mounts and a TTL interface right on the board with console access already turned on.

I hadn’t realized it before, but the Siemens phone USB data cable is a nice cheap source of USB to TTL serial interfaces. Ironically, replacing the cable on the data unit was actually more difficult than adding the port to the router.

Airsoft Turret 2.0

January 14, 2007 by 15 Comments


[Jared] posted the latest version of his remote control airsoft gun. The new one allows USB and R/C control. It’s got four seperate firing mechanisms, a laser and uses a pair of servos for motion… and lots of ammo. Whatever you do, don’t make fun of [Jared]. They’ll have video up on the site after a couple of days to save bandwidth.

(Just a note: embed youtube or netscape videos and you’ll have video and save your bandwidth.)

LED LCD Backlight Replacement

January 9, 2007 by 26 Comments


[Keith]’s cousin gave him a LCD with a noisy backlight. He decided to replace it with a series of high output LEDs. He sourced some locally in the form of cheap LED headlamps from an auto-parts store. The results look pretty good – and the write up contains this gem: “…One [LED] also exploded due to an accidental overvolt. Shot me in the Chest. Panel okay though” Nice work.

Optoisolated Xmas Light Control

January 8, 2007 by 11 Comments


[buzzkill] brought this crazy christmas light controller to my attention. The hack is pretty neat. The potiometers in several standard dimmers were replaced with photo-resistors. When squares of the screen are lit, the dimmer is activated. In essence, it’s a cheap optoisolator for controlling AC power. The software that generates the interface appears to be sound actuated once it’s programmed by the user.

DIY ‘PS3 Sixaxis’ Controller

December 22, 2006 by 10 Comments


[max] lets us know about this DIY ‘PS3 SIXAXIS’ style programmable controller. It’s a USB device that uses an accelerometer to provide an interactive human interface. They put one inside a model airplane and use it with a flight-sim. (I’d like to see them add some gyros to add some realistic resistance to the plane interface.)

Laser 3d Scanning With A Webcam

December 21, 2006 by 15 Comments


[Jan] noted that they’ve come up with an interesting, low cost method of 3d scanning over (Update: http://www.david-laserscanner.com/wiki) at the Institute for Robotics and Process Control. Once the software is calibrated with the preset background image, a laser line is run over the object (Just think about every sci-fi laser scanner you’ve ever seen) The software appears to measure the contour of the object by the breaks in the line as it’s passed over the object. Once a mesh of measurements is taken, the object can be reconstructed in the software. According to [Jan] “With Their technique they won the Main Prize of the “work group for Pattern recognition” this Year in Berlin.” Now, make it work under something besides windows and .NET.

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