If you’ve got a cable modem, you know the drill when it goes offline. Unplug it, wait 30 seconds, plug it back in, reset your dhcp request. I’m pretty sure that [brian] mentioned this in a comment a while back, but now he’s written it up. He’s using a cron job on his linux box to check the internet connection, and if the test fails, power cycle the hardware with some X10 hardware and a little scripting. (Just don’t tell your friends or they’ll be outside trying to guess the code.)
Peripherals Hacks1573 Articles
XT To AT Keyboard Adapter
If you dig the older switch based keyboards, you’ll like this. As a favor to a friend, [Bob van Loosen] built a small converter using a pic16F84 to make an XT telex keyboard usable with modern AT style computers.
Steampunk LCD
Milkscanner – 3D Mapping That’s Good For You
[Blind Tree Frog] sent in the Milkscanner. It’s an oh-so-simple method of mapping a 3d object. [fiezi] used a small tub, a lego mounted webcam, a small supply of milk and a bit of software to create the map and import it to moviesandbox.. The object is placed in the tub, then then it’s scanned by the camera as the milk level is slowly raised (in this case, via spoon power) and voila: 3d map.
Video is after the jump, or at the top of the read link.
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Serial Port Power Booster
This one(coral cache) is a bit of a head slapper, but I thought it might come in handy. Laptop (or usb) serial ports are pretty notorious for being stingy on power output. [Roberto] came up with a clever solution. He used a MAX205 (sort of a double+ MAX232) and a singe capacitor to convert the low power serial connection on his laptop to a TTL signal and back again to RS-232. The result is a simple dongle that needs 5v and gives you a high power serial port for those power hungry devices – like [Roberto]’s PIC programmer.
Dive Computer Interface Hacking
Dive computers help divers keep an eye on bottom time and calculate nitrogen saturation during dives. Many of them, like the Suunto above have a built in provision for downloading dive data post dive. [
CIBDiving] figured out a way to enable this missing feature on one of Suunto’s cheaper computers. The Gekko has the same pins as the more expensive units, but Suunto’s download manager won’t allow you to download the data. By using a simple software patch, [CIBDiving] tricked the software into pulling down the data.
You can buy a cable to pull down the data, or you can build your own serial or USB level shifting interface.
Laser Dance Pad
[A. Smyth] passed this along – it’s another take on the non-mechanical dance pad. The first prototype used IR detection, but apparently the hardware was flaky. The new version uses cheap laser pointer style diodes with photo detectors. Personally, I want to see one that breaks the laser into a line and collimates the resulting beam, and senses beam interference by measuring the intensity. (And it would look incredible with a fogger) The electronics are pretty simple – the photocells are interfaced with the guts of a USB game pad and breaking the beam creates a button push.
