Simple Way To Fix That Broken Ethernet Cable

June 8, 2010 by Mike Szczys 51 Comments

Chances are you’ve come across an Ethernet cable where the small plastic tab that holds the plug in place has broken off. We have a crimper on hand and usually just throw on a new RJ45 connector but [Laxap] found a simple alternative to fix Ethernet plugs. By using a couple of correctly sized cable ties you can secure the damaged connector without replacement. The boxy locking mechanism on the end of the cable tie is used as the catch, slimmed down with the help of an X-Acto knife or razor blade. Once you’ve got the right fit, use a second cable tie to secure it to the Ethernet cable. Simple is brilliant.

[Thanks Password]

How-to: Make A Mains Crossover Cable

April 1, 2010 by Devlin Thyne 397 Comments

Update: This How-To was written for April Fools’ Day. It is not advised you attempt to make or even use this cable. The comments have made it very clear how dangerous to you and others using this cable can be. The image above is not of a full male-to-male cable, only the ground is connected, and the generator is not running.

We all know Ethernet has the crossover cable, cars have jumper cables, and RS232 has the null modem. Well, it is about time our wall sockets get their own crossover cable. This crossover cable is great for running power to a circuit disconnected from power. Maybe you are out of fuses, the breaker is broken or you just don’t want to go check the fuse box when there is a murderer about. This cable makes a great gift for even the most loathsome of acquaintances. Continue reading “How-to: Make A Mains Crossover Cable” →

GPU Cooling To Fix RRoD

March 22, 2010 by Mike Szczys 64 Comments

[Rbz] fixed his friend’s Red Ring of Death stricken Xbox 360 by improving the GPU cooling. Because an overheating GPU is a common cause of the failure, he first tried to replace the thermal compound for better heat conductivity between the chip and the heat sink. This helped a bit but within two hours the problem was back. Troubled by the heat discoloration on the bottom of the DVD drive, he removed it and screwed a cooling fan to the GPU heat sink. That did the trick, so he moved the drive to the outside of the case with the aid of a longer SATA cable. It’s not pretty, but it worked.

Repair Or Improve Your NES

January 26, 2010 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

There’s a warm place in our hearts for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s too bad we don’t have that hardware sitting around anymore. But if you do there’s a chance it needs some TLC and there’s always room for a blue LED mod. [Raph] has a wonderful collection of NES hardware repairs and hacks that you should take a look at. These include replacing the power supply, fixing the cartridge connector, monkeying with the CIC chip, adding a reset button on the controller, converting the audio from mono to stereo, and yes, swapping in a blue LED. Oh, and as a side note, [Raph] gets a bit of extra hacker ‘cred for including “coded manually using VIM” at the bottom of his page. Classic.

LCD Backlight Repair

January 22, 2010 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

Another broken LCD TV came [Steve DiRaddo’s] way. This one had a broken backlight that he wanted to fix. He scrapped his LCD light table in order use the inverter. The two televisions were not the same size, nor made by the main manufacturer, but backlights all operate under the same principles. Using an inverter from a bit larger model meant it would have enough power to illuminate the lamps but he knew there’d be a problem with connectors and pinouts. After a bit of testing and creative wiring he got the system back up and running.

He’s got some extra parts left over from each TV including a bunch of CCFL lamps. Sound like it’s time to add some ground effects to his bike.

Polymorph In Practice

January 19, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 22 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxy22VfZq0E&feature=player_embedded]

[Leesam] tipped us off to this cool tutorial for shaping Polymorph. For those who haven’t, it is pretty cool stuff. It is a plastic that comes in little pellets. You can melt it down at relatively low temperatures and mold it to the shape you need. We’ve seen it used on several projects, most notably CrabFu’s swashbot3. Generally, we see it hand shaped, so it is fairly organic and imperfect. It can be used for more precise shapes though. This tutorial walks us through the easiest way to produce sheets of the stuff to be cut and bent into brackets as well as some helpful tips on getting the best results.

IFixit Licenses Manuals Under Creative Commons

December 16, 2009 by Mike Szczys 6 Comments

Yesterday, iFixit.com announced that they are releasing all of their manuals under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. The site has long been an abundant source of tear-down photos for hardware and has been gaining momentum as the go-to source for Apple hardware repair information. With the move to Creative Commons, the gates are open to distribute and improve upon the site’s content. There are even plans in the works to host user-submitted improvements (something akin to a wiki?) to the guides but there are not yet any details. The news also includes mention of forthcoming support for translated guides around the end of 2010.

The Hackaday crowd would rather fix things than throw them away. As iFixit moves past Apple products to a wider range of repair manuals and starts working collaboratively with users, we hope to see an explosion of detailed tips, tricks, and guides to keep our stuff working better, longer.