[josh] pointed out this hack for Garmin C510 and C530 GPS units. The newer C550 and C580’s feature text to speech directions. [Phil Hornby] put together a walk through that will add this valuable feature to the older units. He took advantage of the firmware similarities of the various Garmin units and got it working. The hack requires some compromises due to memory constraints, but it’s pretty straight forward.
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Printer Hacking Roundup
Today’s roundup is in honor of all those inkjets, laser printers and plotters that have been cracked open and modded to perform unspeakable tasks. This is a bit of an experiment, so let me know what you think.
First, there’s the classic DIY CD printer. Aside from dremeling the back of the printer, making the cd cartridge from a decent material is probably the most difficult task. I used to print on my DVDs, but now I just rip ’em to my media server.
Not really a hack, but someone discovered that they can get ever nicer photo transfers if they use an inkjet instead of a laser printer to create the transparencies.
Not to be forgotten, using the fuser from a laser printer to transfer laser printed artwork onto PC boards.
If you missed it, [Volkan] and [Stefan] gutted an Epson C84 to make a direct to PCB etch resist printer. The feed the board in and get a printed design, ready for the etch tank. (once it’s dry, of course) Someone else is working on the same hack with a C87.
If you’re evil, there’s the classic paper shredding printer.
You could use an old network printer interface to control something else.
If people you work with actually read the lcd, you might have some fun exploiting the displays on those HP workgroup printers.
You could pick up an old pen plotter and convert it to cut vinyl for your nefarious custom stickers.
Speaking of plotters, there’s the ‘scribbler bot‘ – AKA diy pen plotter.
Of course, maybe you just want to fix your old printer after you completely dissassemble it. (Via zedomax)
Maybe you can make your own waterfall printer. (If you pull this one off, let us know)
Tinmith Augmented Reality Backpack
I haven’t seen an augmented reality setup in a while. The Tinmith backpack consists of a VR helmet, with helmet mounted GPS tracking, firewire video camera, orientation tracking, glove based user interface and a belt back that contains the mobile computer and batteries. These systems have very interesting applications. From navigation to correcting information in real time to work around partial blindness.
Keyboard Contact Repair
Here’s a little bit of a blast from the past, but I’d bet that many of us have encountered this problem. Keyboard contacts can wear out, be damaged by drink spills or that vat of acid you left by the TV. Automotive defroster repair paint should work – if have some handy. [eeun] documented a keyboard contact repair method using household aluminum foil and superglue.
Tripmate Gps Data Logger
This one is fitting – I was just checking out Suunto’s sweet gps data logging watches today. [Steve Cholewiak] sent in his diy GPS data logger. It uses an old DeLorme tripmate – these were serial gps units that ran off of internal batteries. A PIC controller reads the NMEA sentences from the tripmate. Then it stores the track data to an EEPROM. The same serial connection is used to retrieve the data later on. [Steve] did a great job writing this up, the circuit is pretty simple and he’s provided all the information you need to build your own.
Dan Kaminsky’s SSL Hell
Here is another segment from Dan Kaminsky’s talk at Toorcon 8. You can download the high quality version here. He discovered approximately 1 in 3 deployed SSL boxes share a private key. This means that you can buy a box off of eBay and read encrypted SSL traffic from any identical box. He has also got a trick for making bank logins more secure.
Dan Kaminsky’s Cryptomnemonics
Our buddy Dan Kaminsky gave an interesting talk at Toorcon. This is just one part where he talks about a novel way to help the user remember SSH keys by converting them to couples names. You can get it in high quality here. 17 minutes long. Thanks to Fabienne for shooting the video.
