Old TV Lends Case To Retro Magic Mirror

December 12, 2017 by Dan Maloney 10 Comments

Remember the days when the television was the most important appliance in the house? On at dawn for the morning news and weather, and off when Johnny Carson said goodnight, it was the indispensable portal to the larger world. Broadcast TV may have relinquished its hold on the public mind in favor of smartphones, but an information portal built into an old TV might take you back to the old days.

It seems like [MisterM] has a little bit of a thing for the retro look. Witness the wallpaper in the video after the break for proof, as well as his Google-ized Radio Shack intercom project from a few months back. His current project should fit right in, based on an 8″ black-and-white TV from the 70s as it is. TVs were bulky back then to allow for the long neck of the CRT, so he decided to lop off the majority of the case and use just the bezel for his build. An 8″ Pimoroni display sits where the old tube once lived, and replicates the original 4:3 aspect ratio. With Chromium set up in kiosk mode, the family can quickly select from a variety of news and information “channels” using the original tuning knob, while parts from a salvaged mouse turns the volume control into a scroll wheel.

It’s a nice twist on the magic mirror concept, and a little different from the other retro-TV projects we’ve seen, like a retro gaming console or an old-time case for a smart TV.

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Doubling The Capacity Of Power Tool Batteries

May 19, 2017 by Jack Laidlaw 66 Comments

YouTube User [Vuaeco] has come up with a novel idea, combining power tool battery packs to double the capacity.

Starting off with two slimline 2.0Ah compact battery packs, [Vuaeco] wanted a larger 4.0Ah rebuilt drill battery pack. These battery packs are different in size so it wasn’t just a case of adding in more cells in empty slots, instead he goes on to show us how to connect the batteries in parallel using some thin nickel strips. Once completed he modifies the battery casing so it fits another stack of batteries. He does this by bolting the top and bottom together with long screws, and insulating the otherwise exposed battery terminals with insulating tape. The final product isn’t as aesthetically pleasing as a real battery pack, but it looks good enough.

There are a few things we might have done differently, for instance providing some hard plastic around the insulation so should the battery get knocked in an awkward position it would still have a hard shell protecting it. Also, instead of combining the batteries together fully charged as the video suggests, we might have done the opposite approach and fully drained them, avoiding unnecessary risks. If you try this, how about giving it a 3D printed case?

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Vintage Radio Transformed Into Custom PC Case

October 29, 2016 by Dan Maloney 21 Comments

We see a lot of old radio restoration projects around here, and we have to admit to having mixed emotions about some of them. It seems a shame to go through the effort to lovingly restore a vintage Art Deco case only to stuff it with a Raspberry Pi and Bluetooth. Seems like if you’re going to restore a radio, go all the way and bring the original electronics back to life. But this radio “restoration” avoids that issue altogether by cleverly concealing a full PC build in a vintage radio case.

Clearly a labor of love, [SolomonZaraa]’s two-year effort guts the radio but still manages to pay homage to the original beauty of the 1939 vintage Philco 39-80 “tombstone” portable AM radio. The first design decision was to retask the original tuning dial as an analog thermometer using an Arduino and a servo. Then a new back was added with an extension for the motherboard and PSU, a drive cage was added, and a surprise slot for the DVD drive was built into the speaker grille. Nice brass trim and a good refinishing of the case resulted in an impressive and unexpected presentation.

You don’t have to go far in the Hackaday Wayback machine to find an antique radio with updated audio, but we’re pretty sure this is the first antique radio PC case mod we’ve seen. Nicely done, [Solomon]!

[via r/DIY]

Case Modding The Old School Way

July 17, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 11 Comments

Since the release of the Raspberry Pi, the hallowed tradition of taking game consoles, ripping all the plastic off, and stuffing the components into nice, handheld form factors has fallen off the wayside. That doesn’t mean people have stopped doing it, as [Akira]’s masterful handiwork shows us.

This casemod began with a Nintendo GameCube ASCII keyboard controller, a slightly rare GameCube controller that features a full keyboard smack dab in the middle. While this keyboard controller was great for Phantasy Star Online and throwing at the TV after losing Smash, the uniqueness of this controller has outshadowed its usefulness. [Akira] began his build by ripping out the keyboard and installing a 7 inch LCD. It fits well, and makes for a very unique GameCube case mod.

The rest of the build is about what you would expect – the motherboard for a PAL GameCube is stuffed inside, a quartet of 18650 batteries provide the power, and the usual mods – a memory card is soldered to the motherboard and an SD Gecko allows homebrew games and emulators to be played.

The completed project is painted with the same theme as [Samus Arans]’ Varia suit, making this a one of a kind casemod that actually looks really, really good.

Feel Extreme Workbench Envy After Seeing The Tempel

July 4, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 24 Comments

For those of us with space to spare, our workbenches tend to sprawl. The others who are more space limited will certainly feel envy at [Love Hultén]’s beautiful Tempel workbench.

The workbench appears at first to be a modern interpretation of a secretary’s desk. There are some subtle hints that it is no ordinary piece of furniture. The glowing model of our solar system on the front, for example.

With the front folded down, rather than the expected leather writing pad and letter sized drawers, a few more oddities become apparent. The back is a pegboard which holds a small selection of tools. To the left, a checkered grid obscures speakers. Knobs control volume There are even USB ports. On the right sits another speaker. Banana jacks let you use the analog voltmeter. Most appealingly, the indestructible Hakko 936 soldering iron has been entirely integrated into the structure of the desk.

If you press the right button on the front, the desk will reveal its last secret. It contains an entire workstation somewhere behind the array of drawers on the front. A linear actuator pushes a computer monitor up from inside the cabinet, covering the pegboard in the back. Awesome.

There is a build log, but unfortunately it’s been imageshacked and only the words remain. We think [Love Hultén] has finally managed to build a soldering station that’s welcome in every room of the house except for the garage.

Nixie Thermometer Destined For Custom PC Case

February 21, 2016 by Dan Maloney 18 Comments

There’s no denying the retro appeal of the warm glow of a set of Nixies, and when a friend was looking for a unique touch for the case of his new liquid-cooled PC, [Luca] pitched in with this sweet Nixie thermometer.

From the look of [Luca]’s detailed blog entries, he’s been at this build since the New Year. He starts with a list of requirements, including the oddly specific need for a round PC board. For the thermometer, three Nixies are enlisted for the display, two for the temperature and one for the units. Everything was prototyped on perf board before committing to a PCB design, but even with careful planning, the Nixie sockets on the final PCB came out a tiny bit too close together. Luckily the tubes still fit, even if they are snuggled together some. And yes, the tube bases all include the hated RGB LEDs – hey, it’s what the customer wanted. The specs are for the colors to change at the touch of a button; we’d like to see a color gradient linked to the temperature – blue for “nice and cool”, red for “leave the room.” You can see the finished thermometer in action below the break.

The recent run of Nixie projects continues unabated, and this one has a nice look that’s sure to complement the finished case. We’ve asked [Luca] to keep us up-to-date on the project, so hopefully we’ll get a look at why a round PCB is needed. While we wait for that, check out an earlier Nixie thermometer build with a bar graph twist.

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Flip Your Desktop Over To Boot Linux

February 1, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 27 Comments

[Andy France] built his computer into a Windows XP box. (Yes, this is from the past.) He needed to run windows most of the time, but it was nice to boot into Linux every now and then. That’s where the problem lay. If he was running Linux on his Windows XP case mod, he’d get made fun of. The only solution was to make a Linux sleeve for his computer. He would slide the sleeve over the case whenever he ran Linux, and hide his shame from wandering eyes. Once his plan was fully formed, he went an extra step and modified the computer so that if the sleeve was on, it would automatically boot Linux, and if it was off it would boot Windows.

The Linux sleeve could only slide on if the computer was flipped upside down. So he needed to detect when it was in this state. To do this he wired a switch into one of the com ports of his computer, and attached it to the top of the case mod. He modified the assembly code in the MBR to read the state of the switch. When the Linux sleeve is on (and therefore the computer is flipped over) it boots Linux. When the sleeve is off, Windows. Neat. It would be cool to put a small computer in a cube and have it boot different operating systems with this trick. Or maybe a computer that boots into guest mode in one orientation, and the full system in another.

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