ipod

99 Articles

USB Wall Charger

August 8, 2008 by 20 Comments


[rbhays] did this sweet little hack back in 2006. He took a Motorola cellphone wall charger and modified it into a USB wall charger. He needed to charge his iPod, but misplaced the original charger. A replacement would have cost him $30. So he did what any respectable hacker would do, he cut up something else to make it work for him.

He had one sitting around that was equipped with a mini USB end. He checked it out and it was the perfect voltage. Some commenters below the project noted that their motorola charger had a higher voltage rating than his. Those would still work, but would require some extra steps to bring the voltage down.

After some careful soldering, and a bit of super glue, he’s left with a perfectly good wall charger. He can charge most things that only use the juice from the wall. Some things refuse to charge though, such as Zunes. There was another project by [Cvesey] that claims to charge Zunes as well. While wall chargers may be available fairly cheaply now, many of us have some of these cellphone chargers just sitting around. Now we have a use for them.

Nixie Tube VU Meter

March 27, 2008 by 15 Comments


[Daniel] sent in his Nixie tube VU meter. It uses 14 Russian IN-13 Nixie bar-graph tubes. He built a custom circuit to amplify, filter, smooth and feed a voltage divider to assign signal levels to segments and finally some high voltage transistors to drive the tubes. The circuit looks pretty big, but it’s repeated for each tube – so he worked hard to keep the cost down as much as possible. Now this just needs to live on the front of a massive tube amplifier.

IPod Laser Pointer

March 9, 2008 by 7 Comments


If you thought there wasn’t anything else to shove on the end of your iPod, [Alex] is here to set you straight. He used the DC power that’s available on the iPod’s dock to drive a cheap laser pointer. It’s pretty easy to do – just get a dock connector (sparkfun has em) and add a laser pointer module. If you’d rather access everything else, check out the super dock I put together a while back. Hit the read link if you’d rather see the picture in color.

Upgrade Your In-ear Headphones

November 11, 2007 by 25 Comments


I’m a fan of my Etymotic er6i (which have mysteriously vanished…) headphones, so this simple hack caught my eye. [James C] sent in this simple method of upgrading the more affordable apple in ear headphones. The idea is simple, use a small hole punch to cut out the center of some cheap foam earplugs. Then replace the soft surrounds on the headphones with them. I’m guessing that this trick would work for quite a few in ear headphones that I’ve seen lately.

Hooptyrides, Inc. Open House

October 14, 2007 by 6 Comments


We didn’t even pause for a second when offered a chance to tour Mr. Jalopy’s studio. Even if it meant a 600 mile roundtrip, we’d be there. You’ll probably recognize Mr. Jalopy as the author of Hoopty Rides and as a frequent Make Magazine contributor know for his giant iPod and guerilla projector. Dorkbot SoCal organized a studio tour so that fellow hackers could pick up some of the Hoopty Rides secret sauce.

Continue reading “Hooptyrides, Inc. Open House” →

Hack Some Bling Extra

July 16, 2007 by 8 Comments


I’ve been getting some good looking mods on the tips line, so I thought it was time for a bit of bling on Hack-A-Day.

[f00-F00] sent in his ever so lightly modded iPod. It’s a bit similar to his force feedback PSP mod, but in this case, the leds lighting up the clear case are music sensitive.

The not too shabby looking [flooky] sent in her latest use for the SEGA Dreamcast, a guitar. (Hopefully soon to have three more strings.)

[crait] decided to steal 5v to power a Dreamcast VMU from his PS/2 port.

Oh, and if you dig our logo, you might be amused by skulladay.

I’ve got my travel plans for Defcon 15 set up. [Eliot] will certainly be skulking around vegas, so we’ll see you there.