N900

17 Articles

Live Counter Revives Old Nokia Phone’s Utility

February 4, 2017 by 7 Comments

Old hardware you may have on hand cannot only inspire projects in their own right, but can facilitate the realization of any ideas you have been planning. Using a Nokia N900, [MakerMan] concocted a light-up sign with a live subscriber and view count of his videos.

[MakerMan] milled out the logo used on the sign with his DIY CNC machine — built from rotary bearings and recycled stepper motors off industrial Xerox printers. The meticulous application of a jigsaw, rotary tool, and grinder resulted in a sturdy frame for the sign while a few strips of RGB LEDs imbue it with an inspiring glow. All that was left was to mount the phone in place and tape it for good measure.

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Resurrecting A Cellphone With Blown USB Circuitry

March 27, 2012 by 13 Comments

[Script] is pretty lucky. One of the engineers who designed his cellphone included over-voltage protection in the circuit. Of course you probably wouldn’t know about this if there wasn’t a service schematic available. But a bit of searching around let him resurrect the fried USB segment of his Nokia N900.

Now [Script] has been experimenting with portable solar power like the system featured at 25C3 a few years back. Unfortunately he made an error which routed 12V into the USB connector’s 5V rail. After this unfortunate mistake the phone would not longer connect via USB, or charge the battery. Luickly the N900 is a favorite with the hacker community (you can see all kinds of N900 related projects here at Hackaday) and [Script] found his way to their N900 Schematic page. Digging into page four he found part F5300 which is labeled 2.0A. He removed the PCB and shielding, and tested the part with a multimeter to confirm it was blown. A quick wire bridge got the phone charging again, but [Script] plans to position a new fuse as soon as he can source the part.

Who says these devices aren’t user serviceable? If we could just get our hands on more service schematics perhaps our gear would last longer.

Nokia N900 Control Pad Is Perfect For Gaming On The Go

December 12, 2011 by 16 Comments

nokia-n900-gamepad

[Andrzej] loves his Nokia N900, noting that it makes a great portable gaming device. Since it supports a wide array of emulators, it’s perfect for indulging his gaming nostalgia on the go. He says that the one downside to the N900 is that its keyboard doesn’t make gaming easy, nor comfortable.

To make gaming a big more fun, he built himself an add-on gamepad that fits perfectly over the phone’s keyboard. Connected via the phone’s USB port, it features 8 push buttons along with a PSP joystick. He used an ATmega8A as the brains of the controller, communicating with the phone as a USB keyboard. He says that this sort of configuration makes it extremely easy to do all sorts of custom button mapping on a per-game basis.

As you can see in the picture above the controller is currently lacking a case, but we think that with a bit of clever packaging, it could look as nice as a retail add-on.

Check out the short video below to see his gamepad in action.

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RF Sniffing On-the-go

October 8, 2011 by 2 Comments

It’s been a while since we checked in on [Travis Goodspeed]. His latest post makes RF sniffing with the Next HOPE badge more portable by ditching the need to display data on a computer. He’s built on the work he did at the beginning of the year, replacing the FTDI chip on the badge with a Bluetooth module. Now he can use his Nokia N900 as a GoodFET terminal to not only display the packets pulled from the air, but the control the badge as well.

Previously, the client running on the computer was communicating with the badge via a serial connection. To get it working on the N900 [Travis] transitioned from using py-serial over to using py-bluez. All of the code changes are available from the GoodFET repository.

He’s got a few other tricks planned for this concept. He put in a parts order to add Bluetooth to the Girltech IM-ME. The pretty pink pager has the same radio chip on board, so adding Bluetooth connectivity will allow it to be used in the same way. There are also plans in the works to add a couple other packet sniffing protocols to the bag of tricks, including ZigBee.

‘Mod In The USA’ N900 PUSH Competition

February 8, 2010 by 14 Comments

Just when you think you’ve heard all you can about the N900 PUSH competition, we have some more news for you.

The original PUSH competition was only for UK members, but now Nokia has introduced the ‘Mod in the USA‘ N900 PUSH competition. Similar to the original, anyone (within region) can submit a cool mod, hack, useful creation that would use the N900. Winners will be selected, and thats when the differences start.

There will be a $10,000 for 1st prize, and smaller prizes for 2nd and 3rd. Plus a trip to Vegas to showcase the 3 winning hacks at CTIA 2010 as well as funding, N900s and support to build the mods.

Don’t have an idea but still want to try? They have a discussion group to get the juices flowing, or you could always discuss in our comments.

[Update: The original PUSH competition was actually world wide. Thanks Matt and Ricardo]

Ask A Winner Updates Day 5: Answers

February 5, 2010 by 2 Comments

Not too long ago we asked our readers what they would like to hear about from the PUSH N900 winners and their hacks. We got some silly questions, and some serious, we asked both and now the PUSH teams have answered.

The day has passed, the party is gone, and all that’s left is the final interview. The Light Hack Crew gave us a somewhat shorter response then what we were used to, but it turned out to be just as sweet.

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Winners Of The N900 PUSH Showcase Tickets.

February 4, 2010 by 13 Comments

Like all great things, they must come to an end. As such, at 10am PST, this morning – our N900 Push competition came to a close. We had some really awesome answers, some really round about, and of course the obligatory – really bad ones. For those that are just on the EDGE of your seat waiting for the final concluding answer to stop the arguing and fighting – to settle this whole dispute. The answer, and the winners are…After the break.

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