usb

657 Articles

USB Gaming Arm Band O’ Pain

March 21, 2008 by 15 Comments


[Nuri] sent in his rather interesting gaming feedback device. The TrakonyaMutatorUSB is a USB based armband that’s designed to shock you when you get shot or killed in your game. I can’t comment on the safety of this thing, but I guess it could be a good gift for your enemy gamer.

Update: Just to clarify a bit, This is built by [Nuri]. He offers them for sale (via paypal I see), but it is his work. It would be nice to see the design, but I can see some reasons why he might not want to release it to the public.

USB Driver Hacking

October 14, 2007 by 11 Comments


[qDot] sent in his efforts to hack the oddest USB interface I’ve seen. The game is played by relaxing, so the controller senses biometrics. His notes on his adventure in hacking a driver are a bit entertaining, and definitely interesting if you’ve considered doing a little USB driver hacking of your own. If there’s enough interest, maybe he’ll post some more code to get things rolling.

Add USB Ports And A Flash Drive To You UMPC

September 1, 2007 by 11 Comments


[ThoughtFix] sent in our first ever UMPC hack. It’s along the lines of laptop mods we’ve seen before, but he deserves credit for opening up the already tightly packed inside of his UMPC, tapping the USB interface on his bluetooth card, adding a hub and an internal usb flash drive to provide readyboost to speed up Vista.

Adding USB To A Cheap Linux Router

April 21, 2007 by 8 Comments


[sprite_tm] usually sends this stuff in, but I discovered that he took some time to hack on a Sweex router. The CPU happens to have an on-board usb host controller, so he added a few components. Now the router can support memory sticks, or possibly become a USB print server. (I can’t say for sure since I haven’t checked out the software myself)
Update: the project was linked in a comment a while back, but we never gave it the attention it deserved. Enjoy.

RS-232 USB Madness

April 8, 2007 by 15 Comments


If you’ve been amused by the lengths people go through to speak to a serial device these days. [timmeh] just took the cake. He build his own frikkin’ tiny RS-232 to USB interface with the diminutive SIL CP2101. The package on it is QFN-28 (If PLCC is Darth Vader, QFN-28 is his mean little brother.) That said, if you prefer to work with stuff that talks TTL or RS-232, this could be a handy add-on to pop a USB port on your project. (Oh, look, they have samples…) Sure, we’ve beaten the serial connections to death, but they’re so handy we just can’t resist. It may be a decent way to add a serial port to your laptop. (Picture this: dell’s bluetooth cards are usb devices – you could add one of these without even voiding your warranty.)

Airsoft Turret 2.0

January 14, 2007 by 15 Comments


[Jared] posted the latest version of his remote control airsoft gun. The new one allows USB and R/C control. It’s got four seperate firing mechanisms, a laser and uses a pair of servos for motion… and lots of ammo. Whatever you do, don’t make fun of [Jared]. They’ll have video up on the site after a couple of days to save bandwidth.

(Just a note: embed youtube or netscape videos and you’ll have video and save your bandwidth.)