I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2010/03/04/diy-projector-collection/
Reader [Jan] came across a website all about building your own video projector. We’ve linked to five of the best projects for 2010 but there’s a ton more information if you dig a little deeper. Our favorite so far is the GohtanBox v3 and it’s giant LED panel that serves as the projection light.
March 4 2010, 2:00pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2010/03/02/portable-squeezebox-with-serial/
The Squeezbox media streaming systems are compact Linux WiFi enabled radios that let you stream your collection anywhere,so long as you have an AC or USB outlet nearby. But [Achim Sack] wanted to stream his collection from anywhere with no wires attached (translation). Some poking and prodding revealed a connector actually designed for a battery and serial, but no commercially available battery yet.
The system requires a temperature sensor and if you want serial, a USB converter, but overall a simple process that could be done in an afternoon. Giving your box ~10 hour of life and even fits inside of a back compartment.
[Thanks Thomas]
March 2 2010, 8:00am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2010/02/24/a-second-life-for-dead-hard-drives/
[AndyUU1CC] has put together directions on how he built an Iambic Paddle out of some old hard drives. The iambic paddle is a device for telegraphy. More specifically, it is that piece that you always see people clicking with their finger when they send a telegraph. We hadn’t seen an iambic or “dual lever” style before, but we now know that this is not an uncommon design. While it is ultimately just a fancy set of switches, we can’t help but be impressed with the looks of it.
[via instructables]
February 24 2010, 11:30am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2010/02/23/add-pause-button-to-the-atari-2600/
We’re sure that if there had been a pause button on the Atari 2600 people would never have moved on to next-generation systems. Now you can dig the gaming relic out of the closet and pause your Atari games for some good old om nom nom.This hack is from the same person who pulled off the Atari 2600 jukebox. By reverse engineering the signals used on the Onyx Jr., which has a pause button, the halt method became clear.
The problem is that the Onyx Jr. uses a different processor than the 2600. A different processor means a different pin-out, and now the clock signal needed to synchronize the pause cycle was missing. But eureka, an abstract source was found. The ready signal from another chip can be used to judge the state of the processor. The small PCB above now interfaces with the Atari 2600 in order to patch in the pause circuit.
[Thanks again Yuppicide, keep 'em coming!]
February 23 2010, 2:00pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2010/02/17/repairing-your-tv-edid/
[Andreas] found that his home theater PC would not boot one day. Oddly, if he disconnected his HDMI cable from his TV, it would boot fine. While most of us would have dug into the PC, he realized that it was a signal from the TV that was incorrect. Luckily, LG had included a full schematic with the TV. What he was able to figure out, using a home made snooper was that the EDID eeproms had somehow become corrupted. Not to worry, [Andreas] slapped together a full blown I2C interface and prepared to reprogram them with the correct data. He noticed, however, that the eeproms were write protected. On a whim, he decided to write to them any way and found that it was successful. He has some theories as to why they were writable, but says that he doesn’t want to pull the TV back apart to confirm.
[thanks evlapix]
February 17 2010, 8:16am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2010/02/13/propeller-arcade/
This arcade cabinet has been saved from a gruesome death. [Oldbitcollector] picked the broken rig up for $50 and is building a Parallax Propeller based arcade machine. This began back in October and he’s just dropped in a newly painted control panel to replace the NES controller seen above. He pulled the replacement screen out of an old 19″ TV and found it to be a perfect fit. We didn’t find a complete list of available games but we know he’s got a menu system to choose the game and have seen Donkey Kong, Frogger, Defender, and at least one other in the videos. There’s less choices than a MAME cabinet but who needs more than a handful of the old 8-bit gems anyway?
Propeller Arcade walkthrough
Gameplay footage
February 13 2010, 11:00am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2010/02/08/built-in-hex-editor-unlocks-plasma-tv-features/
[Nick] tipped us off about a guide to unlock extra features on Panasonic televisions. The hack works on the G10 models of plasma TVs and uses the service menu to gain access to the EEPROM memory. With a few quick steps you can change some data with a built in hex editor, unlocking several new settings menus, or bricking your entertainment centerpiece. We’ve seen some Samsung TV hacking in the past and hope that with increased processing power in today’s models we’ll someday see consumer TVs available with open-source firmware so that we can integrate of our favorite entertainment software.
February 8 2010, 11:46am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2010/01/25/automated-super8-film-scanning/
For those of you who have been dreading the day that you have to dig out those old family films in Super 8 format and take them to get digitized, dread no more. Now you could turn it into a cool project. [Photobsen] has posted pictures of an automated system for scanning and compiling the film into a digital movie. There was already software available, called CineToVid, which would take the scanned segments and create a video from them, but doing the actual scanning was quite laborious. [Photobsen] built a quick automated system using an old floppy drive connected to his computer via parallel port. He now scans about 80 seconds of film per hour, unattended.
January 25 2010, 9:41am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2010/01/18/more-avr-tetris/
[Ben] built an AVR based Tetris game that uses a TV as the display. He linked his project in a comment from the AVR Tetris project featured last week. His work taps the power of his own tvText library to handle the composite video out. Using a TV takes all of the hardware work out of the equation, leaving just the composite jack and a few buttons to connect to the ATmega168 and its 20MHz clock. We’ve embedded the game play video after the break. It’s black and white but also clean and crisp.
[Ben] didn’t include music with his build but another commenter, [Eric], has started to work on that. We can’t help but think that they both should have tipped us off sooner about their projects.
January 18 2010, 9:03am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2010/01/13/mythnetvision-to-cure-borked-mythtv-hacks/
Another group of developers has stepped up to the plate in the never-ending attempt to integrate online streaming video with MythTV. The new plugin is called MythNetVision and aims to bring streaming and downloading video functionality both easily and legally. That means without violating the terms of service of the providing website.
We’ve seen so many attempts that fell short it’s easy to be skeptical about the chances of this plugin actually working. Plugins like MythStream and MythVodka worked only temporarily before breaking and never seemed to provide a reliable option. Many people have tried adding Boxee, Hulu Desktop, or XBMC integration by launching these separate packages via the MythTV UI but that’s far from a clean solution.
It looks like MythNetVision is taking a slightly different approach. Although not yet available, the designers have built the plugin in two parts. The frontend is a fully skinnable user interface that parses RSS feeds to provide the hooks needed to browse, search, and view video. Depending on the content, a browser may be spawned to play the video, it may be played within MythTV’s normal player, or a separate download thread can be launch with video following after the appropriate buffer level is reached. The RSS feeds come either directly from the provider, such as the Revision3 feeds, or a scraper can be written to provide custom RSS feeds from sites that don’t have them.
We’ve seen a glimpse of the progress and we’re optimistic that we’ll see a reliable plugin. Early adoption and user script contribution are the best way to help ensure this so keep an eye out for the public release of this package.
January 13 2010, 2:00pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2010/01/06/pong-for-real/
Over at EvilMadScientistLaboratories.com they’ve asked a question that many of us have never thought to ask. What exactly is Pong supposed to be? Instead of assuming it was ping pong like the rest of us, they decided to build a literal physical interpretation. They may have taken some liberty, using solenoids as the paddles, but the end effect is quite nice. Watching them play actually looks both challenging and fun. There’s a great writeup about the construction, so be sure to check out the project page.
January 6 2010, 4:00pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2010/01/01/hey-man-you-seen-my-turntable-around-here/
It’s all fine and dandy to have a turntable that sounds great, but [Mike] wanted one that looks great too. He build the transparent record player above and loved it for a little while. When his interest in it waned he built another, then several more. They all have some element of transparency to them, and each is a work of art. Makes us wonder how often he needs to dust his house to keep them looking so good.
Is turntable technology too advanced for your tastes? You can stick with your Edison cylinder, we won’t make fun.
[Thanks John]
January 1 2010, 11:13am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/31/pinball-build-throws-down-the-gauntlet/
[Jeri Ellsworth] is building her own pinball machine. Her build log is delivered in the form of daily videos that walk through the progress. In addition to seeing the intricate ramps, traps, and controllers she outlines her build techniques. These include reproducing parts based on old pinball machines and bending acrylic with a custom tool or a toaster oven.
The driver she’s planning to use is an Altera FPGA with a bunch of FETs to control the heavy-load components. There’s not a ton of info on the actual electronics but we had a heck of a fun time looking at the creative field components. Our favorite by far is the television from Day 7. The screen is translucent with a rear projected image. When the ramp in front of it is raised the pinball can be jumped right through the screen!
We couldn’t find a project page for this but we’ve embedded [Jeri's] videos after the break.
Day 8
Day 7
Day 6
Day 5
Day 4
Day 3
Sorry, can’t seem to find the video for Day 2.
Day 2
Day 1
December 31 2009, 10:00am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/30/update-realtime-3d-for-you-too/
[Kyle McDonald] has kept himself busy working on 3D scanning in realtime. He’s posted a writeup that takes us through the concepts, tools, and assembly of a DIY 3d scanning camera. You should remember a preview of this method posted earlier this month, but now it’s time to build your own. You’ll need a camera, a projector, and some open source software to process the image data. Using these simple tools, [Kyle] turned out much better video than before. Take a look after the break to see his results from scanning at 60 fps using a PS3 Eye. The trick to this setup is getting the correct synchronization between the projector and the camera, something that could be improved with a bit of extra hacking.
Does [Kyle's] name sound familiar? It should, he’s got a long history of quality hacks that we’ve featured over the years. If you’re looking to use a scanner as a multitouch, add some music to tea time, or play with your skittles his work will give you a shove in the right direction.
December 30 2009, 4:00pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/30/tf2-kill-counter-binary-style/
After getting some fun new toys for Christmas, [IceColdFreezie] set up this kill counter for Team Fortress 2. At first glance, we weren’t that impressed. It’s an Arduino and a few LEDs. Then we saw that it was counting the kills in binary. We’re not sure if it gets much geekier than that. You can download the source code and try it out yourself. Just don’t make more than 31 kills.
[via littlebirdceo]
December 30 2009, 3:00pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/29/composite-video-output-from-chumby/
[bunnie] posted this pretty slick way of getting composite video out of a Chumby. The Chumby is an open source connectivity device that has already seen some decent hacking. This modification, done by [xobs] isn’t too difficult. It only requires patching into some pads on the motherboard and loading a custom kernel to support the external output.
December 29 2009, 9:19am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/16/2600-game-jukebox/
[Yuppicide] sent us a link to a photo album of an Atari 2600 modified to play ROMs stored inside. We did some digging around and have an idea of what’s going on. It seems that the creator, [Victor] has taken his Atari 2600 cartridge emulator one step further.
Previously, he had replaced the chip in an Atari cartridge with an EEPROM that he could reprogram via a ribbon cable. This new iteration places that EEPROM inside the case of the gaming console along with a PIC development board. The PIC board interfaces an SD card with somewhere around 1200 ROMs on it. Three switches added to the front of the Atari allow the user to cycle through available games and flash the desired title to the EEPROM. As you can see, a 2×16 LCD display now resides in the cartridge opening.
This seems a little more eloquent (and less legal) than the Super Genintari.
December 16 2009, 3:00pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/16/techknotts-portable-dreamcast/
[Sydney] sent in this fantastic portable Dreamcast, built by [techknott], in response to the one we posted yesterday. While we agree, this one is much more polished, we want to point out why the post yesterday is more Hack A Day material. Sure, it looks more “hackish”, but that’s not what we are referring to. What we want to draw your attention to, is the lack of information. Yesterday, there was a build log. Today, there is not. Sure the other one could have had much much more information and we’re not commenting on which one is “better”. We’re just reminding you to please please please document your projects. Oh, and also, this thing is awesome.
December 16 2009, 2:00pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/16/scan-room-explore-virtually/
[Patrick] directed us to his project for alternate realism. The final goal is to be able to walk around in a space wearing a head mounted display, exploring a virtual representation of that space. This virtual representation could be altered, stylized, augmented and modified in countless ways. It is an exploration in perception, similar to enjoying different styles of painting, we could enjoy different styles of viewing a real space. Currently, it isn’t quite real time. He has to scan a room with a somewhat bulky device, then plug into his display to explore it. Being able to scan quickly and reliably enough shouldn’t be far off. [Patrick] notes that others have done almost real time scans at home already.
December 16 2009, 9:23am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/15/intodream-the-portable-dreamcast/
What looks like an absolute mess of wires,5 fans,3 batteries, and other miscellaneous equipment squeezed into a Tupperware box on the left? At first we didn’t believe it, but it is actually [John's] fully functioning slick-looking portable Dreamcast on the right. The system runs Quake 3 for a little over 2 hours, not too bad considering it is also powering a VMU, rumble pad, 5 inch LCD screen, and did we mention 5 fans! All in all, it’s still smaller than the original Xbox controller, and we like that one of the greatest consoles is getting some well deserved respect. Check out the work log and a video of it functioning after the break.
December 15 2009, 4:50pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/14/make-your-own-3d-monitor/
Don’t let this cruddy video fool you. [Sprite_tm] has done an amazing job here. He has put together a fairly simple way of creating your own 3d monitor at home. The basic principle is easy to get. You have to supply different angles of an object, on the screen, at the same time. [Sprite_tm] has done this by using transparency sheets, printed with a pattern to only show specific pixels. As you move your head, you see a different set of pixels, and therefore a different image. It’s simple, but it works. The system isn’t really new. Traditional 3d with polarized glasses uses a very similar setup. This system however seems like it is lacking in stereoscopic view however. When you move your head, you’re looking at a different angle, but still a 2d image of it. It would be really cool if he could somehow present each eye a different view, without polarizing filters and glasses. We’ve seen others do that with multiple screens, but that gets so clunky and can give most people a headache pretty quick. We also think we are about to see a flood of face tracking perspective modification, especially with project Natal and similar technology emerging.
December 14 2009, 10:00am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/14/new-pet-project-413/
[Jacob] sent in his teams final project, Project 413. While sounding like something straight out of an action movie, don’t worry, it’s not the next terminator. Rather a combination of an eBox (in place of an EEE pc), omni wheels, motors, batteries, and the finishing touch – a hamster ferret ball. If this is sounding familiar to a certain web comic, then right you are, as XKCD was their main inspiration. Sadly, the web cam and ‘having a soul’ functions didn’t make it into their version, but being controlled via Wii remote is always a plus. Check out a video after the break.
December 14 2009, 8:50am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/11/bender-keg-cooler/
What? Another Bender project? This almost went in the trash since it looks so much like the bender brewer from earlier this week, we thought it was the same tip. This isn’t a brewer though. This is a keg cooler, made to look like Bender. You can follow the build process to see exactly how they constructed it. They did a great job, the tap is in his cigar, and the keg resides in his body. Fantastic job guys, now you need some Benderbrau to dispense.
[thanks hexmonkey]
December 11 2009, 10:55am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/06/nunk-on-droise/
Nunk on Droise is an art installation where noise is made depending on how drunk you are. In a configuration that could be called a cthoilet, the sensors shown above are alcohol sensors. Though we initially thought this would be testing urine, the description states that it tests the breath of the participant. Unfortunately there aren’t any schematics or code, though you can see how it is all assembled from the flickr pool. You can also see a video demonstration of the prototype.
December 6 2009, 9:03am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/04/movie-mover-a-mobile-theater/
[Electricunicycle] put together this radio controlled mobile theater system to amuse his neighborhood pals. It is a projector and what looks like an electric wheelchair base. He has managed to fit a decent sound system in there as well, which required a second battery. This is pretty cool, though we could see ruggedizing it a little more to be able to drive around in fields. He states “this is one of the faster movie theaters around”. This makes us wonder what the competition is like.
December 4 2009, 9:31am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/11/19/complete-the-maze-get-a-gumball/
This neat accelerometer controlled marble maze adds a level of fun to retrieving a gum ball. You have to first navigate the maze using a controller that has a dual axis accelerometer in it to control the angle of the platform. Though that does look like a wii accessory, there is no wiimote in there. Only after you have completed it will the gum ball machine dispense the candy. [Dan] constructed everything himself, which might explain the lack of “pits” for the marble to fall into in the maze.
More details on the build and source code are available on his page.
[via hacked gadgets]
November 19 2009, 2:00pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/11/17/omni-car/
We stumbled onto one of [Nik Melton]’s projects, an Omni-car. It is omnidirectional, meaning it can go any direction at any time without having to turn. The body was designed by him, then printed with a 3D printer. The control scheme is what interests us though. He has found a simple way to wire it to get the job done. Sure you can see that it suffers from some pretty bad “drift” when trying to go in a straight line, but overall, we think he pulled it off well.
You might want to take a few moments to look around his project page. This guy has done a bunch of fun stuff like delta robots, strange hybrid wheel/leg robots, tesla coils, and arm mounted flamethrowers. Judging by the videos, he’s pretty young too. We think his guy has a bright future ahead of him.
November 17 2009, 9:15am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/11/16/tauntaun-costume/
[Scott Holden] went all out this year and built an amazing Tauntaun costume. The Tauntaun from Star Wars was massive, standing 8 feet tall, and usually carrying a rider. [Scott] wanted to make it the correct size, and ultimately pulled it off. He had to build custom stilts to get the leg angle correct as drywall stilts were too straight. The rest is mainly pvc and fur. We think he did a fantastic job on this. The effect is quite nice, and we can imagine that in person it is even better.
Take note at the bottom of page 3. Apparently, he got pinned in the costume in his workshop and almost had to spend the night on the floor in the costume. That’s pretty wild, at least he was warm.
[via makezine]
November 16 2009, 11:48am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/11/12/thingamawha-thingamagoop2/
Introducing the Thingamagoop2! Remember that awkward looking box with two LEDacles sticking out and a bunch of strange buttons and knobs that with some circuit bending synthesized different sounds that kept your neighbor up for hours on end? Well now its back! Smaller and one less LEDacle, but jam-packed with more features – like our personal favorite: the ability to program it via Arduino. Check out a video of the ‘music’ after the break.
November 12 2009, 4:31pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/11/11/biking-through-google-street-view/
[Aki] wanted to do some stationary cycling to get in shape. Unfortunately, his stationary cycle is located in his garage which doesn’t supply much inspiration or amusement. His solution was to build a VR rig so that he could ride around inside google street view. He has rigged a simple sensor to his wheel to determine his speed and he’s using a vuzix VR 920 as a display and orientation sensor. While he notes that it isn’t perfect, or even reliable, we think it is pretty cool. He can go sight-seeing, while getting in shape from his own garage. We have to wonder if he gets a headache after a while though.
November 11 2009, 3:18pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/11/09/coaster-controlled-htpc/
These days, HTPCs are becoming more and more common, however controlling the content elegantly can be a painfully annoying problem. Roteno Labs have come up with a wonderful solution they call the RFiDJ. Similar to the RFID phone we covered earlier, they used a set of picture frame coasters and mounted descriptive pictures as well as unique RFID tags in each one. When a coaster is placed in the sensor area the server begins streaming that particular selection, including local news, This Week in Tech podcast, and other specific albums. Roteno Labs even managed to include a “shuffle” tag which would play content randomly out of a library. The end result is very well put together, excellently documented, and there is even a working video after the break.
November 9 2009, 3:00pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/11/05/udk-make-the-next-gears-of-war/
Ever sat down from a long day of hacking and thought to yourself “I wish there was a cool video game out there made just for me. Better yet, made by me!” Today is your lucky day with the release of UDK – Unreal Development Kit.
In days of old, the only solution to satisfying your game creation desires was a cheap game making kit, or adding to the millions of Source mods. Epic has changed tables by now allowing anyone to use their engine (non-commercially of course) to create the game of their dreams; who knows, maybe even the next Unreal Tournament.
UDK is currently limited to PC, but plans are in the process for PS3 and Xbox360 development. For those who cant wait, we suggest checking out XNA. Whatever tools you use, ever made a cool game? Tell us in the comments!
[Thanks Kinigit]
November 5 2009, 4:49pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/11/04/mac-mini-getting-a-little-more-useful/
We’re pretty sure Apple decided to implement an IR sensor in their Mac Mini line simply to mock the user. For those who are unaware, the built in sensor only works with the standard Apple Remote; unless you happen to have a programmable PDA or similar you’re SOL. An alternative solution would be to install a USB IR receiver. But then your beautiful Mac Mini is forced to sit alongside an ugly black box. Why not have the best of both worlds? [SqueeZe] wrote an (almost) entirely non invasive tutorial for placing a USB IR receiver inside his Mac Mini. Reminds us of a certain hack a while back, but the objective was to get the IR receiver outside of the unit rather than inside. Different people, different worlds.
[Thanks Kiran]
November 4 2009, 6:00pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/11/04/stereoscopic-3d-with-a-pic-micro/
[Pyrofer] sent in his stereoscopic game project and we are just giddy with excitement. He has hacked apart an old TomyTronic 3D handheld viewer and put new guts in. He’s using a PIC micro to push stereoscopic imagery to twin LCDs. He wrote all code from scratch including the 3d library, wii nunchuck driver, and LCD driver. This thing even has bluetooth so he can play multiplayer if he ever makes a second one. The whole unit is kept alive via a lithium polymer battery so you don’t have to worry about any cords other than the wii nunchuck. This thing is awesome, we would love to play with one. You can see a video after the break.
November 4 2009, 10:00am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/11/03/apple-remote-arduino-shield/
[Computergeek] made an Arduino Shield in order to use it as an Apple remote. We like the construction technique that he used; taking perf-board and soldering the circuit and using stripped wire to interface with the pin sockets on the Arduino. He’s written the code needed to function as an Apple Remote but this shield has a lot more potential. This is an excellent opportunity to delve into the different IR protocols out there and create a universal remote for all of your random devices. We’d also want to give it a try as a TV-B-Gone.
The parts are easy to find or salvage without putting in an order. We’re not certain about his design, he should probably have invited a resistor to the party the two IR LEDs are having.
November 3 2009, 5:13pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/11/02/medium-format-camera-from-scratch/
[Peter Johansson] has taken it upon himself to build a medium format camera, from scratch. We know this is a shock to some of you, but this camera uses traditional medium. There is no sensor. He will be loading it with (gasps) film. He bought the lenses pre made, but everything else is being constructed by himself. Probably the most notable parts are the aperture and the shutter. The project is about 80% complete right now. We can’t wait to see it finished.
[via Makezine]
November 2 2009, 9:07am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/10/31/broken-tv-brought-to-life-in-lego-body/
After letting it sit around for about 3 years, [Blake] decided it was time to fix his broken 15″ television. A little trouble shooting showed the problem was with the inverter. The backlight would come on for a few seconds, off for a few seconds, then repeat. By freeing the Magnavox 15MF400T from its metal case he got it working again, but couldn’t find the source of the short. His solution: build a new case out of non-conductive material. Voilà! We have the 15″ LEGO monitor.
It’s not a very complicated LEGO build, but it’s the first case mod we’ve seen in a long time that isn’t strictly gratuitous. Join us after the break for more pictures.
Above we see the backside of the monitor. The ladders are a nice touch.
Here is the PCB where the video connections are made. The board appears to be free-floating. Finding a more permanent way of attaching this and perhaps building a LEGO access panel would be a nice improvement.
These are the left over parts of the case. If these are the only discarded parts and the rest of it is useful again, we think it’s a success.
October 31 2009, 9:15am | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/10/30/xbmc-running-on-arm/
The XBMC team has posted a teaser showing the current state of the ARM port of this popular open source media software. We’ve embedded it after the break where you can see the package boot up and playback HD video. In it we see that the system is decoding the signal well, but image rendering needs some tweaking before this will be ready.
The hardware used is a Beagleboard which runs a 600 MHz ARM processor, has OpenGL 2D/3D acceleration, puts out HD via a DVI port, and is selling for about $150. The 3″ by 3″ board can be connected to a network using a USB WiFi dongle. Although integrating XBMC by hacking TV firmware is a long way off, we’d consider velcroing one of these to the back of our HDTV and getting rid of the hulking PC behind the entertainment center.
Can’t wait for this version to hit a stable release and don’t mind using hardware that is just a bit bigger? Check out this guide for setting up XBMC on the $200 Acer Aspire Revo.
[Photo: Koenkooi ]
October 30 2009, 4:34pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/10/27/digital-tuner-reverse-engineering/
Hackaday alum [Ian Lesnet] tipped us off about some reverse engineering of the HVR-1600, an analog and digital television encoder/tuner. The project was spawned when [Devin] noticed his Hauppauge HVR-1600 didn’t tune channels in Linux quite as well as it did in Windows. He had a hunch this was due to improper initialization settings for either the tuner chip or the demodulator.
To fix this he used two test points on the board to tap into the I2C bus. Using a logic analyzer he captured the command traffic from the bus while running Linux, then while running Windows. By filtering the results with a bit of Perl, and comparing them by using diff, he tracks down and finds the variation in the commands being sent by the two drivers. After a bit of poking around in the Linux source and making the necessary changes, he improved the tuning ability of the Linux package.
[Devin's] work looks simple enough, and it is. The difficult part of this process is being smart enough to know what you’re looking for, and what you’ve got once you’ve found it.
October 27 2009, 12:00pm | More »
I posted to hackaday.com
http://hackaday.com/2009/10/23/poddwatt-tube-amp-with-mp3-in-mind/
[Bruce] has designed a push-pull tube amp that has enough gain to connect to a portable audio player. The design is closely related to his OddWatt offering from a few years ago. The new amp has many redesigned circuits and the new hardware choices drop the price tag of the parts by about $50.
This little wonder pumps out 5-7 watts and [Bruce] is please with the end result. It doesn’t put out quite as much low-end as the KT88 amp we saw last year, but compared to some other iPod speaker solutions this provides stellar audio.
October 23 2009, 2:08pm | More »