Make: Online: hacks Archives

hacks Archive: hacks

September 2, 2010

Control your camera flash with a TV remote

Udi Tirosh wrote in to share this camera flash hack:

Like using off-camera flash units for your photography, but tired of having to walk over to them to adjust the flash power? Well, you could certainly throw some money at the problem and get a set of fancy wireless remotes for them. If you are handy with a soldering iron, though, you might want to take a look at Domjan Svilkovic's instructions to control your flash settings with a TV remote control. He took a cheapo flash, and added a PICaxe microcontroller that waits for 'volume up' and 'volume down' signals, then activates a set of transistors on the remote to simulate button presses. Now, where did I put my flash units...

August 30, 2010

DIY rudder pedals on the cheap

MAKE subscriber James Jamison writes in to share his DIY rudder pedals. Wanting to add a bit more realism to a flight simulator, but not willing to spend much on a set of pedals, he was able to whip up a workable solution using some hardware and an old joystick. Looks good to me!

August 28, 2010

Flash your computer BIOS with Openbiosprog-spi

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool:

If you've ever bricked the BIOS on your PC, then you might appreciate the Openbiosprog-spi project by Uwe Hermann. It is designed to be able to reprogram any flash memory that uses the serial peripheral interconnect bus (SPI), which could come in handy if you need to restore a botched firmware upgrade.

August 27, 2010

Antique clocks turned into speaker cases

Derek Bell didn't want to have tacky black consumer electronics cases in his living room, so he gutted a couple of satellite speakers and used antique clocks as enclosures. The subs are hidden in the gilt below the speakers. A very elegant solution!

August 26, 2010

Updating a classic View-Master toy

Although he had fond memories of his View-Master toy, Tuttle of the Nashville, TN hackerspace, Hacker Consortium, was frustrated by it's antiquated film-based media. Instead of just tossing the toy aside, he decided to use some cheap LCD keychain displays, and modified the device for modern, stereo vision. Looks fun!

Bowling ball + PanaVise = DIY engraver's ball

Xavier of My Heap put together this delightful homebrew engraver's vise by attaching a PanaVise to a bowling ball that pivots in a PVC pipe coupling. No word on how well it works, but ya gotta give it up for that kind of ingenuity.

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August 25, 2010

Moving? Don't carry those boxes, make a ramp!

MAKE subscriber Mike Figueroa wrote in to share this simple tip for moving. If you've got a lot of boxes that need to go downstairs, just set up a ramp and save yourself the lifting. Not recommended for delicate items, of course.

It seems like a simple idea, but I've never thought to try it (and I have moved out of a good number of second-floor apartments). I have tried other things, such as carrying the boxes in stages to different way points, to give myself time to rest and so I can prop doors open for short amounts of time without worry about my cat escaping. Know of any other good techniques for moving?

August 23, 2010

USB-Powered Magic Trackpad

Out of the box Apple's Magic Trackpad is a battery-powered device. While this may be convenient for some, others prefer a wired connection. Since Apple neglected to offer a wired version, MacRumors Forums user markbog decided to convert his new trackpad to run off the USB. [via TUAW]

I don't like using batteries in desktop peripherals, they're horrible for the environment compared to wired power, and there's no need for batteries when it's just going to be sitting on a desk all day. So I took out the batteries in the Magic Trackpad, stripped an old USB cord down to the red and black power wires, and attached them to a battery-sized dowel. Works great!

August 19, 2010

Repurposing voting machines as pac-man games

What can you do with direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machine, that has been proven to be insecure? That's the question a group of security researches from Princeton and the University of Michigan were faced with after proving time and again that the machines were trivial to tamper with. Concerned with the possibility that the machines might end up in a landfill, they worked out a solution: convert them into Pac-man arcade machines. Excellent work!

August 16, 2010

Inchworm walker with clever analog control hack

Electronically, this dude is nothing but a battery pack, a servo, and a direction control switch. Mechanically, it's just as simple: A couple of rulers for legs, some Tupperware for feet, and a few odd bits of hardware. Oh, yes: And a comb.with a row of teeth broken out for a two-way limit switch. Details in this tutorial by Instructables community manager Randy Sarafan.

Single-handed game controller mod

Playing a game on the Wii with one hand is a major selling point of the system. However, what if you don't have a Wii or would like to play some of your older games? Dutch hardware hacker Hasse's brother can only use one hand, so Hasse decided to remedy the situation by successfully modding a standard two-fisted controller with an accelerometer. [via LifeHacker]

August 14, 2010

How-To: Circuit bending with Jimmie Rodgers

Wondering what the secrets are behind circuit bending? Then you might to check out this talk that Jimmie Rodgers gave at the Next Hope conference a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, the video isn't available, however you can download both the slides and audio from the presentation.

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August 13, 2010

Arduino magstrip emulator

Using not much more than an Arduino, a piece of metal shim, and a bunch of wire, Instructables user sketchsk3tch built this Arduino Magstripe Emulator, which purportedly can spoof a magnetic card reader into thinking a card has been swiped. Quite the MacGyver solution to magstripe hacking...

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August 11, 2010

Adding an auxiliary input to a 2004 Camry radio

Nirav Patel wanted to listen to music in his car, but was having trouble with the tape adapter used to plug in his phone. Instead of just switching to a FM transmitter or getting a new stereo, he decided to take matters into his own hands, and modded the stereo to enable an auxiliary input. After some incidents involving the tape player, lots of troubleshooting, and a small fire, he was able to get everything working.

I performed a similar hack on the factory radio in my own car a couple of years ago, but for a slightly different reason- the aftermarket stereos with CD players that I installed kept getting stolen. Once I replaced it with an old tape deck unit with a secret auxiliary input, no one wanted to take it!

August 9, 2010

Run Flash on your iPhone

Regardless of what you may think of either platform, it's fun to see what others will do to get what they want. In the accompanying video Taimur Asad from Redmond Pie demos an alpha version of Frash running on an iPhone 4. If you want to try this yourself, check out this how-to. [via Redmond Pie]

August 5, 2010

Outlet mount device charging pocket from plastic bottle

Last summer, a commenter on my tutorial about how to make one of these from a shampoo bottle said, "instead of drilling a hole in the bottom of the bottle, you could cut off the bottom, flip the bottle upside-down and voila - hole." Don't know if there's any causal link between that tutorial and/or that comment and/or this anonymous photo recently submitted to ThereIFixedIt, but in any case it does look like an easier way to skin the cat. [Thanks, JP!]

Good-looking Ikeahacked speakers

Inspired by the classic spherical speaker array Instructable from user mzed, Charles Visnic created these cool wireless speakers by transplanting the guts of a pair of RocketFish speakers into some birch bowls from Ikea, mounted rim-to-rim. It's a very cool build, but I have to say I'm just as impressed with this clever little working tip from Charles' write-up:

The smartest thing I did there was I would head into the hardware store and get what I thought I'd needed. Then I'd go to the car and start dismantling the speaker. When I'd reach an obstacle all I had to do was get out of the car and fetch the right tool for the job.

My Dad always jokes that any project requires at least two trips to the hardware store; next time I'm going to take a page from Charles' book and do all the work I can in my car in the Home Depot parking lot. [Thanks, Charles!]

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August 3, 2010

MAKE digital edition hacked!

Ouch! Clever forum member pulletsforever wanted to be able to read MAKE on his iPad, and in the process of poking around, found a security vulnerability that lets anyone download complete PDF copies of the MAKE digital edition, for free! CoverLeaf (the company that hosts MAKE digital) techs tell us they're working on a fix as we speak.

July 30, 2010

MacGyver Mending: In the desert, try agave

Jonathan Johns, a coworker of ours over at O'Reilly Media and a frequent volunteer at Maker events, sent us a great little maker story that we think everyone will enjoy.

My son, Christian, and his two roommates were on spring break in Arizona. As they were climbing up and around the hills, Christian's cargo shorts tore out at the knee, and at the pockets. They all proceeded to put their heads together and decided to fix them up.

Using a multi-tool and some Agave, they stitched up the shorts and pocket, and solved the problem. This may or may not be Makezine's cup of tea, but in my circle of friends, it was pretty exciting to see 19- and 20-year-olds having a MacGyver moment.

Thanks, for sharing the story, Jon. It's great to hear about inspiration when faced with adversity of any kind, at any age!

July 29, 2010

Clever overhead garage storage hack

Great storage idea from user tluwelyn of survivalist community Alpha Disaster Contingencies. Dimensional lumber is bolted together to make Ts and Ls that, in turn, are bolted to the ceiling joists. Heavy-duty storage totes are then slid in and suspended by their molded-in rims. Looks like there's still plenty of room to park cars underneath.