Sony’s SmartWatch is an Android compatible watch based on an ARM Cortex-M3 CPU, STM32F205RGY6, from STMicroelectronics and includes Bluetooth capability and a touchscreen. It retails for around $100. Previously, developers could create apps for SmartWatch with the Sony Add-on SDK, but Sony is now opening up the project to allow hackers to create and flash […]
Category Archives: hacks
Controlling six 17-segment digits using three I/O pins
Wardy posted this article: Controlling six 17-segment digits using three I/O pins Decided to start making good use of my “Propeller Professional Development Board” (PPDB) which has been sitting sadly idle and forlorn on the bench for a while. Set a goal of making a simple video game with some of the advanced features available […]
Control microbes with your mind
Here’s a video by Geva describing how to control microbes with your mind: Paramecia will change their swimming direction in response to an electrical field. With an Ardunio, a hacked brain sensor and a little code you can control your own army of single celled minions with mind power alone. Full build instructions and source […]
Simple Arduino EMF detector
Here’s a simple Arduino EMF detector by Aaron ALAI: This is an improved version of an Arduino EMF detector from Aaron ALAI. It uses one resistor and a piece of wire to detect if there is any EMF (elector-magnetic field) around. Nice and simple idea! Via PCBheaven.
1937 radio hacked into an iPhone dock
Øyvind Dahl writes, “I just hacked a 75 year old radio into an iPhone dock. I used a simple amplifier circuit, parts from an old speaker, an Arduino, some LEDs and a mini dock plug.” You can find more info on the build at Øyvind’s Build Electronic Circuits website. Via the contact form.
Spindicator clone with pulse and trail effect
In this video Viktor demonstrates his Spindicator clone with pulse and trail effect project: Although my “original” Spindicator itself was just a clone of this one, mine was well received by the geeks around the world! :) A fellow diy tinkerer made an even better one with PWM control (very cool, indeed!). Recently, I was asked […]
Hand tracking pong project
Hanting Lu and Kedari Elety, students in Cornell University’s Electrical and Computer Engineering, have written a detailed explanation of their Hand tracking pong project, a pong game which was controlled by tracking the player’s hand: The NTSC video signal from the camera is stored in the SDRAM at the rate of the TV Decoder Line […]
Reusing old Java ME devices in hacking projects
In this video from the Oracle Learning Library, Vinicius Senger and Marcelo Quinta demonstrate how to repurpose old Java ME mobile devices in hardware hacking projects. This talk, which was originally presented at last October’s Oracle Open World conference in San Francisco, concentrates on different ways to use Java ME for educational purposes, as well […]
Old display reverse engineered to work with a Raspberry Pi
Old Display Reverse Engineered to work with a Raspberry Pi: Dimitri, Frank, Kevin and Robin from Eectronique have sent in some details of a project that they have been working on. They had an old early 90′s LED matrix sign and wanted to make it work with a Raspberry Pi. The circuit layout is what […]
Teenlogger, a Teensy-based GPS logger
j3tstream wrote in to show off his Teensy GPS logger: Issue encountered: On the first board prototype i have mounted a PA6B without problem, when i powered up the pcb for the first time the GPS try to lock to satellite, in this case the 3d fix output should continuously output one-second high-level with one-second low-level […]
Karma controller project
William built this Karma controller and wrote a detailed explanation on his blog describing the build: My latest project is the Karma Controller, which has seven buttons to control Reddit Enhancement Suite. I made two revisions. The second is custom etched (which looks super cool!). I’ll also be sending them off to a real PCB shop for […]
Wireless voice-controllable smart home project
Wireless voice-controllable smart home project by Jiayuan Wang and Sheng Zhang from Cornell University, built as a final project: There are two CPU in our project, ATmega328 and ATmega1284. We set up the wireless communication by two Xbee chips. One of them connects with ATmega328 working as the transmitter to transmit the signal, another one […]
Free PDF of “Hacking the Xbox” in honor of Aaron Swartz
Our friend Andrew “bunnie” Huang along with No Starch Press have decided to release a free ebook version of Hacking the Xbox in honor of Aaron Swartz. Bunnie writes, “As you read my book, I hope that you’ll be reminded of how important freedom is to the hacking community and that you’ll be inclined to […]
DIY 3D printed stepper motor
Christopher Hawkins made this cool DIY 3d printed stepper motor: This is a programmable stepper motor and driver that I made out of some nails, magnet wire, neodymium magnets, a digispark microcontroller, and a 3D printed piece that I designed around these things. My goal was to make something about the size of a business […]
MIDI OUT for vintage Korg CX-3
Michael from AcidBourbon writes, “This project is about adding a MIDI output to a vintage organ, the Korg CX-3 (famous Hammond compact organ clone). My Korg was built in 1979, so before the introduction of the General Midi standard. But tapping into the right (only three) conducting paths on the main PCB and using a […]
STM32F4 debug board v1.0 Rev2
TitanMKD posted an update to his STM32F4 based debug board we covered previously: This board is intended to be used as a portable multi-purpose debug/hack tool with very fast peripherals and MCU and use standard Dangerous Prototypes Sick Of Beige DP6037 case format A full open source firmware is planned using chibios and like Bus Pirate […]
Stepper motor bluetooth serial driver (Attiny85 & L293D)
Trandi blogged about his Stepper motor bluetooth serial driver project: How to put together a simple bluetooth driver for a nice little stepper motor (Mitsumi M35SP-11HPK) that I salvaged from an old Canon printer. It uses a small Attiny85 (the more I use them the more I love them ! :) ) programmed in Arduino, […]
Chipper – ATtiny programming and prototyping shield
Here’s an interesting project the Chipper – ATtiny Programming and Prototyping Shield built by Ben Rothschild: As a high school senior and electronic enthusiast, I recently built a programming shield for 10 different types of ATtiny chips that can be used with either an AVR programmer or Arduino Board. Some of the features on the […]
Arduino guitar mod lets you type with a tune
David Neevel of W&K Blog had been thinking about modding a guitar to use as a keyboard for some time. As shown in this video, he recently got down to business, interfacing the MIDI output through an optoisolator circuit to the Arduino. The interpretation of notes to keyboard characters is accomplished in code, with the […]
DIY hamster wheel using an old hard disk drive
Can’t sleep because of a noisy hamster wheel? Felipe shows you how to easily make a very silent homemade hamster wheel using an old hard disk drive: Felipe La Rotta from Cocodrilabs had a noisy hamster wheel. Hamster wheels like most other mass produced pet items are made as cheap as possible, that means that you […]