Jesse from Bent-Tronics has posted a tutorial on how to make a DIY MIDI tester: A quick and dirty (and cheap) MIDI tester. Sometimes you just need to know if a MIDI controller is outputting anything. Even many high-end MIDI modules/boxes will have a “MIDI Activity” light, just to let you know something is being transmitted/received. That’s […]
Tag Archives: hack
Ultimate geeky desk sockets
Here’s a geeky desk sockets project from Luke. He writes: I wanted a few more functions than just a desk USB Hub. Looking on the net i came across this youtube video . This was the type of thing i was looking for but it had far too many functions and too large. I decided […]
Automatic feeder mod makes cat work for food
Here’s a cool automatic feeder for your cat that dispense food in exchange for a wiffle ball by Benjamin Millam. He wrote a post on his blog detailing its assembly: I used an Adafruit RFID reader to detect RFID tags embedded in the wiffle balls: the balls are cut slightly, enough to slip in an […]
2015 Hackaday Prize: Build something that matters, We send you to space
HackADay just launched the 2015 Hackaday Prize, a competition to get Hackers building real products to make a better world: Want to go to Space or grab $196,883? How does $100k and a 6-month residency sound? These and hundreds of other prizes await those who build some that matters. Full details and how to enter: hackaday.io/prize […]
DIY touch based nes controller
In this video Taylor of Electricreations demonstrates their DIY touch based nes controller.
Schlage smart door lock hack/teardown
Teardown and hacking of Schlage smart door lock by Felix Rusu of LowPowerLab: As the title suggests it’s a smart door lock with a for coded entry and is based on “Iris” which in turn uses ZWave RF wireless technology (made by Zensys), a closed source patented protocol+hardware stack that is OEM-able to automation system makers who want […]
The Hackaday Prize: Two days left to get your rear launched into space!
HackADay’s make open hardware / get your butt launched into space contest has two days left. Get that project posted now! Ian will be one of the Judges, along with Bunnie, Lady Ada, and a bunch of great open hardware hackers: Sure, the procrastinators out there will probably hold out another day (or two), but we […]
Optical mouse video output hack
The $5 mouse that you just tossed in the garbage might have had some hackable life still in it. As Conor Peterson shows us most optical mice are actually quite simply in operation with most of the hard work being done by the low resolution camera sensor. With a bit of Arduino code he was able to […]
Hacking a 3D printer into a tattoo machine
Here’s a cool instructable for a 3D printer tattoo machine: In october 2013, a famous design school in Paris, ENSCI les Ateliers, hosted a workshop organised by the French Ministry of culture. The idea was to use images, videos and sound fallen in the national pubic domain and use them in a sort of “Mashup”. The event […]
Hacked GTP USB LITE pic programmer
cmardone of Valpoder wrote an article on hacking the GTP USB LITE usb pic programmer, we wrote about it previously: GTP USB LITE is a pic programmer based on the pic18F2550 disgned by SISPIC from spain A lot of people built this circuit , and it became obsolete.. The firmware has several limitations(ex: driver only for xp) […]
Turning your Flash Destroyer into a clock
voidptr writes: So ! …. 2 years later, here an update on living with my dangerous Flash Destroyer hack ! First off, front and back picture :o) I added few things since its birth … A battery for the real time clock, really handy when you reprogram code and you don’t want to lose the […]
Money shredding alarm clock project
Want to get up before the sunrise? Here’s the money shredding alarm clock project by Rich Olson’s to help you get yourself up early: If you have trouble getting out of bed a bed shaker alarm might be a bit extreme, you might be just fine if there is a bit of money on the line if you […]
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 […]
Cheap laptop GPS module hacked to work with microcontrollers
Emeryth discovered that these cheap laptop PCI GPS modules can easily be interfaced with microcontrollers. On the back of the board there are testpoints which he identified as UART and USB. The USB is recognized as a CDC-ACM standard virtual COM port.
Hacked footprint on a USB flash drive
A few weeks ago Mats used a hacked footprint, where he removed the unused pins to help him route a board. Here’s a commercial USB flash drive that uses the same method. Few of the pins on the memory chip were removed, and traces are run under them. Via the forum.
Hacking footprints for easier 2 layer routing
Routing complex surface mount circuits on a 1 or 2 layer PCB is tricky. TSSOP and similar small parts often don’t have enough clearance to route a trace between two leads. Mats tackled this by by removing a few unused leads. This gave him the freedom to route traces through the now available space where […]
Etch a Sketch temperature logger
Hack an Etch a Sketch toy to act as a display for your projects. In this example it’s used as a temperature logger. The project uses two stepper motors driving the knobs, which are controlled via a PICAXE 18M2 microcontroller. Via Hacked Gadgets.
How to Add Custom Ringtones to a Wireless Doorbell
Want your doorbell to play prerecorded messages or tunes? This hack at instructables replaces the original speaker in a wireless doorbell with a 9 volt recording module. Most doorbells just make a simple generic tone. But I thought that it would be fun to modify a door bell so that it has a customizable ringtone. That way […]
Expedia customer service sucks, here’s how we hacked it
Usually we book with Orbitz, but for a few flights on the upcoming India trip we used Expedia. Some had to be canceled and rescheduled, luckily only a $20 change fee so no biggie right? Nope, Expedia was a fresh hell. 3 calls. On hold 15-45 minutes. They hung up twice. We’ve got the Skype […]
Crayola ColorStudio HD Pen hack
Hack a Crayola ColorStudio HD Pen and load it up with your own Arduino sketch. The pen uses a PIC microcontroller to pulse a reed relay which is picked up by the capacitive screen on the tablet. An app on tablet decodes the pulses, and changes the color of the paint brush. Rob pried it […]