Hacks, Mods & Circuitry: Page 8

High speed photos are very artistic and look awesome, but taking them without special equipment is nearly impossible. Without this hack and an Arduino, that is. This video will teach you how to use an Arduino and other electronic components to make a DIY high speed photo trigger and take more awesome shots.

The Arduino Ethernet Shield is a wonderful device for DIY electronics projects, and this project is really creative and awesome. In this video you will learn how to use an Arduino, a promixity sensor, and some LED lights to make a proximity-sensing, LED-lit, evil Jack-o'-Lantern that will terrorize your neighborhood and probably get stolen if you don't watch it like a hawk.

Want to make your own sexy (or not) Tron costume like designer Syuzi's?

USB devices are ubiquitous and cheap nowadays, which means they make great raw materials for hacking and electronics projects. This video will show you how you use a USB host shield to hack USB devices and use them with MIDI controllers, game controllers, and other devices.

Analog robots might seem a little backwards conceptually, but they are still really fun to make if you're into robotics and electronics. This video will teach you how to make a simple self-balancing analog robot. It's basically a small, robotic, analog Segway.

The Segway is one of the oddest inventions of the last decade, but they've captured the imaginations of many. If you don't have $5000 to spend on one, but have $4000 and some heavy robotics skills, watch this video. It will teach you how to build your own DIY self-balancing Segway-style scooter, in either steampunk wooden barstool form or a more modern bicycle-handled model.

What if you could have a secret hard drive connected to your computer that only you could activate? You can! Samimy shows you how to hack a remote controlled toy car and make a super secret hard disk drive in your computer, accessed via a secret activation key. This hidden emergency HDD can only be controlled by your key, regardless of how many people use your computer.

TSA agents are having a little too much fun, it's time for the rest of us to join in. More complicated (and more promising) than the see-thru video trick, Jeri Elsworth gives instructions for building your own hand-held TSA see-thru scanner with a $3 feed horn and some (admittedly hefty) technical know-how.

With the TSA's full-body scanners occupying a great deal of airports nationwide, the debate remains as to whether air travelers should continue to be subject to immoral security techniques and possible health risks due to the x-ray scanning devices. The "advanced imaging technology" may help keep obvious weapons out of major airports, but scanning naked bodies seems more voyeuristic than crucial to national security. But while the argument continues, one woman is taking a stand… well, not...

General Electric isn't known for their Christmas lights, but maybe they should be, because their GE Color Effects are pretty awesome. Especially the LED Color Effects G-35 String sets.  And especially when someone named Darco hacks them.

Glow sticks are one of the few things used commonly by ravers and military personnel, but their uses extend far beyond dancing and illuminating. The juice contained in blue glow sticks can be used to make an organic LED (OLED) test board, and this video will show you how to do it.

Radar has made much of modern life possible, and if you're into building your own electronics building one is a fun and useful project. Watch this video for instructions on how to build your own simple radar out of cheap spare parts from a satellite dish or a toy radar gun.

Collin of MAKE is back with another inspiring project. You may remember his analog light organ. Well, he's decided to upgrade and make his light organ a digital one. One thing to watch out for is the amount of heat emitted by high-powered LEDs, but as long as you find a way to dissipate the heat, this will work out just fine. Watch, and don't forget to read the thorough instructions before building this!

Organic LEDs (OLED) are even more efficient than their standard LED cousins, but does that mean they're harder to make? Perhaps somewhat, but no excessively. Watch this video to learn how to make a DIY OLED at home, allowing you to make really cool light-up displays.

Far away in Finland, where the ice is plentiful and the temperature is bitter cold, the Finnish Nokia team have created the world's first touchscreen display made entirely of ice. Constructed with massive slabs of river ice, the display was first shaped into neat square slabs with a chainsaw, and then smoothed into a watchable surface with a powerful heat gun.

Who says nothing productive ever came out of doodling? Certainly not the hacker responsible for this fun (and at least somewhat functional) paper-and-pencil touchpad, which takes advantage of the natural conductivity of graphite:

That Kinect you bought for your Xbox 360? More than just a game controller, it's a bonafide hologram generator! In the clip below, UC Davis researcher Dr. Oliver Kreylos demos the process. The fun stuff begins at the :44 mark.

Are you addicted to Google Reader? If so, you may be looking for an even faster way to scroll through all of your favorite RSS feeds. Well, Matt Richardson has the solution…

This is a short tutorial that will teach you how to build your own electric shock glove. At first you need a disposable camera with flash like this one the right.

Before there was digital music and fancy computers and music software, people use to employ the power of the electric color organ (now more commonly known as the "light organ") to add some visuals in sync with their music. MAKE shows you how to build your own sound-to-like circuit— your very own light organ!

Plexiglass is great for all sorts of projects, but it is notoriously hard to work with at home. If you've got a plexiglass project in mind though and need an easy, cheap way to bend it, watch this video. It will teach you how to make a tool out of part of a blowdryer that will help you bend plexiglass into whatever form you want.

The phase-shift oscillator is one of the most common electronic parts, used in all sorts of mostly noise-making devices. If you like electrical engineering and new a new project, watch this video to learn how to make a phase-shift oscillator out of a single transistor, resistors, and capacitors.

Do you like the analog look of old handheld video games like Mr. Game and Watch or clock with 7 segment displays? It's pretty easy to simulate them nowadays by making an electroluminescent display on printed circuitboards with EL ink. You'll learn how to do just that in this video. It almost looks like Lite Brite.

For most synth players the goal is to acquire legendary pieces of 1980's gear with great amounts of money or luck. Why bother when you can make your own direct digital synthesizer (DDS) at home? Watch this video to learn how to make a DDS out of common electrical parts that will make a phat Theramin sound.

Now this is a DIY microphone. It turns out all you need to make a quasi-functional mic is a pair of razor blades, a pencil, some tupperware, and clips to run the signal from the razor blades to a resistor. Watch this video to learn how to make this awesome DIY mic and never find yourself silenced again.

Electrical engineering is a math-heavy business, and you're certainly not alone if you're studying it and having trouble with the math. Watch this video for a very cogent explanation of a simplified method for calculating resistor dividers in a circuit.

Watch this amazing USB Bluetooth adapter hack from Kipkay. It's easy and effective, plus it will work with other wireless devices, too. Bluetooth works on a 2.4GHz short wavelength radio frequency, but it's only effective over short distances. Well, Kipkay's going to show you how to increase the range by swapping out the antenna in the bluetooth adapter with a HyperGain 2.4GHz high performance antenna.

Now that most computers have internal webcams in them, what are you going to do with that external webcam eating up precious desktop space? Kipkay shows you the perfect hack— the "Super SpyScope".

Electroluminescent devices need electricity to light up, clearly, so if you're working on an EL project building a proper power supply is crucial. In this video you'll learn how to make a DIY power supply for your EL projects that is safe, effective, and cheap.

EL wire is known as the Currency of Burning Man, and it's potential to create beautiful light in all sorts of settings is amazing. If you're tired of buying it and want to stock up on some DIY EL wire (which is more in the spirit of Burning Man anyway right?) watch this video to learn how to twist enamel and bare wire together to make your EL wire.

Electroluminescent (EL) materials light up when electricity passes through them, as opposed to more common incandescent lights that respond to heat. EL displays are becoming very popular in advertising and art,but getting them or the materials to make them can be expensive. Watch this video to learn how to turn an LCD into a simple EL display, and also how superglue can be used as a cheap dielectric in this sort of project.

Jonathan Guberman of Site 3 coLaboratory hackerspace in Toronto has created an Arduino-controlled mechanical typewriter that can type on its own, detect what is being typed on it, and run text-based interactive fiction games such as the classic (and to most, all but forgotten) Zork.

The ZURBLog cleverly demonstrates how to make 3D video in 3 easy steps, using two iPod Nanos, some rubber bands and a yardstick.

Now available for download in the official App Store, Skyfire is a mobile web browser that converts Flash video to iPhone-friendly HTML5 on the fly. Because Apple has heretofore not supported Flash video, that's kind of a big deal! In this iPhone owner's guide, we learn how to use and navigate the various features of functions of the Skyfire smart browser. For all of the details, and to get started watching Flash video clips on your own iPhone 4, 3G or 3GS, iPad, iPod Touch or other iOS device,...

In this tutorial, we learn how to solder a 0603 LED. First you will get a business card or card with a piece of masking tap. Then, place our LED on the masking tape and apply posts to it. From here, you will apply some solder to the LED as well. Make sure you apply enough pressure to the LED so it will not pop up. Use just small touch of solder and put it on the top of the iron. Touch both sides of the contact and you will have enough solder on the LED. This will finished your soldering, just...

In this tutorial, we learn how to solder for cheap. Start out by forming the wire to get it ready to solder. The trick here is to create some tension between the two ends, do this by going back and forth hitting the wires. Now, grab a torch and start to flex the wire while holding it in front of the open flame. After this, grab some of the flux you keep in a bottle and apply it to the piece. Continue to apply heat to the wire until it turns cherry red, then apply the solder with the connection....

Looking to put the finishing touches on that Haunted House? You, my friend, require the Ultimate Fog Chiller. In this clip from the folks at MAKE, you'll learn how to build one you can call your own in about an hour's time. For detailed, step-by-step instructions, and to get started building your own spooky fog machine, watch this video guide.

Instructables member mark-mark creates a beautiful effect with just a tin can lantern and an LED. It's as simple as it sounds: punch a decorative pattern into a tin can and insert your LED rig. Catch the impressive result here.

If your audio discs aren't playing anymore or constantly skip, then your problem might be scratches. Not just the bottom layer matters on an audio CD. The top layer can scratch just as easily and cause just as many problems. That's why it should be protected, and this video shows you a great hack for protecting your music compact discs. You just need to add an extra thin cover to the top of your CD, which comes from a trashed CD or DVD, for which you need to boil to remove the thin plastic...

Another media player bites the dust.  First, we saw the extinction of the phonograph and gramophone.  Then came the fall of eight-track tapes.  Even modern record players became more and more obsolete, with DJs switching over to the world of digital music.  And today— the end of cassette players!  What's next?  Compact discs?