Hot Hacks, Mods & Circuitry Posts


How To: Turn your webcam into a magnifier
Hack your webcam into a magnifier by adjusting the focus lens Turn your webcam into a magnifier.

How To: Make a clock projector
Time flies. Particularly when it's projected. The magical box in this how-to uses light and mirrors to project the image of a working clock face on any wall. To build your own working clock projector, you'll need the following materials: a mirror, a jeweler's loupe, a clock and a flashlight. For detailed, step-by-step instructions on the assembly process, and to get started on this Daliesque hack yourself, take a look!

How To: Hack a coin operated laundry machine
Man, it's laundry day and once again you have NO quarters. Well, check out this video and you'll never need quarters again. This how-to shows how to pick the lock on a coin operated laundry machine and then rig it up so you'll never need to pay again. Sweeeet.

How To: 10 Unique & Practical Ways to Repurpose Your Old Hard Disk Drives
At one point in the '90s, about fifty percent of the CDs produced worldwide had an AOL logo. About fifty percent of the CDs in my home still have that AOL promise of 500 free hours on them. Though they never got me to join their internet service, I did get a lifetime supply of coasters. Thanks to the rise of high-speed internet access and bigger and better hard drives, there's no reason for companies to snail mail any more of those obnoxious plastic discs.

How To: Eavesdrop from a Distance with This DIY Parabolic "Spy" Microphone
Want to find out if your neighbors are talking about you? You could always hack their webcam or turn your iPhone into a secret spy camera, but unless you have a key to their house, that could be tricky to do without getting caught.

How To: Extract an RFID chip from a card & make it wearable
Here's how to remove the RFID chip and antenna from a London Oyster travelcard. You can then put it in anything you want. You need a jar and acetone.

How To: Trigger traffic lights to change from red to green
This instructional video shows how change traffic lights from red to green, using science, and without actually having to know anything about magnetic fields or properties! Save gas, time, and frustration in your car and during your commute! Works great! See the test results! Yay for Kipkay! The trick in this video hacking tutorial will teach you how to get green lights on your bike or motorcycle that is too small or light to trigger the traffic light.

How To: Hack a satellite dish into a WiFi signal booster
There are many ways to recycle a satellite dish and this is one of them. In this video tutorial, you'll learn how to hack an old satellite dish into a biquad WiFi antenna. For detailed, step-by-step instructions on building your own audio signal booster, take a look!

How To: Use a breadboard, also known as a protoboard
This two-part video introduces you to the breadboard, also called a protoboard, used to build electronic circuits without soldering. The first part of this presentation describes the features of a breadboard.

How To: Build a low cost portable hamstick antenna
If you're looking for a low cost solution for a portable hamstick antenna pole for your ham radio, then check out this video.

How To: Make a DIY vehicle immobilizer to stop car thieves
We all know the G-spot as that sensitive area that drives women crazy, but for auto enthusiasts, it has a whole new meaning. The G-Spot, designed by Daniel Davies, is a vehicle immobilizer, which keeps your vehicles safe from car thieves. And you don't need to pay a huge amount of money to get one, either! You can make on yourself, right at home, provided you have all the right materials.

How To: Build a firewall from a junk PC to protect networks
Systm is the Do-It-Yourself show designed for the common geek who wants to quickly and easily learn how to dive into the latest and hottest tech projects. They will help you avoid pitfalls and get your project up and running fast. In this DIY episode, see how to build a firewall from a junk PC to protect networks.

How To: Eavesdrop on a Bluetooth headset
Few Bluetooth users realize that Bluetooth headsets can be hacked or otherwise exploited to a remote attacker the ability to record and inject audio through the headset while the device is not in an active call. SANS Institute author and senior instructor Joshua Wright demonstrates, and explains, the security vulnerability in this how-to. For more information, including step-by-step instructions on how you can replicate this hack yourself, take a look.

How To: Hack a 20-Year-Old "Brick" Phone into a Digital Cell You Can Text On
The cell phone has come a long way. The very first "mobile devices" were made and used by the military in the late 1930s, with the first commercial mobile telephone service introduced by Bell in 1946. These devices were hardly what we'd call mobile today—some took up the whole trunk of a car, and others had to be carried on your back in a heavy bag.

How To: Hack a Vending Machine in 3 Easy Steps
How to get a vending machine to pay you for its goodies, instead of you paying for them. First off, find a older vending machine, and insert your dollar bill as you normally would. Once you have entered it, you can select which ever item you want. Then quickly, before the item dispenses, hold up on the gate to prevent the item from falling. When it falls, it should rest on the back of the gate you're holding up—don't let go yet. After a long wait, the vending machine will think nothing dispen...

How To: Make a Secret Car Compartment
Nowadays, protecting your valuables can be challenging especially when you're on the go. That's why I decided to make a little secret compartment inside my car. Only you'll know it's there because nobody will be able to find it. Not only that, but you'll have easy access to it. It's fairly cheap and the total cost was under $5.00. Let me show you how to make it. You can watch the video or scroll down below for the written guide.

How To: Make a Spot Welder for Cheap!
A typical resistance spot welder can range in price from about $200-$800, but with a little resourcefulness and a bit of free time, you can make one like this for about $10 or less.

How To: Build Your Own Kinect-Like 3D Tracking Interface with Cardboard, Foil, and Arduino
Back in 2008, media artist Kyle McDonald created a 3D interface that could track movement, which he turned into a virtual Tic-tac-toe game.

How To: Block RFID Signals, Build an RFID Reader Detector, and Make Custom RFID Tags
RFID chips are everywhere. They're in passports, credit cards, and tons of items you've bought in the last 5 years or so. Big retailers like Walmart started using tracking products with RFID as early as 2004, and today, they're used in everything from mobile payments to hospital record systems. Chances are, unless you're a hermit (in which case you wouldn't be reading this anyway), there's an RFID tag within a few feet of you. Photo by sridgway

How To: Make cheap WiFi antenna booster
Patrick Norton Shows you how to make a simple WiFi antenna booster. This booster is a parabolic reflector made to focus a signal so it is stronger and can project farther. This is perfect if your wireless router is awkward and cannot broadcast a wifi signal to the far reaches of your home. This is called the windsurfer.

How To: Make an Infrared Mask to Hide Your Face from Cameras
This how-to video shows how you can hack a standard baseball cap into a cool invisible IR mask to hide your face from cameras anywhere, and look perfectly normal to the human eye! You have to admire a technically accomplished hacker. Now don't go out a rob a bank or anything. Watch this video tutorial and learn how to camera-proof your face with a creepy infrared mask.

How To: Repair or Replace Your Broken Headphone Jacks
If you haven't met a person that's broken a pair of headphones, you might need to get out more. No matter how expensive or cheap a pair of headphones are, the sound can get buggy, the wire can get cut, or the headphone jack itself can be broken or ripped off the cord. But instead of buying a new set of headphones or borrowing the ones from your cousin with the earwax problem, you can easily fix it yourself.

How To: Mod Your Old iPod 30-Pin Dock into a Bluetooth Speaker for Your iPhone 5
If you bought the new iPhone 5, you've probably been less than thrilled with the lack of cases and accessories that you can use it with. Docks are no exception—users were disappointed to learn that Apple has no plans to even make one for the newest addition to the Apple family.

How To: Make an infrared heart sensor
This video shows how to create an infrared heart sensor using an Arduino controller, a couple of resistors, and an infrared light emitter and detector. This device will be used on the subject's finger, detecting the amount of blood which is flowing through the subject's finger. The amount of oxygenation of the blood is shown in the finger, which will cause the infrared light to reflect off the skin and to the transmitter which is close by. The fluctuations of oxygenation are picked up by the ...

How To: Hack into live, public security cameras and web cams
In this Electronics video tutorial you will learn how to hack into live, public security cameras and web cams using Google without the owner even knowing this is happening. The video claims that there is nothing illegal about this. Type ‘inurl:/view/index.shtml’ in to Google search bar. IP addresses starting with numbers are those of cams. So, click those. You may need to install ‘active X’. Go ahead and install it. Click on any cam IP and you can view the picture in that cam. You can...

How To: Solder with a lighter
This video teaches how to solder two wires using a lighter in simple steps. First strip together two ends of a wire by removing their outer cover. Now take a lighter and start heating the wire ends. Heat the wires till it starts melting. When its starting to melt use another thin wire or rod and rub the wires so that the wires sticks tightly. Finish when the wires are soldered perfectly.

News: Make your face paparazzi-invisible with infrared
Need to be undercover? Well, make yourself impossible to photograph. Get some infrared LEDs. They're undetectable to the human eye, but that's not the case with cameras. Wire them to the brim of your hat and you've got instant invisibility to any camera -- paparazzi, Big Brother or otherwise.

How To: Light a light bulb with a potato battery
Following on from Edison's first lightblub moment back in 1879, the OU's Stephen Serjeant experiments with an alternative power source - the humble potato. Create a potato batter with a couple of screws and a light bulb.

How To: Hack a dead laptop battery
Is your laptop not holding a charge anymore? Don't buy a new one, hack the old one! Laptop batteries can cost upwards of a hundred dollars, but with new lithium batteries and some soldering tools, the new one works just as well. Watch this video computer circuitry tutorial and learn how to hack a dead laptop battery.

How To: Hack a WiFi USB Adapter for Better Reception
This video tutorial demonstrates a simple hack for improving the WiFi reception of a USB adapter. To replicate this hack yourself, you'll need the following materials: (1) a WiFi USB adapter, (2) a USB extension cable, (3) a metal strainer, and (4) a pair of scissors. For detailed, step-by-step instructions on improving your WiFi adapter's signal levels, watch this how-to video.

How To: Program a Wiimote speaker with GlovePie
You can connect your Nintendo Wii Wiimote to your PC using GlovePie input emulation software and a bluetooth connection. Learn how you can program GlovePie scripts that will emit sounds from the Wiimote's built in speaker.

How To: Build a laser microphone
Listen to conversations over long distances with a homemade laser listening device. All you'll need is a laser pointer, tripod, old pair of headphones, photocell, a recording device, and the step-by-step instructions in this how-to video. The creator of this video tutorial does not mention the need for sophisticated software. But the principle is quite sound. If you can figure it out, you can eavesdrop and spy on whoever.

How To: Turn a Hard Drive into a Desktop LED Penholder & Hidden Drive
This is a illuminated pen holder that I made out of a couple recycled hard drives. The LEDs receive power from the standard USB cable connected to a computer. The stand for the penholder is taken from a clip light, and the penholder itself is made from 3 hard disk drive platters. Also, I hid a small 4GB flash drive inside the base hard drive for some hidden storage.

How To: Make a Super Secret Batman-Style Bust Switch for Your Batcave (Or Just Your Lights)
Remember the 1960's American television series Batman, with Adam West as Bruce Wayne? It was waaaaay before my time. The caped crusader that I'm more familiar with is actually this one... When I first heard of Adam West, it was him doing the Batusi on The Simpsons. I had no idea what was going on, so I looked up Adam West and his sensual dance and found myself face to face with the 1960's Batman.

How To: It's Raining Sweets and Treats! How to Make Your Own Pneumatic Candy Cannon
In this project, you'll learn how to re-purpose low-cost sprinkler parts into a high-powered CANDY CANNON. Be the coolest person on the block by building a pneumatic device that will launch candy 100 feet in the air—you can make it rain down all kinds of sugary treats!!!

How To: Increase the range of a remote control
Kipkay shows you how to increase the range of your remote control for your television. You use electrical tape to make sure that the leads do not come into contact with the reflector.

Hack the News: Build Your Own Media-Altering Newstweek Device
At first, it seemed like a clever art installation housed on the web, but now we're not so sure... the Newstweek hack may indeed be legit.

How To: Build a PWN circuit to control power that can dim an LED, control a motor etc.
Many types of circuits are useless and less useful if you cannot control the amount of power going through them. For that, you need a PWN (pulse with modulation) switch. This electronic component will let your control the power going through the circuit, enabling you to dim LED lights, control the speed of a motor, and other useful tasks. This video will teach you all PWN switches and how tom make your own.

How To: Hack a local wifi internet connection with your PSP
Play remotely with all your friends, stream videos and music from the Internet or even check your Facebook and email - all with your PSP. The PSP has Internet capability, but not every network will be available to you at all times. Here is how you can hack any wifi connection with your PSP.

How To: Hack Christmas Lights for Custom Holiday Lighting Patterns
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.