Hacks, Mods & Circuitry Features
How To: Prank your friends by scaring them in the middle of the night
This is a very easy tutorial - all you need is a chosen sound effect file (like a creepy growling animal or a person screaming) and a sneaky sound system. Play it during the middle of the night and freak out your friends.
How To: This DIY Umbrella Stand Alerts You of Rainy Weather Before You Walk Out the Door
Whether it's forgetting your driver's license or misplacing your cell phone, forgetting things at home can be a pain in the butt. Car keys, wallet, purse, papers, sunglasses—the list can go on. Sometimes I even surprise myself at the important things I forget... Oops.
How To: Learn about the tools and components used in basic electronics
Electronics are the most important new thing people have created in the last hundred years, and learning how to use them will make you much more able to function in modern society. If you want to learn about electronics without going to a class or anything so formal, this excellent video series will teach you everything you need to know to get started. This video, the first in the series, will teach you about the basic tools and components you'll need to work on electronics projects, includin...
How To: Create a cool CD clock out of an old two buck alarm
This will show you how to hack an old two dollar alarm clock and transform it into a cool DVD clock! No, it doesn't play DVD's or CD's, but it still looks cool.
How To: Make a Dandelion Lamp Using LEDs, Optical Fibers, and Straws
Albert Einstein once said, "We know less than one thousandth of one percent of what nature has to reveal to us."
How To: Build a microphone to electrify and amplify anything
This instructional video shows how to make a cheap contact microphone. These mikes pick up subtle sounds, and are so cheap that if they get smashed in a musical melee, it's no big deal. This video demonstrates the amplification of a dryer, a teapot, and a stockpot with water in it. You will need a buzzer, a jack, an amplifier, and tape. Watch this video tutorial and learn how to build a mike that will electrify and amplify anything. Drone on!
How To: Make your own USB frying pan
Ever wanted to cook things on the go? Well, with this homemade USB frying pan, you can easily cook eggs for breakfast right next to your laptop, powered by your laptop.
How To: Make a Light Bulb with Dancing LEDs Inside
This is about dancing LEDs following the rhythm of music or speech picked-up by a small microphone. The projects is very cool, and for building it, you will need a light bulb,10 LEDs, project box, electronic board with IC CD4017 and LM358 and power adapter.
How To: Make a cosmic nightlight with LEDs and resin
See how to make a cosmic nightlight with LEDs and resin with KipKay and MAKE Magazine! Find out how to make a glittering LED constellation jammed in resin!! Kipkay loves his gadgets! This is perfect for moody, cosmic, night light for the nightstand. This is a two-part video tutorial.
How To: Glitch a Speak & Spell without circuit bending
Don't know a soldering iron from a curling iron? In this how-to, you'll learn how to get good, glitchy Speak & Spell sounds without having to circuit bend your toy (or even open up the case).
How To: Make a laser pen from a DVD burner
In this Electronics video tutorial you will learn how to make a laser pen from a DVD burner. Take a DVD burner, remove all the screws from the bottom panel and remove the panel. Then remove the rest of the body cover as shown in the video. After this the laser will be revealed. Now remove all the screws around the wires and lift up the laser assembly. Undo all the screws on the laser assembly and remove the unit containing the laser diode. Now cut around the unit with a hack saw to get the di...
How To: Install trailer lights
This video demonstrates how to install trailer lights on your boat's trailer. In order to determine what size replacement kit you will need, you must figure out the width of the trailier at the widest point. First, remove the old lights. Use a large slotted screwdriver to remove the cover. Don't forget to wear eye protection. Next, use vice grips and a wrench to remove the exposed stud. Using a wire brush, remove the salt and loose corrossion. Then grease the threads of the studs. You are now...
How To: Hack Starbucks internet, build a smoke bomb
Need internet access and you don't have a login? Hack into a private or controlled network with this tutorial. Thefixed.org also shows you how to build a smoke bomb!
News: Create perpetual energy - almost
Is perpetual energy possible? The debate rages on. And they just keep trying.
How To: Make a talking booby trap
Having trouble with people snatching your stuff? Did someone take your lunch from the company fridge? Here is an inexpensive, sneaky gizmo you can make to keep those sticky fingers away. This is a junk drawer hack from Make Magazine's Kipkay. It's activated when an item is moved from it, triggering a clothes pin to close and activate the voice command. See how to make a talking booby track in this video tutorial with KipKay!
How To: Make a Potato Battery
Learn how to make a battery using potatoes! Fun for the whole family!
News: Analog Video Cam + Thermal Printer = Slowest Instant Camera Ever
Sometimes an "analog" result is highly satisfying when the means for producing it is just the opposite. Enter Niklas Roy's "Electronic Instant Camera" project. The endeavor combines an analog black and white videocamera with a thermal receipt printer. The outcome is something in between a Polaroid camera and a digital camera. Like the olden days, the subject must sit still for a quite a while—3 full minutes—as their image is recorded and printed directly on a roll of receipt paper.
How To: Turn a 9-volt battery into a small safe
Hide your money, small candies or other tiny items you want to keep hidden! Pry off the top of the battery, take out the innards and then rebuild the casing to re-camoflauge the battery. Then you're ready to hide your goodies!
How To: Play computer games on your PC with a PS3 controller
Here's a quick tutorial on how to set up a connection which will let your computer talk to a PS3 controller, so you can use it as an input device to play games on! All you need is to download the software and then update the driver!
News: Hack together a DIY cotton candy machine
This ultra clever mod of household junk makes for an ingenious variation on the carnival classic.
How To: Make a printed circuit board
See how to make a PCB from a schematic in this ten minute video.
How To: Pull a "Virus of Doom" prank
In this video, we learn how to pull a "virus of doom" prank. once you have this downloaded, you can place the program into your start menu. Then, when someone else clicks on it they will get a large skull on the computer. It will say that the hard drive is formatting and the hard drive has been erased completely. You can download this link at http://householdhacker.com/content.php/130-Virus-of-Doom-Prank-Download. Once you download it, you will see what the icon looks like, then place it on y...
How To: Make a coin battery
Sure you could take $2.50 and just buy some batteries, but how much fun would that be? Watch this video to learn how to make a coin battery.
News: These Guys Hacked Together a Raspberry Pi & Car Steering Wheel to Play Mario Kart
Oh, Mario. The guy that's been a part of our lives since as long as we can all remember. Well, Adam Ringwood and his friends did something pretty cool with one of Mario's most exciting games at the HackIllinois event in February 2016—they hacked a Chevrolet Volt's steering wheel into one big Nintendo 64 controller for Mario Kart.
HowTo: Shrink Your Nintendo 64 into Mini Handheld Portable
Modder Bacteria presents his iNto64, a mini portable handheld of the classic Nintendo console. The iNto64 features:
News: Hacked Wristwatch Connects to Facebook
Too lazy to take your phone out of your pocket? If so, then here's a must-have: a customizable inPulse wristwatch that can check into Facebook Places. Created by inPulse designer Eric Migicovsky, the hacked watch uses Bluetooth to pull Facebook Places from a connected Android smartphone. The app sends real time latitude and longitude stats from the smartphone's GPS to Facebook, which then transmits nearby places to the watch, navigable by a one button interface.
News: Wearable Electronic Displays Coming to Your T-Shirt Soon
E Ink technology is nothing short of amazing. It recently contributed to the world's first bend-sensitive flexible smartphone, and now it's capable of something even cooler, not to mention astonishingly simpler—flashing digital displays on cloth.
How To: Use a transistor or N channel MOSFET to turn any device on or off
The transistor is the most basic and important part of electronics, allowing small changes in voltage to turn things on and off. On, off. 0, 1. There's electronics. The grandaddy of them all is the N channel MOSFET, the most important transistor. This video will teach you how the MOSFET works and how to build some example circuits. This video is an absolute must-watch if you are interested in electronics at all.
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 Clothespin Gun
Today we show you how to make a very cool clothespin gun. Making this gun is So Easy a Guy Could Do It!
How To: Make Music with Floppy Drives & LabVIEW
Video: . Project Overview
How To: Make a wi-fi booster
How to make a wi-fi booster.
News: How to Catch All the Fish?
Everyone who loves fishing, knows the feeling when you miss a fish that is already nibbling on your bait. This can however be prevented by using a bite indicator. The following video will help you to build a custom bite indicator that catches all the fish!
News: This Simple LEGO and Popsicle Stick Robot Can Solve a Rubik's Cube in 100 Moves or Less
Robotic Rubik's Cube solvers are nothing new. We've seen ones that are run on Android, made of LEGO Mindstorms, and faster than the world record holder. The most recent Rubik's Cube robot making the news was made by high school student James Watson as a school project, but it's ended up getting a lot more attention than that.
How To: Repair plated through hole printed circuit boards
In this soldering tip video brought to you by BEST, Inc. Bob Wettermann demonstrates the repair of plated through-hole printed circuit boards.
How To: Make a mellotron
Rocketboom Field Correspondent Bre Pettis on how to make a mellotron. You might remember this organ-like, polyphonic keyboard from the Beatles song "Strawberry Fields Forever." With a Walkman tape players, a keyboard, and a speaker, you can create your own musical instrument. Watch this video tutorial and learn how to make a modified mellotron musical instrument.
How To: Make a Jacob's Ladder illusion cassette tape toy
Watch this video to learn how to hack together your own Jacob's Ladder optical illusion cassette tape toy.
How To: Make a digital picture frame from a Dell laptop
This is a laptop disassembly of a Dell Inspirion 7000, for the making of a digital picture frame. Watch this three-part video to make you the coolest kid on the block. See the disassembly in part one, the LCD retainer in part two, and the system board back panel in part three.
News: Making a Low Cost wall.e Robot
make robots WALL.E with low cost. using materials from scrap Video: .
How To: Make a shake microphone out of a flashlight
Watch as Kipkay from MAKE Magazine shows you how to make something really cool for a shake microphone, with parts from RadioShack. You'll be transforming a simple shake flashlight into a so-called shake microphone. The fun won't stop when you hear your shaky voice out loud.