Hacks, Mods & Circuitry Features
How To: Make a camera spotlight for cheap with a head lamp
This is a cheap little hack from a $5 discount store headlamp. Check it out. Quick and easy. You need a bolt to secure to your camera. This is great if you are shooting long shots and need different brightnesses. Otherwise kind of ghetto.
How To: Wire up a 555 timer chip with a pulsing buzzer
See how to make a 555 timer chip with a pulsing buzzer. Parts:
How To: Make the ultimate LED glowsticks in any color you want
This is an easy and fun project that will add a little light to any night time celebration. Take a few LEDs in any color you want, some basic electronics gear and a hot glue gun. This will be more vibrant than any glowstick you can find in the store, and will last much longer
How To: Make your own backlit keyboard with electroluminescent wire
In this clip, you'll learn how to convert a standard USB keyboard into a backlit keyboard with a little bit of el wire. It's an easy process and this video presents a complete guide. For more information, including a full demonstration and detailed, step-by-step instructions, watch this helpful home-computing how-to.
How To: Make a soap mouse for wireless tracking
Tires of those wire two button mouses, or even the wireless clickers? Well, come no further, the soapmouse is here. What in the hell is a soapmouse? Well, just watch and learn, and make one yourself.
How To: Build a hovercraft
Check out this Mad Science Experiment with Jason Young and Sean McMains on how to build a hovercraft and send unsuspecting children hurtling down the street on it. To make this cheap and amazing hovercraft, you'll need some wood, plastic sheeting and a leaf blower. This makes a great weekend project for the whole family to enjoy.
How To: Make a USB flashlight
Use a few simple household items to make a flashlight powered by you computer through the USB port.
How To: Make a battery from lemons
A dad and his two boys show you how to make a battery from lemons as a tribute to Mr Wizard. This is a kid-safe project and a great way to learn about electricity and science.
How To: Circuit bend a toy guitar
Learn how to bend circuits, disassemble toy cases, unscrew circuit boards and test a circuit bend in this free video series that will help you understand how and when to utilize this unique way of making music.
News: Self-Electroshocking as Art, Live
Daito Manabe is awesome. Last we heard of him, he was setting up Japanese school girls with glow-in-the-dark grills. Before that, he was playing himself like a human drum kit. And before that, he was just plain old electroshocking himself. In his most recent appearance, he takes his electro-pulsed facial twitches to the stage, with fellow artist Ei Wada, before an audience at Berlin’s Transmediale Festival.
How To: Create a double pendulum out of polycarbonate plastic and skateboard bearings
While single pendulums can seem orderly, a double pendulum can be extremely chaotic. This tutorial shows you how to build your own double pendulum out of polycarbonate plastic, skateboard bearings and a few various pieces of hardware. Then follow the tutorial to get your own crazy chaotic double pendulum.
How To: Make a fire with batteries and a headphone
Take a look at this instructional video and learn how to make a light a toothpick on fire with just a few household items. The materials you will need for this process are a roll of tape, two AA batteries, any kind of headphone jack, and any type of aerosol spray. To start this process, you'll want to ducttape the headphone jack and tape it to a batter from the negative end. Take the other battery and tape the positive end to the headphone jack. Afterwards, take you toothpick and spray the en...
How To: Make sounds with circuit bending
Circuit bending is when you take an old sound producing machine and change the circuitry to make new sounds. Make Magazine's Bre Pettis and circuit bending expert Justin Gerardy discuss the various tips and tricks of circuit bending.
News: Holy Pac-Man! DIY Light Painting Saber Is Pure Awesome
A few months ago, we showed you a pretty awesome light painting project that visually captured invisible Wi-Fi signals around town using a Wi-Fi detecting rod filled with 80 LEDs. With some long exposure photography, the results were pretty amazing. This project was inspired by those crazy Norwegians, but this build lets you do something even more amazing—capture pictures of colorful written text and drawn images, frozen in midair.
How To: Hungry for a Light Snack? Try Making These Gummy LEDs (aka Nerd Candy)
LEDs have slowly become the standard for DIY lighting projects because they consume less power and last way longer than regular light bulbs do. Light-emitting diodes have no filament, meaning they generate their light solely by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material.
How To: Make an almost free multitouch pad
A simple multitouch pad made from a plastic bag, some dyed water, and a camera.
News: Electrical Shock Could Make You a Better Musician by Possessing Your Hand
Looking to be the world's best violinist or fastest banjo player? If you didn't start practicing when you were a kid, learning a new stringed instrument is extremely challenging. But an upcoming device may change all of that, if you don't mind being shocked by 28 different electrodes.
HowTo: Make 3D Video With Two iPod Nanos
The ZURBLog cleverly demonstrates how to make 3D video in 3 easy steps, using two iPod Nanos, some rubber bands and a yardstick.
How To: Make a wind powered LED pinwheel
This is a video tutorial that explains how to make a wind powered LED out of a pinwheel and an old VCR. Why have just a pinwheel when you can have an LED pinwheel?
News: Control a Video Game by Swapping Spit
Once there was Spin the Bottle. Then there was the embarrassing adult version of Spin the Bottle—on Wii. And then there was artist Hye Yeon Nam, who decided to skip all pretenses and go straight for the spit-swapping, no foreplay necessary. Hye Yeon Nam devised a method for controlling a bowling video game by French kissing. It works like this: "One person has a magnet on his/her tongue and the other person wears the headset. While they kiss, the person who has the magnet on his/her tongue, c...
News: The Lazy Man's Beer Machine (Catapult Into Mouth, Please)
Purdue mechanical engineering undergrad Ross Wehner built a gadget Homer Simpson would envy- a working, arduino-powered beer catapult fridge.
How To: Pull a noisy car ignition SpongeBob toy prank
If you just happen to have one of those SpongeBob SquarePants chatterbox toys that were distributed at fast food restaurants a while back, then you just might be able to pull of this "Evil SpongeBob Toy Prank" from mastermind Kipkay.
How To: Solder for beginners
This video is for beginning solderers taught by Make Magazine's Bre Pettis. Soldering is a necessary skill for anyone wanting to get into DIY electronics, and this video teaches you all the tips and tricks soldering and desoldering.
How To: Put your magnets to use around the house
Magnetism is one of the most incredible forces in the world. Did you know you can use magnets to get more out of a number of household appliances- from screwdrivers to electric toothbrushes? They're also great fun, so check out this video to learn how to make magnets work for you!
News: Creepy Theremin Utensils Howl the Pain of Slaughtered Ghost Chickens
One of the creepiest musical instruments ever is undoubtedly the theremin, a device originating from the early 20s that emits eerie sounds with a just a wave of the hand. If you've seen the original movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, you know what I mean—freakishly creepy. Playing the theremin can be off-putting for some, since it's a relatively pricy gizmo, but a new geek gadget called the EaTheremin aims to make all of us professional, dinnertime theremists.
How To: Build an electric recumbent bicycle
Sit back and ride as G Word correspondent David Newsom finds out the benefits of an electric bicycle. Watch and see how to convert a conventional bike to a battery-powered riding machine.
How To: Solder a resistor to an LED
A basic instruction for electronic enthusiasts. I use an RGB LED and a 510 ohm resistor as I may change from 6 to 9 volts later, but with my LEDs i could go as low as 330 ohms. I sacrifice some brightness for the sake of longer life. To choose your resistor, the value in ohms = voltage of your batteries or power supply / (as in divided by) the amperage that your LED needs to run.
How To: Convert a high power supply with an adapter supply
Hate those cheap multi-adapter power supplies that only provide up to 500ma of power? Here's how to use one high-output power supply (up to 3.5A in this case) to run all of your power hungry gadgets, like laptops, LCD monitors, etc...
HowTo: LED Your Sneakers for Safe Night Jogging
Jogging at night is risky, but with these LED sneakers, the odds of getting hit are drastically reduced. Creator Will Cruz wants you to be safe, so he has generously shared full instructions for making your own light up kicks. Previously, HowTo: Auto-Lace Your Kicks.
How To: Mod a Wii Hori fighting stick to work on the Xbox 360 using Sanwa parts
This great video series goes through the entire process, from unboxing the Wii Hori fighting stick, to taking it apart, wiring, adding buttons, and everything else that you'll need to finish the project and have it ready to go for play on your Xbox 360!
How To: Program a Wiimote using the GlovePie GUI
You can connect your Nintendo Wii Wiimote to your PC using GlovePie input emulation software and a bluetooth connection. Learn how to program the buttons and directional pad on your Wiimote using GlovePie's GUI interface.
How To: Pull five fantastic, funny, and facile pranks
What's better than one prank? Five pranks! This video from the notorious Kipkay provides five fantastic, funny, and facile pranks to pull off on your friends and family… maybe even your enemies.
How To: Wire an electrical plug in the United Kingdom
Here's how to remember what wires go where when wiring a plug in the United Kingdom. UK plugs have two or three wires going into them: brown, blue and yellow-green. L in the blue tells you it goes on the left. The R on the brown tells you it goes on the right. If there's a yellow-green one it's the ground or earth.
How To: Use Skype on your iPod Touch by modding the headphone jack
You can certainly use Skype to make free Internet phone calls through your iPod Touch, though the microphone/headphone combo headset sold by Apple is thirty dollars. Make one for a fraction of that cost using a headphone splitter and the mod process outlined in this video.
How To: Etch a printed circuit board with acid
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 etch a printed circuit board (PCB) with acid.
How To: Make a DIY phase-shift oscillator with a transistor, resistors and capacitors
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.
How To: Customize your computer by installing a case window
Watch this mod video to learn how to install your own window into your computer case or tower using simple tools and cast acrylic. Follow the easy steps to cut a basic shape or get creative and cut your own shape.
How To: Save electricity
This video is a lego man who talks about how to save electricity.
How To: Make a motion activated silly string shooter
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 make a motion activated silly string shooter.
How To: Untether a tethered jailbroken iPhone 4, iPod Touch or iPad
If your iPad, iPhone 4 or iPod Touch is already on a tethered jailbreak, this is the tutorial on the new Redsn0w release for all you experienced users. An untethered jailbreak is a type of jailbreak where the device does not require rebooting with a connection to an external jailbreak tool to power up the iDevice. Jailbreaking allows users to get root access to the command line of the operating system, to download otherwise unaccessible extensions and themes, or install non-Apple operating sy...