Month: January 2006

HOW TO – Make a glowing keyboard

HOW TO – Make a glowing keyboard

Glow KeyboardChris writes – “This is my (our) first modification. We got the inspiration from Arkku on flickr. We did ours a bit differently, he used 1 LED, we used 2. The process is the same for each. Since there are only 5 volts to work with, both versions require the circuit to be built in parallel. I just have one more parallel circuit in my mod. There are two options for this mod. One involves removing the circuit board, the other leaves it in and splices the connecting wire. The choice is yours.” Link.

Bling Your Own Sidekick

Bling Your Own Sidekick

Sidekickbling
MAKE friend Beth Goza decorated her Sidekick II in style. All you need is a design and some colorful packs of sticky bling from Best Buy. What’s great is that you get to control how much “bling” goes on as well as the design and style. Beth’s design here integrates seamlessly into her gadget. Here’s a tip from Beth, “Side by side placement is generally not a good idea. The rows should fit into each other, in other words, the second row of sequins will be placed with each sequin sitting in between the two sequins above.” Thanks Beth! Link.

A PC solderless power supply for experimenters

A PC solderless power supply for experimenters

ElectDavid writes “This is a PC Case mod that installs four binding posts that are linked to the PC’s power supply into an empty drive bay so that you can use it as a bench 5V or 12V power supply……..especially useful if you’re messing around with PIC programming, etc.” This is an excellent mod, this could make a great accessory for Maker types too if it were to go in production (or just make one with this how to). Link.

The Ascent – A Wooden Clock Kit

The Ascent – A Wooden Clock Kit

90682693 Dfa1Bf5167 MKrazydad writes – “I decided a few weeks ago to build a wooden gear clock because I wanted to understand the clock mechanism better. There are a number of websites that offer plans for wooden gear clocks, but as someone with absolutely no woodworkng experience (band practice generally interferes with taking shop class), and no tools, I needed something that was ready to build. I found three sites that offer such kits…” Here’s a review of the Ascent Wooden Gear Clock kit. Link.

Make a mini wireless antenna for laptops…

Make a mini wireless antenna for laptops…

Penwireless.gumph.org has a how to on making a small WiFi antenna – “A small antenna to boost the signal of a laptop wireless card, that can be stuck to the back of the laptop screen. The design is the same as for the larger homemade antenna, but uses thin RG58 cable and is only 2 sectors long. The size was chosen so it could be housed inside the tube of an old pen, to provide rigidity and protection to the antenna.” Thanks Star! Link.