Mods

How-To:  Dye Your MacBook

How-To: Dye Your MacBook

This guy dyed the major case parts of his factory-white MacBook bright orange using Rit fabric dye (and swapped out some other bits with a factory-black model) to create this cool custom color scheme. This method is known in the modding community, but “The Brain” has improved on its speed and consistency for glossy parts […]

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Boombox in a Toolbox

Boombox in a Toolbox

Chances are, if you’ve got something with sufficient volume and a rigid body, you can probably put a speaker in it. With a little trial and error you can come up with a unique speaker enclosure that will be both pleasing to the eye and appealing to the ear.

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Tool Review: Mnpctech Modder Ruler

Tool Review: Mnpctech Modder Ruler

Our Toolsday guest contributor this week is Stuart Deutsch, whose review of C.H. Hanson’s self-adjusting locking pliers appeared in MAKE Vol 29. Stuart writes regularly about tools and the tool business over at ToolGuyd. Look for more of his work, both online and in print, in the near future. Welcome, Stuart! – Ed. Mnpctech’s PC […]

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iPhone Game Controller Mod

iPhone Game Controller Mod

Master modder Ben Heck is at it again. This time around he’s created a hand-held game controller for the iPhone using the guts from an Ion iCade iPad game controller and some laser-cut parts. As ever, Ben pulls off a slick portable mod suitable for the store shelves.

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Quick and Dirty Lav Mic from iPhone Headset

Quick and Dirty Lav Mic from iPhone Headset

In a pinch, you can clip the earbuds off an iPhone headset to get a quick and dirty lav mic. Add a safety pin with a little hot glue and camouflage it with a smattering of sharpie and you’re good to go. If you’re curious about the quality of the audio produced with such a setup, check out the above video from maker Levi Allen, where he runs through a build while capturing the audio with his iPhone. It won’t win any awards, however it’ll get the job done.

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iPad Controlled RC Car

iPad Controlled RC Car

Wannes Vermeulen created an iPad app to control a modded RC car, complete with a remote point-of-view camera: I used two servo motors attached to the original remote control of the car to adjust speed and steering. These are controlled by an Arduino Uno, which gets the accelerometer data from the iPad through a socket server on my laptop. I also fitted my old Android smartphone to the car, which uses an IPCam app to stream the video to the iPad. The “camera”, the iPad and the laptop are connected to the same Wi-Fi network to share their data.

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