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Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks
Fullam takes the reader from the very basics of hardware hacking and quickly gets up to speed with some fun and interesting hacks. Projects start out easy and increase in complexity and cost as the book progresses. Hardware Hacking covers many popular hacks we've all seen before, such as the "Macquarium" (Mac Aquarium), a web-enabled coffee machine, and the Blinkenlights building-sized display.
The book is divided into two main parts, the first covering basic hacks, and the second covering more advanced hacks.
Part One:
Starting with the basics, Fullam takes the reader through a crash course in electronics, covering concepts like soldering, using a voltmeter, identifying various electronic components and reading schematics. This section of the book is by no means a replacement for a course in electrical engineering, but it is definitely a solid primer for those of us who weren't born with a soldering iron in our hands. If you've never played with electronics before and don't know the difference between a resistor and a capacitor, this section should get you up to speed fairly quickly.
After the brief basics lesson, the next chapter dives right in to the first project, which is a portable laptop power supply made with a pile of D-cell batteries, a battery holder and some wire. This project is very simple and requires no soldering at all, yet it gives the reader a quick and easy way to make something useful with very little investment in time or money.
Each of the projects is presented in a well-organized manner, starting out with a brief summary and some background information about where the hack originated. A list of necessary tools and materials is also given, followed by a project overview, outlining the major tasks required to get the project completed. Each project outline gives estimates for the cost range, time required and difficulty level for the hack.
After the introductory stuff is out of the way, step-by-step instructions are given on how to assemble, modify or hack the device in question. The instructions are easy to follow and are complete with images or illustrations where appropriate. Many pages contain sidebars that contain additional information related to the project, such as more photos, hints and tips, and links to relevant websites. These sidebars really help to fill in any gaps that may be present in the main text.
At the end of each chapter, Fullam has an "extensions" section, where he suggests ways the hacks can be hacked further, to improve upon the design or alter them to offer more or different functionality. This is one point where the book really shines, advocating the true spirit of hacking and encouraging creativity and experimentation whenever possible throughout the book.
At the end of each chapter is a "Bill of Materials" and schematics for the hack. The bill of materials outlines in great detail all tools and hardware required for the project, including approximate costs as well as sources where they can be purchased.
Some of the highlights in the first section of the book include the "Macquarium," a water-based PC cooling system, and the infamous Furby hack. The Macintosh mod teaches some valuable lessons on using a Dremel tool and working with Plexiglas, which are great skills any budding case modder would want to have. The water-based PC cooling project is one of the more useful hacks presented in the book, showing the reader how to create an inexpensive but effective means to cool down an overclocked CPU. And hacking the Furby to give it a new vocabulary is... well, definitely a great topic for conversation if nothing else. If you have to ask why someone would do such a thing, you wouldn't understand the answer.
Part Two:
Part Two of the book starts off with another more advanced lesson in electronics. It delves into more detail, describing different types of resistors, capacitors and connectors. It also introduces transistors, looking at integrated circuits and surface-mount components as well. One thing I found particularly useful was the section explaining how to read and interpret manufacturers' data sheets for integrated circuits.
The advanced hacks featured in Part Two of Hardware Hacking are a little more exciting than those featured in the first half of the book, but are definitely more involved. The section starts off with a chapter on building a PC-based PVR, using Mandrake Linux. Sample code is included to create shell scripts for a simple, text-based interface, although Fullam does briefly mention some of the more popular GUI-based PVR software available, such as Freevo and MythTV.
Another great hack featured in the advanced section is the "Building-Size Display" hack, reminiscent of Blinkenlights. The chapter starts off with instructions on how to build a display matrix on a much smaller scale, using a series of ultra bright LEDs, but later shows how the project can be expanded to create a 12-story display using an entire building.
Some other mentionable hacks in the advanced chapters include a cubicle intrusion-detection system, an Internet-enabled toaster and coffee maker, and a remote object tracker. These projects provide instructions on how to use more advanced components such as photodiodes, lasers, GPS receivers and microcontrollers (such as the BasicStamp2, in particular).
Two other noteworthy projects in Part Two include a MAME cabinet and a wearable computer.
Plans for the MAME cabinet are very well done, taking the reader through cutting MDF, building the cabinet, installing the software and interfacing the controls to his PC. This chapter goes into great detail, even covering things like creating a monitor bezel and a backlit marquee, and using T-molding for that authentic arcade machine look.
The wearable computer hack is very interesting, covering a wide range of concepts I would never have considered. Fullam gives ideas on what to use for a head-mounted display (HMD), what types of motherboards and CPUs work best, and looks at various power sources, including batteries, solar panels and different generators. The chapter also presents ideas for input devices, such as keyboards and mice, but also speech recognition systems, cameras and GPS receivers. At the end of the chapter, there is an extensive list of websites related to wearable computer projects, offering much more reading to the interested hacker.
The appendixes, while quite brief, do offer more information on topics like creating and editing schematics, using microcontrollers and using different power sources. There is also a list of resources for further reading and a short list of parts suppliers.
Hardware Hacking also has an accompanying website, where readers can download all of the images, illustrations and schematics from the book. The files are available in EPS, PDF and TIFF formats, although they are all gzipped, and are not readily viewable without downloading and extracting first. The website supposedly has code downloads as well, but the links are broken as of this writing, so you'll be stuck typing in code from the book until the site is fixed.
Overall Thoughts
Overall, I was very impressed with this book. Fullam has given the geek community a valuable resource that will provide inspiration for aspiring and veteran hackers alike. It covers many projects that I have personally wanted to build or learn more about, and presents concepts that would be of interest to many fellow Slashdotters.
The only things preventing me from giving this book a 10 are the aforementioned issues with the accompanying website (which I'm sure will be fixed soon) and the quality of some of the photos. Most of the photographs in the book are crisp and clear, but some are rather grainy or pixelated, as if they were enlarged from a website image. Fullam does make mention of the image quality, stating that many photos actually were taken from the original Web sources, and "the clarity of the photograph suffers in print." It's a small point, but definitely noticeable in certain sections of the book. However, as mentioned, the images are available online, and often do look better on a monitor in full color, as opposed to the black and white images in the book.
I highly recommend Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks to anyone with an interest in those fun projects that only nerds can understand.
You can purchase Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
If a book gives step by step instructions on the 'hack', can it really be considered a hack anymore?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
One of the simplest and coolest hardware hacks of all time is hooking up a carbon microphone (like old-style telephone handsets had), a miniature speaker, and a 9 volt battery. point the speaker at the carbon mike and move it closer, voila! Instant oscillator. Probably the world's simplest electrical oscillator. And it shows how remarkably powerful an amplifier the carbon microphone is. (I believe the carbon microphone was invented by Thomas Edison.)
-- SKYKING, SKYKING, DO NOT ANSWER.
And how do you suppose you'd just do it before learning HOW to do it? This might be a great book for those who want to try things, but don't know where to start. I've personally had a lot of exposure to electronics since my father was an electronics engineer. I understand very basic concepts, I know how to solder, but that's about it. I'd love to get something that will show me step-by-step how to build these things that I have in my head, or at least steps I can take and do my own thing with them. I have the curiosity and desire, I just don't know where to start...
Have to start somewhere.
"they help build stupid peoples' egos..."A very elitist statement that clearly shows the size of your ego...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I'm not really a "geek," nor do I play one on TV. But after looking through a book like this, I might just be motivated to try and become one. This book is one that appeals to the "mad scientist" in all of us, the one that is always looking for ways to build the better mouse trap or the perfect home "do it all device." While some of us less "handy types" would be better off not coming anywhere near this book, there are enough projects listed here that even someone with little or no hardware experience would find at least a handful of projects doable. Projects like the "Macintosh aquarium" or the laptop PC power supply. In fact the book is divided into Basic and Advanced Hacks and techniques, so if you've started off with a couple of the basic projects finished, you can move on to more advanced ones. Very cool.
And for each project, there is a graph for project cost, time and difficulty on the beginning page. For some projects, there's a list of what items you will need. There are also extensive step by step instructions for each "project," along with drawings, photos and diagrams. You'll love this book if you're one of those people who loves taking apart products and trying to "improve" upon their original design.
It looks pretty easy to make, albeit rather narrow use? Very interesting. That whole site should be required reading for /.ers. ;)
(It certainly counts as a quick fix for a botch -- i should have popped it when it was still in the car).
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
I've been looking for some fairly decent sites on building robots, but haven't found any that are a "one stop resource" for projects. Most are about using commercially available kits, rather than designing your own. Few show practical circuits, and the ones that do fail to provide theory.
Time to set up a site for people to submit their projects, and have community forums for help.
Build an electric motor from a few items that you probably have around the home or office. I think Beakman did it first but instructions can be found here as well.
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
I have hacked up an old phone and connected it to my PCs parallel port. This, in combination with a perl script and a couple other programs, results in a machine that waits for calls with "UNAVAILABLE" or "PRIVATE" Caller ID tags, answers only those calls, plays prerecorded wave files designed to emulate a conversation, uses silence detections to allow the telemarketer to speak and think he's talking to a real human, and records the entire conversation. I have example WAV files of these conversations and a How-to page at http://www.pagerealm.com/tc2k. The example WAVs are VERY entertaining!
Really simple, all I used was a soldering iron, solder, blue LED. You can pick everything up at the local Radio Shack. The Radio Shack I visited had 3000mcd super bright blue LEDs. I eventually bought a 9000mcd super bright blue LEDs but I found out later that it's super bright coz the manufacturers tighten the angle of projection meaning brighter center spot thus higher mcd. 3000mcd still works well. My first concern was whether the LED was brighter than the normal red LEDs since they are on different ends of the wavelength and red is easier to pick up. Didn't really matter if you have a good enough pattern or surface, like a mouse pad made for optical mice.
I modded my blue Logitech Optical Mouse (USD$20 the last time I checked). Removed the regular red LED and replaced with the blue LED. Now my mouse glows blue. Looked kinda weird previously coz the mouse was blue, with semi-transparent blue plastic but glowed red underneath.
Easy modding... takes less than 15 minutes, unless you lose a spring or something.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Unfortunately, yes. Many people have taken old Macs, and thrown in VIA EPIA Mini-ITX motherboards. Also, a product called the MacCharlie added an IBM-compatible PC to the Mac. It could only handle text mode, and apps displayed in a window on the Mac.
Like the other guy that replied to your post, I wouldn't worry too much.
UPSes are dumb. They're not controlled by microprocessors, they don't have an intelligent learning capability, etc.
When a UPS is charging, all the UPS knows is "hey, those batteries aren't pushing back as hard against my current, so i'll let current naturally flow to them". It does this until they are at sufficient voltage. Period. There's no timer or anything. And I say this, but I don't mean that *no* ups has none of this intelligence, but we fairly regularly mod 5U APC SmartUPSes, which retail for over $2000, and they have none of it. The smartest thing that any of them have is an snmp management "box" that broadcasts the status of the thing out on the network, and that's just a little ribbon cable that attaches to electrical leads that it polls for "on" or "off" status, or mabey voltage (I forget exactly what the snmp thingie does. We only have a few with this feature, and we don't know their passwords, so we just snooped to see what IP they're broadcasting information to, and set up an interface on a spare comptuer with that IP address and no gateway to listen, and then we just dump the packets and grep their contents. It's how our paging system knows when the power goes out).
Anyway, the charging stuff goes slow at a low extra voltage and low extra amperage. The problem is that it can take (obviously) longer to charge 135 amp-hour batteries than 12 amp-hour batteries. So, it's a good idea to active-cool the UPS, because the longer charging cycle could cause excess heat. Keep in mind, though, we're talking charging for 12 hours instead of 2 or 3, and you'd think that if it was going to overheat, 2 or 3 hours would be enough. We never did it with the Tripplite BCPro's, because they (with the removal of the batteries) had plenty of airflow and plenty of extra space, and they never overheated or anything. Also, our datacenter has like 5 air conditioners (it's pretty chilly, especially considering from about november-march in Blacksburg (bleaksburg??) it doesn't get above 50F, and goes down to, oh, -10 or so). The rackmount UPSes do cool themselves - they all have a 120mm fan in the front that spins when the UPS is charging or discharging. That may be tied into a temperature sensor or it may just be a feature of the internal electrical system, I'm not sure. I am inclined to think it's just tied in, because the fan comes on immediately whenever we do a power test and cut the power at the breaker.
As far as melting wires, that's a feature of amperage, not voltage. We're storing more electricity, but not using any more than was previously available. Remember, we're keeping our 25-30 comptuers on for 3 hours, rather than 45 minutes like the included batteries would, but during that 3 hours, they're using the same amperage as they would during the 45 minutes. If the wires don't melt in 45 minutes (which they shouldn't, as the UPS should be built to handle this, or what's the point), they won't melt in 3 hours. When you wire in more batteries, though, always use high quality wire, at least of the AWG that's inside the UPS, if not a lower (bigger) diameter. Stranded copper is prefered.
Same thing with the relay. It's not pulling more power, just for a longer time. If the relay doesn't freeze when it flips, or in the first 45 min, it's not going to freeze after 2h.
~Will
sig?
I flipped through this book a few days ago while at the bookstore (one of those "it found me" books)
One thing that I liked about it (that was only touched upon in the review) was how the various projects give people completely unfamiliar with electronic component hobbying various levels of potential involvement.
"Want to etch your own boards?" Fine....here's some tips on how to do it
"Want to breadboard it?" Fine....here's a couple tips
"Just want to get past the soldering end and get into the chip programming elements?" Fine....the part # you're looking for is 4444 and it can be ordered from this site....
Something about this book reminds me of "Lasers, Phasers and Ion Ray Guns", a tome I found while browsing around the public library back in the early 80's. Back before you had camcorders with nightvision brought to you by bausche and lomb......you had books like these showin kids how it was conceivable they could make their own stalking tools.
It wasn't hacking, but it WAS opening doors and fostering that "why does it work" spirit that all too easily is put down by those who claim to have reinvented their own intellectual wheels......
I'd much rather be the father that says "sure I'll take you to radioshack, what are we building today?" than the one who says "if you imitate the work of others, you'll never learn anything"
That is only an issue for high frequency (Mega- and Gigahertz) applications, where you have the so-called skin effect. But there, it will not help if the strands are touching each other, since the whole thing would look like a solid to the rf anyway.
I once used a 6 kW 2--30 MHz tube amplifier. Its coils were done using metal tubing. Since the inner part would not carry current, it was simply left out. They were also silver plated, to prevent corrosion of the important outer layer and to improve conductance. Unfortunately, since we would too often put the rf power into unmatched loads (a plasma experiment), the amplifier would heat up and the silver would melt off the coils. Many a time our technician and a fellow PhD student would disassemble the whole thing for repairs, replacing molten and burnt up components. I sometimes wonder where all the evaporated teflon insulator material ended up.
chl