Category: DIY + Hacks

The other day, I came across this Cold war-era Geiger Counter PC casemod, and passed along the erroneous notion that it was created by some Russian modder. In fact, it was built by a guy named Andy over at widefault, right here in the good old US of A.

Before all you budding nuclear physicists attempt to correct me, I know this isn’t truly a Geiger Counter. It’s actually one of those Cold-War era Ion Chamber radiation detectors. But that’s not what most of us think, so I’ll stick with the more familiar Geiger name.

Remember the 1970s classic Mr. Microphone? Here’s a fun use for the old toy that turns it into a bit more devious of a device than originally intended. This brilliant, but simple hack by electronics tinkerer Kipkay takes the guts out of an old Mr.

I haven’t come across too many hacks involving the Wii Fit Balance Board yet, but they are starting to emerge. In this recent demo, the board has been configured to control 3D movement in a game of World of Warcraft 3.

Got a couple of spare Compact Flash memory cards lying around? Why not turn them into a high-speed, redundant drive array? With this new drive module, you can create your own solid-stated RAID array in seconds.

I don’t know what’s up with me loving the Star Wars action so much lately but this is too cool to pass up. Instructables has all the deets you need to make a Jedi-licious custom lightsaber!

I’m not sure why nobody ever thought of this before, but I think it’s a cool idea. This clever casemod took the shell from an old flight data recorder (a.k.a. “Black Box”) and transformed it into a Linux server.

The venerable Commodore 64 is well known among the electronic music community as a synthesizer modder’s dream machine thanks to its robust SID audio chipset. But most of the mods I’ve seen end up looking just like an old C64 and all the cool stuff is going on under the hood.

This (somewhat creepy) 3D anime lass is actually hiding a nefarious secret- behind her back lurks a dastardly PC mod! Um, wow, I guess if you’re really lonely and have a lot of time on your hands this is a good idea.

Got an old Macintosh or Mac Plus lying around? There’s got to be something better to do with it than turn it into an aquarium, right? That’s what this enterprising modder did when he managed to cram the guts of a Mac G4 Cube into his trusty old Mac Plus, replacing the old B&W CRT with a modern color LCD monitor, as well as the ability to run Mac OS X.

If King Tutankhamen could have been buried with his computer, this would have been the one – without a doubt. Conceived and constructed by Chris Kramer (a.k.a “Jadragon”), his EgyptMod PC is detailed with intricate hieroglyphics and encrusted with jewels.

If you’ve ever complained that the keys on your computer are too small for your fingers, have I got a keyboard for you. This ginormous keyboard is so big – How big is it, Bob? – It’s so big that in order to type on it, you need to walk almost 20 feet to get from one end of the keyboard to the other.

Who says your Xbox 360 has to overheat and catch fire in order to glow? This new replacement shell from XCM lets your 360 glow green when the lights go down. The case replaces the entire exterior of your 360 to produce an out-of-this-world green glow when placed in a darkened room.

This intricate retro sci-fi USB memory drive comes to us courtesy of an enterprising modder over in Russia. Meticulously crafted from hand-polished brass and copper, the USB drive reminds me of something out of the art deco neo-future of Buck Rogers – or perhaps more apropos – Flash Gordon.

This certainly isn’t the first time that I’ve seen a steampunk computer design, but it’s a quick way for you to turn your machine into something that H.G. Wells himself would be proud of. Recently sighted over on eBay, here’s a set of custom-modded steampunk accessories for your PC.

I came across this nifty concept for an electronic plaything earlier this week and thought I’d share it with you guys. Steve Gilbertson’s interactive color cube uses a 3-axis accelerometer to detect movements and relays that information to a grid of brightly colored LEDs to create a portable light show in a box.