Funny Hacks

Better Plasma TV Repair with little skill and almost no Tools required

So a few days ago we featured a video that Dave Jones did about how he fixed his plasma TV. Well he didn’t really fix it as many of our commenters pointed out, in the end the clever fix was to mask the problem to make it mostly usable again. Johannes mentioned in the EEVblog comments that he saw this video. It is a much superior solution since Dave only

Automated Turn Switch Off Machine

Thanks to Sascha from I Build Rockets for sending in this tip. It’s a machine that does nothing other than keep a switch in the off position. Turn the switch on and a hand pops up immediately and turns it off. The circuit has no microcontroller, it is all analog. I am thinking this could make for an interesting project, who will be the first to make a kit for

How to Repair a Plasma TV

Dave Jones had a Panasonic Plasma TV die on him. Have a look at the video to see the build quality of a Panasonic. Turns out that the local TV repair shop would charge more to fix this 2.5 year old model than a new one costs now. The solution to the problem is quite technical, the repair consists of about 1 meter of black electrical tape. 🙂

Drink Mixing System

Robby Connor, Richard Evan Cross and Zach Rasmor made a cool Automatic Wireless Drink Mixer for their University of Washington Electrical Engineering embedded systems ee478 class. Do you recognize that display they are using? Yes it is made by 4dsystems who sponsored one of our recent contests! Via: TechEBlog “Automatic drink mixer features: -Remote touch screen allowing users to pick from preset drinks or customize their own. Touch screen donated

Hidden Ping Pong Ball Shooter Prank

When you are working in an office environment make sure you don’t keep it serious all the time. Creative thoughts are often nurtured by some fun and entertainment. This Hidden Ping Pong Ball Shooter Prank by ckBot is a great example of this. I bet some of the best ideas were thought about that afternoon after everyone had a good laugh. Via: Make

Over Engineered Mouse Trap

If you are going to build something you might as well over design and over build it right? If you don’t agree you can go and pick up whatever you need at your local Walmart. Here we have an excellent example of over engineering something, you can get spring loaded mouse traps for about a dollar, but there is no laser system, status LEDs, arming circuit and pneumatics in one

Chicken Coop Door Automation and Monitoring

What do you do when you have animals to look after but don’t have enough hours in the day to care for all their needs? Well we have seen uses of technology to feed your animals automatically. Food isn’t the only need, of course they need water also. But have no fear technology can help us there also. After all that food and water has been consumed they have some