Übermodder

Energizer Wiimote Induction Charger Teardown

Energizer Wiimote Induction Charger

An inductive charger is a type of wireless energy transfer system, it can also be called an air core coil transformer. It works by passing alternating current into the coils and air acting as a medium between them, the interacting electromagnetic field helps to induce inductive coupling. Wikipedia does a much better job of explaining it: Inductive Charging.

In this teardown, I’ll be featuring the Energizer Wii Inductive charger (model # PL-7581) and try to figure out how it works internally. This will be a challenging on-going project since some key IC components have been blackened for a reason to keep their functionality secret. I would like to add that throughout this teardown, I have come to appreciate the complexity of this device and commend Energizer for a job well done, they did their homework.

Modify a USB HDD enclosure to work with a DVD drive (IDE)

USB IDE CD/DVD Drive Conversion

My current Dell Inspiron 530 came with a single DVD drive and no IDE ports. On a limited budget and needing to burn media on-the-fly, I wanted to figure out a way to use my older IDE Ben-q DVDRW drive. Using an old USB hdd drive enclosure, I’ll show you how.

Difficulty : EASY - SAFETY WARNING, Shock Hazard
Time: 10 – 20minutes

Home-made Coyote Decoy

Home-made Coyote Decoy

Its winter, know what winter means? Well yes, ice fishing, but today … it’s varmint hunting!  Here is a cheap time delay coyote decoy MacGuyver’d out of some electronic pieces and some things from around the house.

Difficulty : EASY
Time: 30-40minutes

RX7 Headlight Circuit Fix

High Beam Latch Circuit

Back in the day when Mazda was building the RX7 they apparently thought it would be really clever to make their high beam dimmer ECU controlled instead of making it a toggle switch like just about everyone else in the world.  Well it didn’t look so clever to me when this dedicated latch circuit failed on me, leaving my vehicle without high beams.  I threw together a little circuit that uses a T-Flip Flop to toggle the Dimmer Relay.

Difficulty : MEDIUM
Time: 1-2 hours (including wiring)

Homebrew USB Charger

Homebrew USB Charger

There are plenty of examples on the net on how to build your own usb charger, but since we didn’t have any on our site I figured I’d share it with you.  I found an old wall wort in my junk drawer that I couldn’t remember what it went to, so I figured it would be great to put it to a good use as a USB device charger. Because I didn’t have a clue what the maximum current draw requirements were for a USB device, I found the requirements on USB.org’s website.

Difficulty : MEDIUM - SAFETY WARNING, Shock Hazard
Time: 1 hour

Fast Traxx Rover: Beta

Add a Tyco Fast Traxx, WRT54G router, tons of batteries, web camera, gps head, and user control via a laptop. What do you have? A wicked homemade wireless tank-like rover!

While it may not look like the mid 90’s commercial boasting the original Fast Traxx, it has taken on a whole new dimension of geek-like excitement Übermodder has to offer, (batteries sold separately).

I have to give credit where it’s due, if it wasn’t for JBProjects this rover system would be a lot harder to implement. I will be using some their code and hardware to jump start our rover in the beta stages, then later revisions of the project will upgrade with our own code and programming structure. I might go as far as minor autonomy to help the rover navigate in tough situations, stay tuned…

Inexpensive Bench Top Supply

PSU Benchtop Supply

If you haven’t built one of these yourself yet, this one here is a real forehead slapper.  Create a cheap benchtop power supply from a standard ATX computer PSU.  In my case I did it completely from stuff I just had lying around.

Difficulty : EASY - SAFETY WARNING, Shock Hazard
Time: 30-40minutes

$5 iphone stereo headset

$5 iphone stereo headset

The iphone 3G is a pretty neat gadget.  One of the problems with a device like this is the headsets can cost a lot if you lose or destroy them.  Instead of paying an arm and a leg for a commercially available stereo headset for your phone, build one yourself where the remote button works and have the ability to use any earbuds for about $5.

Difficulty : EASY
Time: It took longer to write this how-to

Budget USB Enabled GPS

GPS-500 Setup

Looking for a cheap GPS receiver? Look no further than the GPS-500 Microsoft Streets and Trips GPS by Pharos. This tiny unit features a SiRF Star III chipset and most are selling on ebay for just under 10 dollars! This GPS receiver can be interfaced via a RS232 serial link using a MAX232 chip from Maxim IC and a low cost USB to serial converter.

Difficulty : Medium
Time: 1 Hour

Home-made Instrument Panel

One way to spice up the appearance of your ride and give it just that much more functionality is to create a custom instrument panel. For most models of vehicle there are several options out there for after market instrument panels. But where’s the fun in that when you can build your own!