Hardware Hacking

Hiya,

just thinking today whether theres anyone else like me out there who has an interesting in hardware hacking,

whats hardware hacking you say?? Its taking something and making it do something differently or improving what it already does.

I've done quite a few hardware hacks, as its somehting I get greater self gratification out of rather than coding new apps and playing with kernel source.

heres some of my favorite examples, ive done allot more -

1)modifying 2 cordless telephones so that they could be used as radio modems, for sending data from computer to computer

2)Reverse engineering the pinout of a cheap broadband router so that uClinux could be ported to it, so that it could be used as a development board for robotics

3)Built many different types of robots from mobile tracked robots to robot arms for picking up cds, and putting them in a drive.

look forward to hearing what any of you have done

i2c

I put a hard drive in my computer. That's about the extent to which I have gone. Sounds like you are pretty good at hardware hacking. Is it a profession or just a hobby? Sounds like something fun to get into. I don't think I have the skills though, but I can learn. I like your example of how you turned the two cordless phones into radio modems to send data from computer to computer. Thanks for sharing and I'm interested to hear of other hacks members have done.

For me its just a hobby, But i suppose there are professions made upon it such as reverse engineers for large companys that take an already designed product, find out how it works and thus allowing there company to produce and better or similar device.

the computer to computer data link, wasnt capable of great baud rates, but it was fun for sending temperatures or alarm type signals to the other computer.

The skills really needed tend to be good electronics and programming skills.

i2c