Hasta La Gadget!

There’s probably no better tool in the gadgeteer’s box than a roll of Gaffer Tape (or duct tape, if you don’t mind sticky or crumbly residues). But what about its humble household cousin, Scotch Tape? Traditionally used for wrapping gifts or taping broken spectacles back together, it has another amazing talent. It can let you see through solid objects.

If those solid objects are in fact sheets of frosted glass. If you have a frosted window that you need to take a peek through, tear off a strip of tape and press it down firmly onto the pane. The roughened, opaque surface is transformed into a smooth, shiny one, and the light that was previously scattered into vague suggestions of shape and color now comes through sharp and clear:

I’m amazed we never saw this trick in a MacGyver episode.

Weird Tape Effect [YouTube via Core77]

See Also:

• Scotch Tape
• Can Scotch Tape Really Boost iPhone Signal Strength?
• Video: The Scotch-Tape X-Ray Machine

Davetech’s mod puts an old cellphone battery inside a mouse

Just as a bike tire will always burst when you are far away from home without a patch kit, your mouse will run out of juice just as you are up against a deadline. But what if you could just attach a pair of jumper leads and get the dead rodent running again? And better still, what if you got rid of the AAs altogether and swapped in a long-lasting lithium-ion battery instead?

This is exactly what Davetech did over at Instructables. Using nothing but a trusty Dremel (what else?), an old cellphone battery, a card reader and a cheap-o ($1.50) li-ion battery charger from Ebay, he fashioned a clever rechargeable mouse. Oh, and you’ll need pair of jumper cables, too, if you want to follow along at home.

The Dremel was used to hollow out the old battery compartment and make room for the new Nokia cell. The card-reader was cannibalized for its sprung contacts, with all but two of these bent out of the way. To begin with, Davetech would just swap in a new, freshly charged cell and pop the old one into his phone to recharge, but even these few seconds were too much.

To allow in-mouse charging, Davetech ordered the charger from Hong Kong and now simply runs a pair of cables from its terminals into the mouse and onto the battery’s own contacts.

I think the best mouse designs are those that have their own li-ion cell inside and can be charged whilst in use using a USB cable, but I do have a newly acquired Dremel in the tool-closet. The trouble is that I tossed my mice for a pair of Apple Magic Trackpads (one for each hand), and no matter how clever I get with the chopping and carving, there’s just no space in their skinny bodies for even the thinnest cellphone battery.

Modified Mouse Runs on Lithium Ion Cellphone Battery [Instructables]

See Also:

• Poof! After Wireless, the Computer Mouse Turns Invisible
• Screen-Protector for Magic Mouse: Why?
• Toe-Mouse for Foot-Controlled Computing
• 18-Button Open Office Mouse Makes A Keyboard Look Minimal
• Dead Mouse plus Computer Mouse equals Mouse Mouse
• A Tasteless Mod: A Computer Mouse Made of Mouse Bones

If steampunk wasn’t, like, totally over, then we might be tempted to use the label for this iPhone speaker dock — fashioned from brass, cogs and tubes. As it is, we won’t insult Christopher Locke’s amazing “Analog Tele-Phonographer.”

As you quite clearly see, the horn speaker is fashioned from an old trumpet and a selection of discarded machine parts. We have seen horn speakers for cellphones before, but never one that used an actual trumpet. Since the horn is likely the hardest part to make yourself, this is a rather sensible design decision.

So how does it sound? Well, it’s hard to say, as I’m listening to the video soundtrack through my MacBook’s speakers. What’s clear is the before-and-after difference as the iPhone is dropped into and lifted from the dock. The sound which is channeled through pipes and horn is certainly louder and clearer than from the iPhone’s speaker alone.

Have a listen:

Chris will sell you a trumpet speaker for $400. I’m not sure I have the space for such a thing, but it sure would match my brass typewriter-style keyboard, my Pac Gentleman game and my Victorian-style 3D spectacles.

Analog Tele-Phonographer [Heartless Machine]

See Also:

• Steampunk Keyboard MkII: Now with Built to Order Option
• The Opti-Transcripticon Steampunk Scanner
• Datamancer Goes Deco with Hot New Keyboard Mod
• Steampunk Star Wars Figures
• Steampunk Blaster Gun

You know all those hub-less wheels that “designers” like to throw onto their CG concept bicycles? Well, a student of Loughborough Design School in England has actually made one. He even threw in a belt-drive for good measure.

It’s called the Lanartic, and it was designed and built by Luke Douglas. Despite being having a full sized wheel, the wheelbase is much shorter than that of a regular road bike, and because the seat sits over the rear wheel the seat-to-handlebar distance remains similar to a bigger bike.

The hubless design opens up a lot of extra opportunities, not least of all luggage carrying. You could put a bag or basket inside that rear wheel (taking care to keep it away from the rider’s heels) and it would put the load at or even below the bike’s center of gravity for a very stable ride.

I imagine the friction of this kind of wheel is a lot higher than that of a regular hub, thanks to so much more contact between wheel and the “frame”. It looks like crazy fun to ride, though, and wheelies should be dead easy with the seat so far back over the rear wheel.

Lanartic [Loughborough University via Doobybrain and Make]

See Also:

• Orbitwheel: Hubless Wheels for Your Feet
• P-fars
• YikeBike

The Wii UNLimited Edition Case Mod ditches the traditional white case for a cyber-styled CNC-milled one

Gaming consoles are pretty generic looking: White or black plastic, and relatively rectangular in shape. Martin Nielsen, a case-modding visionary, took the tired old Wii console and transformed it into the Wii UNLimited Edition, an almost unrecognizably epic acrylic and aluminum contraption.

Never mind the underpowered console inside. The case is made of CNC-milled aluminum. Dual 22 cm coolant reservoirs housed on either side of the Wii UNLimited Edition feed cerulean-tinted liquid to cool the main console through a series of tubes. A water pump is housed at the base of the left reservoir. The front of the case is see-through, so you can see the inner workings of the console.

To ensure overheating doesn’t occur, there’s a digital thermometer that sits on top of the structure, and discs are top-loaded through a slot. As an added touch, the Wii logo was machined onto the aluminum side panels.

The entire shebang is wall-mounted, displaying that previously unremarkable Wii console as a futuristic work of art.

If I had the time (and the skills), I’d style all of my consoles and boring looking electronics like this. It’d be like living in a sci-fi, steampunk space ship.

Mother of All Wii Mods, UNLimited Edition [Case Mod Blog via Slashgear]