Archive for the 'Hardware' Category
Lego Car
My son often requests family time at the Lego set. A recent evening produced this surprisingly fast wired remote control car. The trick I have found with Technic Legos, is to set the gearing tight while building, and then loosen it up a bit before turning the power on… otherwise the motor gets bogged down by friction. Someday, I think I will have to look into Lego Mindstorms.
Posted by Karl Herrick on December 17th, 2007 in Hardware, Culture | No Comments »
Wireless keyboard
I am happy to report that I am typing this blog entry from my first wireless keyboard… it was free and it even had two rechargeable AAA batteries inside! The only issue I have with it, is that it is infrared… meaning it has to be pointed directly at the receiver, and also, I can’t read the monitor from this far away. 
Posted by Karl Herrick on April 8th, 2006 in Hardware, Wireless | No Comments »
Woktenna
Here is a pic of my semi professionally made (that is I spent time in the wood shop) dish setup for my D-Link DWL-122 802.11b 11 Mbps USB Adapter:
To develop this dish setup, I did the following:
- Used ideas from http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/
- Mostly the focal point math from http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/usbscoop.jpg
- Took a wok lid and removed the wooden handle
- Cut a small length of wood (a) (this gets the USB dongle to the calculated focal point)
- Cut a small block of wood (b) (this connects the dish to the camera stand)
- Drilled the appropriate holes into the the two pieces of wood
- Put a long screw into the block of wood (b) that extends through the other side (this joins the length of wood (a), dish, and block together)
- Embedded a nut the size of the camera stand’s butterfly bolt into the block of wood (b) and used a hardening putty to keep it there
- Put two thumb tacks into the length of wood (a) to hold bands around the usb dongle
The whole setup collapses in seconds, is aimable, portable, and gave me terrific gain… though I don’t have comparison screenshots. This is a great setup for a laptop on the go trying to get the distant wifi access.
Here, the woktenna is seen by the Cantenna. I had the Cantenna hooked up to a wrt54g running dd-wrt as a wireless bridge to another access point.
See also:
Posted by Karl Herrick on February 10th, 2006 in Hardware, Networking, Wireless | 5 Comments »
How to make Cat 5 cable
Never done it, but doesn’t look too hard according to this website:
How to Make a Category 5 / Cat 5E Patch Cable
Posted by Karl Herrick on December 31st, 2005 in Hardware, Networking | 1 Comment »
Wireless Antenna Booster
In yet another attempt to increase the signal from a wifi access point 30 meters away in a portable building with aluminum siding… I taped Denise’s spaghetti dish to my desk lamp, grabbed the spaghetti spoon and rigged a wifi dish with my 802.11b usb card.
Posted by Karl Herrick on March 29th, 2005 in Hardware, Wireless | 3 Comments »