Alright, here's a project that i've sunk a lot of time and effort into, it's called the Matt Makes Games Console (MMGC)! This Project is dedicated to Matt Thorson at Mattmakesgames.com who inspired me with his challenging, simplistically creative, and unique games. I really like Matt's games but unfortunately I'm not a big fan of playing games on a PC, so I took it upon myself to engineer a way to play his games on the Tube. The end result was the MMGC, a small form factor PC tucked into an old XBOX case with a Solid state Hard drive and a Scan convertor.
Here are some of the Specs and Info:
Mobo: ATX Motherboard that is a little smaller than most RAM: 512MB SDRAM CPU: 1.4GHz Video: On-board VGA hooked up to a Scan Conveter Extra USB Ports: 5 USB port PCI card Hard Drive: 16 GB 233X Compact Flash (CF) Card with a CF to IDE (PATA) Adpater Power Supply: an XBOX 360 Brick run it a 120W DC-DC Convertor Operating System: Windows XP Pro Chassis: an ancient XBOX case with a Jewel I modded [just for fun :) ] Optical Drive: 8X Read Laptop style DVD-ROM Keyboard: Mini 8" USB Keyboard from eBay ($12 CAD) Mouse: Optical PS/2 Mouse
I really wanted this console to be fairly portable so that I could run it in a vehicle and my passengers could take advantage of the console by playing games on it during those long road trips or search for free WiFi with it :). All it needed was a +12V input with a current handling of around 4A, and I knew that most vehicles (including mine) have a +12V cigarette lighter socket rated for 10A so I found an easy place to get the required power. The power that comes from the vehicle (or XBOX 360 Power supply with Accessory Adapter) is wired to the 120W DC-DC Convertor that then provides all the needed PC voltages. I bought my Power supply convertor for $40 CAD on eBay.
I also wanted the console to be fairly rugged so i opted to use a Solid State type Hard Drive in it. A 16GB CF card with a speed of 233X was chosen to be the Hard drive. It was also purchased from eBay for around $70 CAD as well as the adpater to IDE which was only a couple bucks. I would not recommend any CF card with a speed less than 233X to be used as a Hard Drive unless you like to watch paint dry!!! Take it from this guy who bought a generic 16GB CF card with an undocumented speed only to find that it took 6 hours to install WinXP and 20 minutes for every boot up!
To hook up to a TV (or Portable DVD player) I needed a Scan Converter which takes a VGA signal and converts it to RCA (composite) the one that I bought was the Ulti Mate 2000 AX. I got mine for $40 CAD on eBay. I found that in order to be able to read text on the TV the PC resolution needed to be at 640 X 480 or 800 X 600. The only issue I ever had with mine was that the selector switch was set up for PAL when it arrived so I had to spend a couple minutes figuring out how to switch it to NTSC.
This project was the cornucopia of many projects I've been wanting to do for a while and now Version 1.0 is complete........now onto the next version, stay tuned!
Here is a project i built with the help of Solarbotics.com & Solarbotics.net. It's a Pummer and it's made to resemble a Rocketship at a playground I used to visit. I added the Pumming circuit and LED's to make the ship more alive and how I imagined it to be if it were to ever become a real flying Machine.
I did a bit of reverse engineering on the Pummer Kit I purchased from Solarbotics.com, and I added a few mods from the circuit on Solarbotics.net (under complete robots -> Pummers). The kit that i purchased from Solarbotics is no longer available but there are now new and improved PumLanterns.
Here's some pictures of a USB Charger with 2 Ports made from 2 X 7.2V NiMH rechargables, a dual port USB female connector, a Classic 5V regulator Circuit and an Altoids tin. I ended up also making an adapter to provide 5V to a breadboard for prototyping test circuits. There are a few pics included of a Tricolor LED that i was testing out. I ended up point-to-point soldering all the components together and was also able to solder the USB connecector to the tin itself because it is in fact TIN! Yeah Tin/Silver solder works well in this case (although not without a little help from your friendly neighbourhood flux). These chargers are on the net all over the place, but i haven't seen many (if any) that use 2 batteries for double the charge capacity and double the ports for multiple charging, it's now up to you to grow this trend by building your own!
I have now finally finished a tutorial for my XBOX 360 Power Supply to 12V Accessory Adapter project and it is working great with my CarPC (mini-computer) which draws approx. 4A. I have also tested this adapter on a 6.5 Amp blower motor, salvaged from a R.V. heater. The blower actually spiked over 10 Amps on start up with no effect on the power supply and adapter. This project will be useful for running all my 12V accessories indoors from my cell charger to my portable DVD player.
Here's a link to a youtube video i made on my first test adapter:
Here's a little demo video of the Jukebox in action. I customized the look a little from the options menu in SK jukebox (Press 'O' for the Shortcut). I chose to display the selection menu in the lower right and changed a few of the Fonts and Colors to suite my fancy :)
