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up vote 13 down vote

added by Ϛѓăʑɏ βµԂԃϔ Dec 24 '12 at 11:38

up vote 12 down vote

added by ohblahitsme May 25 '12 at 2:57

up vote 12 down vote

added by Highly Irregular Jun 21 '12 at 1:13

Nice question, especially the intent. Personally, I'd like to see somewhat more specific questions, like, "I'm building a sun-tracking device; where can I find a good worm gear in common appliances?" – KDN Sep 8 '12 at 15:17

I wanted to leave it open as there are lots of different designs for achieving sun tracking – Highly Irregular Oct 2 '12 at 22:49

There was this clever design: motor+solar cell; as solar cell gets sunlight, it powers the motor to turn it, till it loses sunlight. – SF. Feb 13 at 9:43

up vote 11 down vote

added by tyjkenn Mar 12 '12 at 23:31

+1 I would expect to see quite a bit of Arduino discussions here. – SASS_Shooter Jul 11 '12 at 20:17

There is already an Arduino tag on the Electrical Engineering site. – Flimzy Jul 16 '12 at 2:05

Also see the Arduino proposal: area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/41127/arduino – Highly Irregular Sep 8 '12 at 19:41

Yup, -1 on this. It's entirely an EE question. – Polynomial Apr 14 at 12:10

up vote 11 down vote

added by jmort253 Aug 7 '12 at 7:20

up vote 11 down vote

added by RustyTheBoyRobot Aug 7 '12 at 15:45

Isn't this covered by the Mechanical Engineering proposal? – Polynomial Apr 14 at 12:11

up vote 11 down vote

added by A.J. Aug 9 '12 at 5:35

What sort of device is X? A phone? A Furby? An automobile? – Shog9♦ Nov 14 '12 at 16:52

Specifically, a generic router – A.J. Nov 15 '12 at 1:12

up vote 11 down vote

added by ObsessiveSSOℲ Aug 13 '12 at 15:59

up vote 11 down vote

added by Gaffi Aug 14 '12 at 13:38

I actually did this myself. One HDD was bad, one battery was bad. I put the two together and it worked great! – Gaffi Aug 14 '12 at 13:38

up vote 11 down vote

added by SF. Jan 19 at 19:04

up vote 11 down vote

added by Renan Mar 5 at 14:03

up vote 11 down vote

added by Randall Williams Apr 1 at 10:41

up vote 10 down vote

added by ZagNut Mar 17 '12 at 15:58

List questions aren't a good fit for SE. – Flimzy May 25 '12 at 6:34

This could be reworded as "How can I get a picture to appear on my dead laptop's monitor?" That's actually how I would interpret the question anyway. – Highly Irregular Jun 20 '12 at 22:38

@ZagNut- You should edit your question and make it sound like what Highly Irregular suggested. It is a better SE question, still builds upon your great idea, and will get you (and the proposal) more upvotes. Good luck! :) – jmort253 Jun 24 '12 at 17:43

The questiosn would be better if you said what you said what you intened to use it with (Adruino, your PC), or what you want to use it as (As a screen like it is, it couuld also be used as a floodlight bu using the backlight), and the kid of laptop it comes form, for example "How can i use the screen form my Dell Latitude D610 as a second screen on my PC" or "How can I use the screne fom my iBook G4 as a floodlight". – CodyCode Jul 17 '12 at 0:26

been a while, sorry...updated per @CodyCode – ZagNut Oct 5 '12 at 23:43

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up vote 10 down vote

added by tyjkenn Mar 22 '12 at 3:22

Why did this get a -1? It is about trying to repurpose a TV remote to control something other than what is originally intended. It could get a helpful answer explaining how to use an infrared receiver and send the data through the serial port, how to figure out the different button codes, and example code for reading serial data and performing a desired action (change volume, mimic a key, open YouTube, etc.). – tyjkenn Apr 14 '12 at 4:08

There are already 124 questions with the remote-control tag on Superuser. – Flimzy May 25 '12 at 6:35

@tyjkenn: Re-purposing a remote control to be a remote control is hardly re-purposing. – Flimzy May 25 '12 at 6:36

@Flimzy think of it perhaps as re-purposing a television controller to be a personal computer controller. – chao-mu Jul 16 '12 at 0:51

This si a great question because it deals with using 1 commonplace thing (TV Remote) to interface wiht another (Computer) which is repurposing, and it has potentioll to be usefull to many people. – CodyCode Jul 17 '12 at 0:17

up vote 10 down vote

added by Agnel Kurian Jun 12 '12 at 4:59

It would be nice to see some more advance planning done here, and a more specific question asked, e.g., "I'm trying to convert an old phone to a kitchen alarm. Does anyone know if there an SDK for the Nokia 6700?" or something like that. It narrows the scope of the question, and lessens the burden on the answerer, so they don't have to solve the whole problem for you. – KDN Sep 14 '12 at 16:31

What's a kitchen alarm? A timer? – Shog9♦ Nov 14 '12 at 16:51

That's right! A kitchen timer. – Agnel Kurian Nov 14 '12 at 19:13

up vote 10 down vote

added by Highly Irregular Jun 21 '12 at 1:19

Probably on topic at Electrical Engineering. – Flimzy Jul 16 '12 at 2:05

up vote 10 down vote

added by KDN Jul 12 '12 at 4:06

up vote 10 down vote

added by Gaffi Jul 13 '12 at 13:43

Great question. I've been wanting to do that for years and could never got around to figuring out how. – tyjkenn Jul 21 '12 at 4:44

Probably something having to do with drivers... I would love to see this answered, especially if some has already done it. – KenB Aug 22 '12 at 18:28

I used to have an SNES controller connected to a parallel port.The circuit was very simple, just a few diodes. I guess it should be possible to do the same with a Parallel-to-USB adapter. There used to be a free win9x driver at the time, and most of the SNES emulators I know about can detect the controllers without any driver installed. – yms Oct 12 '12 at 0:02

Parallel-to-USB adapters are a huge pain in the neck. Probably the easiest way would be to get a cheap USB gamepad and use it as the adapter. – SF. Jan 21 at 11:52

Just in case anyone is interested... – CC Inc Apr 12 at 3:24

up vote 10 down vote

added by ObsessiveSSOℲ Jul 19 '12 at 14:32

up vote 10 down vote

added by Highly Irregular Jul 20 '12 at 10:09

That is highly "irregular"! Is it even technically possible? – Arlen Beiler Dec 24 '12 at 22:57

@ArlenBeiler, after looking into this a bit more, I think the question ("How can I use my 15" LCD monitor as a solar panel, and what sort of output can I expect from it?") needs rewording. It's LED's that can work in reverse and create a voltage (not the LCD part of the display), so somewhere along the way I think I got mixed up. Modern LCD screens may be LED backlight (hence perhaps my mistake), but older ones probably use CFL's. I've reworded it. – Highly Irregular Jan 23 at 10:07

up vote 10 down vote

added by RustyTheBoyRobot Aug 6 '12 at 16:49

up vote 10 down vote

added by jmort253 Aug 7 '12 at 7:19

up vote 10 down vote

added by jmort253 Aug 7 '12 at 7:24

up vote 10 down vote

added by jmort253 Aug 7 '12 at 7:38

Not off-topic for this proposal, I think, but this is also fit for SU. – Iszi Nov 16 '12 at 15:32

up vote 10 down vote

added by Floern Aug 9 '12 at 15:56

up vote 10 down vote

added by Everett Aug 9 '12 at 18:59

	Subjective questions like this lead to non-exhaustive lists, and are not suitable for StackExchange. – Polynomial Apr 14 at 12:15
	Not really a subjective question. I've given a list of materials. There is a finite group that will use the components listed. It's similar to a "Here's a list of computer parts I have, do I have what I need to build a computer?" My question is, "here's a list of items I have, do I have what I need to build something?" Since the subject is repurpose hacking, there'd HAVE to be space to allow this question. I may not know WHAT to repurpose something into. If that question isn't allowed, the whole idea of this stack is academic. – Everett Apr 14 at 16:08
	Further, as an example, the list wouldn't be much longer than the list that accompanies this question: I'm cannibalizing an inkjet printer; what kind of input and output should I expect from the position readers (optical sensors with lined discs)? Since it would be based on the type of inkjet printer cannibalized, you'd still end up with a list. A list answer does not always indicate a subjective question. – Everett Apr 14 at 16:14

up vote 10 down vote

added by Floern Aug 10 '12 at 18:16

This is an awesome question (I'm out of votes, though) but it's way too broad. This is a fairly big issue. I think its important to keep the scope of the questions somewhat narrow. This doesn't mean they can't have big intent, but the specific questions should be narrowed in focus. for example, "I'm trying to use an old smart phone as a WLAN-connected camera; Does anyone know if an app has been written for this? (or, I'm trying to write an app to stream the video, but I can't get permission to access the camera; is there a manual that covers program interface with the camera?) – KDN Sep 14 '12 at 16:38

up vote 10 down vote

added by Floern Aug 11 '12 at 16:00

I don't see why this would be out of the scope of electronics.stackexchange.com. – Camil Staps Jan 10 at 19:01

up vote 10 down vote

added by Gaffi Aug 14 '12 at 13:36

	This is very interesting. Usually all this requires is a mini-PCIe to PCIe or PCI adapter as laptop wireless cards are standardized. (I can''t seem to resist the impulse to answer!) (I don't have any upvotes left, sorry.) – WindowsEscapist Nov 30 '12 at 17:29
	And I'm sure there's some consideration needed for drivers (for a PC), but I'm curious to see how that might work in say, older, non-Wifi mobile devices. – Gaffi Jan 25 at 13:32

up vote 10 down vote

added by KDN Sep 7 '12 at 14:27

up vote 10 down vote

added by RLH Oct 11 '12 at 11:55

I posted this question at what was originally a "hacking" proposal, which morphed in to "Computer Security Hacking." (See here: area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/40927/…) After some discussion on this proposal, I concede that it belongs here. Thanks for the inclusion of this question within the scope of this site. – RLH Oct 11 '12 at 11:57

up vote 10 down vote

added by Vreality Nov 29 '12 at 1:07

	This would be on-topic on Electrical Engineering. – Camil Staps Jan 10 at 19:02
	@Camil Staps Perhaps, but so would many of these examples. This example incorporates repurposing along with electrical engineering. – Vreality Jan 10 at 21:05