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Ziggy587
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Re: The "Look What I Did / Made" Thread

by Ziggy587 Sun Nov 20, 2022 10:43 am

If you like to tinker with computers, then you probably often run across a scenario where you're testing hardware outside of a case. If it's ATX, then you need a way to power it on since the case has the soft power switch. You can locate the front panel header and use a flat head screwdriver to short the two pins for the power switch.

I always use to just use a small flat head to short the pins, and I still don't mind doing that if it's just a quick one and done test for something. But I wanted something safer for the times when I'm tinkering with something continuously. Years ago I would throw caution to the wind, but now that vintage PC hardware can be expensive I'm concerned with slipping and accidentally shorting something out. And I also wanted something more convenient too.

I know you can purchase these ready made, and you can get them especially cheap from China. But you may have most if not all of the parts already lying around to make your own. And when you make it yourself, you get to make it the way you want. Like wire length, for example. Or the switch size, shape and color. I already had everything I needed except for the switches. Since I was ordering from DigiKey anyway, I also grabbed a couple of switches (otherwise shipping ends up costing more than the parts, which is always frustrating).

Power switch: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/det ... gExAF0BfIA

Reset switch: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/det ... gExAF0BfIA

Nothing special, I just went with price and availability. I wanted a switch that looked like it would be easy to grip and push with one hand. This square switch seemed like it would be easy to one-hand with the mounting flange that it has. I got one red and one black, so if I have both plugged in at the same time I can differentiate between them.

If you want to make your own, you can get cheap switches from eBay or whatever auction site. You just want a momentary switch that is normally open (NO). So look for SPST-NO (single pole single throw, normally on) that is Off-Mom (off, momentary). You actually could use a latching switch if you have some lying around, but you'd have the annoyance of having to turn them back off every time you use it.

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Now you just need some female Dupont connectors. With bread boarding, Arduino and similar, they are cheap and plentiful on eBay and the like. Just search for "Dupont wire" and you'll get a ton of results. You will find both male and female connectors, just make sure at least one end of the cable has female connectors (what you need to connect to the male pins on the motherboard).

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If you have wire with Dupont connectors on both ends, just cut one end off and then solder the wires to your switch. Doesn't matter which wire is which since you're shorting them together anyway. You should insulate the pins for safety.

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I wanted it to feel a little firmer and look a little neater, so I ended up slipping on another larger heat shrink tubing around both wires.

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And that's all there is to it!

Using the same method, you could easily make a power on light using an LED. This can be very useful if your CPU has no fan, the motherboard has no LEDs, and the PSU you're using is a modern one that is dead silent. It can be hard sometimes to determine if the board actually powered on.
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Re: The "Look What I Did / Made" Thread

by Anapan Tue Jan 31, 2023 2:22 am

I saw some glow-in-the-dark material on Aliexpress that showed a teddy-bear made from it. I thought maybe I could go one step further and make it self-illuminating using UV LED strip. I asked my mom to sew up a plush and I just finished soldering the electronics. When the suguru dries and it's put together I'll post a finished picture.
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Re: The "Look What I Did / Made" Thread

by marurun Tue Jan 31, 2023 10:34 am

This is such a bizarre experiment and I am SO on-board for it.
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Re: The "Look What I Did / Made" Thread

by Anapan Wed Feb 01, 2023 6:25 pm

More mottled than I had hoped but I'm not unsatisfied with the result. I had some braided "weave" - long glow-in-the-dark plastic hair that I bought at the same time and I threw some of that inside with the polyfill - That's the green you can see, otherwise it'd be totally sky blue until powered off. It gets quite hot, tho I don't think it'll start on fire before the LI-Ion battery dies.
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This was all my mom's hard work. I just bought the ingredients and asked her to make it. She said it was a lot of work and kept asking what I'd do with it.
I never thought of doing something... It sits in the basement and the kids might play with it.
https://anapan.ca/Anapan/plushpile.jpg
I've been buying recordable plush noise makers. So-far I've only done one - I recorded Dinkle's chiptune and now he can sing it IRL. I've been meaning to tether him to a record player with some elastic thread and make a meme video.
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Re: The "Look What I Did / Made" Thread

by Ziggy587 Wed Feb 01, 2023 6:41 pm

That's awesome, Anapan! Thanks for sharing. I'm trying to think of something else that you could make from the material, but I think you nailed it with a plush toy.

On a completely unrelated note, do you happen to have a Geiger meter?
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Re: The "Look What I Did / Made" Thread

by Anapan Wed Feb 01, 2023 8:05 pm

Thanks!
I don't, but the one I planned to buy is still in my Amazon wishlist. It was between the Geiger Counter and the Pulse Oximeter, and the awesome display resolution and refesh rate on the Oximeter won. I wish I knew what happened to my collection of Uranium marbles. I could borrow one from a friend.
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Re: The "Look What I Did / Made" Thread

by marurun Wed Feb 01, 2023 10:08 pm

I wonder if there’s some way to insulate or even vent the LED strips. Like wrap them in some soft, clear plastic tubing and have a little mesh vent near the tail so are can flow more easily in and out. You know, if you want to make this even more needlessly complicated.
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Re: The "Look What I Did / Made" Thread

by Anapan Thu Feb 02, 2023 12:52 am

Hot farting plush toy with realistic bowels.
I was tempted to double the output by sticking the tape-underside of the strip to another strip. That would definitely make it self immolate. The USB battery doesn't seem to have any regulation or cutoff.
Clearly I should put an inline switch and potentiometer. The hot spots are the feed-USB cable and the small USB battery's output circuit, tho the heat is eventually throughout. I consider it a scary feature, not a flaw. They made a similar Kirby plush.
https://p-bandai.com/us/item/N2566807001002
I bought that thing too, but never unboxed it; Too dangerous!
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Re: The "Look What I Did / Made" Thread

by marurun Thu Feb 02, 2023 10:29 am

And you thought Flamin' Hot Cheetos were hot...
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Re: The "Look What I Did / Made" Thread

by Anapan Fri Dec 15, 2023 11:13 am

I only got one picture because of time restraints (this was one of the projects that delayed the start-date of the auction - the others that weren't completed are secret), but just before this year's charity auction went live I modded my NES Top-Loader with a V4 Tim Worthington RGB mod that had been shelved for far too long.

I had nearly finished it, but couldn't bring myself to install the mini-din port - too jank with the external audio and all. I instead ordered from several vendors some Nintendo Multi-Out connectors with 3D printed replacement brackets to replace the analog panel in the back. I don't remember ordering a Voultar QSB FFC kit (or even that they existed), but it was sure nice to find in the pile of parts on-hand when finishing this long overdue project.

This was by-far the most involved mod I've ever done, only because of the amount of through-hole desoldering and resoldering with the multi-board mounting piggyback PPU IC.

I'm glad to say that upon completion, it all worked perfectly first boot. There were definitely some ambiguous steps regarding the handling of expansion audio volume, with no consensus on the right resistor to install, but because of that same ambiguousness, my flash-cart has expansion volume leveling, so it's a moot point.
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Link to Voultar doing this mod.
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