What do you do?

Submit the “Stuff” you have created! Share project ideas, completed projects and project horror stories in each of the three main categories listed below!

Submit your stuff!

Stuff I want to do.

Stuff I've done.

How I do stuff.

"phone"

Cam 2 Cam cell phones

Kevin Macdonald | August 21st, 2008 | 6 Comments

If i had the money i would probably do it but i dont have the money nor the technology but cell phone companies do. I think this is the future of cell phones as well. I would invent a system of phones that had a camera inside, similar to a web cam, so people could talk to each other and see each other in person while talking on speaker phone. This would be great in the car to have on the dash connected to the AC. It would be great for friends at the club, parties or other places to stay in touch and show their other friends whats going on, and it would be great for families to keep in touch and see each other.

Add your comment

Phone Hold With Music

Ted | July 3rd, 2008 | 2 Comments

This was easily a weekend project, and RadioShack had all the components. A phone line gives about 48vdc, with red being positive. Some older houses have mismatched wiring with green positive and some newer have digital signals carrying multiple lines on the same two wires. This project targets those with plain copper wire, on a single line, looking to feel like a fancy corporation with the phone gadgets. The action of ‘hold’ on a phone line allows the disconnection of all handsets, but keeps the line open and the end-user able to receive whatever we pipe in. A 330ohm 1/4 watt resistor in parallel with the phone line, acts as an active handset and allows enough current through to prevent the phone company from hanging up the call. With the line still open, we are able to inject linear audio from any source. This audio is heard by the end-user, and by us if our handset is still active.

Converting linear audio to ‘phone grade’ audio requires an isolation transformer between the audio source and phone line. A 47uf electrolytic cap gives plenty of filter buffer between the linear source and input. The transformer is non polar, though be sure the coil connections are paired as on the schematic. A 3.5mm headphone jack is our audio input source. Any form factor input connector can be used, though the most common connector for audio these days is the 3.5mm; a jack was used to simplify the design and keep all components contained. - ted

http://t.markson.us/projects/

Add your comment

finding a lost cell phone

Riley Moore | June 16th, 2008 | 1 Comment

My wife was watching my daughter Julia and a friend’s son, Asa. They were playing with her phone, which is pretty normal, but today they turned it on silent and hid it. (It has a one touch silent function.) Julia turns one TODAY! And Asa is just a few months older, so I don’t think that it was on purpose. When Asa’s mom came to pick him up, my wife asked her to call her phone because it was missing. After 2 hours of searching, she gave up and hoped we’d find it when I got home.

I came home, and we ate dinner and began the search. We tried a few methods, including turning off all of the lights and calling it hoping to be able to see the light, but in the end, we found it using a simple product from Radio Shack.

My tool? An emergency handheld radio which I used as a homing beacon. When a powered, poorly sheilded speaker is near a cell phone being called, it makes a few distinctive noises, and noises continue to be made during a call.

My wife called her cell from mine a few times, and we finally found the phone. Take a look at where it was! We would have never found it. In fact, after I knew where it was, it still took a minute or two to fish out. The picture is a car seat base which we were replacing.

Add your comment