im bored, what can i do with a usb cable?

[Swafe]

as title heh, gimme something to do im bored

firstly, i need to find a spare usb cable, but what could i do ? my mate i went to a lan with made some lights, basically cut open the usb cable and planted some LEDs in the end

so what could i try and put in? which could be fun ?

[Howard]

Get a 5V resistor and connect an LED to the power output

I've done that with two blue LEDs and made a funky torch

[da_ging]

yep as howard says ,i took the easy option and bought a usb light from ebuyer instead tho lol

[Stoo]

ditto, but mine changes colour

[Tomahawk]

Ok if your really bored and insane then you might want to try this. USB Mod (No credit goes to me I got it of another forum)

Toma_Hawk

[Theo]

Put a couple of red LEDs in a furby or a teddy bear of some sort? :>

If you've got the equipment, make them flash, too?

[Swafe]

that usb turn looks pretty funny actualy

i was gonna go for some lights but thats boring and i dont really need them

it was bloodey hot today, was thinking along the lines of getting a spare 120mm fan i have, and some how connecting that in , make a case for it so it can sit nicely on my desk and cool me

but yeah, other ideas will be good

someones suggested an IRDA device, i could do with a IRDA device, and apprently all i need is a IRDA reciever ( about a quid from maplin) and just mod it in, will it work ? would it need drivers of any sort?

[Lexeus]

I love threads like these
Anyone else know any good sites, like the above, with plans to make intresting electrical things ?

[Spud1]

i like your idea for a Fan, i got spare one sittin right next to me..... /me gets to work

[Swafe]

search on google for schematics of whatever you want and you should find

my mate does electronics and can lend me a hand , also a maplin opened near me so im tempted to try out their componant center


so far i wanna mod a cable some way, as i said my mate had a led one, im trying to find a IrDa reciever so i can send stuff to my phone, well hopefully ive tried google and not got much luck at the mo


me and my mate have found some schematics for a stun gun, but thats beyond me it would be a joint effort if we did, we even found one for a rail gun, we looked at a video of one that was made and it looked pretty damn powerful

[q3style] Impressive [/q3style]

so im not really sure IrDa is what id like, but if i cant find any parts in maplin ill have to find something else, what? im not sure maybe a desk fan, with some leds and speed control, something like that

[SilentDeath]

heh think ive seen the same railgun vid, did it have an annoying ammerican talking over it, on grass when it fired shooting at a fence or something?

A stun gun would be funny, a CCFL inverter should do it - they give about 1.8kv at 2mA iirc, I took one apart and measured it, also shocked my self on it a few times - not accidently either
*** Dont blame me if you do something stupid with this idea! *** if you kill your pet dog, or your annoying neighbour or just shock yourself by accident... I cant be held responsible, but get some pics of whatever stupid things you do with it anyway!

[Swafe]

think it was the same vid

yeah, i wanna try it, it sounds fun - ive got a cat so dont worry the dogs safe

unlucky for the cat tho - if i do make one ill do some pics, and ill take some pics of the injuries too

[SilentDeath]

lol i wouldnt do it on a pet tbh, not your pet anyway! might kill it or if it doesnt, the cat will hate you for the rest of its life! would be fun to do on large insects though, like a slug, just dont touch it! I was doing some soldering with mr. blowtorch a few days ago and mr. slug some how managed to leave slime everywhere, so guess what i done :evilsmily: :evilsmily: :evilsmily: :evilsmily:

[turkster]

I wouldnt worry too much about the cat. Ive seen them walking under powerful electric femces like bumper cars with their tail held high . They jump a long way when they get th shock but it doesnt seem to worry them much. Possibly becaus their fur insulates them to some degree so dont blame me if it kills your cat. Probably a good tool for keeping dogs at bay.

Whats a CCFL? IS that a camera flash? I took one of these apart once and rigged it up into a remarkably compact package. Gave a brutal shock. I remember actually touching it by mistake when it was charged up while working at bench it threw me right of the chair . Great fun .

I think my brother used this a bit in school. The engineering benchs in the school were long tables with angle iron all around to protecrt the edges. Because of the way the seats were you virtually had to lean on the angle iron if sitting down. I am sure you can imagine what is going to hapen here . My brother powered upthe flash and wired up to the bench. Then when a few people were siting down he fired it. I dont thinck many of them ever worked out what it was .

If you were going top power this of a USB it would make a nice security device to fit to your comp. You could wire it up so that the shock circuit would power up when you booted your comp. Then if you wanted to use the comp you could disable the shock with some kind of switch or key but if it was someone unauthorised they would not know about the circuit. You could have it wired up to someting like the spacebar of your key board or possibly easier to you mouse. So when that person started typing etc they would get a nasty shock and of course the cicuit would power up again almost immediatly making the computer almost unusuably.

[Lexeus]

Whats a CCFL? IS that a camera flash?

CCFL = Cold Cathode Fluorescent Light. Its the same sort of shock though , but from what I have heard the camera flash shocks are very bad

[turkster]

Thanks for definition.
Yeah camera flash shocks are pretty powerful. In fact they are probably quite dangerous and could possibly be lethal depending on the conditions.
Probably not advisable to use in a stun gun but they produce lovely big sparks