Here's another good one from the excellent website There, I Fixed It.com. Necessity is indeed sometimes the mother of invention, and while this may not look very elegant, it does seem to do the trick. But we still think it fits quite nicely in our Don't-Try-This-At-Home series.
So, full marks for initiative on this one, but you have got to know what you are doing...
The submitter writes:
I bought this microwave oven for R$ 20 to fix it and use. Unfortunately, it is IMPOSSIBLE to find the keyboard membrane in Brazil. In USA, just the membrane costs $80!!! So I traced the keyboard circuit and made a new keyboard for it
You've heard of premium LED headlamps, well... these aren't them!
No Audi A8-like automatic control of main beams, switching from motorway to town mode, maybe, depending on factors including vehicle speed...No dip beam pattern to avoid dazzling other road users...
Now let's be clear, we are not making fun of an excellent bit of kit. An Engineer in Wonderland previously highlighted the DSO nano, a pocket size digital storage oscilloscope. See - An Engineer in Wonderland - Neat tiny scope
He wrote at the time:
OK, it is limited to 1MHz and only has a single channel, but what a great piece of kit for fault-finding car alternators and simple audio problems. And it stores waveforms on a microSD card.
The iPhone 4 antenna issue has taken another turn. After having initially scapegoated southpaws, Apple is now pointing the finger of blame at the formula used to calculate how many bars of signal strength are displayed...
And while Apple has promised issue a free software update within a few weeks, which will correct the display of signal strength, the company is maintaining that all is well with the iPhone. It insists that - following a return to their labs to retest everything - the iPhone 4's wireless performance is the best ever shipped for iPhones.
Wow! What do you make of this entry to our Homebrewed collection? A "guitar" made from smartphones, with the help of some drum sequencers and guitar apps.
How about a Cologne bottle spirit level, courtesy of "Levelus"? Who's to say those undertaking a spot of DIY work could not always do with - how shall we say - a dash more fragrance?
Apple warranties, how easily they are voided. The iPhone and MacBook products might be smoking hot, but don't go smoking near them... Issues of "second hand smoke", you see.
A tie-wrap, some rubber bands, a cooking utensil... What else is needed for a home-brewed GPS holder? Let's just hope his bike is in better shape. View full pictures.
Over the years I seem have become a bit of a connoisseur for how sinks can frustrate the reasonable task of wishing to wash your face.
Either the design of the taps mean they are too large or misplaced, or the design of the bowl is completely impractical. Staying in a London hotel recently, it was definitely the case of the former.
Impossible objects #11: The inside-out salt shaker
Silly, I know, but it made me laugh - the "Saltside Out" salt shaker. Thanks to Technabob for this one:
A clever handblown glass design by Jason Amendolara puts a glass void where the salt shaker would normally go, and the salt in the glass cylinder on the outside of the shaker.
You can buy these babies on Neatorama.com for $13.95.
I can't believe someone makes.... USB construction sites
The planet is dying, we need to conserve resources. We need to go green, and reuse and recycle. Not waste precious electricity powering pointless diversions. I can't believe someone makes a USB-pwered construction site model set....
Though, you could possibly reuse the bollards as Christmas fairy lights. And it might amuse a child, for five seconds...
Taps, eh. Come in all shapes and sizes. But you'll never find this one in the shops - another objet introuvables from Jacques Carelman.
What's really handy, though, is when the hot and cold taps are connected to a single source. Throw in a third tap for good measure, too (for luke-warm water?). And another one?!... See below.
"Panda" is a good friend of the Made By Monkeys blog and he's recently sent us this one.
He asks: "Are the doors wrong or the balconies? Conflict between planners, architects and builders?" A good question, as I've seen this repeated elsewhere (for example, modern flat blocks in Sutton, Surrey).
If door's could speak, these would have an identity problem: "I am a door not a window..."
After a particularly nasty ice storm knocked out power to more than 1 million in Massachusetts and New England in mid-December, one resident did, well, what any good engineer would do:
"When it looked
like we were going to be without power for awhile, I dug out an
inverter (which takes 12v DC and creates 120v AC from it) and wired it
into our Prius."
Knowing several Patriots fans, I would assert that getting the TV going was paramount to the man's survival. But one does have to wonder about the need for a freezer during icy weather.
Last time we picked on Burton upon Trent for this leaf-shrouded parking ticket machine. Now, we turn our attention to Herriman, Utah, where Jon Titus snapped a shot of this inconveniently-located solar-powered street sign. Wonder how tall those trees get?
Three Pin Adaptor Plug No Deadly Device--But Maybe a Lethal Weapon!
Nathan Herbert sends proof that he owns and uses a three pin, inline plug and has lived to tell the tale, though it's questionable as to whether he can get through airport security with it! He writes:
"It's not quite the death trap artistic device as imagined by some people. Each of the plug-prong 'faces' is removable, and only one of the cube faces has live connection pins inside. The face opposite the live one has a standard UK socket on it. It's not bad (or lethal!) to use, just a pain to pack, as it's like packing a caltrop in your suitcase, and just as much fun to step on while jet-lagged in the night!"
Apologies to the artist who designed the HSBC advert!
Besides loads of useful stuff over at www.microwaves101.com, the authors have posted what they call a "politically incorrect" microwave slang glossary. While it predictably features some of the usual crude and sophmoric lab humor, there's a lot of amusing terms that will ring familiar to most engineers -- myself included.
A Simpsons fan, I'm particularly fond of Bart's Head:
"'Bart's Head' is the colloquial term for the waveform in the frequency domain of a CDMA signal as viewed on a spectrum analyzer. When operating correctly, it looks a lot like Bart Simpson's head. Square sides, kind of choppy on the top. You might hear something like; " I looked at the Bart's head at the antenna port, and it rolls pretty sharply, I think the duplexer is tweaked" "
Is This Three Pin Adaptor for Real or Just Artistic License?
No wonder banks are having such a tough time of it these days! Mike Meakin sent in this head-scratching HSBC advert from the Sunday Times:
"I'm fascinated by the 3 pin in-line plug - never seen one of these in my travels! What do you suppose the graphic designer thought this adaptor was supposed to do? Or am I missing something?"
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Another one for the don't-try-this-at-home department. It's in-car cooling, of sorts, but should not be emulated!
Here's another good one from the excellent website 
Here's another good one from the excellent website 
Now let's be clear, we are not making fun of an excellent bit of kit. An Engineer in Wonderland previously highlighted the DSO nano, a pocket size digital storage oscilloscope. See - 
The 
This one made me laugh - thanks to the excellent 
Apple warranties, how easily they are voided. The iPhone and MacBook products might be smoking hot, but don't go smoking near them... Issues of "second hand smoke", you see.
To continue our new series, 
Good material for another series, maybe - Don't Get the Builders In!
This one doesn't quite fit the 
Thanks to Jon Titus another contribution to our photo gallery of cockeyed construction work -- or is someone just having fun with photoshop? 
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