Mechanical/electrical hacking can be addictive

It's easy to get wrapped up in little hobbyist projects and forget it is all about amusement. The conseqences are usually to your wallet, as you run out and buy components or tools for your silly garage projects.

Well, here's some cost mitigation for you. This page is dedicated to projects you can do with relatively simple, inexpensive tools and materials, and a few junk items any decent packrat will have stashed away someplace.

For goodness sake, why?

Say you want to do some hacking, but you have already been staring at a computer screen all day. Well, you can give your hands some much needed excercise (as well as a few gashes and cuts) by taking your hacking instincts in other directions.

Luckily, these days, we have access to a whole lot more interesting and potentially useful types of salvage -- my stash is mostly computers, but with a bit of imagination, almost any old, obselete or broken appliance can supply parts to be made into something amusing or perhaps even something with a practical use. My stash of parts is mostly from years of working in the computer industry, and rarely saying "no" when someone wanted to unload a broken part or two on me, so most of my designs tend to use computer parts.

Remember, though, hacking principles still apply, formost among them being laziness. If it can't be done with a minimum of effort and yield a result that is truly not deserved, it doesn't qualify as a hack. Not to discourage serious craftsmanship, but that's not what this page, and "trash hacking" are all about.

See also...

I mainly concentrate on items that can be easily assembled without much carpentry, relying almost entirely on components you can salvage, and of course tie wraps and duct tape (gaffer, for the brits.) The following sites may be of interest to the budget bodger who takes things serious enough to fire up the bandsaw, or to drop some petty cash on a few extra components or tools: