Category Archives: do it yourself

Removing the loud velcro hook and loop fastener from a Maxpedition wallet

Posted by Jaran on 2018/01/06 No comments

Got a Maxpedition wallet with a velcro fastener that is incredibly loud whenever you open it?

Remove the velcro! I took some knife on my Maxpedition C.M.C. wallet and removed the “hooky” part of the two velcro strips. The back-seam of that part is inside the wallet, so if the wallet is closed there is no visible change.

Now, with that part removed, the “flappy” part of the wallet is no longer fixed to the rest of it which is no problem at all when you’re wearing the wallet in trousers pocket or in a backpack/bag. It also stays closed when you put your wallet on a cabinet or table. The only thing you shouldn’t do anymore is throw your wallet through the air.

Here’s a series of pictures detailing how I removed the velcro strip and how the final result looks like:

Upgrading a Lenovo IdeaPad S205 with an SSD and more RAM

Posted by Jaran on 2012/02/04 5 comments

Since my 5 year old Sony Vaio Laptop is in the process of disintegrating I bought a Lenovo S205 netbook. Additionally I ordered another gig of RAM (the S205 came with 1 GB) and a 60GB OCZ Vertex Plus SSD.

It’s always good to know what you’re up to before taking up the screwdriver so I took a look at the S205s Hardware Maintenance Manual (direct link to the PDF) and off I went with disassembling the netbook:

After careful removal of the old harddrive, replacement with the SSD and adding the additional gigabyte of RAM it was ready to be closed up again.

After some trouble with installing Windows XP (I had to slipstream Service Pack 3 into the installation CD to make it work) all the work was definitely worth it:

If you’re going to install an SSD, be sure to read about partition alignment first, especially if you’re installing Windows previous to Vista!

More power: extending the battery life of a Led Lenser H7 LED head lamp

Posted by Jaran on 2011/12/20 3 comments

While the Led Lenser H7 is bright enough for most of my purposes its runtime on the highest level is a bit low. That’s no surprise as it draws up to 800mA from only 3 AAA batteries.

As can be seen on the picture I modified the lamp to accept an optional external power source, in this case another 3 AA cells which quadruple the runtime.

The additional batteries can be worn comfortably in a belt holder.

Building a mobile USB cell phone charger

Posted by Jaran on 2011/07/28 6 comments

Using your smartphone as a GPS tracker when biking tends to drain the battery very fast. For long tours this might actually be too fast. So I decided to build a mobile cell phone charger that runs on two standard AA batteries and extends the run-time of my smartphone. (To be honest before deciding to build my own I bought a commercially available one which unfortunately went up in smoke. Fortunately Amazon has a nice return policy and after once more killing the same model again I got my money back).

I’ve previously experimented with the LT1073 converter which is nice because it can provide 5V out of a single cell. However, this time a bit more power was needed and so I got hold of a LT1302 which is able to produce 5V at 600mA from a 2 cell supply.
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Do it yourself cable remote for Canon Digital Rebel cameras

Posted by Jaran on 2011/07/03 No comments

If you got tons of electronics spare parts lying around (like me) you can save money (and have fun) by building your own cable remote.
The wiring is quite easy. The sleeve connector of a 2.5mm (3/32 inch) stereo audio plug serves as a ground terminal for the focussing (ring connector) and release (tip). Just attach buttons and you’re done. For better usability, e.g. a cable extension, I connected the 2.5mm connector to a 3.5mm connector which will be plugged into the remote.
Wiring of a Canon Digital Rebel cable remote
The final cable remote
And yes, the last picture was taken using the remote you see.