Hack everything: re-purposing everyday devices - Matt Evans

[@kedwa30]

I like the central theme here: rather than buy parts to build an arduino clone, hack a discarded device to do what you need to do. Learning to reverse engineer something in order to salvage its microcontroller for use in another project is a valuable skillset for the future when we will need to reprogram a terminator to defend us from the terminator onslaught.

[@ppQmaister]

right on

[@MrChaosBones]

kedwa30 I find solice in the fact free-thinking people like you exist, althought my local society has tried to hammer into every child's head that they need to hyper-overspecialize in one very narrow field, to be worthwhile. I call bullshit - The more you can do by yourself - the more free you actually are.

[@curtis4991]

MrChaosBones So fucking true sir, I love people like this.

[@pawelm4502]

kedwa30 loogie boogie

[@HominidMachinae]

MrChaosBones agreed. I read a book that changed my life about the "artisan mindset," basically a really great tradesman has not only a deep knowledge of their field, but picks up knowledge around it as well. a blacksmith will learn a bit about woodworking as they make handles for tools, a bit about fine metalwork as they make things with decorative aspects, a fair bit about chemistry as they learn to etch and plate and learning to plate metals these days you'll have to learn about high-voltage electronics too. Basically, being hyper-specialized limits how good you can ever be even at a specialized job. A superior craftsman, or technician, or engineer knows where they fit in the big picture. Even a waiter that knows about cooking and about restaurant management will be a superior waiter.

[@abies2000]

If you're wondering how to repurpose an item that's cluttering your space, throw it away. There is a 95% chance that you'll find its application the day after disposal.

[@malachite072]

Huh? Where did you get up with that? How would throwing something away cause a 95% chance of discovering its use, and why should you throw it away if that's the case?? Edit: So which one is it? A sarcastic joke or something that is true? Are you gonna tell me it's both? You people are stupid.

[@larryhull2752]

@@malachite072 I think it’s a joke because that’s how it typically goes in life. You give something up just to discover you could’ve given it to someone or used it yourself somehow.

[@malachite072]

@@larryhull2752 Firstly, I will admit I didn't realize this could be a joke. But look, I love jokes. But making a joke out of confusing advice just seems like a horrible joke. Not only because personally, I don't see the humor but because it really doesn't reflect properly. Additional edit: I didn't get the joke at first but I would of been like "oh well" if I was told something like "it's just sarcasm", but instead you people are completely unreasonable thinking something is true because it's a joke. The joke is sarcastically reflective, not entirely reflective. The "point" of this "joke" is that you should throw things away to discover their use. The point is NOT entirely about how you might discover the use after that thing was thrown away. There is a difference. So to say I'm the one who missed the point is ironic. Calling me ironic is even further ironic. Irony at its finest.

[@nicolasmaximus2286]

@@malachite072 You have just the missed the point.☝️.Murfies law.🤣

[@malachite072]

@@nicolasmaximus2286 Just looked up Murphy's law, and realized I already know about this concept. That doesn't take away the fact that the joke doesn't reflect on the concept properly and that it isn't humorous (at least not in my opinion). Also, metaphysics have nothing to do with why you should do something.

[@michaelszczys8316]

Even with my limited electronics ability I have hacked, fixed and re used all kinds of things over the years from changing a picture tube on a 1949 television when I was 14 to recently making an old web cam into a microscopic viewer to get photos off of old 8mm movie film. Watching this on a nice I-pad I won in a raffle, before that I was using 20 year old laptops running Linux to enable them to successfully get on youtube.

[@jamesf.189]

Based, and Raskolnikov-pilled tovarishch

[@rt5hrnbfa304]

You're living the dream m8

[@chuckfinley5206]

I've been recycling TV's for the past four years. Actually learned how to repair some.

[@neciasilver5357]

Hey that is what I just did this week,the web cam to microscope

[@michaelszczys8316]

It works pretty good but at the end of the range it's not real clear.

[@3dartstudio007]

This video went from glueing a rubber duckie to an alarm--- to reprogramming grandma's old picture frame into a Linux retro gaming box?!? Fascinating! I applaud you good sir!

[@zillymonkeytv3013]

we need this more than ever, this whole planned obsolescence companies do is horrible. like old ipads old smart phones and so on they are all perfectly usable

[@michaelszczys8316]

I tell my children, and they have witnessed it themselves in their time, in the world of computers a lot of early stuff was outdated quickly and you could get old computers from yard sales or people just gave them to you. They weren't that usable compared to the other advanced stuff. After a time the old used stuff was advanced enough itself to were it WAS quite usable . Especially in bridging the gaps in technology. I have an old Sager laptop someone GAVE to us from 2000 and it has an old floppy disc player as well as XP operating system which makes it able to play old floppy disks I have and convert to USB devices. I had a floppy disk camera in early 2000 and it helps me convert all my pictures. You might not be able to take these old computers online very well but even a 20 year old one has a ton of storage and USB which is still used.

[@hknypauly]

I cannot agree more!

[@edgeeffect]

I wish more people were publishing in this area. There is so much about "upcycling" old devices that either ignores the digital electronic parts or makes them into coasters or jewelry or something... I've just found a couple of old DVD drives and would love some kind of shared resource or forum or anything where I could get started on utilising the compute power that's tucked away inside them... but I just haven't got the months/years needed to work out everything myself.

[@sayamqazi]

I wanted to use an old android device as a pure hardware that I can install a tiny OS on and run some fun graphics on it. Dived deep into how to do it. It turns out these devices actively prevent you from doing that. They are completely closed off except for very few releases where the manufacturer kept certain bits on/off appropraitely inside the ROM so users can load any arbitrary OS on it.

[@Handlebarrz]

@@sayamqazi you should be able to get around that by rooting and unlocking the room loader. I used to do that with my phone when I was bored. But you're right, without the root, you're very limited

[@sayamqazi]

@@Handlebarrz I know that but some phones are impossible to root. When you are able to root a phone has a prerequisite which if the manufacturer wants they can lock you out of rooting. Then you need to find if people have found an exploit for their prevention. This is why every version of iPhone has different method of jailbreaking. Note I may have conflated the terms "unlocking the bootloader" and actually "rooting" the phone that caused the confusion.

[@Handlebarrz]

@@sayamqazi we're both right. As long as you can find the root exploit, possibilities are endless. Being it harder to do so with flagships or security savy hardware manufacturers

[@MrRusty-fm4gb]

I saw some videos here on KZbin on using the dvd drive sliding mechanism to make a mini drill press.

[@MarioIArguello]

Totally with you man. I know this video is old but the concept of repurposing and hacking things for another useful purpose never goes out of style. It hurts me to see people simply throw away perfectly usedul things that can be repurposed with a bit of electronics knowledge or just having a tinkering mechnical mind.

[@EriBarr]

Yes.. but the opposite person ends up with a garage that can’t be opened or walked through or even gone into.. lol.. like mine

[@EriBarr]

But everyone I’ve thrown something out I’ve regretted it later… like the 3 ps3 I had in my garage that just needed the disk drive fixed.. still have a ps2 in perfect condition though lol and a ps4 thats kicking my butt.. but I’m a stay at home mom that likes to tinker.. A LOT.. lol my kids love it.. and have way too much faith in their mom being able to fix things 😂😅

[@michaelszczys8316]

Being someone older from the age of black and white television - hardly anybody you knew had color yet - that used to play with junk black and white TV it was the hardest thing around 10 years ago to see an endless amount of perfectly good color tvs being thrown out. Now we watch LCD TV which have the worst picture. We advanced from black and white to color ( which were great when brand new but wore out fast) to better longer lasting color sets to color cathode ray tubes with pictures like photographs to really crappy low- resolution pictures on LCD screens and digital broadcast and people say " oh its so much better "

[@michaelszczys8316]

@@EriBarr I used to be like that, then I lost my house and had to get rid of 95% of my junk. I still have too much and need to get rid of more.

[@MrRusty-fm4gb]

Yes. It blows my mind. I recently pulled a perfectly fine dell xperion laptop mnfg in 2018 out of a dumpster and luckily I had a hp charger at home with the exact output requirements to turn it in. It was password protected and I was tempted to take it apart for the scrap metal but I decided to look up how to bypass windows password and luckily I found my answer in 5 minutes on KZbin.(f8/f11 command worked) It took 12 hours to clear it out and reinstall windows 10. I have so many things that he pulled out of a dumpster that should have never been thrown away and worked perfectly fine. People turtles them away because they simply didn’t want to clean it or empty its contents or buy a new belt or simple replace a frayed cord. I have found many vacuums, toasters, tons of lamps(almost all still had working bulbs still in them!! Wtf!!), 2 scales, work lights, tools, batteries, 2 laptops, extension cords, smartphones & tablets(I use them with wifi or alphred camera), storage containers, espresso machines, air fryers, fans, TVs(I take the LED strips, plexiglass, and circuit boards out), a working record player, JVC receiver, slide projectors(I take the lenses out)…. And enough food to last 10’lifetimes. Any stuff that I can’t fix or don’t care to fix, I’ll save the motors, wiring, gears & shafts, switches, sensors, etc and save them for when I might need them.

[@gitapushyangel2092]

you should really make a channel of different things like this and teaching people how to do this more in depth...

[@double-a-ron5311]

+1

[@mattelanni]

Johney Five yeah i totaly agree

[@c.m.4720]

🤞

[@louiscost1758]

Riiiight? I'll post a link today, someone has carved out this niche, surely....

[@coldblackice]

Yes please!

[@MrRusty-fm4gb]

I f*****n’ love taking apart appliances and devices, and looking at the electronic and mechanical parts to see how it works, googling info on stuff I’m not sure about, and hoarding(on a small scale) the good stuff to use later when I’m in need. I pull a lot of stuff out of dumpsters and whenever I’m out and about I’m always looking for stuff. I’m almost 40 and just getting home into electronics. As far back as I could remember, I would get Cheap RC cars as gifts and before I got the chance to put the batteries in them, I would take everything apart and marvel at all the components Inside while having not a clue what any of it did(except for the obvious mechanical/gears parts). I grew up strictly on regular legos and technic legos btw.

[@chuckfinley5206]

I hit a milestone last week. Took apart printer number 150. Been doing this for 4 years and saved everything but some of the plastic. Keep track by counting how many pieces of glass I have saved.

[@thefrub]

This is more relevant than ever 11 years later. It's impossible to get your hands on a Raspberry Pi for under $250, but hang around a college or office IT department and you'll get your hands on plenty of discarded Thin Client PCs that you can hack into whatever project you want.

[@thefirstmissinglink]

My nephew was brought up in a household where if it wasn't being used or was broken throw it out. I replaced a broken ligh switch dimmer. I handed it to him and told him to take it apart. He now has a VR company that the military made him a crazy offer on.

[@Weed]

Wow

[@paddym27]

the biggest obstacle to the tinkering culture, at least for me, was alwasy the fear of either breaking something irrepairably, or somehow getting an electric shock! I really think schools should have electronics as a core part of the curriculum. Electricity is everywhere and people should be safe and confident handling it.

[@paddym27]

+paddym27 for example i remember spending one hour in high school being taught how to wire a (uk) plug. For the last 20 mins of the lesson we were all told to wire one and bring it up to the teacher for inspection. I did mine, and was told by the teacher it was downright dangerous. But the killer was... that was it. No follow up, nothing. This is a key life skill!

[@paddym27]

+paddym27 i still dont know how to wire a plug.

[@edgeeffect]

@@paddym27 WHY?

[@edgeeffect]

That's another good reason to try and make things out of old junk... it doesn't hurt so much when you brake it irreparably.... and you will! There's no escaping it.

[@Cqdx11]

I suspect many factories produce pcb's for current products and get stuck with stock as time marches on. So they look at these and wonder what they can re-purpose the pcb's to that could use the feature sets in other lesser products. Low count image ccd's sure do. Great talk with thought provoking info thanks.

[@hoyahimsa]

not even halfway in and i already know this is a beautiful and important presentation. thank you so much

[@Noahtheorigianl]

Thank u Matt Evans, u taught me to stop wasting most of my time being a weeb and actually learn and reverse engineer stuff, now I’m addicted to learning how certain electronics work and how I can use them like u said in the “gambiarra” way. Really appreciate the free content and knowledge😁

[@edgeeffect]

What's a "weeb"?

[@coldblackice]

@@edgeeffect Someone obsessed with anime, often as an escape from real life/society.

[@lookupverazhou8599]

I made my first AND gate today!!!!!! WEeeEEEee.

[@markandash2009]

Your shelf looks like a small portion of what I have collected, it was originally for recycling, collecting the precious metals, however, I looked at it like you do ‘can they be used for other things’? Im just not creative enough or have the know how for it. I can easily repair electronics with the original part, iPhones are an example. If I could use them for other purposes I definitely would but have no idea where to start and what to make? I don’t know what the chips, board and such do to be able to repurpose them. I’ve learned how to fix basic ohv engines so I can fix and service my own and others if needed, and many other things too. So I’m sure I could grasp the deeper side of electronics. Thanks for posting this.

[@alantripp6175]

Wow this just popped into my feed. This is great energy and could be fun. The challenge is getting info on most of electronic parts.

[@Fuzzy6262]

Just hit 5 minutes in, 11 years later, and I LOVE THIS!!!!

[@Bromon655]

"I'm worried that as a society we're going from people who knew how their electronics worked to mostly passive consumers" how right you were. Sadly 11 years later it's only gotten much worse with tech companies blatantly capitalizing on consumer ignorance.

[@rbus]

I love this talk and have tons of little side projects including repurposing a first-gen Battletech Pod (large sit-down, fully-enclosed cockpit from the early 90's) with new PC-control flatscreens and 6-channel sound. Also, Weirdstuff is great! I go there every few months and some of my finds are; * Several wood towers designed to hold hard drives but repurposed to hold arrays of Ztex FPGA boards (incidentally, repurposed from FPGA-based bitcoin miners) * 1980's reel-to-reel tape drive that can read/write IBM tapes from the 1960s but suitcase-sized form factor. * Several Intel boards containing HDMI/DVI/VGA ins/outs - presumably for testing video processing on Xilinx Vertex-II FPGA * Lots of NeuralID industrial camera inspection units - Hard metal boxes, opened up to find PC/104 stackable computer with 1Ghz Pentium3 PC and camera is hard-wired but standard USB. * Lots of beautifully machined aluminum pieces for mounting, hinges and brackets * 8 foot high rack with the complete robotic tape loading mechanism from a large tape jukebox. Also, the Palo Alto tech swap meet is another place to find even rarer stuff for even cheaper. This month I snatched a 8" floppy drive and a Agilent spectrum analyzer with all it's guts taken out, only the power supply remaining - ideal for building a modern version of a Kaypro luggable.

[@kedwa30]

There is a thrift store near me where I can get a lot of old keyboards. I'm new to this. I might pick up a few just to use the cords and connectors in my projects, but after watching this, now I'm curious if I can use the electronics inside to do something other than be a keyboard.

[@theallseeingeye9388]

The first 1 min perfectly mirrors the results I typically get when I hack and Mc Gyver myself with stuff thats broken down

[@ramadaneel8048]

Repair-reuse- recycle - sustainable earth and economy. Excellent and pragmatic and eco-friendly strategy.

[@michaelgasperik4319]

Awesome video. I love building things and reusing old things in new ways. This is way more in depth than anything I have tried. I've never tried hacking the software or firmware of anything. I do stuff more like use an old pair of children's walkie talkies to make an intercom between the house and my work shop or take a UPS that someone threw out because of a dead battery and turn it into a power inverter to charge drill batteries in my truck. I recently turned an ATX computer power supply into a variable output benchtop power supply. I'm just starting to get into arduino now, but I still need to learn to write the code to make it do something.

[@40u5]

I like your video the newer generations definitely need to learn this stuff its a dying form of art that needs more recognition thanks for educating people on this topic.

[@Danjovisagat]

I built a working speaker + amplifier using an old power supply's parts. It was really cool to hear audio.

[@1d10tcannotmakeusername]

Passive consumer-ism is the worst thing to come out of modern culture. I've been taking things apart, trying to understand computers, collecting old electronic junk (even buying some at the thrift store because I liked the way it looked, old keyboards, network cards, old monitors, you name it) since I was 7 or 8 years old. My first computer program that I was real proud of? A little thing in applescript that made the computer say a greeting on startup on an old iMac G4 running Mac OS X Tiger (This was back in the early 2010s). Sealed disposable electronics are *horrible* for the environment and are harder to modify/repurpose/reprogram. Mobile devices like phones disgust me for that reason. Glue instead of screws? Really? I especially hate DRM/locking software. It's my hardware, it should also have software that I have full freedom to modify. I think software copyright should be heavily modified. (The law does not allow for rooting android tablets from what I've heard. I'd like the law to regress to how it was when the Declaration of Independence was signed. 1776 government, 2020 technology.)

[@burtpanzer]

It seems like software user agreements shouldn't force customers to take all the risk when it's their product. Also, it is admirable what you were able to learn at an early age, but people need to be made aware that many others are killed each year by TV and Microwave capacitors.

[@MrArtVein]

Fck the law, do what you want. You can buy rooted old phones online. Do it. My phone is from 2017 and just keep rebuying the same one

[@nigeldekker1074]

I learn more in these kind of youtube video's than i ever learned in scool

[@richardcompton6702]

The very last words from the host "Sorry about the A/C, it is broken. It's supposed to be fixed but... we don't know WHEN" are super hilariously ironic and fitting given the context of the talk.

[@RingoR87]

very nice presentation. I am looking inside electronic stuff since i was a child. Not always to hack the devices, but to see how they work. I also like tear down videos on youtube. When i was on college i always pray this to my mates for getting a better knowledge of electronics and design.... Are there some other presentations of Matt Evans? Like his style.

[@soonersciencenerd383]

i did the same. i'm using an old laptop for the commenting!

[@troyna77]

been doing exactly this since i was 5 years old. im not gonna be able to reprogram a terminator but i could probably figure out a way to loop "hello world" out of the terminator's mouth- as long as It wasnt gonna kill me.

[@phannguyen723]

+Troy Nall I like that Idea, you can also put an infinite loop saying "Hello World" in front of every kill command. This way it will just gonna run up to you and say Hello world a gazillion times until it run out of battery.

[@gitapushyangel2092]

but what about enhancing more modern systems why cant I double the performance of my galaxy s3 when I have a near identical board....

[@troyna77]

its called bottle necking. no matter how fast the processor is, the data bus is limited to how many bits it can squeeze through the different areas of hardware. this is a very simplified answer. ive seen identical model phones made by haewuii but one was a mark 1. and the other a mark 1s. both had full size sim card slots. but upon tear down of both devices the 1s could indeed had a sim, but the 1 could not. all the mark 1 was missing was 5 micro wires connecting the sim slots leads to the board. so the performace here that the maker charged 150 dollars more 5 micro wires. the mark 1 was wifi only device. the mark 1s was both wifi and 3G. so sometimes performance can be affected but after only careful examination.

[@salalablablabla]

+Troy Nall I think the price difference is due to the lack of certification-, testing- and approval processes that are mandatory for the GSM module. for example I have a Xiaomi phone which supports LTE band 20 (mostly used in Europe), but as Xiaomi still declares itself as a chinese manufacturer they don't feel the need to officially support anything outside of China, so it's disabled in the nvram settings (which have been already unlocked by using custom a kernel to circumvent the Qualcomm check, etc.) but my point is that this way they also save money (hence the pretty good prices), they simply do not have to seek the approval of the relevant authorities which requires rigorous testing --> costs a lot of time and money, which then would show in the retail price of the device, like in your case. but i have to add this is just my understanding, i could also be totally wrong :D

[@sharonoke5759]

troy could you help me I have horrible neighbours that listen and record everything I mean everything could you make me somthing to stop them please I'm dissabled and I cannot afford a lot but if you trust me I can pay somthing

[@royalaurastudios3339]

Here is one some of you may or may not know you may remember the movie Tron. The first one came about from the idea from old computers. It may have been Windows 95 or 98 when you went into Dos Mode on Your C Drive. And if you type in the words tron it means Tracer On when you hit the enter key, the tron menu would bring you into Debug mode if you needed to fix an error problem on you computer. It would allow you to take and edit a program file and fix it and resave it so you would never have that problem again. Tron was a way to let the user get inside the computer to fix it, and now you know.

[@TheGreenlark]

It is now 2023. John Connor has shared this video with us so we can overcome the Terminator. Lol in all seriousness this is still one of the best videos I have seen on this subject.

[@alexzirnea]

Found myself lots of times having broken/obsolete electronics, and even though there is a way to repurpose it, I can't freakin' do it because the designers of that particular device used components where nobody can find a datasheet for them..

[@alantripp6175]

Or hide the key part Id's so you don't know what it is.

[@alexzirnea]

@@alantripp6175 fast forward 7 years later becoming a full-time electronic/software engineer I can fully understand the rationale behind that. Protecting IPs. Some Chinese guys really enjoy reverse engineering and counterfeiting products. Whatever you can do to prevent them or even slow them down will be in the benefit of the actual company that develops. The downside of that is that us, free time tinkerers can't do anything about it and we are left with a consumer-driven economy with no reusability in sight.

[@MulticulturalRadio]

Garage door opener hack... why not simply remove the circuit board, make a slight cut in the visor, insert the board and presto - hidden garage door opener hidden inside your visor.

[@cliffchism9187]

Really wish you’d made more videos. Excellent content!

[@KnightMirkoYo]

Wait, he said "things are designed to go obsolete in 6 months" back in 2012?

[@Mosfet510]

The TRUE spirit of a Hacker! Great video, I'm in agreement 100%

[@neciasilver5357]

Reverse engineering is the funnest hobby I've ever become obsessed with.

[@Bluuri-Aeros]

I've been tearing apart, disassembling, repairing, breaking (some accidental, some with intent 😅):since I was about 6 yrs old. Still at it, now repurposing a retired airport shuttle bus into my final home. I've always been drawn to and used computers, but have been too intimidated to attempt an understanding. Consequently my rebuilds tend more toward Steampunk. When I was 10 I built my own database but never completed the information upload. Mainly because it was a clock with a second hand with the numbers 1-12 replaced by the English alphabet. To learn about Computers, for example, you'd set the clock second hand to straight up "nothing", then press Fast Forward on an attached cassette player wired to the clock. When the clock hand hit "C" it would stop the cassette player and you'd press "Play" to then listen to me reading from my dictionary about everything starting with the letter "C". Pretty rudimentary and useless, but I was so proud and had a hell of a great time. Oh, and it also had a board with 20 or so flashing Christmas tree lights to ramp up the WOW! factor. This was 1975, so my suitcase sized computer blew the socks off scientists using room sized mainframes. Lol, not.

[@Tony-lf3zt]

It'd be awesome you uploaded it!

[@ruehlerob]

Thanks for the video. I always take things apart to try to fix things with some success and have reused things before but this energizes me to do even more

[@werelwolf]

Been enjoying the talk, and hit favourite once he said "you can use Ruby if you're a deviant" XD

[@CusPedro]

This opened my eyes. Take for instance a computer programmer coding a device that will be used for consumer usage. It's assumed that the average Joe will use the product and then toss it because it doesn't work anymore. Others will look for a backdoor because in coding error handling doesn't get handled properly

[@s1l3nttt]

This will be so important in the very near future...

[@Starcruise511]

Hello matt Evans :-) I love this stuff, your repurpose philosophy, apocalypse and the info you give. In response, I have collated old boards from a myriad of devices. I've equipped myself with a soldering iron, screwdrivers and circuit tester. I'm awed at looking at the boards and ports and bedazzled by you geeks and hackers. I love it but no clue what to do with it all. Perhaps you could please advice me where to start? Electronics course? Programming course? It all seems multi-disciplinary so where do I begin> I've got boxes of the stuff waiting for me to catch up so thank you for your inspiration Matt :-)

[@alexisjuillard4816]

Ok have you learned electronics now? If not there's a few ressources i can give you to further your understanding, of varying complexity, from stuff for beginners that don't understand what they are doing to diy channels of super skilled dudes that build insane stuff from scratch, or theoretical lectures/ explanations. You know, i did 3 years of electrical engineering before switching to fundamental physics, and -mostly dur to the way the french system is set up, with 2 insane years with overkill levels of work and therory (basically 2x 2h/ day of lectures, physics and math, + 2h each again of problem solving, and after that 8h day you are expected to work another 3-4h to just digest the 10 pages of function series theoremes you've barely had time to write, all that to get a 7-8/20 on a test if you're lucky. The average was like 4-5, above ten you're a god even tho its the lower bar of admission in the public school system, and getting at 12 and above thats so hard to pull off teacher will start to find if you've cheated. Anyway i went though 3 years lf pure math and physics hell (did the 2nd one twice, and somehow managed to keep my passion for science even as they did their best to make it seem line a bunch of boring equations After that i could solve any question or problem for any electromagnetic field (referring to electricity in general, circuits are just a part of that), but in practoce i was clueless I d just never associated the hands ln with the theory and when i started experimenting with electricity i'd already forgoten most of the specific formulas but it all started to make sense to me, and i found myself re discovering concepts i thought i understood but didn't, very satisfying. Point is you don't need to go the hard way like that. You can find ressources on the net, hell of this very platform thqt will give you a masters level education if you really invest the time and effort.. In my case, i learned all my quantum mechanics for example on KZbin, built all my knowledge there. There a small channel in french from an astrophysicist teaching close by that uploads ALL of his lessons so you have bachlot/master level full length 15-25 2h lectures and nearly twice that in exercises. I just found thos dude to be far more interesting and better then my teacher, if you can learn university level QM on yt you can become a self made electrical engineer ;)

[@MrRusty-fm4gb]

I found 2 G5 towers in the dumpster and using the Power supplies to make a bench top power supply and a soldering station with the different voltages for different guages of salvaged nichrome wire.

[@camabis-uw2lm]

Over decade ago this man was ahead of his time in brand switching from iPhone.

[@DashkaMilashka015]

grate video. 11 years ago this was shot. interested i am if this guy has an updated version of this video and topic

[@VastGsm]

This video is super educational, you've answered many of the unanswered questions I had. You've got a new subscriber, looking forward to watching the next one 🔥👍

[@Z-Ack]

Im exactly like this dude when im on methamphetamines.. is like everything i ever learned in my advanced circuit engineering and multiplexing/ programming classes all comes back to me at once and before i know it im behind a pile of screws and plastic bits with my laptop and a spiderweb of jumpers making some little motor spin or a speaker go beep boop.. then usually the thought comes over me like "ok wtf am i going to use this on or in or for.. so i end up spending the next few hours figuring out how to put the shit back together.. lol..

[@imagitu6409]

maybe dont do meth.....

[@kushsmoka]

@@imagitu6409 i mean to be honest he could be doing way worse things on meth, compared to playing with electronics.

[@imagitu6409]

@@kushsmoka give him some time... he will be

[@Err-G]

Hi from Brazil! Vídeo perfeito mostrando para o mundo a arte da gambiarra :)

[@adamjacobrogers9155]

I wish I had seen this 11 years ago it may have influenced me or inspired me to pursue hacking "ad hoc" or freaking as called back in the day.

[@hw7032]

I feel ya, always low key wishing I did engineering or computer science degree instead of the degree I did (biological science). I think we are too young to know what we really want to do when we have to choose our subjects etc… So much money in computer tech careers too, and all so interesting!

[@petevenuti7355]

Don't let this MacGuiver mentality become a limitation! ... I understand everything is a piece of some puzzle and everything has an unintended purpose but when you have the opportunity and good fortune to have the resources to make something from scratch it becomes too easy to be still self limited to things that exist and preconceived notions.. So to those without those resources don't forget the ideal fantasy option, believe it or not, it can help with focus and will help you take opportunities when they present themselves , and for those with resources - don't forget much of what you want to create has been done before and appreciate it, it's likely right in front of you.

[@wayneburbage8900]

fascinating. I found a lot of media devices in the E waste bins I've fixed and re used like PCs, Like the Alienware Laptop I'm using now. in a dumpster. with no harddrive or battery. a vat of grease poured on it. No audio output working. or cd drive. or back cover. Pizza box taped under it. Found HD with broken Windows OS . Using Ubuntu. Works when used for an hour, I i smells like a Fast food place . but works well.

[@astropgn]

I found it funny that he picked the water bottle many times just to put it back on the table without even drinking it lol

[@cherrybaby4940]

The bottle movement is a Body language and psychology thing 😉

[@malachite072]

😂😂 this should be top comment how is does this only have 8 likes

[@nicolasmaximus2286]

That's his comfort body.☝️🤣

[@alibear57]

It's a bit like his lecture, he suggested repurposing items (picking up the bottle), but never gave any specific examples that the average person could attempt (not drinking it). It's all very well for intelligent people to suggest things, but it's a completely useless exercise, unless you also show us how to do it. Most of us don't have the tools, the brains, OR the time to accomplish the stuff suggested on here. Give us useful, practical examples, and we'll follow your example.

[@FennecTECH]

the most common user for an openWRT / ddwrt comparable router is an Ethernet wireless bridge or a Wi-Fi repeater 😊

[@yorks_atheist3069]

yep people are complaining about the lack of raspberry PIs yet I've been using discarded android TV boxes as SBCs for a few years

[@1mcarrell]

I LOVE that it had a help menu!

[@shenlun]

HI Mat, Great Work. I am a steampunk enthuaist and ex watchmaker assistant and I love making things out of old stuff. I have recently enrolled into a course from pirateeletronics on how to learn about electronics. I want to recycle stuff like you do and want to know what is the best language to learn on the "hacking" part of your electronics.

[@angeloslegotechniccreation7653]

Definitley C++ used in arduino and industries

[@edgeeffect]

C is very heavily used in industry. Arduino uses a sort-of cut-down version of C++ but "real life" C++ is simply too complex for mortals to understand.

[@TURBOSLAYERPWNZ]

the only problem is that it takes just SO MUCH time to learn all the stuff, like yeah, its cool that you can make cat-feeder in a hour, or reverse some videogame and make a mod for it that almost nobody else can, its like superpower. But it takes years to obtain it, and if by chance you are already 30+ having job and some people around you need to spend some time talking with every evening or just happen to be not autistic enough to be really good at long periods of concentration on that stuff then it becomes even harder. And when you learn it it then you already 20 years behind and there are now even less points of application for your skills. And the AI creeping in. But I still wanna get that :D

[@UZI9MMAUTO]

I LOVE Vintage items because you can do things with them. Even newer items. Recycling is a EVIL. Repurposed items whether it be you or others. Lots of fun!

[@rne1223]

This is awesome and I'm down with the idea, but one thing that he needs to understand is that not everybody has a degree in EE. I want to learn how to do this type of stuff, but I need a bit of more information on where to start. Does he have a website or book about his findings?

[@edgeeffect]

The best way to learn electronics is to try stuff and make mistakes. I started with books by the likes of R. A. Penfold and Forest M. Mimms III, and they taught me how to make simplistic things. Once you've got some basic knowledge from this sort of things - think of your own projects and google your knowledge up... you'll find a lot of grabage online but there is good stuff to find. Try things out, get them wrong, get them wrong again. Something starts working eventually. Find old junk on street corners and rubbish dumps, take them apart carefully, you will slowly learn how they work and you'll amass a huge collection of recycled components.

[@petevenuti7355]

"junk shelf" he says, I call it the "resource pile"

[@southjerseysound7340]

That interruption in the beginning was awful.........there's so much I could say but the short of it is they destroyed his lecture.I mean to interrupt someone like that in the middle of their opening line was disgusting

[@MauriatOttolink]

+SouthJerseySound He could have ruined it quite adequately without any help.

[@cranegantry868]

Fascinating talk. Loved it.

[@666neoselen]

This guy is true. For example, i reused for the cost of an electric power supply and a bit of solder tin, an old PSU from a computer. I could bought a 1300$ labo power supply... Instead, a drill, a solder iron, some female banana connectors, 1 switch, a thing to cut wires & more than other things : a hour (if you have right well-working tools). & I got my power supply to help me to get fun with electronics. You can use a computer PSU for a more funny thing : get electroluminescent diodes (get so much), a NE555, a capacitor, a potentiometer and a relay (i guess ? or something to do an electrically commanded switch with constant low power demand to an output of .... let's say 20A if you want your desktop really get illuminated but prepare bars, not little wires if you plan high amperes like 20A or more). And you will get your desktop illuminated.

[@flyguille]

666neoselen the problem with reusing and old PSU as laboratory psu, is that you can't program the amperage limitation, neighter the voltage, you needs to build lots of extra circuit to do that.

[@mrtechie6810]

@@flyguille right. A Chinese 0-60V power supply with current limiting and display is around $50 and is much more convenient.

[@DCxALBRECHT]

2024 - this is relatable. We (USA) throw away so many electronics, computers, APC units without batteries, that are end of life. Rather than opening them up and fixing, upgrading.

[@seanmichaels9126]

I took a rockbox a record player that actually runs around the record like a racecar as it plays. I turned it into a small racecar and it was really really fast even worked off-road.

[@OtterLakeFlutes]

Not only can you repurpose and take away from waste (even recycling is so filthy) but if it trends, then some of the new items manufactured might be, instead of disposable items, tools and test devices to this end (instead of soon-obsolete, hands-free device clone # 9,999,999).

[@timrb]

Watching this while hacking devices from ~ 2012, wondering why I wasn't at this conference when I lived in Ballarat in 2012.

[@kjamison5951]

Big shout out to Ballarat! I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of the place before I watched The Doctor Blake Mysteries.

[@edgeeffect]

... and The Miss Fisher Mysteries.

[@gitapushyangel2092]

wish I had a team of people like you

[@AhmetMurati]

When I had my first laptop back in 2008 by end of age the intel GPU at that time started to misbehave, from the standard viewframe resolution sometimes it jupmed into much higher resolution so I learned that the firmware has got damaged so sometimes it showed proper resolution and sometime more than nowadays 8k

[@TitchLDN]

been doing this since i was 7, my first one was 2 radios into a metal detector

[@juanmartin387]

Men i want to do something maybe you could help me... I got two ssd's of 120 GB that i want to solder them to make a single 240 GB ssd (same brand and model) Just to learn,i know i could just use a software partitioner but i want to know how to manipulate hard drives and solder in a basic way and i want the computer to recognize it as a single drive just like with a normal 240 GB ssd also i wondered if i could do the same with hhds or usb flash drives or maybe combine more and more cheap ssds of 120gb to make a 1.2 TB bunch of disks I dont understand why but i cant find anything like that on google... so if you know how to do this or if you know any tutorial i would appreciate it a lot, I wondered if i could just solder cables from one disk's SATA pins to the other one,and then connect supply energy to both ssds,but only connect one SATA cable to the motherboard...

[@edgeeffect]

@@juanmartin387 Is this a joke?

[@unicodefox]

I feel like my USB to TTL serial being an arduino with the Atmega removed is kinda meta in the spirit of the talk

[@nocultist7050]

Ok. Let's say I have to build Raspberry Pi handheld device using only scavenged parts... I have old smartphone (MySaga C1). How can I find out what is the arrangement of wires(connectors) so I can start looking for a way to use it with Pi?

[@GalacticNovaOverlord]

Documentation and forums Figure things out one by one

[@ConsertandoTudo]

Gambiarra!!!! We breath it, we live by it.

[@coincapton6663]

Yes love converting things

[@yourgreat6364]

Where do these guys go to school? Who/where/what type of course makes one end up such a geek? I went to a good school and was one of the only person interested in electronics (in the 80's/90's). Perhaps it was my inability to deal with mathematics that lead me or rather didn't lead me to such a secondary education.

[@JohnNNJ]

It would depend on where you lived; since unless you had a decent community/county college with tech programs, or a technical institute (here it WAS DeVry, and NJIT), the option would have been self study and finding (or starting) a club. Another option would have been to score well in particular sections of the ASVAB and go into the military; particularly the Navy or Air Force, since they have good tech schools, also maybe a place like the Army Signal Corp. It is a concept many still don't seem to grasp, with respect to rearing and education, that it mostly comes down to environment. This is usually defined by who and what is in your bubble of existence growing up; from family, to educational professionals, and community; so resources and options. Many people have a false perception about a lot of tech, science, and engineering; that a person has to be some sort of math whiz, and if they are not, then they do not belong. This is horrible, since a lot of practical innovation still comes from a garage, shed, or shop; and some innovations presented as being deep R&D are built off the back of that, and even reversed engineered and expanded on, this versus “discovered” or “developed”. It comes down to control and exploitation. It is a a shame really, because I wonder how many competent, potentially brilliant, people have fallen away from fields due to an unnecessary attrition approach in education. This can be seen in the trends of higher education. Where it is no longer good enough to be a four year school and referred to as a “college”, it has to be "university". How at least half the programs in a community college (two year programs) used to be practical and direct to employment, but now try to mimic a four year college; and unless the person is going to transfer, the degree has less value in the real world. This is what happened to DeVry. They used to be a good place to go for a lot of electronic based technology post secondary education. People usually did well with the diploma or associates degree they received, but since then (and awhile back now) they have become more like every other cookie cutter college/university. I checked DeVry out when on unemployment about eight years ago. I was looking for a program that would allow me to focus on buildings systems (i.e. mechanical and electrical; energy, climate control, associated control and networking...). Instead of listening to what I was saying, the representative was trying to sell me on a business program in there recently formed management graduate school. I called him out on not listening to a word I said, and question if he understood what I was even asking, then thank him, took a brochure and left. It is reflected in the labor market, where now everything needs a degree. This has caused unnecessary or artificial "shortages", and has facilitated the gross abuse of the U.S. work visa system, and generated "paper mill" schools; so, basically generated a lot of corruption. Examples of this would be nursing and aviation, which neither should require a degree, or at least a four year degree, as long as there could be adequate career technical programs/schools. Another example would be the computer tech (IT, information systems...), and a common complaint I read about; that people are presenting degrees from foreign institutions, but are not able to do the job tasks represented by that degree. Now companies are hiring people (directly or through contract) with a bachelors from [insert foreign country school name here]; when they could get similarly qualified citizens with associates degrees, or just the technical education, and certs.

[@edgeeffect]

School and courses don't make you a geek... it's up to you to make yourself into a geek. And I don't think going into the military is going to help anyone do anything.

[@NetPwn]

Great talk, thank you.

[@tiggydorset9041]

Did he ever get the chance to take a sip of water from the bottle?

[@thecuriousquest]

I would think that someone in that room is capable of fixing the AC

[@colinreece3452]

Good job he had that water bottle, he undid the top and screwed it back without having a drink lol.

[@b.k.1768]

@30:18 he finally sips from his water bottle!😂

[@moverling5]

Thank you. And you are correct. The possibilities are endless.

[@thethinkerer]

Poor guy who put up his hand right before they said that they are out of time...

[@a-listercrowley2737]

Omg you guys are waaaaay ahead of me.... 11 years ago I was still a newborn moron..... Much to learn i have ... ok ill be quiet now

[@EllaBananas]

Yup. This is exactly what I have been doing and for the same reason of not having money.

[@amyjojinkerson6745]

you are right there is tons of items that can be recycled

[@planktonfun1]

Same could be said for coders most of them are turning into passive users and don't bother to check on how things really work

[@ToxicSocietyTroll]

This is great for people where resources or money are limited

[@MDSilverstar]

NEVER cover up a microphone :D That is a great way to start the feedback.

[@MauriatOttolink]

+Rasmus Jørgensen Hold it Rasmus! He IS an electronics engineer y'know!

[@NeverBecomeKnown]

+MauriatOttolink Exactly, definitely not an sound engineer ;p

[@KoningVerheijen]

Very interesting! Awesome talk.

[@Istandby666]

One of the best books I've read was "If it's not broken, BREAK it". It's all about this.

[@JosephMcArthur-yn9fl]

I have been hacking electronics since I was a kid. I have gotten serious with it the last few years and i gotta say, these corporations that we all made rich sure took all that money we gave them and put it into figuring out ways to just get more money wile destroying the planet. In turn maming it even harder for us everyday geeks to repurpose things. If anyone here lives in central Florida, specifically around the Sanford/Orlando area and want to get together to share knowledge, hit me up. I need to learn more and im sure I have some knowledge I can share as well

[@sergioc.6431]

Man if this guy was our grade school teacher.

[@malachite072]

Very unlikely as grade school teachers are very low paying jobs

[@brendongyde]

4:59 ffs get your popcorn at half time.

[@dharmeshsolanki4354]

where we can follow this guy

[@Nickjohnwilson]

Where is Matt today?

[@bobmcbob4399]

My local hackspace was a great place to experiment, build circuits out of various chips and devices etc. That is until a person of a certain faith appeared at the space. He absolutely blasted his voice into a fellow hacker who was quite disturbingly intimidated and shaken after that. Another time he blasted into me and my wife too. I left. He probably wanted to make devices to cause chaos to advance his "faith". Yes, that kind of certain faith. Very unpleasant experience. I "noped" the fuck out of that hackspace.

[@tom1644x]

Did he want you to join his essential oil MLM?

[@bobmcbob4399]

@@tom1644x Judgeing by his insane shouting and berating, sounded like he was being "faithist".