How To Make A Cheap USB Powered Fan

How to make a cheap fan from parts bought at the dollar store. This fan can be made for about $2 (plus tax), unless you can buy a double ended USB wire, then you can make 2 USB fans for $3 (plus tax). That definately beats the $15 or $20 stores tend to charge for these types of devices.

This is my first instructable so I wouldn't mind if people posted their opinion.

NOTE: Pictures will be added at a later date when I make the second fan, the first one (which I am writting this instructable from) was simply a test to see if it would infact work. 

Step 1Preparing the USB Cable

Cut the USB cable to the length you require (long if you need to attach fan to a USB port in the back of your computer). Becareful not to cut the inner wires, use a wire stripper (if you have one) or simply a pair of scissors (be careful not to cut yourself).  Once the protective jacket has been removed, remove some of the shielding such that the 4 wires which make up the USB cable are exposed.  Cut the white and green wires short (to the protective jacket) as they will not be needed for powering the device.

Step 2Preparing the power wires

 CAREFULLY, remove the outter protective jacket from the red and black wires to expose the copper wire underneath. Twist the exposed wire (if not already done) to make your life easier.

Step 3Taking apart the fan. 

Remove the battery cover as well as the screw holding the two halves of the fan together (becareful not to loose any small parts such as screws/switches). 

Step 4Connecting the USB wires to the fan's battery terminals.

This was done through trial and error. I found that while the fan would run both if the red were attached to the positive and black negative or red to negative and black to positive but the second way produced sparks at the negative-to-motor connection so I obviously chose the former hook-up. Wrap the indicated wire around the indicated battery terminal folding the wire over so it stays temporarily. Once this is done, plug the USB wire into your computer (NOTE: Do this instructable at your own risk, I will not take the blame if harm comes to you computer/yourself/etc but nothing bad happened to me/my computer when I connected the fan to the computer) and turn the fan on. If it works, on to the next step, if not, maybe the wires are not connected properly or maybe they are loose, play around with it,m it should work fairly easily (and as long as the fan does not require 3 x 1.5V batteries or more for operation (IE no more than 5 V) ).

 Step 5Making the conections permenant.

 Now that the fan works successfully, its time to solder the USB power wires to the battery terminals to make the connections more permenant and stable.
NOTE: After completing this instructable, I've discovered that the USB port is too powerful fo the fan I chose so a resistor wired in series before the connection to the fan would help lower the power and therefore not overload the fan/motor. This is as simple as soldering a resistor of high enough resistance to decrease the voltage to around 3 volts (from thew 5 that USB puts out).

Step 6Personalizing your USB Fan. 

If you find the fan too plain, you can spice it up with paint, decorations, etc, anything you want.

NOTE: this instructable can be used to power practically any device that requires no more than 5.0V.

 Enjoy the BREEZE! 

IR Receiver for Your Desktop

You Can Create an Infra-Red Receiver for Your Desktop
You Will Need:

IR(Infrared) LED (RS 276-142)

IR Receiver module (RS 276-640)

4.7uf and 100-220uf capacitors

47ohm and 4.7k resistors

Sub-D 9 pin Female Connector

NPN Transistor (cheapies from RS are fine)

PC Board

Sacrificial USB Cable

Tools, hookup wire, solder, etc.
Everything can be picked up at RadioShack or your favorite electronics supplier. We dressed ours up a bit, but you can succeed with just these parts. We hear that the RadioShack IR receiver we used has been known to produce flaky data, but ours worked fine.

 

The receiver portion is pretty simple. Rather than use extra parts to generate stable power from the serial port, we decided to steal 5 volts from the USB port.

 

The transmitter is a little bit more complicated. The resistor is 47 Ohms, and the capacitor can be 100 to 220uF. The WinLIRC project recommends using the TX pin of the serial port for better performance.

 

To test our our customized circuits we built it on a breadboard first. Using WinLIRC (which is getting kind of old at this point) we easily recorded commands from our remote and got around 10 feet of range with our transmitting LED. We suspect you can get even more range, but the surround receiver we tested with is a bit picky.

 

Breadboards just aren't good enough for us, we had to pull out the soldering iron. Here's our Serial connector with USB connector to supply a solid 5 volts to the transceiver. And yes, we'll cover those exposed leads with some heat shrink tubing.

 

We built our remote transceiver to use a standard piece of Cat-5 so we can easily place it wherever we need it. Upstairs, the ceiling... or next to the hot tub.

 

Download WinLIRC and unzip the folder to wherever you want it to reside. There's no installer, so somewhere on C: or in Program Files might be a good idea. Double click the remote + computer icon labeled winlirc.

 

The first thing you'll get is an error message. Click OK to pull up the configuration window.

 

Select the correct COM port. Usually it'll be either COM1 or COM2. Most of the default values are fine. The receiver should be DCD and under Transmitter, TX should be selected. Finally, click Browse next to the Config line. To get started, select sample.cf and hit OK. It won't let you create a new blank config. If you think everything is correct, click on the Raw Codes button. If everything is correct, you'll get a new window. Otherwise you get an error message.

 

Point a remote at the receiver. If you see codes, it's working! Close the window and click on the Learn button in the main configuration window.

 

WinLIRC will complain some more. Click Yes.

 

Now we get the Learn remote window back again. This time we get prompted. Enter a name for the remote like VCR and click Enter. Next, the default error margin of 25 should be fine. Type in 25 and click Enter again. The next question lets you tune a custom gap length between signals. Leave it blank and click Enter again. Next you'll be asked to press a button. Just follow the prompts. Don't worry about which buttons you're pressing. WinLIRC is just checking out the signal timing you're sending it until it asks for the name of a button.

 

When asked for a name, enter something like Power and click enter. Now you'll be asked to hold down the button. Aim the remote at your receiver and watch the signal count rise.

 

Finally, you get to declare if you want to keep the recording of each button. Repeat this for every button on the remote you wish to store. When you're done, click Enter without typing anything in the box. You should get a confirmation message that the config was saved.

 

More WinLIRC silliness. Just click OK, then click the Analyze button back in the main config window. If you're done, click OK in the main configuration window. Now WinLIRC will hide in the TaskBar as an icon. The icon will change colors to show status. It turns green if it gets a signal it recognizes.

 

Clicking on the icon will bring up a WinLIRC window. To test sending a code you've recorded, select the remote and the code you want, and click Send Code. You'll need to aim the transmitter at whatever you want it to talk to.

 

Now that it's working, you'll want to make it do something besides make a green dot on your task bar. On the WinLIRC page you'll find links to various pieces of software that supports WinLIRC. Go forth and vanquish TV signals, friend, or whatever unusual things one does with a fully customizeable homebrew IR blaster / receiver.

Angry Birds Games Also Available For Symbian^3 and Android Phones

Nokia Symbian^3 -- N8-00

Nokia N8-00

Specifications:

1. Shoot your masterpiece in HD

2. Film, edit and perfect your high-definition masterpieces, then share them with the world. Add music, images, text and transitions - all from the phone. With a large 12 MP sensor and Carl Zeiss optics you can capture great images. The Xenon flash allows you to take good pictures in low-light conditions as well.
3. 
4. 

   Powered by Symbian^3

   With Symbian^3 you can enjoy over 250 exciting new features such as HD video playback on your compatible wide-screen TV, organising your life online across three home screens. Multitask easily with the new visual task manager and switch between open apps with a single tap. All of this and more without sacrificing battery life.
5. 

   Connect to your home theatre

   The Nokia N8 features an HDMI connection so you can easily show off your images, videos and music on compatible televisions and projectors. All in stunning high-definition digital 720p resolution. It also features premium-quality *Dolby Digital Plus technology - compatible with home theatre systems - so movies will sound as good as they look.
   

   *Dolby Digital Plus technology. Dolby is a registered trademark of Dolby Laboratories.

   
6. 

   Integrated social networking

   The Nokia N8 brings your friends together, by pulling feeds and updates from Facebook and Twitter to one handy application. Photos and videos can be shared the moment they're captured, Facebook events added to your calendar with just one click. Live updates are shown on your home screens, making it even easier to stay in touch.
   
7. 

   Make it your own

   Personalise your phone by adding your own widgets. Not one but three live home screens – make one for work, use one for fun, and have one with your favourite picture as the wallpaper. Swipe between the home screens with an easy gesture. Download more widgets from Ovi Store.
8. 

   Download thousands of opportunities

   Turn your Nokia N8 into a tool for showing off, having fun and being creative. In Ovi Store you’ll find thousands of different applications to constantly upgrade and improve your device. Download apps, games and videos. The possibilities to make your phone smarter, more useful and simply more fun are endless.
   
9. 

   National Geographic in your pocket

   The Nokia N8 with on-demand Web TV. Access your favourite TV channels like CNN and National Geographic and get them piped to your phone from the comfort of your bus seat. Visit Ovi Store to find even more Web TV channels.
10. 

    Navigation. For free. Forever.

    Voice-guided navigation for over 70 countries worldwide. Absolutely free. Simply enter where you want to go and Ovi Maps with voice guidance will tell you how to get there, turn by turn. By car or on foot.
    
11. 

    Fifty hours of music playback

    You can browse smoothly through all your favourite albums and once again get thrilled by the album artwork. Re-experience your record collection for over 50 hours straight.
12. 

    Make a good thing even better.

    Hear voice-guided navigation from Ovi Maps conveniently through the Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-608. Or go all out and make your flight a pleasure with the Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-905 with eight microphones for cancelling up to 99% of background noise.