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This is a question DIY Techno-hacks

Old hard drive platters make wonderfully good drinks coasters - they look dead smart and expensive and you've stopped people reading your old data into the bargain.

Have you taped all your remotes together, peep-show-style? Have you wired your doorbell to the toilet? What enterprising DIY have you done with technology?

Extra points for using sellotape rather than solder.

(, Thu 20 Aug 2009, 12:30)
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How to fix a Playstation 2 with the contents of the fridge.
My PS2, (first gen), died on me a while ago. Well, it was practically on life support, anyway. Not wanting to bin it and buy one of those over inflated PS3 gizmoids, I opened it up...

...to find that it wasn't reading discs properly because the laser in the disk drive wasn't running up and down it's little runners properly, the grease it had been lubricated with at the factory had dried out. The solution, simple. Grease it up!

Unfortunately, I didn't have a shed at the time. I didn't want to use liquid lubrication, (oo-er), something more solid would have to do. Hmm, the fridge! Brilliant! Where's the lard?

But alas, I'm one of those poncey vegetarians, and lard is made from cow. But then I remembered, many years prior, the missus said, 'Let's make a pie!' - and used a small amount of the following as a lard substitute. It lurked in the darkest depths of my (student) fridge, until my Playstation died. I knew it would come in handy.

www.trex.org/puretrex.jpg

Many more happy months of Resident Evil 4 ensued. And I even made another pie.

Happy days.

I wonder how many other peoples PS2's ended up in sillicon heaven this way?
(, Sun 23 Aug 2009, 22:31, 7 replies)
Hi Tech
Vegetable fat.

winner
(, Mon 24 Aug 2009, 6:36, closed)
I found
PS2s surprisingly fixable. I had a really, really old one which had taken to the classic line of ‘I’m not reading anything, fuck off’. Cracked it open, blew all the dust away, fiddled with the laser calibration and tested for about half an hour, and hey presto! I sold it for £20 on Play. Plus PS2 controllers still fetch about a tenner each, and recent-ish games still command a respectable premium! Altogether I’ve made about £80 out of it, so don’t go binning that ancient PS2.
(, Mon 24 Aug 2009, 10:04, closed)
I spent a summer working for a shop that fixed them in Cardiff
more often than not twiddling the little white sprocket by the laser got at least another 3 months life out of it.
(, Mon 24 Aug 2009, 13:31, closed)
That's uncanny
I had the exact same problem and did the exact same thing, except with butter.
(, Mon 24 Aug 2009, 12:35, closed)
The more I think about it the more it winds me up.
...it makes me wonder how many other ways the general public are being shafted in the ringpiece by massive corporate wankstains in order to flog their new bit of kit.

Having said that, I do enjoy laughing at the idiots that just refuse point black to even take the lid off, opting for the 'sling it in the yard option' instead.

Interesting that I bypassed the butter and went straight for the veggie fat though.
(, Mon 24 Aug 2009, 16:12, closed)
none
they just die, like all those calculators
(, Mon 24 Aug 2009, 22:38, closed)
 
Ha ha - You're a smeeeeeeeee heeeeeeeeeeeeeee.....
(, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 13:06, closed)

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