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Hardware Hacking Displays Hardware

Weather Radar Case Mod 109

Posted by timothy from the well-executed dept.
Bill Kendrick writes "What do you get when you take a laptop LCD, a Mini-ITX case and an old marine weather radar? A self contained wireless weather radar PC appliance!" And No, it's not just squeezing a motherboard into an object smaller than that motherboard -- this is a functional weather-watching device.
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Weather Radar Case Mod More

Weather Radar Case Mod

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  • Slick + full mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Monday June 27, 2005 @04:51PM (#12924856) Homepage Journal
    Cool!

    All I can say is some people have a lot more free time on their hands than I do.

    Full mirror here [networkmirror.com].

  • Mirror Link (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pyrrhonist ( 701154 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @04:56PM (#12924914)
    Here's the nyud.net anit-slashdot-effect link:

    My Personal Weather Radar Project [nyud.net]

  • Size issues? (Score:5, Funny)

    by sczimme ( 603413 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @04:58PM (#12924945)

    And No, it's not just squeezing a motherboard into an object smaller than that motherboard (emphasis mine)

    And how would one do that, exactly (and ensure the board still worked)?
    • Personal (computer) lubricant
      • Size issues? A user id of winkydink? What's the world coming to?

        Haha, only joking Paul (you're scared now because I know your name... *cue spooky music* - congratulations on the geek of the day in may ;))
    • Use gzip?
    • There are usually a few millimeters of unused board around the edges. Those can be cut off (carefully!) to fit the board in.
    • And No, it's not just squeezing a motherboard into an object smaller than that motherboard (emphasis mine)

      And how would one do that, exactly (and ensure the board still worked)?

      Duh, you fold it.

      That's why the Japanese jumped ahead in miniature electronics -- we came up with the circuit boards, but they know Oragami.

    • Re:Size issues? (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by eno2001 ( 527078 )
      Time and Relative Dimensions In Space. AKA T.A.R.D.I.S. How do you spell relief? T-A-R-D-I--ummm-S! Has anyone who doesn't like Doctor Who ever latched onto the fact that the name of his time/space vehicle is awfully similar to the word "retard"? Retardis anyone? (Yeah. Tasteless, I know. But, I'm pretty sure there are a few people out there with mental retardation that WOULD find this comment funny.)

    • Serious answer: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Otto ( 17870 )
      Cut it in half and solder wires between the areas where you cut the traces. I've seen it done to fit a mobo into a case smaller (in all dimensions) than the board would fit into uncut. It worked. I wouldn't want to try it myself, but it's possible to do it as long as you pick where you cut carefully.
    • And how would one do that, exactly

      With a very careful choice of where to cut (to avoid off-timing effects), followed by a lot of very careful cutting, and a lot of very careful soldering.

      Well, you did ask.

      Justin.
      (I have taken a digital watch and fitted it in a metal case, which required board-board soldering, so I'm not entirely flim-flamming here.)

  • It looks like he was running his web server on that motehrboard. It's toast!

  • What do you get? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by spectrum ( 92555 )
    What do you get when you take a laptop LCD, a Mini-ITX case and an old marine weather radar?
    A slashdotting?
  • What do you get when you take a laptop LCD, a Mini-ITX case and an old marine weather radar? A self contained wireless weather radar PC appliance!

    You get slashdotted? But found it on the mirror above... interesting project. But i can't find any decent marine weather radar on ebay.
  • Nice! Is that what they're running the website on?

  • Perhaps... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bedroll ( 806612 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @05:12PM (#12925105) Journal
    What do you get when you take a laptop LCD, a Mini-ITX case and an old marine weather radar?

    The fun of watching every shmuck with a radar detector slam on their brakes as they speed past your house?

    • Or maybe the FCC knocking on your door? (didn't read TFA; substitute appropriate spectrum-licensing authority as needed)
      • I did read TFA. He's using the internet and a program called Strom Predator to display radar feeds from a nexrad radar site on the screen. He dosen't have his own radar, that probably would upset the neighbors.
    • The fun of watching every shmuck with a radar detector slam on their brakes as they speed past your house?

      Different band.

      • Different band.

        Yeah, I know.

        If he had an old air-traffic radar it'd be a different - and perhaps more interesting - story.

        See, I'm a shmuck with a radar detector, and that thing goes nuts every time I drive past Newark Airport.

    • What makes any of you think this thing is a radar? It's a radar display. RTFA. This thing radiates in precisely the same manner as any laptop.

  • Ironic... (Score:3, Funny)

    by GamingFox ( 860855 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @05:18PM (#12925174)
    An radar machine didn't see the storm of slashdot coming.

  • Slightly misleading, Nexrad is NOT a marine radar (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My first reaction was: "how the hell did he get the commercial web-based storm predator software to work with a marine radar?" but then I saw where he claims to have used a special build of the program with help from the original programmer. OK, as far as that goes... The thing is, TFA contains no images of realtime data from the "marine radar" and indeed barely mentions the marine unit at all. All the pretty pictures are of data taken from NWS nexrad sites which anyone can access over the internet. I quest
  • What do people do with this kind of stuff after it is all finished being built? Do they actually use it? I assume most people build it just to see if they can. So you can, now what?

  • Gag. APCMA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @05:19PM (#12925196) Homepage Journal
    Gag. Another Pointless Case Mod Article.

    Here I was, thinking that maybe this guy had done something truly nifty, like interfacing the marine radar to the computer and having it serve the radar images.

    Here in Tornado Alley, such a thing would be pretty damn interesting - I know a couple of storm spotters who might just be persuaded to add that to their chase vehicles.

    But no - all this guy did was put a PC in a Radar case, and use the PC to look at radar data from the Internet.

    Now, had he fabricated a fake radar unit from sheet metal, that would have been somewhat interesting.

    Had he gone whole-hog like the guy who did the HalfLife case mods - that would have been interesting.

    But this?

    Can I have the seconds of my life back I spent looking at the article?

    May I suggest that /. create another section, pointlesscasemods.slashdot.org, and put these sort of things there?

    Or at least a "Pointless Case Mod" icon?

    I mean really - computers are getting to be like digital clock modules were in the 1980's - "Let's put them into everything! Here - let's put one in this banana!"

    • Re:Gag. APCMA (Score:2, Informative)

      by OUWxGuesser ( 895537 )
      a) Operating marine radars on vehicles is illegal. b) It messes with our X-band research radars out in tornado alley. Thanks for not using a marine radar!

      • Re:Gag. APCMA (Score:3, Insightful)

        by TheHawke ( 237817 )
        Besides, Why would anyone want to be in front of a microwave emitter dishing out 100+ watts of radiation?

        Unless the jerk wants to have FLKs (Funny Looking Kids).
        • The first noticeable effect if you stand too close to the radar is it will cause localized RF burns (very painful) and possibly turn your eyes into poached egg whites (cataracts). Long before it turns your nuts into raisins. Besides the vehicle roof is a pretty good shield. These radars are frequently installed on not-terribly-tall poles on boats.

          More usefully, it's a waste of money since you'll get better data via the internet. Marine radars - at least the sub-multi-$thousand ones, just aren't that good a

      • Re:Gag. APCMA (Score:3, Interesting)

        by wowbagger ( 69688 )
        Point taken - and actually, I know of somebody who *used* to have a marine radar on his chase vehicle - note the emphasis on the past tense - it was removed for that very reason.

        Although you really should have better qualified your statement "Operating marine radars on vehicles is illegal." to "Operating marine radars on vehicles other than boats on the water is illegal."

        As is operating an aviation WX radar on a vehicle that is not an aircraft.

        Hmmm - a thought strikes me:

        Aviation WX unit.
        Small computer.
      • REAL researchers use C-band. And 100KW of power! See my web page [gbronline.com] or the "official" [noaa.gov] web page.

    • Re:Gag. APCMA (Score:5, Funny)

      by Winterblink ( 575267 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @05:56PM (#12925636) Homepage
      I'm still waiting for the goatse guy to case mod himself. It'd probably be the first reported case of someone's ass getting Slashdotted, literally. I'm sure the collective Slashdot head would explode from the irony of the whole endeavor.

  • Answer (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Writer ( 746272 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @05:24PM (#12925229)

    What do you get when you take a laptop LCD, a Mini-ITX case and an old marine weather radar?

    A slashdotted web server?

  • it's not just squeezing a motherboard into an object smaller than that motherboard

    More like attempting to squeezing a huge bandwidth through a pipe much smaller than that bandwidth...

  • Coincidence? (Score:2, Informative)

    by stinkjones ( 882074 )
    This same exact thing found its way onto hackaday.com, and I swear a few other things featured on slashdot were there first also. Just thought it seemed strange...
    • For a while I was flaming them for reposting /. links instead of digging up their own material -- I guess my rants weren't ignored! Goold ole /. -- I don't have enough time to flame all the reposts here!
  • Can someone here enlighten me -- marine radar units are designed to detect other ships and fixed objects that have good reflectivity. How did he just convert one of these to detect *weather*?

    Or does rain happen to be responsive to the same microwave frequencies?

    • Re:rain != boats (Score:3, Informative)

      by ottergoose ( 770022 )
      He's using the radar terminal from the marine radar system as a case for a PC that downloads National Weather Service radar data from the internet, so he can display it cool fashion. That is to say, he's not actually using a marine radar.

      (And yes, I believe marine radars can detect weather, however, their use on land is illegal)
      • Yep normal small marine radars can detect rain (atleast in the case of bad squalls or thunderstorms). My dad has a boat with such a unit and countless times we have been able to see where there was heavy rain (within a 10 mile radius).

        Yazeran

        Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.
    • It doesn't acually use an old marine radar, as much as it uses an old marine radar display. It pulls doppler radar data off the internet, and displays it on the screen mounted in the old radar display case.
    • Radar used to detect weather is not just normal radar it's actualy doppler radar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_radar [wikipedia.org]

      and in the physics world radar is made up of fast moving particles wich a molecule the size of a water molecule will find it hard to evade and thus will ricochet into another direction or back to the radar antenne

      • Re:rain != boats (Score:2, Informative)

        by Pyramid ( 57001 )
        You may not be aware, but non-doppler radar is quite capable of detecting precipitation, just not velocity.

        Previous to the introduction of the WSR-88D, all NWS radar sites(excepting research stations) were non-doppler and were quite often modified surplus military air search radars.

        And yes, even a cheap marine radar can detect rain.

        Pyramid
      • Molecules that are too large for a water molecule to evade? Hmm What with the excessive Guinness consumption and all I may be approaching a size comparable to a molecule of water. Fortunately I'm a guy and not easily mistaken for a glob of mineral laden water or anything so I'm ok right? ;) By definition a molecule of water is made up of 1-2 atoms and not the large droplets I see floating in the air on a muggy day. Otherwise I'd not want to be in the way of these large 'molecules' being shot out of my
  • The most reliable weather device ever: go outside and see what it's doing! Everything else is just a SWAG, and mostly wrong.

    SWAG = Scientific Wild Assed Guess

  • My smoke test... (Score:4, Funny)

    by feloneous cat ( 564318 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @05:45PM (#12925456)
    We now power the thing on and... damn... I just made myself sterile.
  • The site got replaced by a domain harvesting site... I suppose that's one way to avoid a /.'ing. Just redirect your site to one of the many domain harvesters and let them bear the brunt while your site is down.

  • Consequences (Score:3, Funny)

    by williamhooligan ( 892067 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @06:21PM (#12925991)
    What do you get when you take a laptop LCD, a Mini-ITX case and an old marine weather radar?

    Arrested and prosecuted by the owners of The Wacky PC and Seafaring Supplies Warehouse?

    Oh no, wait, this is /., I know this one...

    "Horny at the possibilities."

  • ...squeezing a motherboard into an object smaller than that motherboard...

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