Key Takeaways
1. Building a projector can be simple with the right materials, such as an old LCD and a bright LED light.
2. Huy Vector’s method for creating a projector uses recycled smartphone parts and basic tools, making it accessible for DIY enthusiasts.
3. The project is enjoyable but may have limitations in brightness and resolution, especially with older displays.
4. Disposable vapes are wasteful, with around 500,000 discarded daily in the US, prompting some governments to consider bans.
5. Innovative reverse engineering, like repurposing a disposable vape into a web server, highlights the potential for reusing wasteful products.
Building your own projector is, in theory, quite straightforward. You just need to take off the reflective layer from an LCD and shine a light through it. However, when you consider optics and heat, the reality becomes more complicated. About five years ago, DIY Perks demonstrated how to transform a 4K display into a home cinema projector. For many years, people have also been converting old overhead projectors into digital ones.
Simple Steps to Projector Creation
Yet, nobody has made the projector-building process appear as easy as Huy Vector has. He uses an old LCD from a smartphone (note that OLED won’t work) and creates a case from foam board. Adding a 20 Watt LED from AliExpress and a lens from a magnifying glass are basically all that is necessary. Some basic soldering is involved, along with a method to manage heat, but the trickiest part seems to be taking apart the phone display assembly and connecting the motherboard. However, even a cheap display like this one from Amazon could be hacked to provide an easy HDMI input.
Fun Project with Recycled Parts
While the screen isn’t the brightest and the older Galaxy display has a low resolution, this could still be an enjoyable project that utilizes recycled materials and doesn’t need the high skill level of DIY Perks to complete.
On the other hand, while vaping is a valid way to avoid traditional cigarettes, disposable vapes appear to be a completely unnecessary and wasteful product that harms the environment. There are numerous non-disposable options available that make more sense.
The Shocking Statistics
Every day, about 500,000 disposable vapes are thrown away in the US, based on 2023 data. This number could be even higher now and globally, leading some governments to ban these products. It’s hard to believe that something so complicated to engineer and produce is used for only a few days before being tossed aside.
Take, for example, Bogdan Ionescu, who has managed to hack and repurpose a disposable vape into a working web server. Not all disposable vapes have the same hardware, but one model contained a PY32F002B microcontroller. Even the author acknowledges this microcontroller is “so bad it’s basically disposable,” yet he reverse engineered it enough to connect it to the internet and operate a web server. The device lacks networking features, but reusing the USB serial as a 56K modem allows it to connect to what is likely a regular telephone line.
Highlighting Reverse Engineering Skills
Summarizing the article this way doesn’t fully capture the impressive reverse engineering skills demonstrated, and the complete article goes into much greater detail on how it was accomplished. Still, it underscores the waste associated with certain products designed primarily for profit. Hopefully, more individuals will find innovative ways to reuse these wasteful devices rather than just turning them into power banks.
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