ProdMod ™

In the first article we took the simplest approach to mount the light to our camera. We passed a bolt through the entire body of the light and screwed it into the camera tripod mount.

We also showed how you can place the bolt inside the housing when you are not using it.

Well, what if you would like the bolt to stay in its place and act more like a built in knob then just some screw?

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NEW !! - A better set of instructions can be found here Complete Kit Instructions

Tests Battery Test| Photo Sample|Video Test
Upgrade Built-in screw stud|Fixed Voltage | 4LED
Vote for improvements!

Ever since digital cameras took decent video I stopped carrying around my DV video camera and instead use my point and shoot digital camera to take a few minutes of MOV or MPG video here and there. The only problem is my digicam is not equipped with a light to brighten up the videos I take indoors. So a while ago I searched for an LED light to use with my digital camera and I found one company camerabright.com that makes one that you screw into the tripod mount standard on all cameras. It costs about $30 to $40 bucks, has 4 white LEDs and takes 6 CR2032 coin cell batteries. I thought the price was ok, but there were some things I didn’t like about it and other people have also commented on.

So I decided to make my own and show you how.

First here is a comparison of the ProdMod DIY camera light vs. Camerabright.

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A while ago I had a vision of a small hand held device that would clamp onto a CD like a clamshell and spin it to 500 RPM just because I thought it would look cool. Then I thought maybe it should also play the music off the disc. And then I pictured converting CDs to MP3 on the fly and shooting them into a dumpster at high RPMs when done.

Since then I have only found a designer’s concept of a CD/MP3 player that has never been made (this cool black one)

and a simple manual CD cleaner (silver) you can buy for $12.95 at solutions.com but it doesn’t play music and it’s not even motorized:

The cool CD player up top was designed by Yong-Seong Kim. Designers like Kim can conjure up some really creative product ideas but it takes another skill set to bring it to life. The skillset of a maker, a gadgeteer, a prodmodder.

So why doesn’t someone with some prodmod skill try to make it happen?

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Most people don’t know or care what temperature wine should be when drinking, but I have a friend who is way into wine, he even has a little temperature controlled fridge for them, so I am sure he wouldn’t mind double checking the temperature again before he is ready to serve.

I like its simple design. It simply wraps around the bottle and gives you a temperature reading. I thought its C-shape would allow it to adjust in size but the ad only mentions 750mL bottles, which are most common anyway. It’s $29.95.

I think red is around 60F, but what about white or champagne? It is probably in the manual but no one reads those things. It should at least be written on the band somewhere like the one at Kickerland makes. You can buy the Kickerland version through amazon.com. It is not digital and is a bit bigger but its only $9.99!!

In any case, what if it’s not the right temperature? I don’t want to sit there and wait for it to cool down or warm up.

Can’t they add a little logic chip and a piezo buzzer so it could ring when the temperature is just right?
What if it could sense the color of the wine?

ok. Stop dreaming. Or go make one yourself.

Ok, this could be cheezy but if you are going to have a mouse living next to your desktop 24/7 you might as well have it look like something other than a simple mouse, right? I have seen some other versions on the web but not many in the stores. This is actually the better looking of the bunch available from Solutions.com. Pretty cheap at $24.95.

I think they should have gone wireless on this one. Better yet let it double as an R/C car. You don’t need a lot of space for the mouse guts and can fit wheels and motor nicely. Then when you are bored at work you can just run the car around your desk a bit. Maybe even control it by bluetooth. And put a camera on it, and a pellet gun.

How do you think it should be improved?