Kipkay im serious, SELL THESE THINGS! THEY ARE AWESOME! THE CALCULATOR HACK WITH THE SILLY NOISES COULD BE A GAG IN STORES! THAT DIGITAL CONVERTER WITH BATTERY/CAR CHARGER COMPATABILITY CAN CHANGE LIFES FOR THE PORTABLE ENTERTAINMENT!
One thing that's probably worth mentioning is that directly connecting electronics to a car without any form of filtering can expose the electronics to voltages that vary wildly and a lot of noise. The original A/C PSU mostly likely has some sort of regulator in it, so after bypassing it would be important to make sure that the car DC supply lead had some filtering and regulating components.. Dependent on the application, if you have a notebook PC, a USB tuner dongle might be easier.
One of the things that makes you great, is that your videos look like you would see them as a scam, a pop-up, or an infomercial, but these actually work! It's so cool!
Bloomin' awesome! Great back-up plan for many practical instances. Since there still aren't all that many portable sets available that are DTV-capable, this is one good way of getting ahead of the game.
I think the government should have never have forced an analog-digital TV conversion. The government basically subsidized TV companies when they sent out coupons to buy digital converter boxes. Those who want to get TV on the go with an analog TV without having to buy apps on their phone should be able to do so.
Okay, that's just damn cool, useful and brilliant. I've known for a while that most of our smaller electronics actually run on power that is equivalent to a battery, but this is an awesome conversion. It's something the boxes should just have naturally. 12v batteries may not be the cheapest, but they're also not that rare. This should be an option for all the converter boxes.
if you put a diode inline with the cigarette socket you wont have to worry about it shorting out on anything when you have the battery or mains hooked up, when its plugged into the mains or cigarette socket it should also charge the battery so make sure the battery you use is re-chargeable or it will explode.
VERY nice hack, and VERY nice video. You have a very good voice for narration, which doesn't sound like much until you have to listen to someone with a horrible voice. Very clear video start to finish. Nothing annoying about this at all.
you will probably want a DC to DC 12v converter as opposed to just straight connection to the board. Car alternators put out about 14V, while that wont hurt in many applications, in this case, since your plugging directly into the motherboard, you may damage one of those IC's
It's interesting how this video was made before the june 12th 2009 deadline. I missed most of the time when analog over the air tv was still a thing, mostly because my parents for the most part had free to air cable. For those wondering, no, neither of them stole the cable signal, we were just lucky to live in an area where the signal was free to air. Of course, we had free to air cable tv until we moved out in 2007 and moved where cable wasn't available and my parents got satellite, and I eventually heard about the government mandated analog to digital switch.
For the most part, any small appliance can be powered by a battery the same way as shown here. Small appliances (blenders, toasters, DVD players, etc.) generally run on DC. AC is used because it can be delivered over a further distance more efficiently than DC.
You guys in Finland are lucky to have DVB instead of ATSC digital TV like we have here. ATSC is vulnerable to interference and the signal just entirely drops out instead of progressing to lower resolution before dropping out.
Your a genius! How did you figure out this stuff? Are you an electrical engineer or something? I love your videos, they are so interesting and very cool! Thanks for sharing, this stuff is good to know.
I've got a box by Insignia. If needed, I have a couple of other methods of power it. At home, I have the UPS that my computer on. In the car, I would use my 75watt mini inverter that goes into the cig lighter. I would have to check my power draw (amps, volts) before deciding on what battery to go with. Also, diodes to make sure the power is going where it's suppose to. A safety feature, in case if you decide to go with the AC and left the battery plugged in or the terminals get shorted. Kudos!
Yes, I agree with you. Not only reduction of batt. life can occur, BUT stress to the AC/DC transformer's circuitry components can occur leading to thermal fuses going slowly off, rendering the transformer useless (then you would have an ONLY BATTERY powered converter box that can't use AC any more -- unless you do another hack and purchase a 120AC/12V DC wall adapter). I say put a diode bridge rectifier on the (+) output of the device's transformer to ensure a ONE WAY ONLY VOLTAGE flow(part 1)
Most electronics nowadays don't have their power supply on a separate PCB, this makes for an easy hack. Wish I would have seen this sooner, would've saved having to buy my dad an inverter for the TV in his truck just for the converter box.
you can also connect the improvised digital tv box on any vehicles with a factory and aftermarket DVD player or television sets. If you got a minivan, RV or boats fitted with pre-HDTV tv sets.
Just get a converter box that doesn't have an internal power supply and instead has a "brick" which is actually an external power supply, then you can connect it directly to batteries, actually if it uses something like 9 volts you can use much smaller batteries to power it (like one of those square ones)
Very cool, I just picked up one of these from The Good Will for 2.99! in nice condition. They currenty stock them at Walmart for 49.99 and have since the big conversion. I did the mod and it works great! I used a dc jack for the back for a clean look and replaced the AC cord strain releaf with a 2 prong AC recepticle like boomboxes and the original XBOX use. Now the cord is detachable. Basically all KId did hear is identify the power supplies feed to the main board. Thanks Kip nice vid!!
Great Idea! But I bought a converter box a few years ago that works of a 12 volt DC wall wort. It was made by Access HD, Model # DTA1050. I bought it to use in my van. Eventually I got a little 10 inch flat screen TV, the works on 12 volt DC. It's best to used a regulated power supply adapter. They can be bought cheap at Radio Shack etc.
@vinny19621; NO, you dont need cable or satellite. The Digital Converter Box grabs Broadcast (over the air) TV Signal from Standard Rabbit Ears or other aerial antenna and converts it to ANALOG signal that older TVs can use.
.....wow nice! how about for a mobile dtv hack..... do u think i can relocate/extend the IR sensor so i can make this a clean car install? also if i decide to hardwire the power to my car, what is the recommended in-line fuse ? all the best!
I wish that these manufacturers would make battery operated converter boxes that takes AA batteries and it's the same size as a small RF modulator. Also the antenna that came with my digital TV is not strong enough, so I wish they would come out with portable amplified TV antenna that you plug on the side of the portable digital TV.
This would be a great hack for if your car has a rear passenger DVD system with AV inputs, if in case you fail to make it home in time to catch your favorite TV shows, you can pull over to a safe parking spot, get in the back seat and turn on the DVD screen and select the AV input.
Using RCA Converter Box (Model STB7766C) and an Alaron portable TV: Obtain a 2.5mm plug to stripped wire ends and an 8 AA cell battery holder. Splice the cable wires to the wires attached to the battery holder. You'll need an adapter to connect the supplied cable to the EXT ANT jack of your TV (Radio Shack p/n 278-257). Plug the other end into the RF OUT jack of converter box. You'll also need an antenna with a 300 ohm push on connector. Hook this up to RF IN. Plug battery holder into box.
I wonder how many of the people watching this video are just watching it in awe of what this guy can do instead of seriously going to try this out. I know I'm one.
the signal is really good, u cant get signals like that from a small antennna like that you need a rooftop one for digital tv here in uk to get that picture quality
KIpkay should start his own bizz making these things. I'm positive people will buy battery powered digital tv converter boxes for their car, RV's and even truck drivers also.
This would be really useful to keep in your closet or where ever incase of emergency. Although we have a generator, i would definitely make on of these if i got a apartment somewhere.
I'm guessing that it took him no longer than 3 hours to figure all this out. When electronics is such a hobby as kipkay's, it gets really easy to figure things out.
(part 2)... from the transformer to the device. Then, the diode bridge rectifier will ensure that when you connect your 12VDC battery to the converter box, the transformer wont get any voltage from the battery, effectively isolating the device' transformer. Alternatively, you can just remote the device transformer all together, and just purchase a 120VAC to 12VDC 1A wall adapter and purchase a plug jack and add that as well to the device, then you can use the wall adapter for regular house use
The signal is free over the air-ways...just like the old standard, but now its digital HD and free! Most HDTV's have a built in tuner and you can scan the channels after connecting a antenna.Having digital tv comes in handy if U want to get rid of ur cable or for when the cable goes out.If u want to prepare for when the electric goes out and want to convert one of these on the market boxes to 12volts re-watch this video...
That could had come handy when the earthquake happened here in Chile a couple weeks ago... We were without power and information for many days... I'm gonna try it.
alright i have one question and it may sound stupid but when you are camping and you don't have an antenna cable to hook it up to the digital tv converter doesn't make it useless?
how do you learn all of this stuff? im planning on going to college to be a computer programmer after this year. Were you a computer tech or something? Please reply
This is just what I was looking for since I just bought a in dash DVD TV system for my car from Hong Kong and it came with analog TV tuner. I should be able to hide this puppy someplace and get TV when I go camping in my truck.
@benjas420 They are called f-type connectors. And are used worldwide. For many applications. Including pay tv and free to air. However the rg6 in the video must be a manufactured lead. With what looks like a inbuilt filter or isolator. :)
