Household Hacker - Davis Wiki

Create a speaker with a paper plate, aluminum foil, and a penny (© household hacker).

The Household Hacker is the pseudonym of a guy who creates amazing electrical achievements with mundane ingredients, such as:

How to charge an iPod with an onion. Video
How to power a TV with a AAA battery. Video
How to make a high-definition speaker with a paper plate, aluminum foil, and a penny. Video

These videos are in the style of tons of other DIY videos on the web.

These absolutely work (explanation), in the same vein as other Really Real things. After building some of the items listed on the site, you might also be interested in similar Really Real items.

The "Household Hacker," according to some of his websites, is from Davis, CA, although some of his other websites state he lives in Georgia, or San Francisco. According to the IP address of a comment left on Karl Mogel's blog, the Household Hacker logs on from a Comcast cable internet connection in Sacramento, which is consistent with living in Davis. (Davis Comcast connections show up as Sacramento when you search the IP.)

Hack away at it

Note: You must be logged in to add comments

2007-11-23 16:33:41 These experiments are so fake! None contain a single shred of truth! I mean come on, power a tv with a battery? Batteries and TV's run on opposite currents! One is AC and the other is DC! Make a hi-def speaker with a paper plate? Speakers need magnets! Look it up! I can't believe how many people fall for this shit! —AceDecade

These things may be fake, but AC and DC are not opposites. You can even think of DC as AC where the frequency is zero. - A disgruntled EE major.

Oh come on, they are opposites in the obvious context of the OP's point, the most basic of terms. (AC alternates mag/direction, and DC is a constant) Sure, they'd technically be the same when the AC's sine wave for a moment is at the middle, but that's weak and you know it :P Was it semantics you replied to? Maybe if he had said they run on opposite "types" of currents perhaps it would have been a better fit.

When you are looking at things in the Laplace domain, AC and DC look the same. I wasn't referring to your suggestion that AC acts like DC momentarily (which only works for purely resistive loads in the steady state, anyway).

* Ah, Ace....you use the penny and the foil to create the magnetic part of the speaker....the plate is just the sound horn (same tech as cheap regular speakers). —RocksandDirt

2007-11-25 22:36:52 Rocking out with my new $1 speakers! Thanks Household Hacker! —PhilipNeustrom

2007-11-30 11:21:56 This is awesome! I had to email this to my dad because he loves this stuff. —MyaBrn