The sponsor this week is Dino Direct, they have a ton of cool stuff and best of all shipping is free so the price you see is what you pay!  They will be providing a $20 gift certificate to the winner of the contest. If you couldn’t guess my favorite category is the Tool category.

No emails this time, we are going to do another Guess what this isn’t contest since we had lots of fun with the last one! Simply reply in the comments with your guess at what this device isn’t AND let us know what you would get from Dino Direct with a $20 gift certificate, please include item links so we can see what you found. Make your entry funny, crazy, weird… Just use your imagination. You can enter more than once if you come up with more than one thought. With a short vote the best comment will win the prize.

This contest will run from November 7 - November 13, 2009 . Ending time is based on central standard time.

Have a look at my first comment for an example entry.

Below is the items I would get if I had $20 to spend at Dino Direct.

Vacuum Pick and Place Pen.

ESD Tweezers, made in Switzerland.

ESD Brush.

Solder Wick.

High Temperature Tape.

Adapter card that converts the mini SD cards into a standard SD size.

Pen holder with time and temperature.

Thanks to Screen Sleuth for sponsoring the contest this week. They will be providing a $30 gift certificate so you can get some great swag over at Adafruit Industries. Screen Sleuth is there to save you money by listing all the best prices by various categories, it doesn’t matter if you’re looking specifically for Samsung HDTVs or only Best Buy TV deals.

"If you’re in the market for a new television set, then take a few minutes to browse around the Sleuth. If you’re looking to save money on your TV or get a big discount on the regular price of a TV then check out our listings. Screen Sleuth organizes TVs by screen size as well as by manufacturer, so honing in on the TV specs you are interested in takes only seconds. We think it’s the best way to pin-point the best TV deal easily."

This contest will run for one week (October 31 -  November 6, 2009) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it.

Please do not give the answer in the comments. 

Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with "Name the Thing Contest" as the subject, and the message body consisting of:

• The name of the item in the above picture
• An example of what the item pictured above can be used for

The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.

Below is the prize. 

More pictures after the jump

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Thanks to the LAlarm for sponsoring the contest this week. They will be providing $200 worth of business licenses of their Laptop Alarm software. It is still free for personal use but this means that you will be able to turn a USB key into a security device and use it in the office. Their LAlarm software was featured here at Hacked Gadgets last month .

"LAlarm™ is free laptop alarm security software. LAlarm sounds an alarm when a laptop is in danger of being stolen or losing data, and it can recover and destroy data if the laptop is stolen. LAlarm consists of five alarms and other security functions designed to protect laptops and sensitive data."

You won’t be able to look around for the pictures this week, I took them about 10 minutes ago from a surplus product that I bought a few weeks ago. I cracked the case open and removed this circuit board, there more to the system. The rest of it is interfaced to using the two spring terminals shown above the largest black rectangular item in the picture. I am not looking for anything very detailed, just try to determine what the unit is that this circuit board came from. I look forward to reading the replies since I was very surprised to see this much circuitry inside! There are lots of additional pictures on page 2 and if you want to see the full size images they are available here on flickr.

This contest will run for one week (October 24- 30, 2009) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it.

Please do not give the answer in the comments. 

Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with "Name the Thing Contest" as the subject, and the message body consisting of:

• The name of the item in the above picture
• An example of what the item pictured above can be used for

The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.

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Added November 6, 2009

The item to guess was the Sunroof Motor Controller By FoMoCo (complete pictures added)

The winners are Craig F., Michael A., John G. and Josh G..  (There were 14 entries, this was a hard one!)

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Below is a screen shot of the the prize.

See page 2 for lots more pictures

Thanks to the SuperSync for sponsoring the contest this week. They will be providing a number of registered copies of their software to the winners. SuperSync is an application designed to compare and synchronize music libraries, ensuring that users will always have complete access to all of their own music. With SuperSync, music libraries can be accessed via the Internet anywhere, anytime, making it easier for users to manage multiple music libraries and stay organized.

This contest will run for one week (October 17 - 23, 2009) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it.

Please do not give the answer in the comments. 

Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with "Name the Thing Contest" as the subject, and the message body consisting of:

• The name of the item in the above picture
• An example of what the item pictured above can be used for

The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.

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Added November 6, 2009

The item to guess was the Orange Power Pump

The winner is Isaac W.  and Blair T, both of them won a 5 license pack of SuperSync.  (There were 39 entries)

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Below is a screen shot of the the prize.

There will be two prizes this week (one winner for each prize).  The first is a cool remote control watch. Have fun messing with your friends or the TVs at your local hangout. The second prize is two of our new 1 foot LED lighting strips. These 12 volt LED strip lights can be installed anywhere such as under your cabinets, in a shed or in a vehicle. The strips come in 7 different colors so you could also use them for accent lighting.

This contest will run for one week (Oct 10 - 16, 2009) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it. Thanks to Heikki for sending in the images of the item to guess.

Don’t forget about the Hacked Gadgets Halloween Contest that is still running, there is still time to get your entry in for that!

Please do not give the answer in the comments. 

Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with "Name the Thing Contest" as the subject, and the message body consisting of:

• The name of the item in the above picture
• An example of what the item pictured above can be used for
• Website or other documentation showing the device purpose

The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.

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Added November 6, 2009

The item to guess was the SAAB HEADLAMP RELAY(thanks to Heikki for sending in the pictures)

The winner is Steve B. (watch) and Robert Y. (lighting strips)  (There were 55 entries)

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Below is a picture of the the prize product.

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Halloween is a great time to whip out the soldering iron to make some cool and frightening projects. We have featured tons of cool DIY Halloween projects over the years like the Halloween prop shown above, they are all inspirational! This season we want to see your creations.

Enter Contest Here

To enter you will need to post your project in the Hacked Gadgets Forum, if you don’t have an account you will need a password during the sign-up process, it’s joinhgforum. We needed to implement this to prevent the smart spammers that seem to be everywhere.

Here is what you need to do to enter:

• Make a Halloween project that has some electronic components, it doesn’t need to be anything complex, for example some red LED eyes on a ghost would be enough.
• Post at least one picture of the project in this thread on the Hacked Gadgets Forum. Additional pictures and a link to some video would be welcome though.
• List the materials that were used and a short description of the project build. The description don’t need to be very detailed but more detail than the bare minimum is appreciated.
• You can enter as many times as you want, place each new project in a seperate forum entry. You can only receive one of the loupe magnifiers though even if multiple projects are in the first 10 entries.
• All projects need to be your own work. The Halloween project doesn’t need to be something that was made this year, you are welcome to post a project that you have built in the past.
• Enter before November 11th, 2009.

The winner of the contest will get a cell phone jammer, this device should disable most cell phones in your direct area. If you win this device and it is illegal in your country please only use it for research. The winner will be selected by a vote based on all the valid entries. The first 10 entries will get a loupe magnifier which is great for building or repairing circuit boards.

Note: The contest end date was accidentally listed as October 11th, it should have been listed as November 11th (after Halloween). It has been updated, sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Grand Prize: Cell Phone Jammer (pictured below)
First 10 entries: Loupe Magnifier (pictured below)

Thanks to the Ohm’s Law Calculator Website for sponsoring the contest this week. They will be providing a useful Resistor Color Chart Mug to the winner. The site provides an Ohm’s Law Calculator, Ohm’s Law Wheel, E24 Resistor Sizes, Resistor Color Chart, LED Resistor Calculator, AWG Wire Sizes and mcd to Lumens Converterinformation. This site is sure to be useful when you are designing your next circuit, might even be a good idea to bookmark the site now instead of hunting for it when you need it!

This contest will run for one week (Sept 19 - 25, 2009) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it.

Please do not give the answer in the comments. 

Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with "Name the Thing Contest" as the subject, and the message body consisting of:

• The name of the item in the above picture
• An example of what the item pictured above can be used for
• Website or other documentation showing the device purpose

The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.

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Added October 7, 2009

The item to guess was the Slide-Type Wire-Wound Power Resistors

The winner is Will K. (There were 187 entries)

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Below is a picture of the the prize product.