Dim Bulbs? Hack 'Em!

This Popular Science article instructs us in the fine, though apparently not terribly difficult, art of turning your dim-bulbed incandescent flashlight into one of those snazzy, and often expensive, LED jobbies. To wit:

You'll also need a resistor for each LED: For a three-cell flashlight, use 30 ohm resistors, 75 ohm for four cells, 130 ohm for five and so on. (Try digikey.com for the parts.) Trim the LED leads to about a half inch (maintaining their relative lengths), and the resistor leads to one-eighth inch on one end, 1 inch on the other. Solder the short resistor leads to the long LED leads. Carefully break the old bulb. Use a soldering iron to heat the bottom of the bulb case until you can push a long resistor lead through it, and clip the excess. Solder the hanging LED lead to the flange of the bulb case. Solder the remaining LED/resistor pairs in parallel to the first and stuff them all into the reflector. Now shine on, you crazy diamond.

I am so going to do this, right after I buy an iTrip and hack it to boost the antenna power. No, FCC bloodhounds, I'm not trying to start a pirate radio station, just making sure my iTunes muzak can reach all the stereos in my home. That's right, I'm gonna use the iTrip for a purpose its manufacturer did not intend: hooking it up to a desktop Mac, as I sadly lack an iPod.

(LED link via Boing Boing, antenna hack link also via Boing Boing)