You _DO_ go to RadioShack occasionally, RIGHT?

They may have a few of these still lying around, which they may sell you for a quarter, a nickel, 25/$1, or even beg you to take them away. Next time you're in (making a purchase - you wouldn't want to be a freeloader, right?), perhaps you shuld inquire if they have a few that you could have. The item is a "Sprint Store at RadioShack Phone Line Tester".

You can extract the Red/Green LED from these. It takes about 30 seconds, and can be done while watching TV (if you have a lot of them to do).

Here's the process:

• Extract the tester from the packaging. This may be the most time consuming part, as the plastic is stretchy and doesn't like to tear. A scissors may be helpful.
• Pop the modular plug (RJ11) containing the LED off of the handle (a twist with a flathead screwdriver is fine, I usually manage with my fingers).
• Apply pressure with a wire cutter, wire stripper, or diagonal cutter at the seam. The two pieces of the plug should separate, leaving you with two dead hunks of plastic, and an LED.

These pictures are technically awful (poor lighting, focus), but they illustrate the necessary steps for the project.

If doing a lot of these while watching TV, it will likely be helpful to arrange a few (3?) buckets, bins, or trays for the various parts you will accumulate. Specifically, the NEW, unharvested testers, the chaff (the dead hunks of plastic that you remove from around the LED), and the LEDs. You may be able to find a use for the handles, I certainly can't imagine what it would be, however.

FLASH: This just in, a use for the handles. My wife wants them for use as plant markers. I managed to process a sub-carton (full pillow-pack) of these in about an hour. Opening the plastic wrapper was the most tedious part.

• The start.
• The Plug and Handle separated.
• The Seam, upon which pressure is applied.
• Cutting the seam.
• The LED you get from it.

Empirical testing has shown that if you pretend it's a 2V 20ma LED, it will light and not melt. It will not be at full brightness, I haven't tested that far yet. Flat side of T 1 3/4 package denotes cathode for RED operation. Reverse polarity for GREEN.

PLEASE - Don't be offended if your friendly neighborhood RadioShack is out of these fine items. You're probably not paying all that much for them anyway. Do be kind enough to give them your name. While you're in there, you could inquire about :CueCats as well.

Note: the above link is for the "Hacker's" version of the CueCat. You want to click on it. This is the mundane link that Digital Convergence wants you to click on.

(If nothing else, the :CueCat is good to scare the mouse on your desk, right? It's also full of neat little parts, like a microcontroller, a LED, and of course, a phototransistor of some type.)