The 30 Second WiFi Extender

by Dia1Up in Circuits > Wireless

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The 30 Second WiFi Extender

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This one was born out of boredom and a necessity. My sister has her room right next to mine, and in it is a mirror that blocks the signal to my WiFi devices in my room. We have a great new router (I thought our old router was the problem) it helped but wasn't enough. So, seeing some other things like this, I went to work. But I didn't want to spend to much time and I didn't have too many materials to work with, the creation being this.

This is a super easy reflector to aim WiFi signals to where you need it. The first one literally too me about a minute to make. I've seen others here but this one is able to stand on it's own and only uses 3 materials 


On a side note, Im wishing to save it for a weekly challenge, but whatever ;)

EDIT: About a week later my Wifi In my room crapped out again, I checked my reflectors, both of them had the tape fail.

Fix: I just Hot-glued the skewer back on. If you want to tape, I'd use hocky tape, duct tape, just something better then Scotch tape ;) After I fixed it, Wifi was back in my room 

Materials

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An awesome thing about this project, it uses almost nothing and can be found in any house already!


Materials:
Tape
Pop Can
Skewer

Tools:
Utility knife

Cut the Can

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Fairly straight forward. Cutting can be done with stabbing the knife into the can

Cut the bottom of the can off
Cut a vertical line in the can
Cut the top as such where most of it is cut but still attached (Picture 2)

The Skewer

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The skewer is to hold the can flaps open. Before you tape anything, make sure the can is perfectly dry (if you rinsed it or otherwise) The tape won't stick well if at all.

Open the can and tape the sides to the table, this will make it easier to tape the skewer on
Set the skewer on the can and break to the length you want it (Picture 2 and 3)
Tape the skewer down on the sides and middle (Picture 4)

Finishing Up

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You may have to break the tab off to make it sit flat, and add a bit of weight to keep it standing.

Also you may want to bend the flap back a little.

Place the can as close to the the router's antenna as possible in the direction you want more signal, I used two. Of course you'll get less signal behind them, but that's an outside wall anyway.

Although simple it works surprisingly well, not as great as most, but seeing the time it takes to make one, work more then well enough for me. They boosted my computer's signal from 3.5-4ish bars to 5 out of 5 bars :)