Clik here to view.
New Depths For iMac Repair
There’s not much economic sense in fixing a decade-old desktop computer, especially when it’s the fancy type with the screen integrated into the body of the computer, and the screen is the thing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
DIY Large Format Book Press Puts on the Pressure
For those in the audience who aren’t well versed in wrangling dead trees, a large press with a lot of clamping pressure can be used for binding books or printing. It can even be used to squeeze the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A(nother) Minimalist Window Manager
For however many Linux distributions there are to choose from, there are perhaps even more window managers that can be paired with them, and some have dramatically different features than the X window...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Stop ‘n Go DUPLO
[beshur]’s 2-year-old is obsessed with transportation, so he lifted a few DUPLO blocks from the bin and made this toy traffic light as a birthday present. Hey, might as well get him used to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Raising the Titanic’s Radio Room
For some reason, of all the ships that have sailed the oceans, it’s the unlucky ones that capture our imagination. Few ships have been as unlucky as the RMS Titanic, sinking as she did on the night of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Visualizing Energy Fields with a Neon Bulb Array
Everyone knows that one of the coolest things to do with a Tesla coil is to light up neon or fluorescent tubes at a distance. It’s an easy and very visual way to conceptualize how much energy is being...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lighting Up a Tiny Train Needs Tiny Tools
A tiny toy train that [voidnill] illuminated with a small LED strip fragment demonstrates several challenges that come with both modifying existing products, and working with small things in general....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Procedurally Generating Marble Runs
Marble runs are somehow incredibly soothing to play with and watch, with the gentle clack of the marbles and the smooth, predictable motion. Sadly for some, they never quite got enough time to enjoy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
CherryPi Mechanical Keyboard Warrants A Long Look
[Gosse Adema] has been poking a Microsoft Natural Elite for the last 20 years, and the curvy old girl is about to give out. Looks like he got bit pretty hard by the DIY mechanical keyboard bug in his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Debugging Electronics: To Know Why It Didn’t Work, First Find What It Is...
Congratulations, you have just finished assembling your electronics project. After checking for obvious problems you apply power and… it didn’t do what you wanted. They almost never work on the first...
View ArticleClik here to view.
144 7-Segment Displays Combine To Form A Mighty Clock
What do you do with 144 7-segment displays? If you’re [Frugha] you put them all together to create an epic clock. Each display has 8 individual LEDs — 7 segments, and a decimal point. Put that all...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Robotic Ball Bouncer Uses Machine Vision to Stay on Target
When we first caught a glimpse of this ball juggling platform, we were instantly hooked by its appearance. With its machined metal linkages and clear polycarbonate platform, its got an irresistibly...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brute-Forced Copyrighting: Liberating All The Melodies
Bluntly stated, music is in the end just applied physics. Harmony follows — depending on the genre — a more or less fixed set of rules, and there are a limited amount of variation possible within the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pump Up The (Windows) Volume With Physical Sliders
For as long as we can remember, Windows has provided a mixer that breaks out the volume level of every applicable application into its own slider-controlled lane. But navigating to these controls is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mithro Runs Down Open Source FPGA Toolchains
Tim [Mithro] Ansell has a lot to tell you about the current state of open FPGA tooling: 115 slides in 25 minutes if you’re counting. His SymbiFlow project aims to be the GCC of FPGA toolchains:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
ESP8266 Adds Web Control To Old Home Theater
There was a time when you could hold onto a TV or A/V receiver for the better part of the decade and not feel as though you were missing out on the latest and greatest features. But today you’re lucky...
View ArticleClik here to view.
DARPA Challenge Autonomous Robot Teams To Navigate Unfinished Nuclear Power...
Robots might be finding their footing above ground, but today’s autonomous robots have a difficult time operating underground. DARPA wanted to give the state of the art a push forward, so they are...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Quick And Easy Recipe For Synthetic Rubies
With what it takes to make synthetic diamonds – the crushing pressures, the searing temperatures – you’d think similar conditions would be needed for any synthetic gemstone. Apparently not, though, as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Using Voice Commands To Start A Jeep
If you’ve got a car built in the last 5 years or so, it’s quite likely it’s started by the push of a button when in the presence of a keyfob. Older vehicles make do with the twist of a key. Of course,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Calculator in 2020?
This week, Al Williams wrote up an article on what might be the last scientific calculator. Back in the day, the fanciest of scientific calculators had not just sin, cos, and tan, but were also...
View Article