Thanks to the Raspberry Pi, we have easy access to extremely inexpensive machines running Linux that have all kinds of GPIO as well as various networking protocols. And as the …read more
There’s folk wisdom in just about every culture that teaches about renewable energy — things like “make hay while the sun shines”. But as an industrial culture, we want to …read more
Hardware hackers tend to have loads of hookup wire, and that led [firstgizmo] to design a 3D printable wire and cable spool storage system. As a bonus, it’s Gridfinity-compatible! There …read more
Just because LEGO Technic is technically a toy doesn’t mean that you cannot do solid engineering with it, like building air-powered engines. After first building a simple air-powered piston engine, …read more
Programmers hold to a wide spectrum of positions on software complexity, from the rare command-line purists to the much more common web app developers, and the two extremes rarely meet. …read more
These days ready-to-use DC-DC converters are everywhere, with some of the cheaper ones even being safe to use without an immediate risk to life and limb(s). This piques one’s curiosity …read more
The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR)’s T1 class is famous for many reasons: being enormous, being a duplex, possibly having beaten Mallard’s speed record while no one was looking… and being in …read more
Between the news, the world situation, and the inevitable family stresses that come this time of year, well — one could be excused for feeling a certain amount of envy …read more
If you’ve seen a big air-variable capacitor, you may have noticed that some of the plates may have slots cut into them. Why? [Mr Carlson] has the answer in the …read more
Using computers that feature a high-resolution, full-color graphical interface is commonplace today, but it took a lot of effort and ingenuity to get to this point. This long history is …read more
Some kind of continuity beeper has been a standard piece of gear since the dawn of electronics. Sure, you probably have an ohm meter, but sometimes you don’t care about …read more
The invention of sprites triggered a major shift in video game design, enabling games with independent moving objects and richer graphics despite the limitations of early video gaming hardware. As …read more
Although rare-earth elements (REEs) are not very rare, their recovery and purification is very cumbersome, with no significant concentrations that would help with mining. This does contribute to limiting their …read more
We’ve seen a few H-bridge circuits around these parts before, and here’s another application. This time we have an Old Train Station Clock which has been refurbished after being picked …read more
If you’re a regular reader of Hackaday, you may have noticed a certain fondness for Meshtastic devices, and the LoRa protocol more generally. LoRa is a great, low-power radio communications …read more
Courtesy of the complex routing and network configurations that Cloudflare uses, their engineers like to push the Linux network stack to its limits and ideally beyond. In a blog article …read more
Humans have lots of basic requirements that need to be met in order to stay alive. Food is a necessary one, though it’s possible to go without for great stretches …read more
By far, the most widely used psychoactive substance in the world is caffeine. It’s farmed around the world in virtually every place that it has cropped up, most commonly on …read more
A friend of mine and I both have a similar project in mind, the manufacture of custom footwear with our hackerspace’s shiny new multi-material 3D printer. It seems like a …read more
Although flying well under the radar of the average Linux user, D-Bus has been an integral part of Linux distributions for nearly two decades and counting. Rather than using faster …read more