You’ve probably noticed that everywhere you go — the doctor’s office, hotels, or retail shops, there are tiny PCs everywhere. These small PCs often show up on the surplus market for a very good price, but they aren’t quite full-blown PCs. They usually have little option for expansion and are made to be cheap and […]
What’s the only thing cooler than building something electronic? That’s right — wearing it proudly for all to see. But maybe you’re not into wearables. Maybe it’s because you’re afraid of sewing, or simply scared that you won’t be able to launder that blinkenshirt you’ve always wanted to make. Well, the undisputed queen of wearables […]
Living with Type 1 diabetes is a numbers game. There’s not a moment in the day free from the burden of tracking your blood glucose concentration, making “What’s your number?” a constant question. Technology can make that question easier to ask and answer, but for T1D patients, especially the kids who the disease so often […]
[Azpaca] purchased a fun little toy car from Tamiya, only… there was a problem. The little off-roader wasn’t up to scratch—despite its four-wheel-drive, it couldn’t get over rough ground to save its life. Thus, it was time to 3D-print a better chassis that could actually get through it! The problem was quite obvious. With no […]
Crystal oscillators are incredibly useful components, but they come with one little snag: their oscillation is temperature-dependent. For many applications the relatively small deviation is not a problem, but especially for precision instruments this is a deal breaker. Enter the oven controlled crystal oscillator, or OCXO. These do basically what it says on the tin, […]
The CNT coating between the layers is heated with microwaves to locally anneal. (Credit: Sweeney et al., Science Adv., 2017) Layer adhesion is one of the weak points with FDM 3D printing, with annealing often recommended as a post-processing step. An interestingly creative method for this was published in Science Advances back in 2017, featuring the […]
When you’re spitting out G-Code for a 3D print, you can pick all kinds of infill settings. You can choose the pattern, and the percentage… but the vast majority of slicers all have one thing in common. They all print layer by layer, infill and all. What if there was another way? There’s been a […]
When considering our favorite spy movies and kin that involve deep-sea diving, we’d generally expect to see some high-end watch that costs thousands of dollars and is specially engineered to withstand the immense pressures kilometers below the ocean’s surface. Yet what about a humble Casio F91W that can be bought for about $15 if it’s […]