Rubber! It starts out as a goopy material harvested from special trees, and is then processed into a resilient, flexible material used for innumerable important purposes. In the vast majority of applications, rubber is prized for its elasticity, which eventually goes away with repeated stress cycles, exposure to heat, and time. When a rubber part […]
This week, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up over the tubes to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. In Hackaday news, get your Supercon 2025 tickets while they’re hot! Also, the One Hertz Challenge ticks on, but time is running […]
Despite the regularly proclaimed death of physical media, new audio albums are still being published on CD and vinyl. There’s something particularly interesting about Lorde’s new album Virgin however — the CD is a completely clear disc. Unfortunately there have been many reports of folks struggling to get the unique disc to actually play, and […]
One of the hot topics currently is using LLMs for security research. Poor quality reports written by LLMs have become the bane of vulnerability disclosure programs. But there is an equally interesting effort going on to put LLMs to work doing actually useful research. One such story is [Romy Haik] at ULTRARED, trying to build […]
When you mention Teletext or Videotex, you probably think of the 1970s British system, the well-known system in France, or the short-lived US attempt to launch the service. Before the Internet, there were all kinds of crazy ways to deliver customized information into people’s homes. Old-fashioned? Turns out Teletext is alive and well in many […]
Lithium-titanate (LTO) is an interesting battery chemistry that is akin to Li-ion but uses Li2TiO3 nanocrystals instead of carbon for the anode. This makes LTO cells capable of much faster charging and with better stability characteristics, albeit at the cost of lower energy density. Much like LiFePO4 cells, this makes them interesting for a range […]
There has been a huge proliferation in AI music creation tools of late, and a corresponding uptick in the number of AI artists appearing on streaming services. Well before the modern neural network revolution, though, there was an earlier tool in this same vein. [harke] tells us all about Microsoft Music Producer 1.0, a forgotten […]
Do you calibrate your digital meters? Most of us don’t have the gear to do a proper calibration, but [Mike Wyatt] shares his simple way to calibrate his DMMs using a precision resistor coupled with a thermistor. The idea is to use a standard dual banana plug along with a 3D-printed housing to hold the […]
[mircemk] has been working on wireless power transmission. Using a Class-E Tesla coil with 12 turns on the primary and 8 turns on the secondary and a 12 volt input he can send a few milliwatts to power an LED over a distance of more than 40 centimeters or power a 10 watt bulb over […]
[Electronoobs] is using some brushless motors to make a DIY wind turbine. His recent video isn’t about the turbine itself, but a crucial electronic part: the three-phase rectifier. The reason it is so important is due to the use of brushless motors. Normal motors are not ideal for generating power for several reasons, as explained […]