It’s an unfortunate fact that when a scientist at MIT describes an exciting new piece of hardware as “low-cost,” it might not mean the same thing as if a hobbyist had said it. [Caden Kraft] encountered this disparity when he was building a SCARA arm and needed good actuators. An actuator like those on MIT’s […]
[Jackson Studner] wrote in to let us know about his ESP32-based media server: Jcorp Nomad. This project uses a ESP32-S3 to create a WiFi hotspot you can connect to from your devices. The hotspot is a captive portal which directs the user to a web-interface comprised of static HTML assets which are in situ with […]
Display technology has come a long way since the advent of the CRT in the late 1800s (yes, really!). Since then, we’ve enjoyed the Nixie tubes, flip dots, gas plasma, LCD, LED, ePaper, the list goes on. Now, there’s a new kid on the block — water. [Steve Mould] recently got his hands on an […]
Over on YouTube, [Technology Connections] has a new video: Induction lamps: fluorescent lighting’s final form. This video is about a wireless fluorescent light which uses induction to transfer power from the electrical system into the lamp. As this lamp doesn’t require wiring it is not prone to “sputtering” as typical fluorescent lights are, thus improving […]
[Sylvain Fortin] recently wrote in to tell us about his Homebrew CPU Project, and the story behind this one is truly remarkable. He began working on this toy CPU back in 1994, over thirty years ago. After learning about the 74LS181 ALU in college he decided to build his own CPU. He made considerable progress […]
Counting objects is an ideal task for automation, and when focusing on a single type of object, there are many effective solutions. But what if you need to count hundreds of different objects? That’s the challenge [Christopher] tackled with his latest addition to his impressive automation projects. (Video, embedded below.) [Christopher] has released a series […]
Here’s a clever hack. Simple, elegant, and eminently cost-effective: using an SMD capacitor to hold your flash media in place! This is a hack that can pretty much be summed up with just the image at the top of the page — a carefully placed SMD capacitor soldered to a routed tab makes for an […]
As it stands, cryptocurrency largely seems to be a fad of the previous decade, at least as far as technology goes. During that time, many PC users couldn’t get reasonably priced graphics cards since most of them were going into these miners. In contrast, nowadays any shortages are because they’re being used to turn the […]
Well, here’s an interesting idea: the service loop. Ever heard of it? We haven’t! In the video, the presenter explains the service loop serves two purposes: on the one hand it may provide strain relief, but chiefly these loops are installed so there will be extra available slack in the cable if you need to […]
We have all suffered from this; the boss wants you to compile a report on the number of paper clips and you’re crawling up the wall with boredom, so naturally your mind strays to other things. You check social media, or maybe the news, and before you know it a while has been wasted. [Neil […]