Like many people who solder regularly, I decided years ago to upgrade from a basic iron and invest in a soldering station. My RadioShack digital station has served me well for the better part of 20 years. It heats up fast, tips are readily available, and it’s a breeze to dial in whatever temperature I […]
In the early 1990s I was privileged enough to be immersed in the world of technology during the exciting period that gave birth to the World Wide Web, and I can honestly say I managed to completely miss those first stirrings of the information revolution in favour of CD-ROMs, a piece of technology which definitely […]
While plastics are very useful on their own, they can be much stronger when reinforced and mixed with a range of fibers. Not surprisingly, this includes the thermoplastic polymers which are commonly used with FDM 3D printing, such as polylactic acid (PLA) and polyamide (PA, also known as nylon). Although the most well-known fibers used […]
Writing for Hackaday involves drinking from the firehose of tech news, and seeing the latest and greatest of new projects and happenings in the world of hardware. But sometimes you sit back in a reflective mood, and ask yourself: didn’t this all used to be more exciting? If you too have done that, perhaps it’s […]
As we slowly wean ourselves away from our centuries-long love affair with fossil fuels in an attempt to reduce CO2 emissions and combat global warming, there has been a rapid expansion across a broad range of clean energy technologies. Whether it’s a set of solar panels on your roof, a wind farm stretching across the […]
Wireless networking is all-pervasive in our modern lives. Wi-Fi technology lives in our smartphones, our laptops, and even our watches. Internet is available to be plucked out of the air in virtually every home across the country. Wi-Fi has been one of the grand computing revolutions of the past few decades. It might surprise you […]
Every now and then, a commercial product aims to help you in your life journey, in a novel way, making your life better through its presence. Over the years, I’ve been disappointed by such products far more often than I have been reassured, seeing each one of them rendered unimaginative and purposeless sometimes even despite […]
To the extent that you have an opinion on something like high-frequency (HF) radio, you probably associate it with amateur radio operators, hunched over their gear late at night as they try to make contact with a random stranger across the globe to talk about the fact that they’re both doing the same thing at […]
Back in the days before kids could be placated with a $50 Android burner phone, many a youngster was gifted a so-called “educational computer” to keep them occupied. Invariably looking like a fever dream version of the real computer their parents didn’t want to let them use, these gadgets offered monochromatic exploits that would make […]
There’s a newish development in the world of keyboards; the optical switch. It’s been around for a couple years in desktop keyboards, and recently became available on a laptop keyboard as well. These are not replacements for your standard $7 keyboard with rubber membrane switches intended for puttering around on your raspberry pi. Their goal […]