For those of us hackers who have gone down a machining rabbit hole, we all know how annoying it can be to over-machine a part. Thermal spraying, while sounding sci-fi, is a method where you can just spray that metal back on your workpiece. If you don’t care about machining, how about a gun that […]
Spectravideo is not exactly the most well-known microcomputer company, but they were nevertheless somewhat active in the US market from 1981 to 1988. Their computers still have a fanbase of users and modders. Now, as demonstrated by [electricadventures], you can actually upgrade your ancient Spectravideo machine with some modern hardware. The upgrade in question is […]
Handheld computers have become very much part of the hardware hacker scene, as the advent of single board computers long on processor power but short on power consumption has given us the tools we need to build them ourselves. Handheld retrocomputers face something of an uphill struggle though, as many of the components are over-sized, […]
The header image above shows a completely unsupported 3D-printed bridge, believe it or not. You’re looking at the bottom of the print. [Make Wonderful Things] wondered whether unsightly unsupported bridges could be improved, and has been busy nailing down remarkably high-quality results by exhaustive testing of different settings. It all started when they thought that […]
To our younger readers, a car without an all-touchscreen “infotainment” system may look clunky and dated, but really, you kids don’t know what they’re missing. Buttons, knobs, and switches all offer a level of satisfying tactility and feedback that touchscreens totally lack. [Garage Builds] on YouTube agrees; he also doesn’t like the way his aftermarket […]
One of the joys of writing up the entries for the 2025 Component Abuse Challenge has come in finding all the different alternative uses for the humble transistor. This building block of all modern electronics does a lot more than simply performing as a switch, for as [Aleksei Tertychnyi] tells us, it can also function […]
When you think of a US Nuclear accident, you probably think of Three Mile Island. However, there have been over 50 accidents of varying severity in the US, with few direct casualties. (No one died directly from the Three Mile Island incident, although there are some studies that show increased cancer rates in the area.) […]
There are various CAD challenges out there that come with bragging rights. Some, like the Certified Solid Works Professional Exam (CWSP) might actually look good on a resume. [Deltahedra] is apparently not too interested in padding his resume, nor does he have much interest in SolidWorks, and so decided to conquer the CWSP with FreeCAD […]
For most of us, the days of having to insert a disc to play our media are increasingly behind us. But if you’d like to provide your kids with the experience, you could use CardFlix. For the electronics, [Udi] used the readily available ESP8266 D1 Mini module connected via I2C to a PN532 NFC reader. […]