Category: Posts

I ran into an old episode of Hogan’s Heroes the other day that stuck me as odd. It didn’t have a laugh track. Ironically, the show was one where two pilots were shown, one with and one without a laugh track. The resulting data ensured future shows would have fake laughter. This wasn’t the pilot, though, […]
For quite some time now, Marlin has been the firmware of choice for any kind of custom 3D printer, with only Klipper offering some serious competition in the open-source world. [Liam Powell] aims to introduce some more variety with the development of Prunt, a 3D printer control board and firmware stack. Smooth motion control is […]
Recently, [AlphaPhoenix] weighed an airplane. Normally, that wouldn’t be much of an accomplishment. Except in this case, the airplane happened to be in flight at the time. In fact we’re not sure what is more remarkable, as he not only weighed real actual airplanes but a paper airplane too! The sealed box essentially acts as […]
If you have very old pieces of analogue test equipment with CRTs on your bench, the chances are they will all have surprisingly similar surrounds to their screens. Back when they were made it was common to record oscilloscope screens with a Polaroid camera, that would have a front fitting for just this purpose. More […]
Theoretically when you write a GUI-based application for Linux there are standards to follow, with these all neatly documented over at the Freedesktop website. However, in reality, Freedesktop is more of a loose collection of specifications, some of which are third-party specifications that have somehow become the de facto standard. One example of this is […]
Over on his YouTube channel our hacker [Yuchi] is building an STM32 BLDC motor winding machine. This machine is for winding brushless motors because manual winding is highly labor intensive. The machine in turn is made from four brushless motors. He is using the SimpleFOC library to implement closed-loop angle control. Closed-loop torque control is […]
We like USB-C here at Hackaday, but like all specifications it is up to manufacturers to follow it and sometimes… they don’t. Sick of commercial cables either don’t label their safe wattage, or straight up lie about it, [GreatScott!] decided to DIY his own ultimate USB-C-PD cable for faster charging in his latest video, which […]
When you run into old hardware you cannot restore, what do you do? Toss it? Sell it for parts? If you’re [TME Retro], you hide a high-end mini PC inside an Amstrad-shaped sleeper build. The donor  laptop is an Amstrad ALT-286 with glorious 80s styling that [TME Retro] tried to save in a previous video. […]
Can you teach an old typewriter new tricks? You can, at least if you’re [maniek-86]. And a word to all you typewriter fanatics out there — this Optima SP 26 was beyond repair, lacking several internal parts. Image by [maniek-86] via reddit But the fully available keyboard was a great start for a gaming typewriter. […]
The Franck–Hertz experiment was a pioneering physics observation announced in 1914 which explained that energy came in “packets” which we call “quanta”, marking the beginning of quantum physics. Recently, [Markus Bindhammer] wrote in to let us know he had redone the experiment for himself. In the original experiment a mercury vacuum tube was used, but […]