It is common these days to have a soldering iron where you can set the temperature using some sort of digital control. But how accurate is it? Probably pretty accurate, but [TheHWCave] picked up a vintage instrument on eBay that was made to read soldering iron temperature. You can see the video below, which includes […]
As the name of the channel implies, [BuyItFixIt] likes to pick up cheap gadgets that are listed as broken and try to repair them. It’s a pastime we imagine many Hackaday readers can appreciate, because even if you can’t get a particular device working, you’re sure to at least learn something useful along the way. […]
The fake AliExpress-sourced IRFP460 MOSFETs (Credit: Learn Electronics Repair, YouTube) These days, it’s super-easy to jump onto the World Wide Web to find purported replacement parts using nothing but the part identifier, whether it’s from a reputable source like Digikey or Mouser or from more general digital fleamarkets like eBay and AliExpress. It’s hardly a […]
In today’s value-engineered world, getting a decade of service out of a cordless tool is pretty impressive. By that point you’ve probably gotten your original investment back, and if the tool gives up the ghost, well, that’s what the e-waste bin is for. Not everyone likes to give up so easily, though, which results in […]
Remember when dead batteries were something you’d just toss in the trash? Those days are long gone, thankfully, and rechargeable battery packs have put powerful cordless tools in the palms of our hands. But when those battery packs go bad, replacing them becomes an expensive proposition. And that’s a great excuse to pop a pack […]
Fluke meters have been around for a long, long time. Heck, we’ve got a Fluke 73 that we bought back in 1985 that’s still a daily driver. But just because they’ve been making them forever doesn’t mean they last forever, and getting a secondhand meter back in the game can be a challenge. That’s what […]
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: water always finds a way in. That’s particularly problematic for things like wire splices in damp environments, something that no amount of electrical tape is going to help. Heat shrink tubing might be your friend here, but for an electrically isolated and mechanically supported repair, you […]
For those of us who lived in the capitalist west during the Cold War, there remains a fascination to this day about the Other Side. The propaganda we were fed as kids matched theirs in describing the awful things on the other side of the wall, something that wasn’t borne out when a decade or […]
Many Hackaday readers have an interest in older technologies, and from antique motorcycles to tube radios to retrocomputers, you own, conserve and restore them. Sometimes you do so using new parts because the originals are either unavailable or downright awful, but as you do so are you really restoring the item or creating a composite […]