Field News

Hey, you know that guy in accounting, Marco? If you want to find out more about him, you’d probably go surf LinkedIn or maybe a social media site. Inside a company, you might look on instant messaging for a profile and even find out if he is at his desk or away. But back in […]
A few years ago [Brian McCafferty] created a nice big RGB LED panel in a poster frame that aimed to be easy to move, program, and display. We’d like to draw particular attention to one of his construction methods. On the software end of things there are multiple ways to get images onto a DIY […]
In the mid 1980s, there was a rash of 16-bit computers entering the market. One of them stood head and shoulders above the rest: Commodore’s Amiga 1000. It had everything that could reasonably be stuffed into a machine of the period, and multimedia capabilities the rest wouldn’t catch up on for years. [Celso Martinho] has […]
VFDs — vacuum fluorescent displays — have a distinctive look, and [Anthony Francis-Jones] is generally fascinated with retro displays. So, it makes sense that he’d build a VFD project as an excuse to explain how they work. You can see the video below. VFDs are almost miniature CRTs. They are very flexible in what they […]
Guanella Impedance Transformer. (Credit: FesZ Electronics) Even before entering the mystical realms of UHF design, radio frequency (RF) circuits come with a whole range of fun design aspects as well. A case in point can be found in transmission line transformers, which are commonly used in RF power amplifiers, with the Guanella transformer (balun) being […]
Let’s face it—seeing a good tool go to waste is heartbreaking. So when his cordless drill’s motor gave up after some unfortunate exposure to the elements, [Chaz] wasn’t about to bin it. Instead, he embarked on a brave journey to breathe new life into the machine by swapping its dying brushed motor for a sleek […]
[Stephen] recently wrote in to share his experiments with using the LimeSDR mini to conduct a bit of piracy on the airwaves, and though we can’t immediately think of a legitimate application for spamming the full FM broadcast band simultaneously, we can’t help but be fascinated by the technique. Called the Taylorator, as it was […]
This week, Jonathan Bennett, Doc Searls, and Jeff Massie talk about Deepseek, technical solutions to Terms of Service abuse, and more! Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them […]
Bambu Labs have been in the news lately. Not because of the machines themselves, but because they are proposing a firmware change that many in our community find restricts their freedom to use their own devices. What can be done? [Joshua Wise] gave a standout talk on the Design Lab stage at the 2024 Hackaday […]
Though it is many decades since paper tape was commonly used as a data input or storage medium, it still holds a fascination for many who work with computers. Over the years we’ve featured more than one paper tape related project, and the latest to come out way is [ColemanJW2]’s 8-bit ASCII paper tape generator. […]