Hackaday.com

It used to be a rite of passage to be able to do the math necessary to design various bipolar transistor amplifier configurations. This doesn’t come up as often as …read more

Variable capacitors may be useful, but the air gap that provides their capacitance is their greatest weakness. Rather than deal with the poor dielectric properties of air, some high-end variable …read more

At the risk of starting a controversy: is there anyone who goes to the effort of setting up Home Assistant who wouldn’t really rather be living on the Enterprise-D? If …read more

EDM (Electrical Discharge Machining) is one of those specialised manufacturing processes that are traditionally expensive and therefore somewhat underrepresented in the DIY and hacker scenes. It’s with great delight that …read more

At some point during our primary school careers, most of us probably constructed a simple compass, often by floating a magnetized needle on a cork in a cup of water. …read more

Continuing his reverse-engineering of the Intel 8087, [Ken Shirriff] covers the conditional tests that are implemented in the microcode of this floating point processing unit (FPU). This microcode contains the …read more

[Ronan] likes 35mm film photography, but the world, of course, has gone digital. He picked up an Epson FilmScan 200 for about €10. This wonder device from 1997 promised to …read more

Emulating older computers on microcontrollers has been a staple of retrocomputing for many years now, with most 8-bit and some 16-bit machines available on Atmel, ARM, or ESP32 platforms. But …read more

The Tamagotchi Connection is a series of Tamagotchi toys that took the original portable pet concept and mixed things up with a wireless connection, which allowed you to interact with …read more

While EEG research might help you figure out extrasensory perception, we won’t be betting on it. However, if you want to read EEG data and use an ESP32, [Cerelog-ESP-EEG] might …read more

A Vector Network Analyser, or VNA, is the ultimate multi-tool of RF test equipment. They can now be had in not very capable form for almost pocket money prices, but …read more

A knob can make a surprisingly versatile interface, particularly if it’s the SmartKnob, which builds a knob around a BLDC motor for programmable haptic response. It can rotate freely or …read more

You have a part that needs different colors or different material properties — with a multi-color 3D printer, no problem. You can also laboriously switch filaments on a single-color printer. …read more

I was off at the Chaos Communication Congress last weekend, and one of the big attractions for one who is nerdily inclined is seeing all of the personal projects that …read more

Today in power electronics, the folks over at Texas Instruments have put together a video covering low-dropout (LDO) linear regulators. For a hacker, power is pretty fundamental, so it behooves …read more

Although the humble propeller and its derivatives still form the primary propulsion method for ships, this doesn’t mean that alternative methods haven’t been tried. One of the more fascinating ones …read more

Today in programming language hacks we have string art rendered in BASIC. String art — also known as pin and thread art, or filography — is an art form where …read more

In 1966, a mathematician named [Leo Moser] proposed what sounds like a simple problem: What’s the largest shape you can move through a 1-meter corridor with a right-angle corner? Now, …read more

After initially announcing that Bose will completely turn off all ‘smart’ features in its SoundTouch series of speaker products, the company has seemingly responded to the wave of unhappy feedback …read more

You can hear sound, of course, but what if you could see it with a laser? That’s what [Goosetopherson] thought about, and thus a new project that you can see …read more