ShmooCon 2008: Hard drive highlights

Today wrapped up with a talk on recovering data from solid state hard drives by [Scott Moulton]. The talk focused on the differences in data storage between SSD and platter technology. I did come away with a few interesting bits of knowledge. In an effort to extend device life, flash based drives store changed data to a new location, leaving the old data intact until a garbage removal subroutine … [Read more...]

Toaster oven reflow controller

[Nathan] sent in his toaster oven reflow controller. He's using a Triac to drive the heating elements, a thermocouple to monitor temperature and a PIC controller to run the show. I'm giving him extra points for style on the control pad. Hopefully he'll have time to put out a complete write up when he's got it finished. You can check out the project photos here. … [Read more...]