We Ruined Status LEDs; Here’s Why That Needs To Change

Ah, the humble status LED. Just about every piece of home electronics, every circuit module, and anything else that draws current seems to have one. In the days of yore, a humble indicator gave a subtle glow from behind a panel, and this was fine. Then the 1990s happened, and …read more

How Does Starlink Work Anyway?

No matter what you think of Elon Musk, it’s hard to deny that he takes the dictum “There’s no such thing as bad publicity” to heart. From hurling sports cars into orbit to solar-powered roof destroyers, there’s little that Mr. Musk can’t turn into a net positive for at least …read more

Inputs Of Interest: Ears To Communication For Everyone

Welcome back to Inputs of Interest! If you haven’t heard, I am all ears when it comes to new ways of talking to computers and machines. And speaking of ears, did you know they can do useful tricks? If you squeeze your eyes shut tightly and/or yawn widely, you might …read more

MakerBot Targets Schools With Rebranded Printers

MakerBot was poised to be one of the greatest success stories of the open source hardware movement. Founded on the shared knowledge of the RepRap community, they created the first practical desktop 3D printer aimed at consumers over a decade ago. But today, after being bought out by Stratasys and …read more

The TMS1000: The First Commercially Available Microcontroller

We use a microcontroller without a second thought, in applications where once we might have resorted to a brace of 74 logic chips. But how many of us have spared a thought for how the microcontroller evolved? It’s time to go back a few decades to look at the first …read more

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Relive The Glory Days Of Cable TV With This Retro Weather Feed

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By Dan Maloney | February 21, 2020

This may surprise younger readers, but there was once a time when the reality programming on The Weather Channel was simply, you know, weather. It used to be no more than a ten-minute wait to “Local on the Eights”, with simple text crawls of local conditions and forecasts that looked …read more
Bluetooth Intervalometer Makes Time Lapses Easy

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By Lewin Day | February 21, 2020

Taking timelapses is a fun pastime of many a photographer. While most modern cameras have some features to pull this off, if you want to get really into it, you’ll want an intervalometer to run the show. Chasing just that, [Zach] decided that rather than buying off-the-shelf, a DIY build …read more
Irrigation Controller Uses Google Calendar To Make Things Easy

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By Lewin Day | February 20, 2020

Irrigation controllers have been around for a long time, often using similar hardware inside that would be familiar to the average maker. However, many of the products on the shelf at your local hardware store can be quite expensive for what amounts to a microcontroller, display, and relay board. [oscillatory] …read more
Stout Homebrew Radio Pumps Out 200W Of AM Goodness

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By Lewin Day | February 20, 2020

In this day and age, with cheap online shopping, software defined radio and bargain-basement Baofengs from China, the upstart radio ham is spoilt for choice. Of course, there’s nothing quite like the charm of keying up your own homebrewed rig, cooked up in the garage from scratch. [Paul], aka [VK3HN], …read more
DARPA Subterranean Challenge Urban Circuit Now Livestreaming

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By Roger Cheng | February 20, 2020

Currently underway is the DARPA Subterranean Challenge (SubT) systems competition for urban circuits streamed live on YouTube now through Wednesday, February 26th.

The DARPA Grand Challenge of 2004 kicked research and development of autonomous vehicles into high gear. Many components on today’s self-driving vehicles can be traced back to systems …read more
A Turing-Complete CPU From RAM

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By Bryan Cockfield | February 20, 2020

Building a general-purpose computer means that you’ll have to take a lot of use cases into consideration, and while the end product might be useful for a lot of situations, it will inherently contain a lot of inefficiencies. On the other hand, if you want your computer to do one …read more
DIY Power Station Puts Ryobi Batteries To Work

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By Tom Nardi | February 20, 2020

Anyone with a few cordless tools has probably amassed quite a collection of batteries for them. If you’re a professional contractor, having a fleet of batteries you can swap out during the day’s work is a necessity. But if you’re just doing the occasional DIY project, those batteries are probably …read more

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We Ruined Status LEDs; Here’s Why That Needs To Change

How Does Starlink Work Anyway?

Inputs Of Interest: Ears To Communication For Everyone

MakerBot Targets Schools With Rebranded Printers

The TMS1000: The First Commercially Available Microcontroller

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How Does Starlink Work Anyway?

MakerBot Targets Schools With Rebranded Printers

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Nuclear Fusion Power Without Regular Tokamaks Or Stellarators

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We Ruined Status LEDs; Here’s Why That Needs To Change

Inputs Of Interest: Ears To Communication For Everyone

Open-Source Neuroscience Hardware Hack Chat

Hackaday Links: February 16, 2020

It Ain’t Over ‘Til The Paperwork Is Done: Test Driving TiddlyWiki

We Ruined Status LEDs; Here’s Why That Needs To Change

How Does Starlink Work Anyway?

Inputs Of Interest: Ears To Communication For Everyone

MakerBot Targets Schools With Rebranded Printers

The TMS1000: The First Commercially Available Microcontroller

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