Mars 2020 Rover: Curiosity’s Hi-Tech Twin Is Strapped For Science; Includes A Flying Drone

While Mars may be significantly behind its sunward neighbor in terms of the number of motor vehicles crawling over its surface, it seems like we’re doing our best to close that gap. Over the last 23 years, humans have sent four successful rovers to the surface of the Red Planet, …read more

Nuclear Fusion Power Without Regular Tokamaks Or Stellarators

When it comes to nuclear fusion, the most well-known reactor type today is no doubt the tokamak, due to its relatively straight-forward concept of plasma containment. That’s not to say that there aren’t other ways to accomplish nuclear fusion in a way that could conceivably be used in a commercial …read more

HackIt: Why Aren’t We Hacking On The LED Printer?

Strings of LEDs are a staple of the type of project we see here at Hackaday, with addressable devices such as the WS2812 in particular having changed beyond recognition what is possible on a reasonable budget. They’ve appeared in all kinds of projects, but are perhaps most memorable when used …read more

First Space Cookies: Cosmic Cooking Is Half-Baked

For decades, astronauts have been forced to endure space-friendly MREs and dehydrated foodstuffs, though we understand both the quality and the options have increased with time. But if we’re serious about long-term space travel, colonizing Mars, or actually having a restaurant at the end of the universe, the ability to …read more

New Part Day: The Wi-Fi Stepper Gets Ideas Working Faster

Like most of us, I sometimes indulge in buying a part for its potential or anticipated utility rather than for a specific project or purpose. That’s exactly how I ended up with the WSX100 Wi-Fi Stepper, a single board device intended to be one of the fastest and easiest ways …read more

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Transparent LCD Makes Everything Look Futuristic

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By Al Williams | February 17, 2020

According to [Kelsey], transparent displays are guaranteed to make “everything feel like the future.” Unfortunately they’re hard to find, and the ones typically available are OLED and can’t make solid black colors. But as luck would have it, it’s possible to repurpose a common LCD to be sort of transparent. …read more
Why Some Chips Have Inconvenient Pinouts

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By Donald Papp | February 17, 2020

If you’ve ever handled a chip with a really strange or highly inconvenient pinout and suspected that the reason had something to do with the inner workings, you may be interested to see [electronupdate]’s analysis of why the 4017 Decade Counter IC has such a weirdly nonintuitive pinout. It peeks …read more
Electrification Of A Cheap Bead Roller

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By Jenny List | February 17, 2020

We all have old projects which maybe didn’t quite deliver knocking about, sometimes they gather dust for years. They have a use though, in that when you *really* need that part you can lift it from that forgotten project. That’s what [Mustie1] did with a forgotten electric bicycle project, he …read more
Bubbly Filament Works Better Than You Think

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By Danie Conradie | February 17, 2020

Normally bubbles appearing in your extruded filament would be considered a bad sign, but it turns out you can now buy filament that has been specifically formulated to foam. [Stefan] from CNC Kitchen has doing some experiments with these bubbly filaments, and the results have been very interesting.

The filaments …read more
Amp Volt Ohm Meter Model 8 Mark III From The 1960s

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By Al Williams | February 16, 2020

There’s hardly any piece of test equipment more fundamental than a volt ohm meter. Today you’re likely to have a digital one, but for most of history, these devices had real needle meters. The AVOmeter Model 8 Mark III that [Jeff Tranter] shows off had an odd banana-shaped meter. Maybe …read more
Closed Ham Radio Peripheral Reveals Its Windows Secrets

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By Jenny List | February 16, 2020

The student radio society in Trondhjem owns a Flex 6500-radio, with its associated Maestro panel peripheral. This is a software defined radio, and the Maestro is a computer containing just enough of an embedded version of Windows to run its front-end software. Unfortunately for our Norwegian radio amateur friends it …read more
Hackaday Links: February 16, 2020

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By Dan Maloney | February 16, 2020

Have you heard the exciting news about Betelgeuse? It’s been hard to miss these days, with reports of the red supergiant star suddenly dimming, and speculation growing that the star will go supernova sometime in the next 10,000 years. But the exciting part is that astronomers have gotten together and …read more

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Mars 2020 Rover: Curiosity’s Hi-Tech Twin Is Strapped For Science; Includes A Flying Drone

Nuclear Fusion Power Without Regular Tokamaks Or Stellarators

HackIt: Why Aren’t We Hacking On The LED Printer?

First Space Cookies: Cosmic Cooking Is Half-Baked

New Part Day: The Wi-Fi Stepper Gets Ideas Working Faster

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Mars 2020 Rover: Curiosity’s Hi-Tech Twin Is Strapped For Science; Includes A Flying Drone

Nuclear Fusion Power Without Regular Tokamaks Or Stellarators

First Space Cookies: Cosmic Cooking Is Half-Baked

New Part Day: The Wi-Fi Stepper Gets Ideas Working Faster

Turning A Problem Around: The Whitney Cotton Gin

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Hackaday Links: February 16, 2020

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

Hackaday Podcast 054: Xenomorph Cookies, 101 Uses For Hot Glue, Rolling Robots, And A Clippy Computer

This Week In Security: Robinhood, Apple Mail, ASLR, And More Windows 7

Sky Is New Limit For Dot Com Domain Prices

Mars 2020 Rover: Curiosity’s Hi-Tech Twin Is Strapped For Science; Includes A Flying Drone

Nuclear Fusion Power Without Regular Tokamaks Or Stellarators

HackIt: Why Aren’t We Hacking On The LED Printer?

First Space Cookies: Cosmic Cooking Is Half-Baked

New Part Day: The Wi-Fi Stepper Gets Ideas Working Faster

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