Hackaday Links: March 3, 2019

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In this week’s edition of, ‘why you should care that Behringer is cloning a bunch of vintage synths’, I present to you this amazing monstrosity. Yes, it’s a vertical video of a synthesizer without any sound. Never change, Reddit. A bit of explanation: this is four Behringer Model Ds (effectively clones of the Moog Minimoog, the Behringer version is called the ‘Boog’) stacked in a wooden case. They are connected to a MIDI keyboard ‘with Arduinos’ that split up the notes to each individual Boog. This is going to sound amazing and it’s one gigantic wall of twelve oscillators and it only cost $800 this is nuts.

Tuesday is Fastnacht day. Fill your face with fried dough.

The biggest news this week is the release of a ‘folding’ phone. This phone is expensive at about $3000 list, but keep in mind this is a flagship phone, one that defines fashion, and an obvious feature that will eventually be adopted by lower-cost models. Who knows what they’ll think of next.

It’s a new Project Binky! This time, we’re looking at cutting holes in the oil sump, patching those holes, cutting more holes in an oil sump, patching those holes, wiring up a dashcam, and putting in what is probably the third or fourth radiator so far.

Here’s a Kickstarter for new Nixie tubes. It’s a ZIN18, which I guess means an IN18, a tube with a 40mm tall set of numbers. This is the king of Nixie clocks, and one tube will run you about $100. Nah, you can also get new Nixies here.

The Sipeed K210 is a RISC-V chip with built-in neural networks. Why should you care? Because it’s RISC-V. It’s also pretty fast, reportedly 5 times as fast as the ESP32. This is a 3D rendering test of the K210, with all the relevant code on the Github.

I’m not sure if everyone is aware of this, but here’s the best way to desolder through-hole parts. Heat the solder joint up and whack it against a table. It never fails. Hitting things is the best way to make them do what you want.

16 thoughts on “Hackaday Links: March 3, 2019

  1. It should also be noted that Project BInky now has its very own bespoke funk for the mid-episode welding montage. Nick and Richard have really upped their game here.

    1. As the Mrs commented who is not a fan of the binky humour at all:
      The videos have gonea bit downhill.
      And she is right. We’ve had essentially the last 3 videos since they got paetron being filler.

      I enjoy wiring. In fact I’m “the guy” that does the wiring on engine swaps. And it’s still been enjoyable. They do things better than Ed@WD, there is much less cringe. They aint as OTT as retropowercars.
      But they skipped over segments like adjusting the wiper bracket which IMHO should have been filmed.

      Problem is with paetron, is there any pressure to finish this now or just make it a forever project?
      When it gets close to complete, they need to announce the successor.

      And the custom funk was epic.

  2. “Tuesday is Fastnacht day. Fill your face with fried dough.” Sorry, Tuesday is also Pancake Tuesday so instead of filling my face with fried dough I’ll be filling my face with… um, yeah.

  3. Ouch, I could feel myself getting an RSI just watching him bang his hand on the table.

    But there’s no denying it worked slick. It’s a lot faster than priming the vacuum pump, applying heat, lining up the solder sucker and popping each connection individually.

    I’m sure I would have loved this when I was a kid, but now it just looks like a way to give myself arthritis.

    1. It looks like a pretty useful trick if you don’t need to remove hundreds of pin headers…
      If you do, I’d guess clamping the board and banging the clamp on the table woul work.

  4. I can’t quite figure out that nixie Kickstarter. It’s a little fishy. They say they are recreating the IN-18 but the IN-18 is still available as NOS. The IN-18 is fairly big but not exactly the most beautiful tube. It’s essentially a Soviet knock off of the ZM1040 but stretched vertically. IMO the aspect ratio of the digits is less pleasing as a result (the giant, rare and expensive Rodan CD-47 nixie is also stretched vertically and not particularly asthetically pleasing either). Dalibors Z568M recreation is a much larger tube, with a much more pleasing font for not much more money. It also actually exists as a new tube. Claiming to be capable of making a new IN-18 without showing any equipment is a bold claim indeed. It looks like a new base slapped on an old IN-18 in all the photos shown.

    1. Exactly what I’m thinking. Of course they didn’t mention Dalibors work, still their clock is a clone of the Zen (even the glass cover), the tube bases are really similar (with a printed board that connects the tube wires to the pins).
      I’m convinced the 7000 tubes Dalibors expertise and humbleness cannot be acquired in few month…

  5. Okay. They show the glass lathe and tube assembly in the video. It just leaves one question… Why IN-18? Is it because they has a bunch of old IN-18 parts they found in an old Ukrainian warehouse? Their tubes cost more than the NOS originals.

  6. “The biggest news this week is the release of a ‘folding’ phone. This phone is expensive at about $3000 list, but keep in mind this is a flagship phone, one that defines fashion, and an obvious feature that will eventually be adopted by lower-cost models. Who knows what they’ll think of next.”

    easy one, a 5k$ phone…

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