Join Editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys to recap the week in hardware hacking. This episode looks at microfluidics using Shrinky Dinks, expanding foam to build airplane wings, the insidious effect of time on component solder points, and Airsoft BBs used in 3D printing. Finishing out the episode we have an interview with two brothers who started up a successful business in the Shenzhen electronics markets.
Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Direct download (60 MB or so.)
Episode 016 Show Notes:
New This Week:
- Elliot’s headed to VCF Europe this weekend
- VCFe 20.0 – Vintage Computer Festival Europe
- He hopes to play the vector game Space Duel there
- Mike’s off to KiCon 2019, both Anool Mahidharia and Kerry Scharfglass are presenting
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
- Making Microfluidics Simpler With Shrinky Dinks
- Last year we saw electronic droplet manipulation: Microfluidics “Frogger” is a Game Changer for DIY Biology
- Making a Flying Wing With Expanding Foam
- This Old Korg Can’t Have Too Many Samples
- The processor in this project uses a QUIP-64 package
- QUIP == quad in-line package
- Mowerbot Keeping The Lawn In Check Since 1998
- URL hack for the good stuff
- Steel-Reinforced 3D Prints
- 3D Printed Tank Track Pops Together with Plastic BB for Hinge
- Airsoft pellets are in frequent use for clever 3D printed designs:
- Cycloidal Robot Actuator by LoboCNC – Thingiverse
- Airsoft Pellet Bearing Kite Reel Winder by riskable – Thingiverse
- Airsoft Ball Bearing Drawer Slide by EasilyBuild – Thingiverse
Quick Hacks:
- Mike’s Picks:
- Elliot’s Picks:
Can’t-Miss Articles:
- Why Satellites of the Future Will be Built to Burn
- Component Shelf Life: How To Use All That Old Junk
Interview:
Here’s the story of starting a business in the Shenzhen electronics markets of Huaqiangbei. Two brothers, Xuan and Sheng, started up Xuan Hoa in 2013 and built a successful cellphone tool company, having overcome much along the way. They sat down with Mike in a coffee shop to recount their experience. Thanks to Scotty Allen of Strange Parts for connecting us for this fascinating story.
you can have my antique solder when you pry it out of my cold dead hands.
Bob’s not my uncle, but I do know a few!
The ancient lawnmower story was one of my favorites this week. But I enjoyed Mike’s and Elliot’s comments on the story just as much. Especially their perspectives concerning getting a hacked-together project up and running and then not improving it further simply because it already runs so well!
Years ago after learning what an Arduino was, I decided to build a contraption which could sort copper from zinc pennies based on weight. It was an ambitious first project for a nonelectronics guy and I’m sure Elliot would say that it looked like a hacked-together breadboarded nightmare … but it worked! I have lots of ideas for how to improve it and make it even better, but I never posted it on Hackaday.io simply because of the beginner nature and look of the project. It taught me a LOT about photoelectric eyes, servo motors, automated feed of the pennies into the device, etc.
I guess this is what I like so much about the lawn mower story. It reminded me of my own monstrous but workable project. :-)
Glad you enjoyed that part! As often happens, we ended up talking about that project for far too long — I had to trim a lot out while editing, otherwise we would have just spent the whole show talking about post-apocalyptic robot lawn mowers.
(In retrospect, it looks like that plastic keyboard frame was used as the bumper-sensor plate.)
I’d still like to see that penny sorter! :)