This week, Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos fawn over a beautiful Italian split-flap clock that doesn’t come cheap, and another clock made of floppies that could be re-created for next to nothing. We’ll also sing the praises of solderless circuitry for prototyping and marvel over a filament dry box with enough sensors to control an entire house. The finer points of the ooh, sparkly-ness of diffraction gratings will be discussed, and by the end of the show, you’ll know what we each like in a microscope.

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!

(And if you’re wondering about what my joke about not having Kristina on the show for 28 seconds, and all the professionalism, was about — we both forgot to press record the first time through and got ~15 minutes into the show before noticing. Yeah. But we had a good time the second time around anyway.)

Direct Download (The best 40 MB you’ll download today!)

Episode 156 Show Notes:

What’s that Sound?

• If you know what kind of keyswitch was being typed on in anger, let us know and you stand to win a Hackaday Podcast t-shirt!

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• A Solari Mechanical Digital Clock Hack With A Little Extra
• Sticker Brings The Heat
• Filament Dry Box Design Goes Way Over The Top
  • Do You Really Need To Dry Filament?
• 3D Printing Rainbows
• Print-a-Sketch Turns Any Surface Into A Printed Circuit Board
  • The Shaper Router pulls off a similar trick
  • The Flexible Permanence Of Copper Tape Circuits
• It’s Always Floppy Time!

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  • AR Display Shows CNC Lathe Operations In Real Time
  • Accurately Track Your Mains Frequency
  • Dead Mouse Reincarnated As Macropad
• Kristina’s Picks:
  • Pyrotechnic Posters Are Fireworks Drawn On Paper
  • Spin Some Spudgers From Secondhand Silverware
  • This Minibike Will Land You In Hot Water

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• China Loves Battery Swapping EVs, But Will They Ever Make It Here?
• First Days With A New Microscope
  • But sometimes you only need an otoscope.