Author: Bryan Cockfield

1754 Articles

Driving Sim Handbrake Based On Load Cell

February 6, 2026 by 2 Comments

Simulator-style video games are designed to scale in complexity, allowing players to engage at anything from a casual level to highly detailed, realistic simulation. Microsoft Flight Simulator, for example, can be played with a keyboard and mouse, a controller, or a huge, expensive simulator designed to replicate a specific airplane in every detail. Driving simulators are similar, and [CNCDan] has been hard at work on his DIY immersive driving sim rig, with this hand brake as his latest addition.

For this build, [CNCDan] is going with a lever-style handbrake which is common in motorsports like drifting and rallying. He has already built a set of custom pedals, so this design borrows heavily from them. That means that the sensor is a load cell, which takes input force from a lever connected to it with a spring mechanism. The signal is sent to an Arduino for processing, which is set up to send data over USB like any joystick or controller. In this case, he’s using an Arduino that was already handling inputs from his custom shifter, so he only needed to use another input and add some code to get his handbrake added into his sim.

[CNCDan] built a version of this out of laser-cut metal parts, but also has a fully 3D printable one available as well. Plenty of his other videos about his driving rig are available as well, from the pedal assembly we mentioned earlier to the force-feedback steering wheel. It’s an impressive set of hardware with a feel that replicates racing about as faithfully as a simulator could. Interestingly, we’ve also seen this process in reverse as well where a real car was used instead as a video game controller.

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Restoring The Soul Of A 1940s Radio

February 4, 2026 by 8 Comments

Although we do often see projects that take antiques and replace some or all of their components with modern equipment, we can also sympathize with the view that (when possible and practical) certain antique electronics should be restored rather than gutted. [David] has this inclination for his 1948 GE radio, but there are a few issues with it that prevented a complete, period-correct restoration.

The main (pun intended) issue at the start of this project was safety. The original radio had a chassis that was just as likely as not to become energized, with the only protection being the plastic housing. [David] set up an isolation transformer with a modern polarized power cable to help solve this issue, and then got to work replacing ancient capacitors. With a few other minor issues squared away this is all it took to get the radio working to receive AM radio, and he also was able to make a small modification to allow the radio to accept audio via a 3.5mm jack as well.

However, [David] also has the view that a period-correct AM transmission should accompany this radio as well and set about with the second bit of this project. It’s an adaptation of a project called FieldStation42 originally meant to replicate the experience of cable TV, but [Shane], the project’s creator, helped [David] get it set up for audio as well. A notable feature of this system is that when the user tunes away from one station, it isn’t simply paused, but instead allowed to continue playing as if real time is passing in the simulated radio world.

Although there are a few modern conveniences here for safety and for period-correct immersion, we think this project really hits the nail on the head for preserving everything possible while not rolling the dice with 40s-era safety standards. There’s also a GitHub page with some more info that [David] hopes to add to in the near future. This restoration of a radio only one year newer has a similar feel, and there are also guides for a more broad category of radio restorations as well.

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5K IMac Turned Into 5K Display

February 4, 2026 by 12 Comments

While Apple weren’t the first to invent high-DPI displays or to put them into consumer electronics, they did popularize them fairly effectively with the Retina displays in the early 2010s and made a huge number of them in the following years. The computers they’re attached to are getting up there in age, though, and although these displays are still functional it isn’t quite as straightforward to use them outside of their Apple-approved use. [David] demonstrates one way of getting this done by turning a 5k iMac into an external monitor.

The first attempt at getting a usable monitor from the old iMac was something called a Luna Display, but this didn’t have a satisfying latency. Instead, [David] turned to replacing the LCD driver board with a model called the R1811. This one had a number of problems including uneven backlighting, so he tried a second, less expensive board called the T18. This one only has 8-bit color instead of the 10-bit supported by the R1811 but [David] couldn’t personally tell the difference, and since it solved the other issues with the R1811 he went with this one. After mounting the new driver board and routing all of the wires, he also replaced the webcam with an external Logitech model and upgraded the speakers as well.

Even when counting the costs for both driver boards, the bill for this conversion comes in well under the cost of a new monitor of comparable quality from Apple, a company less concerned about innovation these days than overcharging their (admittedly willing) customers. For just a bit of effort, though, these older iMacs and other similar Apple machines with 5k displays can be repurposed to something relatively modern and still usable. Others have done similar projects and funded the upgrades by selling off the old parts.

Comprehensive Power Management For The Raspberry Pi

January 30, 2026 by 6 Comments

The Raspberry Pi has been a revolutionary computer in the maker space, providing a full Linux environment, GUI, and tons of GPIO and other interfacing protocols at a considerably low price. This wasn’t its original intended goal, though. Back in the early 2010s it was supposed to be an educational tool for students first, not necessarily a go-to for every electronics project imaginable. As such there are a few issues with the platform when being used this way, and [Vin] addresses his problems with its power management in his latest project.

[Vin]’s main issue is that, unlike a microcontroller, the Raspberry Pi doesn’t have a deep sleep function. That means that even when the operating system is shut down the computer is still drawing an appreciable amount of current, which will quickly drain some batteries. We’ve covered [Vin]’s farm and his use case for the Raspberry Pi in the past, but a quick summary is that these boards are being used in a very rugged environment where utility power isn’t as reliable as he would like.

In [Vin]’s post he not only outlines his design for the board but goes through his design process, starting by using discrete logic components and then trying out various microcontrollers until settling on an ATmega88. The microcontroller communicates with the Raspberry Pi over I2C where the Pi can request a power-down as well as a time for future power-on. A latching relay controlled by the microcontroller ensures the Pi doesn’t drain any battery while the ATmega can put itself into actual sleep in the meantime.

The build for this project goes into an impressive amount of detail, and not only are the designs and code available on the project’s GitHub page but [Vin] also wrote another blog post which uses this project to go over his design philosophy more broadly.

Handheld Steering Wheel Controller Gets Force-Feedback

January 29, 2026 by 4 Comments

For a full-fledged, bells-and-whistles driving simulator a number of unique human interface devices are needed, from pedals and shifters to the steering wheel. These steering wheels often have force feedback, with a small motor inside that can provide resistance to a user’s input that feels the same way that a steering wheel on a real car would. Inexpensive or small joysticks often omit this feature, but [Jason] has figured out a way to bring this to even the smallest game controllers.

The mechanism at the center of his controller is a DC motor out of an inkjet printer. Inkjet printers have a lot of these motors paired with rotary encoders for precision control, which is exactly what is needed here. A rotary encoder can determine the precise position of the controller’s wheel, and the motor can provide an appropriate resistive force depending on what is going on in the game. The motors out of a printer aren’t plug-and-play, though. They also need an H-bridge so they can get driven in either direction, and the entire mechanism is connected to an Arduino in the base of the controller to easily communicate with a computer over USB.

In testing the controller does behave like its larger, more expensive cousins, providing feedback to the driver and showing that it’s ready for one’s racing game of choice. It’s an excellent project for those who are space-constrained or who like to game on the go, but if you have more space available you might also want to check out [Jason]’s larger version built from a power drill instead parts from an inkjet.

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Electric Lawnmower Gets RC Controls

January 27, 2026 by 21 Comments

Decades ago, shows like Star Trek, The Jetsons, and Lost in Space promised us a future full of helpful computers and robot assistants. Unfortunately, we haven’t quite gotten our general-purpose helper to do all of our tasks with a simple voice command yet. But if some sweat equity is applied, we can get machines to do specific tasks for us under some situations. [Max Maker] built this remote-controlled lawnmower which at least minimizes the physical labor he needs to do to cut his grass.

The first step in the project was to remove the human interface parts of the push mower and start working on a frame for the various control mechanisms. This includes adding an actuator to raise and lower the mower deck on the fly. Driving the new rear wheels are two wheelchair motors, which allow it to use differential steering, with a set of casters up front for maximum maneuverability. An Arduino Mega sits in a custom enclosure to control everything and receive the RC signals, alongside the mower’s batteries and the motor controllers for the drive wheels.

After some issues with programming, [Max] has an effective remote controlled mower that he can use to mulch leaves or cut grass without getting out of his chair. It would also make an excellent platform if he decides to fully automate it in the future, which is a project that has been done fairly effectively in the past even at much larger scales.

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Astronomy Live On Twitch

January 26, 2026 by 11 Comments

Although there are a few hobbies that have low-cost entry points, amateur astronomy is not generally among them. A tabletop Dobsonian might cost a few hundred dollars, and that is just the entry point for an ever-increasing set of telescopes, mounts, trackers, lasers, and other pieces of equipment that it’s possible to build or buy. [Thomas] is deep into astronomy now, has a high-quality, remotely controllable telescope, and wanted to make it more accessible to his friends and others, so he built a system that lets the telescope stream on Twitch and lets his Twitch viewers control what it’s looking at.

The project began with overcoming the $4000 telescope’s practical limitations, most notably an annoyingly short Wi-Fi range and closed software. [Thomas] built a wireless bridge with a Raspberry Pi to extend connectivity, and then built a headless streaming system using OBS Studio inside a Proxmox container. This was a major hurdle as OBS doesn’t have particularly good support for headless operation.

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