A chocolate coating machine works in the round to enrobe mint Oreos.

Chocolate-Coating Machine Mk. 2: The Merry-Go-Round

November 28, 2024 by Kristina Panos 16 Comments

This holiday season, [Chaz] wanted to continue his family’s tradition of enrobing a little bit of everything in dark chocolate, and built an improved, rotating chocolate-coating machine.

You may remember last year’s offering, aka the conveyor belt version. Although that one worked, too much chocolate was ultimately lost to the surface of the kitchen table. [Chaz] once again started with a standard chocolate fountain and bought a round wire rack that fits the circumference of the bowl at the bottom. He snipped a hole in the center large enough to accommodate the business part of the fountain and printed a collar with holes that he cleverly zip-tied to the rack.

[Chaz] also printed a large gear to go around the bowl, a small gear to attach to a six RPM motor, a motor mount for the bowl, and an air blade attachment for a portable Ryobi fan. The air blade worked quite well, doing the double duty of distributing the chocolate and thinning out the coating. Plus, it gives things a neat rumpled look on the top.

Want to make some special chocolates this year, but don’t want to build an enrober? Get yourself a diffraction grating and make some rainbow goodies with melted chocolate.

Continue reading “Chocolate-Coating Machine Mk. 2: The Merry-Go-Round” →

Boss Byproducts: Corium Is Man-Made Lava

November 27, 2024 by Kristina Panos 19 Comments

So now we’ve talked about all kinds of byproducts, including man-made (Fordite), nature-made (fulgurites), and one that’s a little of both (calthemites). Each of these is beautiful in its own way, but I’m not sure about the beauty and merit of corium — that which is created in a nuclear reactor core during a meltdown.

A necklace made to look like corium. Image via OSS-OSS

Corium has the consistency of lava and is made up of many things, including nuclear fuel, the products of fission, control rods, any structural parts of the reactor that were affected, and products of those parts’ reaction with the surrounding air, water, and steam.

If the reactor vessel itself is breached, corium can include molten concrete from the floor underneath. That said, if corium is hot enough, it can melt any concrete it comes in contact with.

So, I had to ask, is there corium jewelry? Not quite. Corium is dangerous and hard to come by. But that doesn’t stop artisans from imitating the substance with other materials.

Continue reading “Boss Byproducts: Corium Is Man-Made Lava” →

Illustrated Kristina with an IBM Model M keyboard floating between her hands.

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The TRON Keyboard

November 25, 2024 by Kristina Panos 14 Comments

[Folaefolc] was craving a new keyboard build a few weeks ago and got inspired by the humble 3.5″ floppy disk. So much so that he decided to make a split keyboard with each half having the exact footprint of a floppy — 90 mm x 94 mm. And you know the PCBs have floppy details silkscreened on the back. Just check out the gallery.

A split keyboard with a 3.5" floppy disk footprint for each half. An actual floppy sits between the two halves. — Image via [Folaefolc] via reddit

This bad boy uses a pair of Liatris microcontrollers, which are made by splitkb and are designed to be drop-in replacements for Pro Micros and an alternative to the RP2040.

The other fun part of this build is that [Folaefolc] used RJ9 connectors to join the halves instead of something like TRRS.

Beneath those candy keycaps are 34 Kailh choc v1 switches shoved into hot swap sockets in case [Folaefolc] changes his mind. Gerbers are available if you want to build one of these cuties!

Via reddit

Continue reading “Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The TRON Keyboard” →

Hackaday Podcast Episode 297: Prusa Eschews Open Source Hardware, The Lemontron Prints Upside-Down, And The Vecdec Cyberdeck Does Minority Report

November 22, 2024 by Kristina Panos 1 Comment

This week on the Podcast, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos joined forces to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week.

First up in the news: Elliot was at Electronica and spotted a wild Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5. And just as excitingly, FreeCAD has finally reached version 1.0, which means it’s stable and ready for real work.

Kristina is getting tired of losing at What’s That Sound, so she’ll have to come up with some to stump you all. Can you get this week’s sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt.

Then it’s on to the hacks and such, but first, there’s even more news and opinion to be had in Tom’s review of Prusa’s new printer, which happens to be closed-source. Then we’ll discuss another printer that prints upside-down, an elegant cyberdeck, and a cyberpunk pocket watch. Finally, we talk about the Great Redbox Cleanup, and take a look at man-made stalactites.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Download in DRM-free MP3 and savor at your leisure.

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast Episode 297: Prusa Eschews Open Source Hardware, The Lemontron Prints Upside-Down, And The Vecdec Cyberdeck Does Minority Report” →

A variety of LEGO and the damage they've done to cardboard.

Stepping On LEGO For Science

November 20, 2024 by Kristina Panos 34 Comments

You might say that the worst LEGO to step on is any given piece that happens to get caught underfoot, but have you ever thought about what the worst one would really be? For us, those little caltrops come to mind most immediately, and we’d probably be satisfied with believing that was the answer. But not [Nate Scovill]. He had to quantitatively find out one way or another.

And no, the research did not involve stepping on one of each of the thousands of LEGO pieces in existence. [Nate] started by building a test rig that approximated the force of his own 150 lb. frame stepping on each piece under scrutiny and seeing what it did to a cardboard substrate.

And how did [Nate] narrow down which pieces to try? He took to the proverbial streets and asked redditors and Discordians to help him come up with a list of subjects.

If you love LEGO to the point where you can’t bear to see it destroyed, then this video is not for you. But if you need to know the semi-scientific answer as badly as we did, then go for it. The best part is round two, when [Nate] makes a foot out of ballistics gel to rate the worst from the first test. So, what’s the worst LEGO to step on? The answer may surprise you.

And what’s more dangerous than plain LEGO? A LEGO Snake, we reckon.

Continue reading “Stepping On LEGO For Science” →

Boss Byproducts: Calthemites Are Man-Made Cave Dwellers

November 20, 2024 by Kristina Panos 6 Comments

Some lovely orange calthemite flowstone colored so by iron oxide from rusting steel reinforcing. Image via Wikipedia

At this point, we’ve learned about man-made byproducts and nature-made byproducts. But how about one that’s a little of both? I’m talking about calthemites, which are secondary deposits that form in those man-made caves such as parking garages, mines, and tunnels.

Calthemites grow both on and under these structures in forms that mimic natural cave speleothems like stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, and so on. They are often the result of an hyperalkalinic solution of pH 9-14 seeping through a concrete structure to the point of coming into contact with the air on the underside. Here, carbon dioxide in the air facilitates the necessary reactions to secondarily deposit calcium carbonate.

These calcium carbonate deposits are usually white, but can be colored red, orange, or yellow thanks to iron oxide. If copper pipes are around, copper oxide can cause calthemites to be blue or green. As pretty as all that sounds, I didn’t find any evidence of these parking garage growths having been turned into jewelry. So there’s your million-dollar idea.

Continue reading “Boss Byproducts: Calthemites Are Man-Made Cave Dwellers” →

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Typo

November 18, 2024 by Kristina Panos 15 Comments

Ceci n’est pas une keyboard, sure. But it’s keyboard-adjacent, and how. [Joshua Bemenderfer]’s wrists are tired of moving off the keyboard in order to mouse, and he decided to create a trackball that can sit just below the Space bar. The idea is to get rid of the regular mouse entirely if this works out.

A split keyboard with a DIY trackball beneath the Space bar. — Image by [Joshua Bemenderfer] via Hackaday.IO

And sure, the Ploopy family of open-source mice would welcome him with open arms, but they don’t come cheap. [Joshua]’s plan here is to make something for under $10. Ideally, less than $5.

Starting with an off-the-shelf trackball, the first BOM came in around $25 if you throw in $5 for the 3D printing of the case. [Joshua] added some cheap ceramic bearings to make it better. Since this was still too high, he turned to the internals of cheap mice.

Trial and error has resulted in a 99-cent special from Ali being the idea candidate. There are even cheaper mice to be had, but this one has an ideal layout for doing a bit of surgery. It also requires remapping since [Joshua] is flipping the sensor upside down and using a POM ball on top of it. Now he just needs to figure out how to add buttons and make them split keyboard-friendly.

Continue reading “Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Typo” →