Author: Kristina Panos

1861 Articles

Gertrude Elion, DNA Hacker

January 25, 2018 by 17 Comments

Some people become scientists because they have an insatiable sense of curiosity. For others, the interest is born of tragedy—they lose a loved one to disease and are driven to find a cure. In the case of Gertrude Elion, both are true. Gertrude was a brilliant and curious student who could have done anything given her aptitude. But when she lost her grandfather to cancer, her path became clear.

As a biochemist and pharmacologist for what is now GlaxoSmithKline, Gertrude and Dr. George Hitchings created many different types of drugs by synthesizing natural nucleic compounds in order to bait pathogens and kill them. Their unorthodox, designer drug method led them to create the first successful anti-cancer drugs and won them a Nobel Prize in 1988.

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Tricked-out Barbecue Will Make You Do A Spit Take

January 20, 2018 by 8 Comments

[Strn] and his friends love to barbecue no matter what it’s like outside. But something always seems to interrupt the fun: either it’s time to get up and turn the meat, or the music stops because somebody’s phone ran out of juice, or darkness falls and there aren’t enough flashlights or charged-up phones. He had the idea to build the Swiss Army knife of barbecues, a portable powerhouse that solves all of these problems and more (translated).

Most importantly, the E-Mangal rotates the skewers for even cooking. It does this with a 3D-printed worm gear system driven by the heater flap actuator from a car. After 25 minutes of slow rotation, a voice announces that it’s time to eat. [Strn] and friends will never hurt for music options between the pre-loaded tracks, Bluetooth audio, FM antenna, USB, and SD options running through a 3W amp. Two USB lights illuminate nighttime barbecuing, and the 10 Ah battery can do it all and keep everyone’s phone charged. For safety’s sake, [Strn] included a half-liter water tank to extinguish the coals via jet stream. Everything is run by a PIC18F, and it can be controlled at the box or through a simple web interface.

We love the look of this barbecue controller almost as much as the functionality. The sturdy stance of those short, angled legs give it a mid-century appliance feel, and seeing all the guts on display is always a plus. Grab a turkey leg and take the tour after the break.

The E-Mangal has a thermocouple in the coal box to measure the temperature, but there’s no direct control. If you’re more interested in temperature options than entertainment, here’s a project that micromanages everything on the grill.

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Build A Sandblasting Rig For $6

January 19, 2018 by 42 Comments

Let’s get something out of the way: yes, this assumes you already own or have access to a compressor. So if you do, and know what you’re getting into, why not build a cheap sandblasting rig? That’s what [adamf135] did after seeing someone do it on YouTube. He seriously doubted it would work, but the results are pretty impressive.

This one doesn’t require much more than an empty 20oz bottle, a cheap air gun/nozzle, and an adapter. The hardest part of this hack seems to be cutting a groove in the nozzle for the blasting material without severing it completely. [Adam] cut a 1/2″ section out of his, but that large of an opening really uses up the blasting material. He recommends going smaller. After snipping off the sealing ring, he runs the nozzle through a 3/16″ hole drilled through the strongest part of the bottle and seals it off with hot glue. Watch it power through rust and paint with crushed glass after the break.

If you do any open sandblasting like this, be sure to at least wear a mask. If you don’t want to spray fine particles all over the shop, you could build a wet media blasting cabinet instead, or go even lower-tech and build a drill-powered parts tumbler.

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DIY Spray Booth Is Both Light And Lit

January 19, 2018 by 17 Comments

Industrial designer [Eric Strebel] has access to big, walk-in spray booths, but bigger isn’t always better. For small jobs, it’s overkill, and he wanted his own spray booth anyway. If you’re ready to upgrade from that ratty old cardboard box in the garage, look no further than [Eric]’s spray booth how-to after the break.

If you don’t already know, [Eric] is something of a foam core legend. He has several videos about model building techniques that produce really slick results, so it’s no surprise to see these skills transfer to a larger build. The booth is built from a single 40″ x 60″ sheet of 1/2″ foam core board, a furnace filter, and a vent fan modified to fit his shop’s system. The whole thing cost less than $200, most of which goes toward the fan.

[Eric] modified an existing spray booth plan to fit his needs and added some really nice touches along the way. All the edges are beveled and the unfinished faces are taped, so at first glance it looks like it’s made out of painted wood or melamine board. The furnace filter slides out one side for easy replacement and is braced with foam scraps so it won’t fall forward. The best part of this booth is the LED strips—they make for way better working conditions than the dim recesses of a cardboard box.

If you’d rather build a walk-in spray booth, why not make your own sliding barn doors, too?

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Review: LinkSprite Mini CNC

January 16, 2018 by 106 Comments

It’s a great time to be a hobbyist. No matter how you feel about the Arduino/Raspberry Pi effect, the influx of general enthusiasm and demand it has created translates to better availability of components, a broader community, and loads of freely available knowledge. When people have access to knowledge and ideas, great things can happen. Tools that were once restricted to industrial use become open source, and the price of entry-level versions goes into a nosedive.

As we’ve seen over the last several years, the price of cheap 3D printers keeps falling while the bar of quality keeps rising. It’s happening with laser cutters and carving tools, too. Strolling through Microcenter a few weeks ago, I spotted a new toy on the back wall next to the 3D printers. It was LinkSprite’s desktop mini CNC. They didn’t have one out on display, but there were two of them in boxes on the shelf. And boy, those boxes were small. Laughably small. I wondered, could this adorable machine really be any good? To some, the $200 price tag suggests otherwise. To me, the price tag made it justifiable, especially considering that the next price point for a hobby CNC mill is at least twice as much. I took my phone out and stood there frantically looking for reviews, documentation, anything that was available. It seemed that the general, if sparse consensus is that this thing isn’t a total waste of money. Oh, and there’s a wiki.

According to LinkSprite’s wiki, this little machine will engrave wood, plastic, acrylic, PVC, and PCBs. It will specifically not engrave metal (PCB copper notwithstanding). I’m a bit leery of the chemicals used in the PCB etching process, so the idea of engraving them instead was especially tempting. I pulled the trigger.

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LED Tree Brings Gravity To Christmas

January 10, 2018 by 9 Comments

Here’s a fun entry into our coin cell challenge. The power source is the actuating force in [Frank]’s blinky LED Christmas tree, which takes advantage of the physical structure of coin cells and our old pal gravity to roll out some holiday cheer. Talk about forward voltage!

We love the concept, and the circuit couldn’t be more simple. A coin cell is released at the top of the tree and rolls down a series of angled foam board railings covered with 1/4″ copper tape. As the coin cell travels, the negative terminal shimmies along the face of the tree, which has corresponding ground rail tapes. There’s no microcontroller here—all that’s needed for blinks are breaks in the negative rail tape.

The challenging part of a project like this is the execution. Getting a coin cell to ride the rails without falling off required angle experimentation prior to and during the build. Now that it’s done, keeping the tree tilted back against the wall is key. [Frank] explored several options for returning the coin cell to the top using a camera motor and the gear assembly from an old inkjet, but for now, his six-year-old does the job without complaint. Check out his work ethic after the break.

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Bring Up A PCB With Fewer Headaches

January 10, 2018 by 5 Comments

What’s the first thing you do when a new set of boards from the fab house hits the doorstep? Apply solder paste, populate the components, and stick it in the reflow oven? That’s one way to do it. But a lot of non-obvious things can go wrong at the fab house, like shorts and undrilled vias. One tiny mistake can mean hours of frustration and sanity questioning as you troubleshoot some problem that’s now buried under solder paste and 0603s.

Over on IO, [Bhavesh] tries to nip these problems in the bud with a comprehensive and explanatory guide to properly bringing up a PCB. Though it’s based on fab house boards, this soup-to-nuts plan is good for any project from kit building to custom stripboard circuits. When new boards arrive, [Bhavesh] does several continuity checks and visually inspects them with a microscope. In the case of a stripboard layout, it’s a good idea to verify there’s no continuity across cut traces. He goes on to cover solder paste, touching on proper handling and storage, application, and problem correction.

Our favorite part of this guide is the component sheets. Making these is a great preventive measure, like lining up all your ingredients on the counter before you bake a cake. If you know what you need, why not have it all ready?  [Bhavesh] uses a sheet for each component type, lists all the relevant values in ascending order, and lays out component reels next to them.

The guide covers solder paste, too—his stencils were late to arrive, so the guide deals with applying paste by hand. He suggests a plan for populating the board by starting in one corner and working in circle, placing small components first. Then it’s on to reflow and those all-important post-reflow checks for bridges and bad joints before letting the magic smoke out.

A great time to catch mistakes is before you send the order to the fab house. Hackaday’s own [Joshua Vasquez] has you more than covered there.