Have You Ever Heard Of The Lobo MAX-80?

November 10, 2026 by Donald Papp 3 Comments

[Adrian Black]’s enthusiasm is palpable as he shows off something truly unusual: a Lobo MAX-80 computer from 1982. To call this machine rare would be an understatement, as the company folded soon after its release. The one shown here is the first one [Adrian] has ever seen, never mind that he had never even heard of it before.

The MAX-80 was a Z80-based computer that was CP/M and LDOS compatible. As [Adrian] puts it, many companies and innovative products came and went during this time period. There was so much, and most of it has simply disappeared.

He was able to find information about the Lobo MAX-80 from advertisements, media coverage, reviews, and more (and he has thoughtfully uploaded everything, see the video description for links) and even pieced together a short history of a company that got its start making TRS-80 and Apple II disk drives before transitioning to producing their own machine. The MAX-80 was released in 1982, but sadly the company didn’t last much longer.

After sharing what history he was able to dig up, [Adrian] opens the unit he has and goes through diagnostics. It’s actually in remarkably good shape, and he’s eventually able to get it to actually boot into CP/M.

There’s still more work needed before he can put it through its paces, but getting a formerly completely unknown machine from the 80s operational is pretty wild. Watch the whole thing in the video below.

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Robotic Car Charger Locks On With Suction

November 9, 2026 by Donald Papp No comments

Not only does [Mew463]’s robotic car charger take care of plugging in his vehicle for him, it has some really clever features that are great to see in action.

We’ve seen a rover-platform-based robotic car charger before, but what’s different here is that [Mew463]’s robot isn’t particularly husky. It’s designed to be low-profile, snug right up against the vehicle during use, and park itself against the wall when not.

As an added touch, one doesn’t even have to manually open the car’s charge port door. The robot uses API calls that — once it confirms the vehicle is parked and not in use — unlocks and opens the charge port remotely. People used to be able to pop the charge port with a plain old wireless replay attack, but an API is the better way to go about it.

Four Mecanum wheel and LiDAR get the robot into more or less the right position, then fine-tuning happens with the help of an onboard camera and a ChARuco board pattern on the car just under the charging port.

Once things are lined up just right, the charger moves forward to plug into the car. Here’s where [Mew463] had to get clever, because plugging in a car charger actually takes a decent amount of force, and the robot is not particularly heavy. The solution is two suction cups that anchor the robot to the car as a gear assembly pushes the charger home. We really like how the robot snugs right up, so while the car is charging there isn’t a big thing in the way.

Disconnecting is the reverse of the process, and for the robot to park itself again it simply swivels the camera backward so it can see the marker on the wall without the whole robot having to turn around. It’s all very slick, and you can watch it in action in the video embedded below.

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Saving A Vintage High-Voltage Power Supply From The Scrap Heap

November 8, 2026 by Donald Papp 6 Comments

[Mr Carlson’s Lab] saves a Fluke Model 407 high-voltage power supply from the scrap heap, and demonstrates carefully troubleshooting the vintage device to track the cause of the bad output down to a single capacitor. In the process, we get a close look at what is inside as well as insights on how to meaningfully service a device like this.

Firing up old electronics should always be done with care. Some electronic components don’t age well, and some faults aren’t always visible. Applying full power to an vintage device could cause considerable (and avoidable) damage. [Mr Carlson] powers up the device using an isolated transformer and a current-limited variac, but another classic approach would be to use a dim-bulb tester, which most folks could cobble together from spare parts.

Glorious vacuum tubes where one would otherwise expect transistors.

While destined for the junk heap, this Fluke Model 407 actually looks to be in pretty good condition. There’s no obvious damage or failure in its vacuum-tube-and-circuit-board internals, and it powers up but the main output doesn’t act right.

[Mr Carlson] walks through the entire process of tracking down the fault, demonstrating everything from safe power-up and basic inspections to signal and component checking. This process is aided by having access to the original schematics, and the problem is ultimately narrowed down to a faulty capacitor in a feedback signal responsible for keeping the output voltage constant.

It’s not a full restoration, but rather a clear demonstration of diagnosing a hardware error thanks to a careful and informed approach that keeps the specific challenges of vintage electronics in mind. Watch the whole thing in the video, embedded below.

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Active Antenna Runs On A Single Lithium-Ion Cell

November 7, 2026 by Donald Papp 11 Comments

[skuep]’s Mobile-Whip is a compact, active receive-only antenna that is optimized for operation from a single lithium-ion battery or USB power. This makes it very handy for use on portable equipment, as shown in the images here.

What’s an active antenna do? Its main purpose is to provide useful reception with an antenna size much smaller than would normally be called for. It’s pretty handy to be able to have one that’s completely self-contained, and able to easily fit on a mobile radio or scanner.

The Mobile-Whip is based on the Mini-Whip active antenna by [PA0RDT], but with some important changes. One is that it has a narrower frequency range, but it’s also one piece, much smaller, can be powered by a single lithium-ion cell, and it integrates a charger.

It’s still in early development (and there’s no enclosure designed yet), but if you’d like to try it out for yourself the schematics and KiCad files are available. There are also instructions for ordering everything from a PCB manufacturer, which is about as easy as it gets.

[skuep] seems to have a knack for designing PCBs that attach directly to portable equipment, like the Ham Radio All-in-one cable (AIOC) which makes interfacing to a computer ridiculously easy.

A Bike-Friendly, DIY Action Cam Stereo Microphone

November 7, 2026 by Donald Papp 1 Comment

[DJJules] had two problems. Being an avid biker, recording audio on a bike-mounted action camera was less than ideal due to wind. In addition, the built-in microphone on action cameras is also just not as good as a dedicated stereo microphone setup. His solution: The Bike Mike.

The furry ends contain one mic each, mounted with foam.

The Bike Mike solves both problems at once by providing a windproof stereo microphone for [DJJules]’s bike-mounted action camera. It consists of a 3D printed frame and mount for two electret microphones. The mics each get a foam cover, and are surrounded by a cage upon which furry mic covers are applied.

The microphones are wired up to a 3.5 mm audio connector, which is a pretty straightforward soldering job. To make it compatible with the action camera, [DJJules] uses a super slim USB microphone adapter that accepts the 3.5 mm connector on one end, and provides a USB-C plug on the other. One can insert that directly into the camera and have it recognized as an external mic.

If this looks a bit familiar, it’s similar to his earlier design for a DIY external stereo mic for things like DSLR cameras. This one’s adapted for action cameras, integrating a USB adapter for a wider compatibility.

Embedded is a build video followed by sample footage, so give it a watch and listen for yourself.

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DIY Rooftop Tent Sets Up In A Jiffy

November 6, 2026 by Donald Papp 4 Comments

[CraftAndu] shares his DIY car rooftop tent design that looks like a pretty accessible build. It allowed him to test drive the concept to his satisfaction while spending a fraction of what a commercial unit would cost.

The rooftop tent consists of a folding platform of sturdy plywood bolted to the roof rack. The tent is attached, with the support rods cleverly anchored to the hinges so folding the platform stows the tent and mattress, and unfolding deploys it. Doing this in a way that also leaves suitable clearance between the sections when folded requires a special hinge design, but it’s mechanically straightforward. According to [CraftAndu], it’s also plenty strong and he never had any worries about stability. The final touch is a rain cover made from durable waterproof fabric that buckles around the whole thing.

There are a few nifty design elements we particularly like. The integrated aluminum ladder is a nice touch, as is the little folding table on the inside of the ladder. Also, since the platform folds out to the side, one can have a small roof overhead while sitting below. Hanging a tarp around the perimeter also creates a what he jokingly refers to as “the livingroom”.

[CraftAndu] also shares his thoughts after using it for a two-week trip. Chief among them is that while it worked very well and shows no signs of wear, it’s still just a tent. It’s a bit cramped, cold, and like any tent it needs to be dried out in the morning due to condensation even if there’s no rain. On the plus side, it’s ridiculously convenient and easy to set up. Check it out in the video, embedded just below.

If you want to see some other DIY vehicle-camper projects, don’t miss this DIY pop-up truck camper, the Toyota Corolla that sleeps two, and for a little something different here’s a van converted to off-grid camper-slash-remote office.

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MousePods Reverse Engineers Head Tracking Data From Stubborn AirPods

November 6, 2026 by Donald Papp 1 Comment

[Matteo Gaudioso] released MousePods, a Python tool which accesses the motion sensors in Apple AirPods on Linux, turning them into mouse input. No Apple host required. Doing this required reverse-engineering how the devices work and communicate, because it turns out the AirPods 3 do things differently than other models.

Everything runs in a single Linux app, no Apple host involved.

Head tracking with AirPods has been around for years. Apple uses the motion data for spatial audio and gesture detection, and there are a number of open source tools to access that data. But there was always a blind spot: no one could figure out how to talk to the AirPods 3.

[Matteo] enlisted the help of Claude Code in digging out what was different, and found Claude pretty useful for running hundreds of probes and tests to the AirPods to eventually tease out what was going on, among other things. The findings are nicely summarized here. One interesting one is how the sensor data was indirectly hidden by the fact that on Linux the default MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) is too small to hold the whole payload complete with motion sensors. Once the Linux MTU is increased to match the considerably larger iOS default, everything appears.

There’s one other feature we like: the ability to send the data to opentrack to use as head tracking input to things like flying or racing simulators. We’ve seen this done with flight sims using headphones for head tracking, which is a great way to use sensor data that already exists without impacting the audio functionality.

Some features are still experimental, but MousePods is confirmed to work with the Apple AirPods 3 and AirPods Pro 2. Check out the MousePods website for a bit more info if you’d like to give it a try.