Author: Jenny List

3427 Articles

Hydraulic Drive For Your Lawn Tractor

June 3, 2026 by 11 Comments

Most larger ride-around landscaping machinery has a similar transmission, a transaxle containing a gearbox, or in some cases, a continuously variable drive. [Made In Garage] has a Toro lawn tractor with just such a setup, and when the transaxle failed he replaced it with a hydraulic drive.

The video below is a classic bit of workshop porn, as he fabricates both the hubs and the rear frame to fit a pair of hydraulic motors. The throttle pedal is a hydraulic valve with the lever swapped for a pedal, and the hydraulic reservoir, in a nice touch, is an old fire extinguisher.

We’re not so sure about the pipework in such an exposed position under the machine as we think it would inevitably be damaged, but you can’t argue with the results. Having used a rough service mower with a hydraulic drive in the past, we appreciate always being exactly at the right ratio for the engine.

We think perhaps he should complement it with a loader.

Continue reading “Hydraulic Drive For Your Lawn Tractor” →

A Diffraction Grating Makes This Clock Readable

June 3, 2026 by 7 Comments

We’ve seen just about every possible way to make a clock here at Hackaday over the years. So it’s rare to have a first, but here we are with [Twisted & Tinned], who’s made a novel clock with a diffraction grating.

The display of the clock looks for all the world like a jumble of LEDs, that is, until you place the grating in front of it. Those LEDs are addressable multi-color parts, and each digit is generated at a different color all on top of each other. The grating splits out these colors, resulting in a magical set of floating LED figures.

Behind those LEDs is a Pi Pico, but that’s just one of many microcontrollers that could have powered this project. It’s the use of the diffraction grating in a novel way with those LEDs that makes the difference, and we rather like it. He’s also managed to get the grating pattern in the 3D printed surround for a shimmering look, by printing directly onto a diffraction grating sheet. That in particular is a technique we’ve looked at before in detail.

Continue reading “A Diffraction Grating Makes This Clock Readable” →

The 2026 EMF Badge Arrives, With An Add-On. As Expected, It’s Familiar

June 2, 2026 by 7 Comments

Two years ago the EMF hacker camp in the UK released a new kind of event badge. The Tildagon was designed to be a recurring event badge, useful for the next EMF rather than destined to be e-waste. With the 2026 event coming up there’s a new Tildagon called the Spaceagon, and as you might expect it’s very familiar indeed.

Tildagon owners can update their badge with the Spaceagon front panel (Update — The EMF badge team would like us to inform you that the final badge art will differ from the prototype badge shown), while those without one can buy the new badge. It has a few minor updates from its predecessor, including better buttons, LEDs, and display mounting, and there’s a compass, a joystick, and touch sensitive areas.

The Tildagon introduced its own add-on format, the Hexpansion. This year there’s the first official Hexpansion, a keyboard, using the same rubber moulding we see on quite a few maker projects. We like the Hexpansion idea because it uses an edge connector rather than a set of pins on the device, but at the cost of more expensive badge parts.

If you’re going to EMF you should be able to order yourself a Spaceagon, or an upgrade kit if you already own a Tildagon. Meanwhile we covered the 2024 version back when it arrived, and surprisingly this isn’t the first keyboard add-on for it either.

Jenny’s Daily Drivers: Microsoft Windows 11

June 2, 2026 by 73 Comments

In our search for the unusual or interesting among the world of operating systems, it might seem unexpected that today’s choice for a Daily Driver is the latest version of Microsoft Windows. Aside from Hackaday perhaps having a larger than average percentage of viewers using Linux based operating systems and generally catering to open source enthusiasts, there’s hardly anything special about Windows, is there?

Oddly for me there is — because while it’s a common enough OS for the masses, the last time I had a Windows computer it ran XP. That venerable OS is a world away from today’s Windows 11, and thus as someone who’s exclusively sat in front of a GNOME desktop for much of the last two decades, it’s an entirely new operating system.

There’s no doubt that it will make a Daily Driver, because of course I’ll be able to do my work on it. Where the interest lies is in seeing what Windows has become. Is it still a useful general purpose operating system, or has it become the locked-down walled garden of crapware that its detractors warn you about? Time to dive in.

Continue reading “Jenny’s Daily Drivers: Microsoft Windows 11” →

Cookies, Baked The 3D Printer Way

June 2, 2026 by 20 Comments

Imagine for a moment that the Cookie Monster is going to visit, but all the cookie baking utensils in your house have been mislaid. The horror! Fortunately [Startup Chuck] is here with a video showing the process of baking cookies in a 3D printer, and as an extra treat he’s using entirely 3D printed utensils too.

The utensils are comprehensive array of all you’d need for serious cookie production, even going as far as to print a mixing bowl and beater for a KitchenAid mixer. There are scoops aplenty, and something we’re particularly impressed with, a spatula with a TPU blade. We’re guessing that FDM prints might not be the best for cooking because all manner of food could get caught in those layer lines and go off, but let’s face it, this is a bit of fun rather than a forever cooking project. We like the AI generated spork for its near-flatness, reminding us of our AI-generated breakfast. Finally he even prints a cookie baking sheet using nylon filament.

An enclosed 3D printer makes a surprisingly effective low-temperature oven, with the heated bed as the element. It works, and makes recognizable cookies, though they’re not browned. As entertaining as this experiment may be, we can’t recommend following his example — at the very least, moisture and food ingredients in your printer probably aren’t conducive to good future printing.

Continue reading “Cookies, Baked The 3D Printer Way” →

Know Your Food: Cheesemaking

June 1, 2026 by 80 Comments

There’s a thing that people who grew up on farms all share: a connection with food production that isn’t some mystical rose-tinted woo from a TV chef, but instead a practical general knowledge from being there on the ground. A glance at a crop in a field and you immediately recognise what it is, if it’s ploughing time you’ll know the soil type, and there’s always either too little, or too much rain. For a given foodstuff you’ll know far too much about where it came from, because if your dad wasn’t involved in its production, the chances are someone he knew was. You take this for granted, after all doesn’t everyone have this general knowledge? Seemingly not.

Hackaday is not a cooking channel, but I know we’re all interested here in how things are made. Shouldn’t that also extend to what we eat? It’s fashionable to follow a back-to-nature line that all commercial foodstuffs are somehow over-processed junk, but without the requisite knowledge you’re flying blind there. To know both how common foodstuffs should be made, as well as how they are made industrially, should be an essential for everyone.

Continue reading “Know Your Food: Cheesemaking” →

Reverse Engineering A Rock Bottom NES Clone

June 1, 2026 by 4 Comments

The NES was Nintendo’s smash hit console of the 1980s, the international version of their Japanese Famicom system. It wasn’t a particularly complex device, so it was the subject of many clones back in the day. More recently, it has enjoyed a new life thanks to “NES on a chip” systems. It’s one of these that [Poking Technology] has, real rock bottom for the console built into a cheap phone case.

Continue reading “Reverse Engineering A Rock Bottom NES Clone” →