We aren’t sure what [theglassman] is working on, but based on his recent projects, we think it is probably something interesting. He’s been decapping ICs, growing oxide on silicon substrates, and has built a tube furnace capable of reaching 1200 °C.
What would you do with something that can melt cast iron? We aren’t sure, but maybe you’ll tell us in the comments. We do have a fair idea of what [theglassman] is doing, though.
The core of the oven is a quartz tube. Insulation is via refractory cement and alumina ceramic wool. The heating itself is classic Nichrome wire and a tiny thermocouple. The real key, though, is to the proper controller. [theglassman] suggests a ramp/soak controller. These allow you to program sequences that heat up and then stop, which, if done properly, can prevent your fragile quartz tube from cracking.
While it is sort of disturbing, it is one of the best uses for a round LCD we’ve seen lately. What is it? Just [vishalsoniindia]’s SoulCage — a pendant that appears to have a poor soul trapped inside of it. Just in time for the upcoming spooky holiday. You can see the device in operation in the short video below.
The heart (sorry, unintentional pun) of the device is an ESP32-S3 round display. That means the rest of it is software, a battery, and a 3D printed case. There’s a switch, too, to select a male or female image as well as shut the device off when not in use.
When you think of “secret” agencies, you probably think of the CIA, the NSA, the KGB, or MI-5. But the real secret agencies are the ones you hardly ever hear of. One of those is the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Formed in 1960, the agency was totally secret until the early 1970s.
If you have heard of the NRO, you probably know they manage spy satellites and other resources that get shared among intelligence agencies. But did you know they played a major, but secret, part in the Apollo 11 recovery? Don’t forget, it was 1969, and the general public didn’t know anything about the shadowy agency.
In the 1960s, civilian weather forecasting was not as good as it is now. But Brandli had access to data from the NRO’s Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), then known simply as “417”. The high-tech data let him estimate the weather accurately over the drop zones for five days, much better than any contemporary civilian meteorologist could do.
When Apollo 11 headed home, Captain Brandli ran the numbers and found there would be a major tropical storm over the drop zone, located at 10.6° north by 172.5° west, about halfway between Howland Island and Johnston Atoll, on July 24th. The storm was likely to be a “screaming eagle” storm rising to 50,000 feet over the ocean.
In the movies, of course, spaceships are tough and can land in bad weather. In real life, the high winds could rip the parachutes from the capsule, and the impact would probably have killed the crew.
[Curious Scientist] has been working with some image sensors. The latest project around it is a 6K camera. Of course, the sensor gives you a lot of it, but it also requires some off-the-shelf parts and, of course, some 3D printed components.
An off-the-shelf part of a case provides a reliable C mount. There’s also an IR filter in a 3D-printed bracket.
Ok, we’ll admit it. If you asked us what the first transistorized computer was, we would have guessed it was the TC from the University of Manchester. After all, Dr. Wilkes and company were at the forefront and had built Baby and EDSAC, which, of course, didn’t use transistors. To be clear, we would have been guessing, but what we didn’t know at all was that the TC, with its magnetic drums and transistors in 1955, had a second life as a commercial product from Metropolitan-Vickers, called the Metrovick 950. [Nina Kalinina] has a simulator inspired by the old machine.
The code is in Python, and you can find several programs to run on the faux machine, including the venerable lunar lander. If you haven’t heard of the Metrovick, don’t feel bad. Oral histories say that only six or seven were ever built, and they were used internally within the company.
[Too Many Wires] has a custom computer he’s building. He wanted a mouse, but USB is a bit of a stretch for the fledgling computer. We might have opted for PS/2, but he went for something even older: a serial mouse connected with a DE-9 (colloquially, a DB-9). Check it out in his recent video update on the project below.
Don’t remember serial mice? They were very common many years ago, and apparently, you can still buy new ones, which makes you wonder what people are doing with them. If you are an old hand at serial, you’ll immediately know why he couldn’t get it to work at first. If you haven’t worked with RS-232 gear before, you’ll learn a lot.
The protocol is simple enough, and you can read the code or find plenty of old documents. He’s using a UART chip, which offloads the CPU. However, the PS/2 mice are very easy to work with directly, and you could skip the +/- 12V RS-232 and other issues.
Either way, however, using an RS-232 or PS/2 mouse in a project is relatively straightforward. You might not think you need a mouse, but don’t forget, they are really accurate two-axis sensors. An optical mouse on a motion table, for example, could be worth something.
Have you ever wished your hand had an extra feature? Like, maybe, a second thumb? A scope probe pinky maybe? Well, if you are building a robot effector, you get to pick what extra features it has. [Gokux] has the aptly named Cam Claw, which is a 3D printed claw with a built-in camera so you can see exactly what it is doing.
The brains are an ESP32-S3 and the eyes — well, the eye technically — uses an OV3660 camera. There’s even a light in case you are in a dark space. A servo drives it, and the printed gear train is pretty fun to watch, as you can see in the video below.
This project is all about the mechanics. The electronic hardware is trivial. A battery, a power controller, and a servo complement the ESP32 and camera. Six LEDs for light, and the job is done.
Obviously, the gripping power will only be as good as the servo. However, we really liked the idea of putting eyes on a robot hand where they count. Of course, the claw you really want a camera on is in the arcade. We’d like to see cameras on some other robot appendages.
