Author: Zoe Skyforest

3790 Articles

Building A Receiver With The ProgRock2 Programmable Crystal

April 28, 2023 by 11 Comments

Crystals are key to a lot of radio designs. They act as a stable frequency source and ensure you’re listening to (or transmitting on) exactly the right bit of the radio spectrum. [Q26] decided to use the ProgRock2 “programmable crystal” to build a receiver that could tune multiple frequencies without the usual traditional tuning circuitry. 

 The ProgRock2 is designed as a tiny PCB that can be dropped into a circuit to replace a traditional crystal. The oscillators onboard are programmable from 3.5KHz to 200 MHz, and can be GPS discliplined for accuracy. It’s programmable over a micro USB pot, and can be set to output 24 different frequencies, in eight banks of three. When a bank is selected, the three frequencies will be output on the Clock0, Clock1, and Clock2 pins.There was some confusion regarding the bank selection on the ProgRock2. It’s done by binary, with eight banks selected by grounding the BANK0, BANK1, and BANK2 pins. For example, grounding BANK2 and BANK0 would activate bank 5 (as 101 in binary equals 5). Once this was figured out, [Q26] was on top of things.

In his design, [Q26] hooked up the ProgRock2 into his receiver in place of the regular crystal. Frequency selection is performed by flipping three switches to select banks 0 to 7. It’s an easy way to flip between different frequencies accurately, and is of particular use for situations where you might only listen on a limited selection of amateur channels.

For precision use, we can definitely see the value of a “programmable crystal” oscillator like this. We’ve looked at the fate of some major crystal manufacturers before, too. Video after the break.

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Auto Tape Wrapping Machine Is Amazing For Cable Management

April 28, 2023 by 15 Comments

If you’ve dived under the hood of any car built in the last 40 years, you’ve likely noticed the bundles of neatly-wrapped cables making up the car’s wiring loom. [The Q] has built a tool for handling jobs like this yourself.

The build starts with a pair of sprockets linked up with bicycle chain, and mounted to a wooden frame. A motor drives the smaller sprocket, which turns the larger sprocket in turn. The larger sprocket itself is mounted on a series of internal rollers, while it mounts a carrier for a roll of tape. As the larger sprocket turns, it will happily wrap whatever you feed through the central hole in tape in a neat and tidy manner.

For those working with automotive looms, large robot cable runs, or PC builds, a tool like this can be of great utility. [The Q} even demonstrates it put to oddball tasks, like wrapping bicycle handlebars or pipe threads. We’ve seen similar builds before, too. Video after the break.

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Cheap Deburring Tool Is Game Changer For 3D Printing

April 27, 2023 by 54 Comments

3D printing’s real value is that you can whip up objects in all kinds of whacky geometries with a minimum of fuss. However, there’s almost always some post-processing to do. Like many manufactured plastic objects, there are burrs, strings, and rough edges to deal with. Fussing around with a knife to remove them is a poor way to go. As explained by [Adrian Kingsley-Hughes] on ZDNet, a deburring tool is the cheap and easy solution to the problem.

If you haven’t used one before, a deburring tool simply consists of a curved metal blade that swivels relative to its straight handle. You can drag the curved blade over the edge of a metal, wooden, or plastic object, and it neatly pulls away the burrs. There’s minimal risk of injury, unlike when pulling a regular blade towards yourself. The curved, swiveling blade is much less liable to slip or jump, and if it does, it’s far less likely to cut you.

For plastic use, just about any old deburring tool will do. They last a long time with minimal maintenance. They will wear out faster when used on metals, but you can get replacement blades cheap if you happen to need them. It’s a tool every workshop should have, particularly given they generally cost less than $20.

Given the ugly edges and rafts we’re always having to remove from our 3D prints, it’s almost egregious that printers don’t come with them bundled in the box. They’re just a bit obscure when it comes to tools; this may in fact be the first time Hackaday’s ever covered one. If you’ve got your own quality-of-life hacks for 3D printing, sound off below, or share them on the tipsline! We have able staff waiting for your email.

Making Hydrogen With Solar Energy, With Oxygen And Heat A Bonus

April 27, 2023 by 66 Comments

Hydrogen is a useful gas. Whether you want to float an airship, fuel a truck, or heat an industrial process, hydrogen can do the job. However, producing it is currently a fraught issue. While it can be produced cleanly using renewable energy, it’s often much cheaper to split it out of hydrocarbon fuels using processes that generate significant pollution.

There are methods to generate hydrogen more efficiently, though, in a clean and sustainable process. that also produces useful heat and oxygen as byproducts. The key to the process? Concentrated sunshine.
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Smoke Some Weeds: Lasers Could Make Herbicide Obsolete

April 26, 2023 by 53 Comments

We’ve all tangled with unwelcome plant life at one point or another. Whether crabgrass infested your lawn, or you were put on weeding duty in your grandfather’s rose patch, you’ll know they’re a pain to remove, and a pain to prevent. For farmers, just imagine the same problem, but scaled up to cover thousands of acres.

Dealing with weeds typically involves harsh chemicals or excessive manual labor. Lasers could prove to be a new tool in the fight against this scourge, however, as covered by the BBC.

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Warmer Ice Cream?

April 24, 2023 by 53 Comments

What if you could tweak the recipe on ice cream to keep it frozen at higher temperatures? The idea comes from massive conglomerate Unilever. Among other things, the brand owns a wide variety of ice cream brands, from Ben & Jerry’s to the Magnum and Cornetto lines. Instead of running freezers at the industry standard of -18 °C (0°F), the company is experimenting with upping the temperature to -12 °C (10 °F) instead.

First off, you’d save a lot of electricity. Thanks to the way the industry works, the company actually owns the vast majority of the three million or so display freezers that are used to sell its stock to customers. Running at a higher temperature could slash the freezer’s energy use by 20% to 30%, according to the company’s calculations. The company also estimates that the energy used by these freezers makes up around 10% of its total greenhouse gas footprint, so it’s better for the environment too.

Of course, there’s savvy commercial reasons behind the idea. Unilever had noticed its ice cream sales dropping in 2022. The company believes this was in part due to retailers unplugging their freezers earlier than usual as winter approached, due to high energy bills. If the company’s freezers aren’t humming, they’re doing less business. If shaving down the freezer’s energy use helps retailers keep them plugged in and the lights on, that’s a net bonus to the company’s bottom line. It could also make their freezers unhospitable places for rival products, giving them an edge in the marketplace.

But this is all business intrigue. Let’s instead take a deeper look at ice cream.

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Miniature Concrete Hoover Dam Is Tiny Engineering Done Right

April 21, 2023 by 13 Comments

Growing up, we got to play with all kinds of things in miniature. Cars, horses, little LEGO houses, the lot. What we didn’t get is a serious education with miniature-sized dams. This recreation of the glorious Hoover Dam from the [Creative Construction Channel] could change all that for the next generation.

The build starts with the excavation of a two-foot long curve in a replica riverbed. A cardboard base is installed in the ditch, and used as a base for vertical steel wires. Next, the arch of the dam is roughed out with more steel wires installed horizontally to create a basic structure. The cardboard is then be removed from the riverbed, with the steel structure remaining. It’s finally time to pour real concrete, with a foundation followed by the main pour into foam formwork. The dam is also given 3D printed outlets that can be opened to allow water to pass through — complete with small gear motors to control them. The structure even gets a little roadway on top for good measure.

The finished product is quite impressive, and even more so when the outlets open up to spill water through. Such a project would be great fun for high school science students, or even engineering undergrads. Who doesn’t want to play with a miniature scale dam, after all? Bonus points if you build an entire LEGO city downstream, only to see it destroyed in a flood.

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