Author: Zoe Skyforest

3718 Articles

Building A Hammer Powered By Gunpowder

October 20, 2021 by 24 Comments

Hammers are pretty straightforward tools. If you need more impact force, just get a bigger hammer. Alternatively, you can look at enhancing performance with chemical means, and we don’t mean by using steroids. No, instead, you can try hammering with the aid of gunpowder, and [i did a thing] has done just that.

The build relies on using 6.8mm blank cartridges designed for the Ramset brand of explosive nail drivers. However, rather than buying such a tool off the shelf, [i did a thing] built one in a traditional hammer format instead. The device looks like a hammer, with a hinge on the two-piece head, which allows a blank cartridge to be placed inside. When the hammer is swung at a hard surface, the impact triggers the blank which drives the nail forward with incredible force.

[i did a thing] was able to pierce steel with the device, and sent a nail clean through a surfboard, too. It’s a very dangerous thing, so if you’re experimenting in this space, do be careful. Video after the break.

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Flickering Jack O’ Lantern Is An Easy Beginner Build

October 19, 2021 by 8 Comments

The Jack o’ Lantern is a fun Halloween tradition, though one that does come with a few risks. It’s pretty easy to slice off a bit of finger when carving a stiff pumpkin, and candles draw more enmity from fire crews than most household items. For the electronics beginner looking for a learning project, [Oyvind’s] build might be a nice safe bet.

The build starts with a 3D-printed pumpkin figurine with a suitably spooky face, though [Oyvind] notes there’s nothing stopping this project from being executed with a real orange gourd instead. Inside, an Arduino is hooked up to a trio of orange LEDs. They’re attached to PWM pins and each is given a random brightness value at regular intervals to create a pleasant flickering effect.

It’s a very simple project, but it’s also the kind of thing that’s perfect for introducing new people into the world of electronics. There’s little to get wrong, and mistakes aren’t costly, making it an ideal project for beginners. From there, the sky really is the limit! Video after the break.

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Build A Dog Ball Launcher That Kinda Looks Like A Dog

October 18, 2021 by 12 Comments

The average garden dog will play fetch long beyond the average human’s endurance. If you want to keep your dog exercised without hurting your pitching arm, [brankly’s] automatic dog ball launcher might just be what you need.

The design is straightforward. The 3D printed housing features a large funnel into which a ball can be dropped. A servo then holds the ball while a pair of rollers are spun up by brushed DC motors. After two seconds, the servo releases the ball towards the rollers which launch the ball out of the machine. A Raspberry Pi Pico runs the show, controlling the timing of the ball launch and varying the motor speed to change the distance the ball is launched on each firing.

Files are available on Thingiverse for those eager to build their own. If you’re good, you might even be able to train your dog to drop the ball in themselves. We’ve seen similar builds before, too! Video after the break.

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Vise Tripod Lets You Put The Tool Where You Need It

October 17, 2021 by 7 Comments

Vises are useful things for holding whatever you’re working on, but too often they’re stuck to a bench. [seamster] has experienced the glory of having a more portable solution, however, and has shared his design for a heavy duty vise tripod that provides just that.

The trick is that to be useful, the design must be heavy and stout enough to hold the vise without tipping over. For this build, [seamster] selected a fat steel pipe with 1/4″ thick walls, some solid bars and some 3/8″ thick plate. Legs and arms where then fabbed up from the bar material and welded up to form the tripod. A stout plate for the vise was then welded on top of the pipe, and the vise mounted pride of place on top.

It’s not a particularly difficult build, but it’s a smart idea that gets you a vise you can easily drag to where it’s needed. If you don’t have the vise itself, consider this hydraulic build. Meanwhile, if you’ve been whipping up your own useful workshop hacks, let us know!

Here’s A 100 MHz Pin-Compatible 6502 Replacement

October 15, 2021 by 94 Comments

The MOS Technology 6502 CPU was a popular part in its day. In various modified versions, it powered everything from the Commodore 64 to the Nintendo Entertainment System, and showed up in a million other applications too. A popular variant is the 65C02, and [Jürgen] decided to whip up a pin-compatible FPGA version that runs at a blazing 100MHz.

The CPU core was borrowed from work by [Arlet Ottens] and extended with 65C02 functionality by [Ed Spittles] and [David Banks]. [Jürgen] then packaged that core in a Spartan-6 FPGA and placed it on a small PCB the size of the original 65C02’s 40-pin dual inline package.

The FPGA is set up to access the external CPU bus with the timing matched to the clock of the host machine. However, internally, the CPU core runs at 100MHz. It copies RAM and ROM from the host machine into its own internal 64 kilobyte RAM, minus the areas used for memory-mapped I/O by the host. The CPU then runs at full 100MHz speed except when it needs to talk to those I/O addresses.

It allows the chip to accelerate plenty of tasks without completely flipping out when used with older hardware that can’t run at anywhere near 100MHz. The pin-compatible design has been tested successfully in an Apple II and a Commodore 8032, as well as a variety of vintage chess computers.

We’ve seen the opposite before too, with a real 6502 paired with a FPGA acting as the rest of the computer. If you’ve got any cutting-edge 6502 hacks of your own (not a misprint!), let us know!

[Thanks to David Palmer for the tip]

Electroplating Carbon Fibers Can Have Interesting Results

October 15, 2021 by 17 Comments

Typically, electroplating is used to put coatings of one metal upon another, often for reasons of corrosion protection or to reduce wear. However, other conductive materials can be electroplated, as demonstrated by [Michaɫ Baran].

Finer details are sparse, but [Michaɫ’s] images show the basic concept behind producing a composite metal material hand sculpture. The initial steps involve 3D printing a perforated plastic shell of a hand, and stuffing it with carbon fibers. It appears some kind of plastic balls are also used in order to help fill out the space inside the hand mold.

Then, it’s a simple matter of dunking the plastic hand in a solution for what appears to be copper electroplating, with the carbon fiber hooked up as one of the electrodes. The carbon fibers are then knitted together by the copper attached by the electroplating process. The mold can then be cut away, and the plastic filling removed, and a metal composite hand is all that’s left.

[Michaɫ] has experimented with other forms too, but the basic concept is that these conductive fibers can readily be stuffed into molds or held in various shapes, and then coated with metal. We’d love to see the results more closely to determine the strength and usefulness of the material.

Similar techniques can be used to strengthen 3D printed parts, too. If you’ve got your own ideas on how to best use this technique, sound off below. If you’ve already done it, though, do drop us a line!

[Thanks to Krzysztof for the tip]

Carbon Sequestration As A Service Doesn’t Quite Add Up

October 15, 2021 by 128 Comments

Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. While most attempts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions focus on reducing the amount of CO2 output, there are other alternatives. Carbon capture and sequestration has been an active area of research for quite some time. Being able to take carbon dioxide straight out of the air and store it in a stable manner would allow us to reduce levels in the atmosphere and could make a big difference when it comes to climate change.

A recent project by a company called Climeworks is claiming to be doing just that, and are running it as a subscription service. The company has just opened up its latest plant in Iceland, and hopes to literally suck greenhouses gases out of the air. Today, we’ll examine whether or not this technology is a viable tool in the fight against climate change.

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