Author: Zoe Skyforest

3718 Articles

A New Flying Car Illustrates The Same Old Problems

August 9, 2021 by 98 Comments

For almost as long as there have been cars and planes, people have speculated that one day we will all get around in flying cars. They’d allow us to “avoid the traffic” by flying through the air instead of sitting in snarling traffic jams on the ground.

The Klein Vision AirCar hopes to be just such a panacea to our modern traffic woes, serving as a transformable flying car that can both soar through the air and drive on the ground. Let’s take a look at the prototype vehicle’s achievements, and the inherent problems with the underlying flying car concept.

It Flies and Drives

The AirCar is a somewhat futuristic looking, yet simultaneously dated, vehicle. It’s a two-seater with a big bubble canopy for the driver and a single passenger. At the rear, there’s a propeller and twin-boom tail, while the folding wings tuck along either side of the vehicle in “car” mode. At the flick of a switch, the wings fold out and lock in place, while the tail extends further out to the rear. The conversion from driving mode to flight mode takes on the order of a few minutes. The powerplant at the heart of the vehicle is a 160-horsepower BMW engine which switches between driving the wheels and the propeller as needed.

Unlike some concepts we’ve explored in the past, the AirCar has successfully demonstrated itself as a working flying car without incident. Additionally, it did so as a single vehicular package, without removable wings or other such contrivances. On June 28th, 2021, it successfully flew from an airport in Nitra, Slovakia, down to the neighbouring city of Bratislava in 35 minutes – roughly half the time it takes by car. Company founder Stefan Klein was behind the controls, casually driving the vehicle downtown after the successful landing. Continue reading “A New Flying Car Illustrates The Same Old Problems” →

A SNES Music Player You Can Control With A Browser

August 8, 2021 by 3 Comments

Listening to chiptunes on an emulator or software-based player is fine, but sometimes you just gotta have that real hardware charm. [Kazhuu] is one such enthusiast who feels this way, and set about building a hardware player for SNES chiptunes that can be controlled from a browser.

The build relies on an Arduino Micro to control the SNES Audio Processing Unit (APU), featuring the Nintendo S-SMP as produced by Sony and designed by Ken Kutaragi. Yes, the father of the PlayStation designed the capable wavetable synthesis chip in the Super Nintendo, and it’s that same hardware that [Kazhuu]’s project interfaces with modern hardware.

With the Arduino’s IO lines hooked up to the APU, song data can be piped out to the Arduino over a serial connection to a PC. This can be handled by a Python script, or more intuitively via a browser-based front-end. This uses WebUSB in order to take input from the browser and then send data out over the USB-serial connection to the Arduino.

It’s a neat demonstration of both working with vintage Nintendo sound hardware and how to code modern browser applications to work with embedded systems. If you’re a SEGA kid, though, you might prefer this build instead. Video after the break.

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Giant CNC Machine Measures A Full Cubic Meter

August 8, 2021 by 32 Comments

There are plenty of designs for table-top 3D printers, engravers, and general CNC machines out there. However, if you wanna build big things and build them fast, sometimes you need a machine that can handle bigger jobs. This gigantic 1x1x1 m 5-axis CNC machine from [Brian Brocken] absolutely fits the bill.

The build relies on 3D-printed components and aluminium tubing to make it accessible for anyone to put together. [Brian] notes that 25×25 mm tubing with a 2 mm wall thickness does an okay job, but those aiming to minimize deflection would do well to upgrade to 5 mm thickness instead. Stepper motors are NEMA 23 size, though the Y-axis uses a pair of NEMA 17s. This is necessary to deal with the immense size of the machine. Control is thanks to an Arduino Mega fitted with a RAMPS board, running the Marlin firmware.

The plan is to use the machine to test out a variety of CNC machining techniques. It could make for a great maxi-sized 3D printer, and should be able to handle some basic 5-axis milling of very soft materials like foams. This might seem silly on the face of it, but it can be of great use for mold making tasks.

We’ve seen giant CNC routers built before, too, and they can readily be put to great use. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Giant CNC Machine Measures A Full Cubic Meter” →

Cool Binary Clock Uses Old-School LEDs And A Fancy Graphic PCB

August 6, 2021 by 21 Comments

Ah, the 5mm LED. Once a popular choice, they’ve been supplanted in modernity by smaller SMD components and/or more capable RGB parts in recent years. However, they’re still able to do the job and are a great way to give your project that proper homebrew look. [Ian Dunn] chose those very parts to produce his 4017 Decade Binary Clock.

The clock uses only digital logic ICs to tell the time – there are no microcontrollers here! After four or five iterations over almost a whole year, [Ian] was finally able to coax the circuit into reliable operation. As you’d expect, it relies on a 32.768 kHz crystal to provide a stable clock. Fed into a 4060 binary ripple counter, that clock is divided down 14 times to deliver a 2Hz square wave. This then goes through a 4027 flip flop to get the desired 1Hz signal. From there, a bunch of extra logic handles counting the seconds, minutes, and hours, and resetting the counters as appropriate.

The PCB that houses the project is printed on directly by a flatbed inkjet printer, which [Ian] purchased when inspired by our previous article on how to get your PCBs made at the mall. He didn’t actually use it to make the PCB in this case, but the flatbed printer does a great job of putting graphics on the board.

The result is quite an attractive look that might surprise a few electronics enthusiasts who haven’t seen a graphic printed board before. It’s a technique we think could be used to great effect on conference badges, too. If you’ve experimented with similar techniques, be sure to drop us a line!

Murata To Deliver Solid State Batteries To Market In The Fall

August 3, 2021 by 43 Comments

Solid state batteries have long been promised to us as the solution to our energy storage needs. Theoretically capable of greater storage densities than existing lithium-ion and lithium-polymer cells, while being far safer to boot, they would offer a huge performance boost in all manner of applications.

For those of us dreaming of a 1,000-mile range electric car or a 14-kilowatt power drill, the simple fact remains that the technology just isn’t quite there yet. However, Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. has just announced that it plans to ship solid state batteries in the fall, which from a glance at the calendar is just weeks away.

It’s exciting news, and we’re sure you’re dying to know – just what are they planning to ship, and how capable are the batteries? Let’s dive in.

Continue reading “Murata To Deliver Solid State Batteries To Market In The Fall” →

Liquid Nitrogen Isn’t Suitable For Steam Engines

July 28, 2021 by 28 Comments

Liquid nitrogen is fun stuff to play with, as long as you’re careful and avoid freezing your own fingers off and shattering them on the workbench. As the liquid turns to gaseous nitrogen at around -196 C, [The Action Lab] figured that it could be used to propel a simple steam engine at room temperature. Testing this out had amusing results.

The device under test is a Hero’s Engine, otherwise known as an aeolipile. This consists of a hollow sphere filled with water, fitted with a series of nozzles that shoot out steam when the vessel is heated. Via the rocket principle, this causes the device to rotate about its axis.

When filled with water and heated with a candle, the aeolipile spun at up to 2520 RPM. [The Action Lab] next tested it filled with water in a vacuum chamber, with the low pressure causing the water to boil at room temperature. The effect was less impressive however, with the engine spinning at a much slower rate.

The best result was with liquid nitrogen inside the engine. With the nitrogen quickly boiling at room temperature, the aeolipile quickly spun up to a great speed. The engine stand had to be steadied to avoid it tipping over, before the seal at the top of the engine blew off from overpressure.

We’d love to see the same experiment done with a piston-type steam engine, too. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Liquid Nitrogen Isn’t Suitable For Steam Engines” →

Video Feedback Effects Make A Glorious Spectacle In HD

July 28, 2021 by 27 Comments

Video feedback is perhaps best known for its appearance in the film clip to Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s not a particularly popular effect that you see too often, as it’s rather messy to set up what with cameras filming screens and what not. Regardless, the effects possible are glorious, as demonstrated by [Dave Blair] and his amazing video feedback kinetic sculpture.

No computer is involved at all in the process – it’s just classic, old school video feedback. It’s produced by pointing a camera at a screen and feeding the image back to that same screen. Three cameras are combined with twin video switchers and a beam-splitting pane of glass, along with a source image via an HDMI input.

By turning and spinning the various cameras, [Dave] is able to generate beautiful curving fractal-like effects using the source imagery, with a rainbow of color melting and warping together as he interacts with the sculpture. It’s a beautiful effect and something we’re surprised we don’t see more of in the video industry.

Hopefully [Dave] is enlisted to put his machine to work on the next [Doja Cat] film clip so we can get more of this goodness. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Video Feedback Effects Make A Glorious Spectacle In HD” →