Converting A Sink To An Ultrasonic Cleaner

January 30, 2023 by 42 Comments

While ultrasonic cleaning might sound a bit like the “sonic shower” from Star Trek, this is actually one case where the futuristic-sounding technology predates its use in Sci-Fi. Ultrasonic cleaners have been around since the 50s and are used to clean all sorts of oddly-shaped or specialty objects by creating cavitation within a liquid that allows the surface of the object to be scoured. With the right equipment, these cleaning devices are fairly straightforward to build as well.

This ultrasonic cleaner by [Branchus Creations] started off as a standard stainless steel laundry sink, but with the addition of a few transducers it really turns up the volume. They are attached to the underside of the sink with a combination of a bolt and hard epoxy so that the sound is efficiently transmitted to the sink, but they’re not much use without driver boards to power them. These drivers take AC power and convert it to the DC required to generate the ultrasonic frequencies, and this build uses a driver for each of the transducers all wired up to a common control board for ease-of-use.

The results speak for themselves; a test is performed on a sheet of aluminum foil which quickly turns takes on a Swiss cheese appearance after just a couple minutes in the cleaner. It’s also shown cleaning rusty nails and a few other things as well. For other nontraditional cleaning methods, be sure to check out this wet media blast cabinet built from a 55-gallon drum.

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1000 Aluminium Cans Cast Into A Guitar

January 30, 2023 by 31 Comments

Aluminium cans are all around us, and are one of readily recyclable. While you can turn them into more cans, [Burls Art] had other ideas. Instead, he turned roughly 1000 cans into a custom aluminium guitar.

Both the body and neck of the electric guitar are made out of aluminium. It’s an impressive effort, as manufacturing a usable neck requires care to end up with something actually playable when you’re done with it.

Producing the guitar started with a big propane furnace to melt all the cans down so they could be cast into parts for the guitar. 38 lbs of cans went into the project, and were first dried out before being placed into the furnace for safety reasons. Aluminium cans aren’t made of the best alloy for casting, but you can use them in a pinch. The cans were first melted down and formed into ingots to be later used for producing the neck and body.

[Burls Art] then built sand casting molds for his parts with a material called Petrobond. Wood plugs were used to form the sand into the desired shape. The neck casting came out remarkably well, and was finished with a grinder, hacksaw, and sandpaper to get it to the right shape and install the frets. The body proved more difficult, with its multiple cavities, but it came together after a second attempt at casting.

Fully kitted out with pickups and hardware, the finished product looks great, and weighs 12.3 pounds. It sounds remarkably like a regular electric guitar, too. It does pick up fingerprints easily, and does have some voids in the casting, but overall, it’s a solid effort for an all-cast guitar.

We’ve seen some other great casting projects over the years before, too. Video after the break.

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Retro Gadgets: The CB Cell Phone

January 30, 2023 by 45 Comments

There was a time when one of the perks of having a ham radio in your car (or on your belt) was you could make phone calls using a “phone patch.” In the 1970s, calling someone from inside your parked car turned heads. Now, of course,  it is an everyday occurrence thanks to cell phones. But in 1977, cell phones were nowhere to be found. Joseph Sugarman, the well-known founder of JS&A, saw a need and wanted to fill it. So he offered the “PocketCom CB” which was billed as the “world’s smallest citizens band transceiver.” You can see the full-page ad from 1977 below.

Remember that this is from an era when ICs that could operate at 30 MHz were not the norm, so you have to temper your expectations. The little unit was 5.5 in by 1.5 in and less than an inch thick. That’s actually not bad, but you had — optimistically — 100 mW of output power. They claimed the N cell batteries would last two weeks with average use, but we imagine a lot less as soon as you start transmitting. The weight was 5 oz, but we suspect that is without the batteries.

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A pink and white Leapster GS handheld console sits on a wooden table. It has a white D-pad and two large pink action buttons. A power cord extends from the bottom and a headphone cable comes out the top.

RetroArch On A LeapFrog Leapster GS

January 30, 2023 by 12 Comments

Retro games are a blast, and even more so when you can bring the fun on the go. [mac2612] has developed a custom retroarch-based firmware for the Leapster GS and LeapPad2. (via Bringus Studios on YouTube)

We covered Linux on the Leapster before, but Retroleap seems better documented (and still up on the internet). Installation is done over the command line with sshflash, also by [mac2612], after booting the Leapster or LeapPad2 into “Surgeon Mode.” Since the stock bootloader remains intact, you can always return the LeapFrog to its default state if anything gets wiggy by reflashing the device via the LeapFrog Connect App.

The default system includes emulators for NES, SNES, GBA, Genesis, Atari 800, and MAME. Performance varies, but some PS1 games have even run successfully on the device.

If you’d like to see some other LeapFrog hacks, checkout this LeapFrog TV Running DOOM or Composite Video Out on the DIDJ.

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What Losing Everything Taught Me About Backing Up

January 30, 2023 by 128 Comments

Backing up. It’s such a simple thing on paper – making a copy of important files and putting them in a safe place. In reality, for many of us, it’s just another thing on that list of things we really ought to be doing but never quite get around to.

I was firmly in that boat. Then, when disaster struck, I predictably lost greatly. Here’s my story on what I lost, what I managed to hang on to, and how I’d recommend you approach backups starting today.

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Wizards Get Creative, Maybe Save The World

January 30, 2023 by 12 Comments

While it’s not normal Hackaday fare, we’ve covered the Dungeons & Dragons licensing kerfuffle, partially because we’re all nerds at heart, and also because it’s worrying that an Open Source styled license could be “deauthorized”. I did touch base with the Open Source Initiative, and got a telling comment that this issue was outside their purview, as the OGL 1.0a didn’t rise to the definition of an OSI approved license, and the update looked to be a disaster.

Since our coverage was published, Wizards of the Coast released part of the Fifth Edition System reference Document (SRD) under a Creative Commons license, removed the profit sharing language from the OGL update, but notably left the language in place about deauthorizing the 1.0a version of the license. As you can imagine, fans were still unamused, and we informed WotC of our displeasure when they launched a survey, asking fans their thoughts on the new license.

And the outpouring was overwhelming, with over 15,000 survey responses in just over a week. The vast majority (90% for some questions) informed WotC that they had lost their collective minds. That response, combined with a plummeting subscription count on DND Beyond, Paizo’s explosion of popularity and new ORC license announcement, and the plethora of publishers jumping ship, has finally shone the light of reason upon management at WotC.

The latest announcement is a win in basically every regard. The OGL 1.0a will not be deauthorized, and the entire 5e SRD has been released under the Creative Commons 4.0 By Attribution license. That’s an interesting choice, as CC-BY-4.0 is a very permissive license. It’s not “viral”, as it does not place any licensing restrictions on derivative works, and there are no restrictions on commercial use. The only restriction is that attribution must be included. The latest SRD is now available under both licenses, you pick your preference. So as a reward for going through the trauma, we get a sizable chunk of the game under an even less restrictive license. Bravo.

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Inside A 1940’s Spy Radio

January 30, 2023 by 18 Comments

The RCA CR-88 was a radio receiver made to work in top-secret government eavesdropping stations. As you might expect, these radios are top-of-the-line, performance-wise, at least when they are working correctly. [Mr. Carlson] has one on his bench, and we get to watch the show on his recent video that you can see below.

Interestingly, [Mr. Carlson] uses some Sherlock Holmes-like deductive reasoning to guess some things about the radio’s secret history. The radio’s design is decidedly heavy-duty, with a giant power transformer and many tubes, IF transformers, and large filter capacitors.

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