Hackaday Podcast 230: Space Science, Superconductors, Supercaps, And Central Air

August 4, 2023 by No comments

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start things off by tackling a pair of science stories, one that may or may not change the world, and the other that hopes to help us understand the very fabric of the universe. Afterwards they get to the important stuff: the evolution of Game Boy Camera hacking, the finer points of 3D print orientation, and mixing up electrically conductive concrete at home. From there the conversation shifts to a couple of 486 Turbo buttons, a quick yoke recipe, and a very handsome open source vacuum pickup tool. Stick around until the end to hear about the folly of humanoid robots, and the latest operating system to get the Jenny List treatment.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Or download it yourself in fantastic MP3 format!

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Microsoft Now Offering Parts And Repair Guides For Xbox Controllers

August 2, 2023 by 11 Comments

We’re big fans of repairable hardware here at Hackaday, so much so that when we see a company embracing the idea that their products should actually be serviced rather than thrown in the trash, we like to call attention to it. Yes, that even includes when it’s Microsoft.

This community has had a mixed relationship with the Redmond software giant, to say the least. But we’ve still got to give them credit when they do something positive. Not only are they offering a full selection of replacement parts for both the standard and Elite Xbox controllers, they’ve also provided written instructions and step-by-step video guides on how to install your new parts.

For those of you who stopped playing console games when the controllers still only had two buttons, this might not seem like such a big deal. But considering a new Xbox Elite Wireless Controller will set you back a dizzying $180, it’s not hard to see why some folks would be excited about the possibility of swapping out the guts of the thing for $50.

Of course, these parts were already available from third party sellers, and iFixit naturally has repair guides for all the different flavors of Xbox controllers. Nothing about what Microsoft is doing here makes the Xbox controller fundamentally any easier to repair than it was previously. But the fact that the company isn’t treating their customers like adversaries is a step in the right direction.

Valve has been similarly open about the internals of the Steam Deck, though their presentation was a bit dramatic, and even Sony provided an official teardown video for the PS5. We’re not sure why these companies are willing to pull back the curtain when it comes to gaming hardware. Whatever the reason, we’re certainly not complaining.

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Turning A Window Air Conditioning Unit Into Whole-House AC

July 30, 2023 by 109 Comments

Although air conditioning units are generally subdivided into a number of categories, including window, split and whole house/building units, they still work the same, with the compressor, condenser and expansion stages.

Extending the wiring for the AC unit’s controller board (Credit: HowToLou)

In the case of widely available window AC units you can indeed use them as designed in a window, or as [HowToLou] is in the process of demonstrating, as a whole-house AC unit. The main thing to keep an eye out for here is the rated capacity of the window AC unit (in British Thermal Units, square meters/feet). In this case [Lou] used a pretty beefy $600, 24,000 BTU window unit that should be good for about 1200 sqf (~111 m2) .

Most of the modifications are pretty straightforward, with the control board needing to have its wiring extended, as well as the AC unit’s air intake and exhaust on the indoors side. The unit is then placed outside on a stable foundation and inserted into a suitably sized hole in the side of the building, with the controller’s cable running to it from indoors. For the next step, [Lou] intends to connect the air channels on the AC unit to the house’s furnace ducts, to complete the whole-house AC installation.

Compared to a regular whole-house AC unit, this DIY approach has the advantage of anyone being able to just buy and install a window AC unit, whereas whole-house AC tends to require a licensed installer and a lot of additional costs. How well [Lou]’s DIY approach ends up working will hopefully be revealed in a Part 2.

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A Vintage Transistor Radio Gets A Repair

July 24, 2023 by 19 Comments

Here in 2023 the field of electronics covers a breathtaking variety of devices and applications, but if we were to go back in time far enough we’d enter an age in which computers were few and far between, and any automated control systems would have been electromechanical at best. Back in the 1950s the semiconductor industry was in relative infancy, and at the consumer end electronics were largely synonymous with radio. [Shango066] brings us a transistor radio from that era, a Jewel TR1 from about 1958, that despite its four-transistor simplicity to our eyes would have been a rare and expensive device when new.

As you’d expect, a transistor radio heading toward its 70th birthday requires a little care to return to its former glory, and while this one is very quiet it does at least work after a fashion. The video below the break is a long one that you might wish to watch at double speed, but it takes us through the now-rare skill of fault-finding and aligning an AM radio receiver. First up are a set of very tired electrolytic capacitors whose replacement restores the volume, and then it’s clear from the lack of stations that the set has a problem at the RF end. We’re treated to the full process of aligning a superhet receiver through the relatively forgiving low-frequency medium of a medium-wave radio. Along the way, he damages one of the IF transformers and has to replace it with a modern equivalent, which we would have concealed under the can from the original.

The video may be long, but it’s worth a look for the vintage parts if not for the quality of radio stations on the air today in California. For many readers, AM broadcast is becoming a thing of the past, so we’re not sure we’ll see this very often.

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A small B/W TV showing a Pong-like game being played on a Soviet-era game console

Soviet-Era Pong Console Is Easy To Repair

July 11, 2023 by 16 Comments

Many early home video game consoles were developed by American and Japanese companies: think Nintendo, Commodore, and Atari. But on the other side of the Iron Curtain, which was still very much in place in the 1980s, an entirely separate industry was built on names like Tesla and Elektronika. As a resident of the republic of Georgia, [Thomas] over at Workshop Nation has built up a sizeable collection of such Soviet-era hardware. A while back, he stumbled upon an Elektronika Video Sport 3, a 1990-vintage Pong-like video game console made in the USSR, and made a delightful video that shows him bringing it back to life.

A circuit board from an Elektronika game consoleLike its Western counterparts, the Video Sport 3 is built around a dedicated chip, in this case a K145IK17. This is a Soviet clone of the GI AY-3-8500 that powered nearly every TV Pong console in the West, allowing it to run several variations of Pong as well as a simple target shooting game. Interestingly, the Video Sport 3 also has a “test” mode in which it outputs a test signal to help you adjust your TV settings — quite useful in the days of analog CRTs. It also came with a comprehensive user manual, as well as full schematics to help you repair it in case anything breaks.

[Thomas]’s device didn’t immediately work, which is why he opened it up and tried to find any errors. The main board he found inside was a beautifully hand-made, single-layer board with around a dozen chips and lots of discrete components. Nothing seemed obviously broken, but [Thomas] decided to replace a few electrolytic capacitors as a precaution. This turned out to be enough to get the console working again — dodgy caps truly are a universal problem with older hardware.

A small Elektronika black-and-white TV that [Thomas] found earlier forms a perfect complement to the Video Sport 3. Together, they give us a glimpse into what a typical video game setup may have looked like in an early 1990s Soviet home. In fact, the Eastern Bloc supplied a reasonably wide selection of home computers, although not many people could actually buy them. Some truly bizarre machines were also produced for professional users.

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Wind-to-Heat: A Lot Of Hot Air?

June 27, 2023 by 85 Comments

Heating is one of the greatest uses of energy in human society today. Where we once burned logs to stave off the brutal winter chill, now we lean on gas and electricity to warm our homes and keep us safe and toasty. In some colder climates, like the UK, heating can make up 60-80% of total domestic energy demands.

However, there are alternative ways to provide heating. Using wind energy to directly provide heat could be key in this area, using a variety of interesting methods that could have some unique niche applications.

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