Who Flew Across The Atlantic First? The Airborne Boats Of 1919

July 22, 2021 by 47 Comments

Aviation history is a bit strange. People tend to remember some firsts but not others and — sometimes — not even firsts. For example, everyone knows Amelia Earhart attempted to be the first woman to fly around the globe. She failed, but do you know who succeeded? It was Jerrie Mock. How about the first person to do it? Wiley Post, a name largely forgotten by the public. Charles Lindbergh is another great example. He was the first person to fly across the Atlantic, right? Not exactly. The story of the real first transatlantic flight is one of aviation hacking by the United States Navy.

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No Mask Required: Bring-A-Hack Is Back August 5th

July 22, 2021 by 9 Comments

Yes, we’re still in a pandemic and yes, these types of events are still happening over videoconference and not in meat space. But you know what? That means that so many more people have the opportunity to show up and show off their hacks! As long as 1 PM PDT is within your personal uptime, that is. Maybe you can make an exception if not?

Here is your link: the summer edition of Bring a Hack with Tindie and Hackaday will take place on Thursday, August 5th at 1:00 PM Pacific Daylight time (that’s 4pm EDT | 9pm BST/CET). Choose your gnarliest hack of late and go register for the event, which will be held on the Crowdcast video chat platform this time around.

The remote Bring-A-Hack held way back in April was packed with awesome people. Now is your chance to join in! You all have awesome projects from the last few months (we’ve seen a lot of them on these very pages), so come show them off to the hacker elite from around the globe. You know the deal: it really doesn’t matter what level your project is on, so don’t worry about that. As long as you’re passionate about it, we’d love to see it and hear all about the problems you had to overcome and yes, even the mistakes you made. You never know what knowledge you might have that can push someone else’s project over the finish line.

Shine up your hacks, and mark those calendars; here’s a timezone converter if you need it. Reserve your spot now. Seriously, don’t fool yourself into thinking your build isn’t impressive enough — we want to see it. My hack might not even involve a circuit, and that’s enough to pique your interest, right? See you there!

Lord Kelvin’s Contraption Turns Drips Into Sparks

July 22, 2021 by 21 Comments

It’s easy to think that devices which generate thousands of volts of electricity must involve relatively modern technology, but the fact is, machines capable of firing sparks through open air predate Edison’s light bulb. Which means that recreating them with modern tools, construction techniques, and part availability, is probably a lot easier than most people realize. The fascinating machine [Jay Bowles] put together for his latest Plasma Channel video is a perfect example, as it’s capable of developing 6,000 volts without any electronic components.

Now as clever as [Jay] might be, he can’t take credit for the idea on this one. That honor goes to Lord Kelvin, who came up with this particular style of electrostatic generator back in 1867. Alternately called “Kelvin water dropper” or “Lord Kelvin’s Thunderstorm”, the machine is able to produce a high voltage charge from falling water without using any moving parts.

Diverging streams means a charge is building up.

Our very own [Steven Dufresne] wrote an in-depth look at how these devices operate, but the short version is that a negative and positive charge is built up in two sets of metallic inductor rings and buckets, with the stream of water itself acting as a sort of wire to carry the charge up to the overhead water reservoir. As [Jay] demonstrates the video, you’ll know things are working when the streams of water become attracted to the inductors they are passing through.

Rather than connecting a separate spark gap up to the water “receivers” on the bottom of his water dropper, [Jay] found the handles on the metal mugs he’s using worked just as well. By moving the mugs closer and farther away he can adjust the gap, and a second adjustment lets him move the vertical position of the inductors. It sounds like it takes some fiddling to get everything in position, but once it’s working, the whole thing is very impressive.

Of course if you’re looking to get serious with high voltage experiments, you’ll want to upgrade to some less whimsical equipment pretty quickly. Luckily, [Jay] has shown that putting together a reliable HV supply doesn’t need to be expensive or complicated.

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Avoiding Repetitive Stress Injury: Invest In Yourself Now, Or Pay Later

July 22, 2021 by 49 Comments

There I was, thirty years after I first sat down at an Apple IIe , and I suddenly found myself wondering if I would ever use a computer again without pain. How could I work if I couldn’t use a computer anymore? I had to seriously ask myself this question. It took a bit of a winding road to figure out what was going on and two EMGs to confirm it, but after all these years, it was clear to the medical community that I had developed a repetitive stress injury (RSI) called cubital tunnel syndrome in my left arm.

Yeah, it’s about like that. Image via Kinesis

Cubital tunnel syndrome is like carpal tunnel, but in your elbow instead of your wrist. What a misnomer! Sometimes my pain went all the way from my armpit to my fingertips and made me want to gnaw my own arm off. I don’t think you can really understand neuropathy unless you’ve felt this weird, annoying type of pain firsthand. I hope you never do.

Can you stop and seriously imagine not being able to use a computer for the rest of your life? Or at least feeling that way because doing so causes incredibly annoying pain? I feel like we’re all vaguely aware of the standard list of anti-RSI precautions, but let’s review:

  • maintain good posture — sit with feet flat on the floor, wrists straight, elbows at 90°
  • put the screen an arm’s length away at eye level
  • take frequent short breaks

Yes, those are all fine and good. But there are other things you can do to avoid computer-related RSIs, like using ergonomic inputs, and building a custom setup that fits you exactly. This isn’t a study kiosk at the university library we’re talking about — this is your battlestation! The problem is that many people are stubborn, and won’t go out of their way to do anything to proactively prevent these injuries. But you don’t have to cross a bridge when you come to it if you have a map that shows you a way around the body of water.

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Modified 3D-Printer Solders Through-Hole Components

July 22, 2021 by 23 Comments

Surface-mount technology has been a fantastic force multiplier for electronics in general and for hobbyists in particular. But sometimes you’ve got no choice but to use through-hole components, meaning that even if you can take advantage of SMDs for most of the design, you still might need to spend a little time with soldering iron in hand. Or not, if you’ve got a spare 3D printer lying around.

All we’ve got here is a fairly brief video from [hydrosys4], so there aren’t a lot of build details. But it’s pretty clear what’s going on here. Starting with what looks like a Longer LK4 printer, [hydrosys4] added a bracket to hold a soldering iron, and a guide for solder wire. The solder is handled by a more-or-less standard extruder, which feeds it into the joint once it’s heated by the iron. The secret sauce here is probably the fixturing, with 3D-printed jigs that hold the through-hole connectors in a pins-up orientation on the bed of the printer. With the PCB sitting on top of the connectors, it’s just a matter of teaching the X-Y-Z position of each joint, applying heat, and advancing the solder with the extruder.

The video below shows it in action at high speed; we slowed it down to 25% to get an idea of how it is in reality, and while it might not be fast, it’s precise and it doesn’t get tired. It may not have much application for one-off boards, but if you’re manufacturing small PCB runs, it’s a genius solution. We’ve seen similar solder bots before, but hats off to [hydrosys4] for keeping this one simple.

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Magnetic Bearings Put The Spin On This Flywheel Battery

July 22, 2021 by 35 Comments

[Tom Stanton] is right about one thing: flywheels make excellent playthings. Whether watching a spinning top that never seems to slow down, or feeling the weird forces a gyroscope exerts, spinning things are oddly satisfying. And putting a flywheel to work as a battery makes it even cooler.

Of course, using a flywheel to store energy isn’t even close to being a new concept. But the principles [Tom] demonstrates in the video below, including the advantages of magnetically levitated bearings, are pretty cool to see all in one place. The flywheel itself is just a heavy aluminum disc on a shaft, with a pair of bearings on each side made of stacks of neodymium magnets. An additional low-friction thrust bearing at the end of the shaft keeps the systems suitably constrained, and allows the flywheel to spin for twelve minutes or more.

[Tom]’s next step was to harness some of the flywheel’s angular momentum to make electricity. He built a pair of rotors carrying more magnets, with a stator of custom-wound coils sandwiched between. A full-wave bridge rectifier and a capacitor complete the circuit and allow the flywheel to power a bunch of LEDs or even a small motor. The whole thing is nicely built and looks like a fun desk toy.

This is far from [Tom]’s first flywheel rodeo; his last foray into storing mechanical energy wasn’t terribly successful, but he has succeeded in making flywheels fly, one way or another.

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Raspberry Pi Server Cluster In 1U Rack-Mount Case

July 21, 2021 by 30 Comments

[Paul Brown] wants to take advantage of off-site server colocation services. But the providers within [Paul]’s region typically place a limit of 1A @ 120V on each server. Rather than search out commercial low-power solutions, [Paul] embraced the hacker spirit and built his own server from five Raspberry Pi 4b single board computers.

The task involves a little bit more than just mounting five Pi4s in a chassis and calling it done. There is an Ethernet switch connecting all the modules to the network, and each Pi has a comparatively bulky SSD drive + enclosure attached. By far the most annoying part of the assembly is the power supply and distribution cabling, which is further complicated by remote controlled power switching relays (one of the computers is dedicated to power management and can shut the other four modules on and off).

Even if you’re not planning on building your own server, check out the thoroughly documented assembly process and parts list — we particularly liked the USB connector to screw terminal breakout connector that he’s using for power distribution. For all the detailed information, assembly instructions and photos, we think a top-level block diagram / interconnection drawing would be very helpful for anyone trying to understand or replicate this project.

There are a lot of connections in this box, and the final result has a messy look-and-feel. But in fairness to [Paul]’s craftsmanship, there aren’t many other ways to hook everything together given the Raspberry Pi form-factor. Maybe a large and costly PCB or using CM4 modules instead of Raspberry Pi boards could help with cable management? In the end, [Paul] reckons he shelled out about $800 for this unit. He compares this expense with some commercial options in his writeup, which shows there are some cheaper and more powerful solutions. But while it may be cheaper to buy, we understand that strong urge to roll your own.

We’ve written about many Pi cluster projects in the past, including this one which contains a whopping 750 Raspberry Pis. Have you ever used a colocation service, and if so, did you use a DIY or an off-the-shelf server?