Waterproofing The Best Watch Ever Made

June 4, 2019 by 58 Comments

The Casio F-91W is probably the most popular wristwatch ever made. It’s been in production forever, it’s been worn by presidents, and according to US Army intelligence it is “the sign of al-Qaeda”. There’s a lot of history in this classic watch. That said, there is exactly one problem with this watch: it’s barely water resistant. [David] thought he had a solution to this problem, and it looks like he may have succeeded. This classic watch is now waterproof, down to 700 meters of depth. If you’re ever 700 meters underwater, you have bigger problems than a watch that isn’t waterproof.

The basic idea of this hack is to replace the air inside the watch with a liquid. This serves two purposes: first, the front glass won’t fog up. Second, liquids are generally incompressible, or at least only slightly compressible. By replacing the air in the watch with mineral oil, the watch is significantly more water resistant.

Filling a watch with mineral oil is done simply by disassembling the watch, submerging it in a dish of mineral oil, and carefully reassembling the watch. Does it work? Don’t know about this watch, but this was done to another classic Casio watch and tested to 1200 psi. That’s a kilometer underwater, and the watch still worked afterward. We’ll take that as a success, although again if you’re ever a kilometer underwater, you have bigger problems than a broken watch.

Scratch Built Smartwatch Looks Pretty Darn Sharp With 3D Printed Case And Round LCD

May 1, 2019 by 30 Comments

These days, if you want a smart watch, you’re spoiled for choice. The major smartphone players all have devices on the market, and there’s plenty of third party manufacturers vying for your dollar, too. You might think it’s impossible achieve the same finish with a 3D printer and a reflow oven, but you’re wrong. [Samson March] didn’t quite fancy something off the shelf, though, and instead build an amazing smartwatch of his own.

The beautiful case is printed in a woodfilled PLA — consisting of 70% plastic and 30% sawdust. This allows it to be sanded and stained for an attractive final product. Printing artifacts actually add to the look here, creating somewhat of a woodgrain effect. There’s a round LCD for a more classical watch look, which displays various graphics and even contact photos for incoming messages. Like most smartwatches on the market, it uses Bluetooth Low Energy for communication, and has a rechargeable lithium battery inside. Estimated battery life is approximately one week, depending on the frequency of use, and the recharging base he fabricated is as beautiful as the watch itself.

It’s a tidy build that shows off [Samson]’s design skills, and files are available on GitHub if you’d like to make your own. Laying out the full design in Fusion 360 prior to the build enabled the watch to be optimized for size constraints, creating an attractive and comfortable piece. With that said, if you’re a fan of a more hardcore electronic aesthetic, perhaps something 8-bit might be more your speed.

[via reddit, thanks to Aliasmk for the tip!]

Watch These Two Robots Cooperate On A 3D Print

April 20, 2019 by 16 Comments

Putting a 3D printer on a mobile robotic platform is one thing, but two robots co-cooperatively printing a large object together is even more impressive. AMBOTS posted the video on Twitter and we’ve embedded it below.

The robots sport omnidirectional wheels and SCARA format arms, and appear to interact with some kind of active tabletop to aid positioning. The AMBOTS website suggests that the same ideas could be used for other tasks such as pick and place style assembly work, and the video below of co-operative 3D printing is certainly a neat proof of concept.

As a side note: most omni wheels we see (such as the ones on these robots) are of the Mecanum design but there are other designs out there you may not have heard of, such as the Liddiard omnidirectional wheel.

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The 6502 Watch, Because Someone Had To Make One

April 18, 2019 by 13 Comments

We are very familiar with retrocomputers, and if you want you too can build a computer that could have been made in the late ’70s on a breadboard. Just grab your CPU of choice, add some RAM, some ROM, a ton of jumper wires, and give it some way to talk to the outside world. The problem with the computers inspired by yesteryear is that they all, inexplicably, use through-hole parts. If only someone used the small QFP parts instead of the big chonkin’ PDIPs, we could have really small retrocomputers. That’s exactly what [NotArtyom] did, and he managed to come up with a wearable 6502 watch.

The system design for this 6502-based watch is fairly standard for what you would find in any other retrocomputer. There’s a PLCC 6502, 32k of SRAM, 16k of ROM, and a PLLC’d 6522 for a bit of IO. There are a few peripherals hanging off the 6522, and since this thing is a watch the most important is a real time clock. There’s also a Nokia LCD and a 20-pin Commodore keyboard connector.

Software-wise, most of the ROM is dedicated to G’Mon, a generic monitor that can view and modify memory. There’s also EhBasic, and a kernel to handle the RTC, keyboard, and display.

Whether or not this is a useful smartwatch isn’t the question; this is one of the first retrocomputer projects we’ve seen that lean into the non-PDIP versions of these classic chips. This is a bit surprising, because you can still buy these parts, PDIP or not, new from the usual vendors. If nothing else, it’s a demonstration of what can be done with modern IC packages.

Pocket Watch Becomes Pinhole Camera

April 17, 2019 by 5 Comments

A pinhole camera is essentially the combination of the camera obscura with photographic film. The pinhole acts as the lens, focusing the scene onto the film, and after exposure, the film can then be developed and you’ve got your picture. They’re a fun way to learn about photography, and easy to make, too. [Brooklyntonia] decided to undertake just such a build, secreted away inside a pocket watch.

The build starts with with the disassembly of the watch, which acts as the main cavity of the camera. A bellows is then constructed from leather and a toilet paper roll to allow the camera to still fold up inside the original watch case. A pinhole is then installed at the end of the bellows, and a plug is used as a shutter to allow the bellows to be properly unfolded prior to exposure.

It’s a fun build, and one that comes complete with instructions for the proper processing of film in your own darkroom – or bathroom. Pinhole cameras can be useful tools, too – particularly for things such as capturing an eclipse.

Cambridge Mini Uncon: Robots, Light Boxes, PCB Watches, And Retro Computers

April 5, 2019 by 9 Comments

At Hackaday, we are nothing without our community. We meet up at conferences, shows, and camps, but one of our favourite way to congregate is with the Unconference format. It’s an event where you can stand up and give an eight-minute talk about what is important to you, and what you are working on.

Thank you to the Cambridge Makespace for hosting our most recent a Mini Unconference. Let’s take a look at the excellent talks and demos that highlighted the day!

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Watch This LEGO Pantograph Carve Chocolate Messages

March 7, 2019 by 5 Comments

[Matthias Wandel] is best known for his deeply interesting woodworking projects, so you might be forgiven for not expecting this lovely chocolate-engraving pantograph made from LEGO. With it, he carves a delightful valentine’s message into a square of chocolate, but doesn’t stop there. He goes the extra mile to cut the chocolate carefully into a heart, and a quick hit with a heat gun takes the rough edges off for a crisp and polished end result.

The cutting end is a small blade stuck inside a LEGO piece, but that’s the only non-LEGO part in the whole assembly. A key to getting a good carve was to cool the chocolate before engraving, and you can see the whole process in the video embedded below.

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