Generating Plasma With A Hand-Cranked Generator

Everyone loves to play with electricity and plasma, and [Hyperspace Pirate] is no exception. Inspired by a couple of 40×20 N52 neodymium magnets he had kicking around, he decided to put together a hand-cranked generator and use it to generate plasma with. Because that’s the kind of fun afternoon projects that enrich our lives, and who doesn’t want some Premium Fireā„¢ to enrich their lives?

The generator itself is mostly 3D printed, with the magnets producing current in eight copper coils as they spin past. Courtesy of the 4.5:1 gear on the crank side, it actually spins at over 1,000 RPM with fairly low effort when unloaded, albeit due to the omission of iron cores in the coils. This due to otherwise the very strong magnets likely cogging the generator to the point where starting to turn it by hand would become practically impossible.

Despite this, the generator produces over a kilovolt with the 14,700 turns of 38 AWG copper wire, which is enough for the voltage multiplier and electrodes in the vacuum chamber, which were laid out as follows:

Circuit for the plasma-generating circuit with a vacuum chamber & hand-cranked generator. (Credit: Hyperspace Pirate, YouTube)
Circuit for the plasma-generating circuit with a vacuum chamber & hand-cranked generator. (Credit: Hyperspace Pirate, YouTube)

Some of our esteemed readers may be reminded of arc lighters which are all the rage these days, and this is basically the hand-cranked, up-scaled version of that. Aside from the benefits of having a portable super-arc lighter that doesn’t require batteries, the generator part could be useful in general for survival situations. Outside of a vacuum chamber the voltage required to ionize the air becomes higher, but since you generally don’t need a multi-centimeter arc to ignite some tinder, this contraption should be more than sufficient to light things on fire, as well as any stray neon signs you may come across.

If you’re looking for an easier way to provide some high-voltage excitement, automotive ignition coils can be pushed into service with little more than a 555 timer, and if you can get your hands on a flyback transformer from a CRT, firing them up is even easier.

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Supercon 2024: Repurposing ESP32 Based Commercial Products

It’s easy to think of commercial products as black boxes, built with proprietary hardware that’s locked down from the factory. However, that’s not always the case. A great many companies are now turning out commercial products that rely on the very same microcontrollers that hackers and makers use on the regular, making them far more accessible for the end user to peek inside and poke around a bit.

Jim Scarletta has been doing just that with a wide variety of off-the-shelf gear. He came down to the 2024 Hackaday Superconference to tell us all about how you can repurpose ESP32-based commercial products.

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SkyRoof, A New Satellite Tracker For Hams

Communicating with space-based ham radio satellites might sound like it’s something that takes a lot of money, but in reality it’s one of the more accessible aspects of the hobby. Generally all that’s needed is a five-watt handheld transceiver and a directional antenna. Like most things in the ham radio world, though, it takes a certain amount of skill which can’t be easily purchased. Most hams using satellites like these will rely on some software to help track them, which is where this new program from [Alex Shovkoplyas] comes in.

The open source application is called SkyRoof and provides a number of layers of information about satellites aggregated into a single information feed. A waterfall diagram is central to the display, with not only the satellite communications shown on the plot but information about the satellites themselves. From there the user can choose between a number of other layers of information about the satellites including their current paths, future path prediction, and a few different ways of displaying all of this information. The software also interfaces with radios via CAT control, and can even automatically correct for the Doppler shift that is so often found in satellite radio communications.

For any ham actively engaged in satellite tracking or space-based repeater communications, this tool is certainly worth trying out. Unfortunately, it’s only available for Windows currently. For those not looking to operate under Microsoft’s thumb, projects such as DragonOS do a good job of collecting up the must-have Linux programs for hams and other radio enthusiasts.

Is The Atomic Outboard An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

Everyone these days wants to talk about Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) when it comes to nuclear power. The industry seems to have pinned its hopes for a ‘nuclear renaissance’ on the exciting new concept. Exciting as it may be, it is not exactly new: small reactors date back to the heyday of the atomic era. There were a few prototypes, and a lot more paper projects that are easy to sneer at today. One in particular caught our eye, in a write-up from Steve Wientz, that is described as an atomic outboard motor.

It started as an outgrowth from General Electric’s 1950s work on airborne nuclear reactors. GE’s proposal just screams “1950s” — a refractory, air-cooled reactor serving as the heat source for a large turboprop engine. Yes, complete with open-loop cooling. Those obviously didn’t fly (pun intended, as always) but to try and recoup some of their investment GE proposed a slew of applications for this small, reactor-driven gas turbine. Rather than continue to push the idea of connecting it to a turboprop and spew potentially-radioactive exhaust directly into the atmosphere, GE proposed podding up the reactor with a closed-cycle gas turbine into one small, hermetically sealed-module. Continue reading “Is The Atomic Outboard An Idea Whose Time Has Come?”

The Ongoing BcacheFS Filesystem Stability Controversy

In a saga that brings to mind the hype and incidents with ReiserFS, [SavvyNik] takes us through the latest data corruption bug report and developer updates regarding the BcacheFS filesystem in the Linux kernel. Based on the bcache (block cache) cache mechanism in the Linux kernel, its author [Kent Overstreet] developed it into what is now known as BcacheFS, with it being announced in 2015 and subsequently merged into the Linux kernel (6.7) in early 2024. As a modern copy-on-write (COW) filesystem along the lines of ZFS and btfs, it was supposed to compete directly with these filesystems.

Despite this, it has become clear that BcacheFS is rather unstable, with frequent and extensive patches being submitted to the point where [Linus Torvalds] in August of last year pushed back against it, as well as expressing regret for merging BcacheFS into mainline Linux. As covered in the video, [Kent] has pushed users reporting issues to upgrade to the latest Linux kernel to get critical fixes, which really reinforces the notion that BcacheFS is at best an experimental Alpha-level filesystem implementation and should probably not be used with important data or systems.

Although one can speculate on the reasons for BcacheFS spiraling out of control like this, ultimately if you want a reliable COW filesystem in Linux, you are best off using btrfs or ZFS. Of course, regardless of which filesystem you use, always make multiple backups, test them regularly and stay away from shiny new things on production systems.

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Repairing Vintage Sony Luggable Calculators

You might wonder why you’d repair a calculator when you can pick up a new one for a buck. [Tech Tangents] though has some old Sony calculators that used Nixie tubes, including one from the 1960s. Two of his recent finds of Sony SOBAX calculators need repair, and we think you’ll agree that restoring these historical calculators is well worth the effort. Does your calculator have a carrying handle? We didn’t think so. Check out the video below to see what that looks like.

The devices don’t even use modern ICs. Inside, there are modules of discrete parts encapsulated in epoxy. There isn’t even RAM inside, but there is a delay line memory, although it is marked “unrepairable.”

There is some interesting history about this line of calculators, and the video covers that. Apparently, the whole line of early calculators grew out of an engineer’s personal project to use transistors that were scrapped because they didn’t meet the specifications for whatever application that used them.

The handle isn’t just cosmetic. You could get an external battery pack if you really wanted a very heavy — about 14 pounds (6.3 kilograms) — and large portable calculator. We are sure the $1,000 retail price tag didn’t include a battery.

These machines are beautiful, and it is fun to see the construction of these old devices. You might think our favorite calculator is based on Star Trek. As much as we do like that, we still think the HP-41C might be the best calculator ever made, even in emulation.

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Origami assembly line.

Building An Assembly Line For Origami Pigeons

When it comes to hacks, the best ones go to extremes. Either beautiful in their simplicity, or magnificent in their excess. And, well, today’s hack is the latter: excessive. [HTX Studio] built an assembly line for origami pigeons!

One can imagine the planning process went something like this:

  1. Make origami pigeon assembly line
  2. ?
  3. Profit

But whatever the motivation, this is an impressive and obviously very well engineered machine. Even the lighting is well considered. It’s almost as if it were made for show…

Now, any self-respecting nerd should know the difference between throughput and latency. From what we could glean from the video, the latency through this assembly line is in the order of 50 seconds. Conservatively it could probably have say 5 birds in progress at a time. So let’s say every 10 seconds we have one origami pigeon off the assembly line. This is a machine and not a person so it can operate twenty four hours a day, save downtime for repairs and maintenance, call it 20 hours per day. We could probably expect more than 7,000 paper pigeons out of this machine every day. Let’s hope they’ve got a buyer lined up for all these birds.

If you’re interested in assembly lines maybe we could interest you in a 6DOF robotic arm, or if the origami is what caught your eye, check out the illuminating, tubular, or self-folding kind!

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