Power Supply PCB Redesign

October 19, 2024 by 6 Comments

We’ve often heard you should do everything twice. The first time is to learn what you need to do, and the second time is to do it right. We bet [Ian Carey] would agree after taking his old linear power supply PCB and changing it to a switching regulator design. You can see more about the project in the video below.

The first power-up revealed a problem with the 3.3V output. We’ve often thought it is harder to troubleshoot a new design than it is to repair something that is known to have worked at one time.

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Self-Portaging Canoe Is Part Bicycle

October 19, 2024 by 10 Comments

Normally when making a long voyage in a canoe, an adventurer would paddle the vessel as far as possible and then “portage”, or carry, the canoe over the short sections of land separating the bodies of water. Portaging is a lot of work, though, since canoes generally aren’t particularly light or designed for traveling over land. To solve this problem, [Ben] is modifying his home-built canoe with some interesting parts to make it into an amphibious vehicle which can much more easily traverse land.

The wheels for the amphibious craft come from BMX bicycles, which have much smaller wheels as well as more robust frames when compared to more traditional bicycles. The rear of the canoe was modified to use a go-kart axle with two driven wheels. An additional set of cranks mounted outboard drive a custom-built paddle to propel the boat when traveling on water. The frame borrows heavily from recumbent bicycle design and includes a similarly comfortable seat, with steering handled by a wheel at the front when traveling on land and a rudder at the rear when traveling over water.

[Ben] intends to take this unique vehicle on a cross-country trip across Scotland, with the first part of the adventure on water via the Caledonian Canal and the return trip on land via the Great Glen Way. Hopefully, there’s no actual portaging required for his trip as the bike components add a tremendous amount of weight to the boat. [Ben] he even added a sail that could theoretically be used in either mode. We’ll be keeping watch for his next videos showing his adventure, and in the meantime daydreaming about other unique bikes that let you travel where bikes normally can’t.

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Little RC Car Project Takes Inspiration From Mario Kart

October 18, 2024 by 14 Comments

RC cars used to be pretty simple. They’d go forwards, backwards, and steer if you got a full-function toy. However, with modern technology, it’s pretty trivial to make them more advanced. [Stuck at Prototype] demonstrates that nicely with his little Micro Racer Cars.

Each little RC car has its own ESP32 running the show, hooked up with a motor controller running a small DC gear motor at each wheel. Power is from a lithium-polymer battery on board the car, which is charged via USB C. 3D-printed components form the chassis and body of the vehicle. [Stuck at Prototype] set the cars up so they could be controlled via a smartphone app, or via a custom RC controller of his own design. He liked the latter solution after he realized how hard apps were to maintain. He also gave the cars a little color sensor so they could detect color patches on the ground, so they could change their behavior in turn. This was to create gameplay like Mario Kart, where hitting a color patch might make the car go fast, go slow, or spin out.

The video goes into great detail about everything these tiny tabletop racers can do. The racer cars were initially intended to be a Kickstarter funded project, but it never quite reached its goal. Instead, [Stuck at Prototype] decided to release the designs online instead, putting the relevant files on Github.

We’ve seen some other neat RC projects before, too. Video after the break.

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Smart Glasses Read Text

October 18, 2024 by 6 Comments

You normally think of smart glasses as something you wear as either an accessory or, if you need a little assistance, with corrective lenses. But [akhilnagori] has a different kind of smart eyewear. These glasses scan and read text in the user’s ear.

This project was inspired by a blind child who enjoyed listening to stories but could not read beyond a few braille books. The glasses perform the reading using a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and a machine learning algorithm.

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A large silver cone attached to a black hemisphere floats over a piece of sheet metal held in a metal frame. The metal has what appears to be machine grease on it to aid in the forming process.

CNC Metal Forming

October 18, 2024 by 31 Comments

Forming complex shapes in metal sheets is still a laborious process, especially if you aren’t needing more than a couple parts so stamping doesn’t make sense. That may change with Digital Sheet Forming.

While this video is basically an ad for one vendor’s approach, it gives a good set of examples of what the technique can achieve. The high pressure mechanism of the machine presses the metal layer by layer down against a silicone backing to form what you’ve designed, in this case, the nose cone for a Tucker Carioca.

Some people will decry it killing the metal forming industry, but as [Rob Ida] says in the video, it will allow metal formers to become more efficient at the work they do by taking out the tedium and letting them focus on the parts of the process requiring the most skill. Anyone who’s done any work with a 3D printer or CNC mill will know that sending a file to a machine is only one small part of the process.

We’re anxious to see this technology make its way to the makerspace and home shop. If you want to do some sheet metal forming now, why not try hydroforming?

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FM Transmitter Remotely Controlled Via ESP32

October 18, 2024 by 14 Comments

Imagine you’ve got an FM transmitter located some place. Wouldn’t it be mighty convenient if you could control that transmitter remotely? That way, you wouldn’t have to physically attend to it every time you had to change some minor parameters! To that end, [Ricardo Lima Caratti] built a rig to do just that.

The build is based around the QN8066—a digital FM transceiver built into a single chip. It’s capable of transmitting and receiving anywhere from 60 MHz to 108 MHz, covering pretty much all global FM stereo radio bands. [Ricardo] paired this chip with an ESP32 for command and control. The ESP32 hosts an HTTP server, allowing the administration of the FM transmitter via a web browser. Parameters like the frequency, audio transmission mode, and Radio Data Service (RDS) information can be controlled in this manner.

It’s a pretty neat little build, and [Ricardo] demonstrates it on video with the radio transmitting some field day content. We’ve seen some other nifty FM transmitters over the years, too. Video after the break.

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Teardowns Show Off Serious Satellite Hardware

October 18, 2024 by 14 Comments

As hackers, we’re always pulling stuff apart—sometimes just to see what it’s like inside. Most of us have seen the inside of a computer, television, and phone. These are all common items that we come into contact with every day. Fewer of us have dived inside real spacey satellite hardware, if only for the lack of opportunity. Some good gear has landed on [Don]’s desk over the years though, so he got to pulling it apart and peering inside.

[Don] starts us off with a gorgeous… box… of some sort from Hughes Aircraft. He believes it to be from their Space & Communications group, and it seems to have something to do with satellite communications work. Externally, he gleans that it takes power and data hookups and outputs RF to, something… but he’s not entirely sure. Inside, we get a look at the old 90s electronics — lots of through hole, lots of big chunky components, and plenty of gold plating. [Don] breaks down the circuitry into various chunks and tries to make sense of it, determining that it’s got some high frequency RF generators in the 20 to 40 GHz range.

Scroll through the rest of [Don]’s thread and you’ll find more gems. He pulls apart a microwave transmitter from Space Micro — a much newer unit built somewhere around 2008-2011. Then he dives into a mysterious I/O board from Broad Reach, and a very old Hughes travelling wave tube from the 1970s. The latter even has a loose link to the Ford Motor Company, believe it or not.

Even if you don’t know precisely what you’re looking at, it’s still supremely interesting stuff—and all very satellite-y. We’ve seen some other neat satellite gear pulled apart before, too. Meanwhile, if you’ve been doing your own neat teardowns, don’t hesitate to let us know!