Don’t Ignore The Middle Of The Country!

July 26, 2012 by 153 Comments

“Nothing happens in the midwest”. I won’t say who said it, but it absolutely makes my blood boil. I’ve heard this several times during my time at Hackaday. Aside from being so insanely arrogant and dismissive, it is also completely inaccurate.

Some people believe you absolutely have to be on a coast to be part of anything interesting. In the modern age of the internet, geographical location is becoming less and less of an issue. People are collaborating on projects that span the world. Here at hackaday we see projects quite daily that are spawned from a forum linking hackers to a common theme with virtually no central geographical point.  Robots, video games, open source software, tools, and art installations have all sprung from the diaspora that is the hacker culture without any necessity for being located on a coast.

With tools like 3d printers becoming common in hackerspaces collaboration on physical design is even being spread geographically. You could be in your garage in Arkansas, assembling a machine that was designed by someone in Minnesota, and inserting code that was uploaded by someone in Kansas!

Sure, we all know the coasts are great. High concentrations of like minded people as well as the culture you can find anywhere near the ocean. But please, don’t ignore the middle, it makes you sound like antiquated ass.

Make Your Own Custom IPhone Back Glass

July 26, 2012 by 18 Comments

[Jake von Slatt] is at it again; putting his own artistic spin on ordinary items. This time around it’s the glass on the back of an iPhone. It kept breaking and after a few replacements he wanted to try to replace the glass with a piece of etched brass. But part way through that experiment, he figured out how to use toner transfer to develop these stunning custom iPhone glass back plates.

The first step is to source the correct replacement back for your phone. These are made of two parts, the glass and a plastic backer. By carefully heating and wedging the two parts with some popsicle sticks he was able to separate the pieces. Next, he cleans and buffs the glass, preparing it for the artwork he is about to apply. Toner transfer paper, just like that used for PCB resist, is used to print and adhere a design to the underside of the glass. From there he hand paints over the black outline to achieve the results seen above.

It takes time and patience, but shouldn’t be any harder than etching a circuit board.

Know Thy Enemy: Open Vias In BGA Footprints

July 26, 2012 by 14 Comments

[Andrew Zonenberg] has crossed a line in his electronic hobby projects. The Ball Grid Array (BGA) is a type of chip footprint which most hobbyists leave to the professionals. But he’s learned the skills necessary to use them in his projects. Recently he ran a test batch to show off his soldering process and illustrate one of the errors a novice might make.

For those that are unfamiliar, the BGA footprint is notoriously difficult to accurately solder because it consists of a large grid of tiny points covering the bottom of the chip. There’s no way to get in there with an iron, so soldering depends on accurate placement of solder paste and chip, as well as a near-perfect reflow cycle. Often times it’s difficult for the professionals too. Many blame the heat-failure of Xbox 360 on the complications of the BGA connects for one of the console’s chips.

For this experiment [Andrew] wanted to show what happens if you include vias in the BGA footprint. It’s fine to do so, as long as they’re capped. But if a standard via is included, capillary action ends up pulling the solder down into the via instead of making a connection with the chip. The image above is a cross-section of one such uncapped via, seen on the far right.

[Thanks George]

Visualizing Heat With Schlieren Photography

July 26, 2012 by 12 Comments

[Kevin] wanted to check out the air patterns present when his 3D printer is in action. This is useful research; slight differences in temperature can affect the quality of his prints. Instead of something like a thermometer, [Kevin] decided to use Schlieren photography to visualize the air around his 3D printer.

If you’ve ever seen very old-school pictures of supersonic research, you’ve seen Schlieren photography. It’s a way of visualizing the density of transparent objects using only mirrors, lenses, and a point light source. The resulting pictures are usually black and white, although some amazing color pictures exist of bullets traveling through the air next to soap bubbles and candles.

The process of creating a Schlieren photograph is actually pretty easy. [Kevin] pointed a light at a used a 4-inch parabolic mirror placed behind his printer. A knife edge is placed at exactly twice the focal length of the mirror, and after putting a camera behind this knife edge, differences in the density of the air are visible.

From [Kevin]’s video of his Schlieren setup (available after the break), you can see the air is extremely turbulent around his print. That might have been obvious given the presence of a cooling fan, but it’s still very, very cool to look at.

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Hackaday Southwest Tour

July 26, 2012 by 20 Comments

Earlier this summer, I took a trip through the southeast of the country. On this trip I was able to visit several hackerspaces and meet some really great people. We started at Squidfoo in Springfield Missouri. Then Moved on to Makers Local 256 in Huntsville Alabama. After that we saw 7hills hackerspace in Rome Georgia as well as Freeside hackerspace in Atlanta Georgia. The final leg of the trip took us to Chatt*Lab in Chattanooga Tennessee and the Hacker Consortium in Nashville.

For this trip, I am taking my family to the Grand Canyon. Well, that’s the part the kids are looking forward to. I’m looking forward to more hackerspaces and fantastic people. If you’re along the route from Springfield Missouri to Flagstaff Arizona, let me know (we’ll be hitting roswell NM on the way back too). We can go a little out of our way, but not hours.  I would really love to visit some hackerspaces on this trip and do a video tour. You can comment here or hit me directly at caleb@hackaday.com.

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3D Printed AR-15 Lower Works

July 26, 2012 by 82 Comments

Ar15.com user [HaveBlue] has been working for some time on a 3D printed lower receiver, and now reports that the parts are fully working. Using a Stratasys 3D printer from the 90’s [HaveBlue] managed to spin out a modified version of an already available model from cncguns.com. He strengthened the holes for the takedown lugs, which hold the upper and lower halves of the rifle together. Strengthened the bolt hold lugs, which when the magazine is empty lifts a lever assembly that catches the bolt as it springs back to push another round into the chamber. and added an integral trigger guard AKA the bar that surrounds the trigger.

Legally this print is a veritable gauntlet of state and federal regulations. At least in the US. The lower receiver is the part of the rifle that holds the spring and pins that operate the rifle’s trigger safety and hammer assembly, hold the magazine in place,  and mount the buttstock/return spring tube. The other key point about the lower receiver is that it contains the primary traceable identification markings, the serial number. All of the parts that are contained within the lower receiver can be ordered online (this varies state to state). In fact, every single other part of the rifle can be bought and sold freely. The only component of the rifle that can not be ordered online, and requires a background check at a gun store, is the body of the lower receiver (we have to keep saying that this varies state to state). Typically laws allow though for the manufacture of this part without a serial number so long as it is never sold to another individual (again, state laws vary widely).

There is some more info on the build at [HaveBlue]’s website here and here, but it is currently down.  This sort of steps up 3D printing past the nerf gun stage, but we have seen shot gun and pistol hacks.

Bike Made From Cardboard Is Too Cheap To Steal

July 26, 2012 by 77 Comments

If you’ve ever had to replace a bicycle, [Izhar Gafni] is your man. He created a bicycle made completely out of cardboard that is strong enough to support the largest riders and costs about the same as combo meal at McDonald’s.

[Izhar]’s bikes are made from varying thicknesses of cardboard, the thickest sheet being about an inch wide. After cutting and gluing these pieces of cardboard together, [Izhar] submerges them in resin and brushes on a little paint creating an incredibly strong, very light, and unbelievably inexpensive bike.

[Izhar] says the cost of production is about $10 per bike and estimates it could be sold for $60 to $90, cheaper than even the most inexpensive metal bike. If you’ve ever had a bike stolen, you know the sting of having to replace your main means of transportation. [Izhar] says his bike is so cheap thieves wouldn’t even bother taking it off your hands.

You can check out the awesome video of [Izhar] making a cardboard bike after the break.

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