Ultrasonic Cutting On The Cheap

November 24, 2025 by Al Williams 17 Comments

When you think of ultrasonics, you probably think of a cleaner or maybe a toothbrush. If you are a Star Trek fan, maybe you think of knocking out crew members or showers. But there is another practical use of ultrasonics: cutting. By vibrating a blade at 40 kHz or so, you can get clean, precise cuts in a variety of materials. The problem? Commercial units are quite expensive. So [Electronoobs] decided to roll his own. Check it out in the video below.

There are dreams and then there’s reality. Originally, the plan was for a handheld unit, but this turned out not to be very practical. Coil actuators were too slow. Piezo elements made more sense, but to move the blade significantly, you need a larger element.

Taking apart an ultrasonic cleaner revealed a very large element, but mounting it to a small blade would be a problem. The next stop was an ultrasonic toothbrush. Inside was a dual piezo element with an interesting trick. The elements were mounted in a horn that acts like an ultrasonic megaphone, if you will.

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Testing The Survivability Of Moss In Space

November 24, 2025 by Maya Posch 10 Comments

The cool part about science is that you can ask questions like what happens if you stick some moss spores on the outside of the International Space Station, and then get funding for answering said question. This was roughly the scope of the experiment that [Chang-hyun Maeng] and colleagues ran back in 2022, with their findings reported in iScience.

Used as moss specimen was Physcomitrium patens, a very common model organism. After previously finding during Earth-based experiments that the spores are the most resilient, these were subsequently transported to the ISS where they found themselves placed in the exposure unit of the Kibo module. Three different exposure scenarios were attempted for the spores, with all exposed to space, but one set kept in the dark, another protected from UV and a third set exposed to the healthy goodness of the all-natural UV that space in LEO has to offer.

After the nine month exposure period, the spores were transported back to Earth, where the spores were allowed to develop into mature P. patens moss. Here it was found that only the spores which had been exposed to significant UV radiation – including UV-C unfiltered by the Earth’s atmosphere – saw a significant reduction in viability. Yet even after nine months of basking in UV-C, these still had a germination rate of 86%, which provides fascinating follow-up questions regarding their survivability mechanisms when exposed to UV-C as well as a deep vacuum, freezing temperatures and so on.

Illustrated Kristina with an IBM Model M keyboard floating between her hands.

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Elegant Macro Pad

November 24, 2025 by Kristina Panos 9 Comments

Some people are not merely satisfied with functionality, or even just good looks. These persnickety snoots (I am one of them) seek something elegant, a true marriage of form and function.

Should such a person be in the market for a macro pad (or ‘macropad’ if you prefer), that snoot should look no further than [YANG SHU]’s 8-key programmable stream deck-like device.

The main goal here was the perfect fusion of display and feel. I’m not sure that an FDM-printed, DIY macro pad can look any better than this one does. But looks are only half the story, of course. There’s also feel, and of course, functionality.

Yes those are (hot-swappable) mechanical key switches, and they are powered by an ESP32-S2. Drawn on the 3.5″ LCD are icons and text for each switch, which of course can be easily changed in the config app.

There’s a three-direction tact switch that’s used to switch between layout profiles, and I’m sure that even this is satisfying on the feel front. Does it get better than this? Besides maybe printing it in black. I ask Hackaday.

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Build Yourself A Medium-Format Camera

November 24, 2025 by Lewin Day 4 Comments

Medium format cameras have always been a step up from those built in the 35 mm format. By virtue of using a much larger film, they offer improved resolution and performance. If you want a medium format film camera, you can always hunt for some nice vintage gear. Or, you could build one from scratch — like the MRF2 from [IDENTIDEM.design.]

The MRF2 might be a film camera, but in every other way, it’s a thoroughly modern machine. It’s a rangefinder design, relying on a DTS6012M LIDAR time-of-flight sensor to help ensure your shots are always in sharp focus. An ESP32 is responsible for running the show, and it’s hooked up to OLED displays in the viewfinder and on the body to show status info. The lens is coupled with a linear position sensor for capturing accurate shots, there’s a horizon indicator in the viewfinder, and there’s also a nice little frame counter using a rotary encoder to track the film.

Shots from a prototype on Instagram show that this camera can certainly pull off some beautiful shots. We love a good camera build around these parts. You can even make one out of a mouse if you’re so inclined.

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The Unexpected Joys Of Hacking An Old Kindle

November 24, 2025 by Tom Nardi 22 Comments

In the closing hours of JawnCon 0x2, I was making a final pass of the “Free Stuff for Nerds” table when I noticed a forlorn Kindle that had a piece of paper taped to it. The hand-written note explained that the device was in shambles — not only was its e-ink display visibly broken, but the reader was stuck in some kind of endless boot loop. I might have left it there if it wasn’t for the closing remark: “Have Fun!”

Truth is, the last thing I needed was another Kindle. My family has already managed to build up a collection of the things. But taking a broken one apart and attempting to figure out what was wrong with it did seem like it would be kind of fun, as I’d never really had the opportunity to dig into one before. So I brought it home and promptly forgot about it as Supercon was only a few weeks away and there was plenty to keep me occupied.

The following isn’t really a story about fixing a Kindle, although it might seem like it on the surface. It’s more about the experience of working on the device, and the incredible hacking potential of these unassuming gadgets. Whether you’ve got a clear goal in mind, or just want to get your hands dirty in the world of hardware hacking, you could do far worse than picking a couple of busted Kindles up for cheap on eBay.

If there’s a singular takeaway, it’s that the world’s most popular e-reader just so happens to double as a cheap and impressively capable embedded Linux development environment for anyone who’s willing to crack open the case.

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Barcodes, “Lasers”, And Fourier Transforms

November 24, 2025 by John Elliot V 14 Comments

The Bomem DA3 is a type of Fourier transform spectrometer used for measuring various spectral data and [Usagi Electric] has one. On his quest to understand it he runs down a number of rabbit holes, including learning about various barcode formats, doing a teardown of the Telxon LS-201 barcode scanner, and exploring how lasers work. That’s right: lasers!

His reason for looking at the Telxon LS-201 barcode scanner is that it has the same type of helium-neon laser as his Bomem DA3 uses. Since he’s learning about barcode scanners he thinks it’s prudent to learn about barcode formats too, and he has a discussion with our very own Adam Fabio about such things, including the UPC-A standard barcodes.

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Smelly Ultrasound

November 24, 2025 by Al Williams 25 Comments

We aren’t sure why, but [Lev Chizhov] and some other researchers have found a way to make you smell things by hitting your head with ultrasound. Apparently, your sense of smell lives in your olfactory bulb, and no one, until now, has thought to try zapping it with ultrasound to see what happens.

The bulb is somewhere behind your nose, as you might expect. This is sub-optimal for ultrasound because your nose isn’t flat, and it is full of air. Packing a subject’s nose with gel wasn’t going to win many fans. The answer was to place the transducer on the person’s forehead and shoot down at the bulb. They made a custom headset that let them precisely target areas of the subject’s bulb guided by an MRI.

So far, they have a sample size of two, but they’ve managed to induce the smell of fresh air, garbage, ozone, and burning wood. What would you do with this? Smell-o-vision? A garbage truck VR game? Let us know in the comments. We don’t think this is exactly how the last VR smell gadget we saw worked, but — honestly — we aren’t completely sure.