Twas the week before Christmas when Elliot and Dan sat down to unwrap a pre-holiday bundle of hacks. We kicked things off in a seasonally appropriate way with a PCB Christmas card that harvests power from your microwave or WiFi router, plus has the potential to be a spy tool. We learned how to grow big, beautiful crystals quickly, just in case you need some baubles for the tree or a nice pair of earrings. Speaking of last-minute gifts, perhaps you could build a packable dipole antenna, a very durable PCB motor, or a ridiculously bright Fibonacci simple add-on for your latest conference badge. We also looked into taking a shortcut to homebrew semiconductors via scanning electron microscopes, solved the mystery of early CD caddies, and discussed the sad state of table saw safety and the lamentable loss of fingers, or fractions thereof.

Download the zero-calorie MP3.

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast Episode 301: Hacking NVMe Into Raspberry Pi, Lighting LEDs With Microwaves, And How To Keep Your Fingers” →

This week on the big 300th episode, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos teamed up to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. So basically, business as usual.

First up in the news: it’s time for the Hackaday Europe 2025 call for proposals! Do you have a tale of hardware, firmware, or software that must be shared with the Hackaday crowd? Then this is your chance to regale us with a 20- or 40-minute talk. You know we love to hear new voices, so be sure to consider proposing a talk.

On What’s That Sound, it’s a results show week. Congratulations to [Kelvin] who was one of many that correctly identified it as the Wii startup sound. Kristina will just be over here with her Pikachu64 with the light-up cheeks.

Then it’s on to the hacks and such beginning with a rather nice reverse-engineering of the PS1, which surprisingly did it with a two-sided board. Then it’s on to a smartphone home server, magic eye images in a spreadsheet, and the math behind the music of 80s. Finally, we talk about disc cameras, the hovercraft revolution, and a whole mess of keyboards.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Download in DRM-free MP3 and savor at your leisure.

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast Episode 300: The Dwingeloo 25 M Dish, A Dead-Tech Twofer, And Deconstructing PCBs” →

On this episode of the Hackaday Podcast, Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi talk about the optical witchcraft behind holograms, the finer points of designing 3D printable threads, and the challenges of switching your local network over to IPv6. They’ll also cover how a clever software patch improves the graphics in a flight simulator from the 1990s, and why spacecraft flying into orbit powered by the SABRE engine is going to remain a dream for now.

From there you’ll hear about a reproduction VW gas gauge that works better than the real thing, custom ball screws, and the latest and greatest in homebrew battery charging. Finally, they’ll cap the episode off by exploring the conundrum that’s heating up London’s Underground, and diving into the (mostly) fictional history of teleportation.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct Download Link

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast Episode 299: Beaming Consciousness, Understanding Holograms, And Dogfooding IPv6” →

This week’s Hackaday podcast has a European feel, as Elliot Williams is joined by Jenny List for a look at the week’s happenings in the world of cool hardware hacks. Starting with the week’s news, those Redbox vending machines continue to capture the attention of hackers everywhere, and in the race to snag one before they’re carted off for recycling someone has provided the missing hardware manual in the form of a wiki. Europeans can only look on wistfully. Then there’s the curious case of life on the asteroid sample, despite the best efforts of modern science those pesky earth bacteria managed to breach all their anti-contamination measures. Anyone who’s had a batch of homebrew go bad feels their pain.

The week provided plenty of hacks, with the team being wowed by [Bitluni]’s CRT-like laser projector, then the many ingenious ways to 3D-print a hinge, and perhaps one of the most unforgiving environments in the home for a piece of robotics. Meanwhile our appetite for cool stuff was sated by an entire family of Japanese games consoles we’d never heard of, and the little voltage reference whose data sheet also had an audio amplifier circuit. Finishing up, our colleague Arya has many unorthodox uses for a USB-C cable, and we have a frank exchange of views about Linux audio.

Give it a listen below and check out all the links, and by all means, give us a roasting in the comments!

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast Episode 298: Forbidden USB-C, A Laser Glow-o-Scope, And The Epoch Super Cassette Vision” →