In the last decade, the price for making a single PCB plummeted. And we’ve featured tons of hacks with boards hailing from places like OSH Park or Seeed Studio. But this phenomenon isn’t isolated, and all sorts of one-off prototyping services are becoming cheaper and looking to satiate both hobbyist and engineer alike.
Today, I want to blow the lid off a few places offering one-off mechanical prototyping services. I’ll take us through some history of how we got here, introduce a few new players, and finally highlight some important tradeoffs before you start ordering bespoke aluminum parts straight to your doorstep.
Now go get your ANSI Z87+ safety glasses, and let’s get started.
Let’s launch into a round-up of stories that are out of this world, as we take a look at what’s happening in the realm of space exploration.
Ten Billion Dollars For A Telescope? Don’t Drop It!
Perhaps the most highly anticipated space mission of the moment is the James Webb Space Telescope, an infra-red telescope that will be placed in an orbit around the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point from which it will serve as the successor to the now long-in-the-tooth Hubble telescope. After many years of development the craft has been assembled and shipped to French Guiana for a scheduled Ariane 5 launch on the 22nd of December. We can only imagine what must have gone through the minds of the engineers and technicians working on the telescope when an unplanned release of a clamp band securing it to the launch vehicle adapter sent a vibration throughout the craft. Given the fragility of some of its components this could have jeopardised the mission, however after inspection it was found that no damage had occurred and that space-watchers and astronomers alike can breathe easy.
So it seems that Microsoft has a patent in process for a folding mouse. It looks a whole lot like their Arc mouse, which is quite thin and already goes from curved to flat. But that’s apparently not good enough for Microsoft, who says mice in general are bulky and cumbersome to travel with. On the bright side, they do acknowledge the total lack of ergonomics in those tiny travel mice.
Microsoft filed this patent in March of 2021 and it was published in early November. The patent describes the use of an expandable shell on the top with these kerf cuts in the long sides like those used to bend wood — this is where the flexibility comes in. The patent also mentions a motion tracker, haptic feedback, and a wireless charging coil. Now remember, there’s no guarantee of this ever actually happening, and there was no comment from Microsoft about whether it will become a real rodent someday.
And now, the rant. Microsoft considers this mouse, which again is essentially an updated Arc that folds in half, to be ergonomic. Full disclosure: I’ve never used an Arc mouse. But I respectfully disagree with this assessment and believe that people should not prioritize portability when it comes to peripherals, especially those that are so small to begin with. Like, what’s the use? And by the way, isn’t anyone this concerned with portability just using the touch pad or steering stick on their laptop anyway?
As the Iraqi army retreated at the end of the first Gulf War, they took the term “scorched Earth policy” quite literally. Kuwaiti oil wells were set alight en masse, creating towering infernos that blackened the sky.
As it turns out, extinguishing a burning oil well is no easy feat. In the face of this environmental disaster, however, a firefighting team from Hungary made a name for themselves out on the desert sands, astride a jet-engined tank named Big Wind.
When starting a new electronics project today, one of the first things that we tend to do is pick the integrated circuits that make up the core of the design. This can be anything from a microcontroller and various controller ICs to a sprinkling of MOSFETs, opamps, and possibly some 7400- or 4000-series logic ICs to tie things together. Yet it hasn’t been that long since this level of high integration and miniaturization was firmly in the realm of science-fiction, with even NORBIT modules seeming futuristic.
Starting with the construction of the first point-contact transistor in 1947 and the bipolar junction transistor (BJT) in 1948 at Bell Labs, the electronics world would soon see the beginning of its biggest transformation to that point. Yet due to the interesting geopolitical circumstances of the 20th century, this led to a fascinating situation of parallel development, blatant copying of designs, and one of the most fascinating stories in technology history on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Continue reading “TTL And CMOS Logic ICs: The Building Blocks Of A Revolution”→
I have a confession to make. I write about a lot of projects for Hackaday, but there are very few I read about and then go actually build a copy of it. I don’t have a lot of time and I’m usually too busy building my own stuff. But once in a while, something strikes my fancy and I’ll either raid the junk box or buy the kit. The most recent case of that was the PX-41C, a replica of the classic HP-41C.
Nicely bagged parts.
The HP-41C is a somewhat legendary reverse-polish notation calculator. I still have my original HP-41C from 1979 (a very low serial number). It is still a workhorse but at 43 years old or so, I don’t like to leave it hanging around or near anything that might damage it. It has enough wear from the daily use it received 40 years ago. Sure, I have great emulation on my phone and I use that too, but the PX-41C kit looked fun, and with all through-hole parts it would be a quick build. The black Friday sale on Tindie sealed the deal for me.
Start-Up
The kit arrived on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I decided to tackle it while waiting for some 3D prints. The components were all nicely bagged and marked. Tearing into the bags was a bit frustrating, but not hard and it did keep everything separate. There was a bill of materials, but — I thought — no instructions. Turns out the last part of the bill of materials is a link to some instructions. They aren’t much and I didn’t realize they were until after completing the board, but it isn’t hard to figure out. All the parts are marked on the silkscreen and you can probably figure it out — with a few caveats.
After the Thanksgiving break, we have two weeks of news to cover, so hang on for an extra-long entry. First up is GoDaddy, who suffered a breach starting on September 6th. According to an SEC filing, they noticed the problem on November 17th, and determined that there was unauthorized access to their provisioning system for their WordPress hosting service. For those keeping track at home, that’s two months and eleven days that a malicious actor had access. And what all was compromised? The email address and customer number of the approximate 1.2 million GoDaddy WordPress users; the initial WordPress password, in the clear; the SFTP and database passwords, also in the clear; and for some customers, their private SSL key.
The saving grace is that it seems that GoDaddy’s systems are segregated well enough that this breach doesn’t seem to have led to further widespread compromise. It’s unclear why passwords were stored in the clear beyond the initial setup procedure. To be safe, if you have a WordPress instance hosted by GoDaddy, you should examine it very carefully for signs of compromise, and rotate associated passwords. The SSL keys may be the most troubling, as this would allow an attacker to impersonate the domain. Given the length of time the attack had access, it would not surprise me to learn that more of GoDaddy’s infrastructure was actually compromised. Continue reading “This Week In Security: GoDaddy, Tardigrade, Monox, And BigSig”→
