Hacking Printed Circuit Board To Create Casing And Instrument Panels

August 9, 2025 by John Elliot V 11 Comments

Over on Hackaday.io our hackers [Angelo] and [Oscarv] are making a replica of the PDP-1. That is interesting in and of itself but the particularly remarkable feature of this project is its novel use of printed circuit boards for casing and instrument panels.

What does that mean in practice? It means creating a KiCad file with a PCB for each side of the case/panel. These pieces can then be ordered from a board house and assembled. In the video below the break you will see an example of putting such a case together. They use sticky tape for scaffolding and then finish things off by soldering the solder joints on each edge together.

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Case Feeder Makes Your Ammo Reloading More Efficient

January 4, 2013 by Mike Szczys 87 Comments

For those that are into reloading their own ammo you know that getting an efficient assembly line process figured out will make your sessions much more enjoyable and productive. [Msoejacobsk] knew that he could buy a case feeder for his system, but didn’t want to shell out two hundred bucks for it. After a bit of thought he was able to build this case feeder for around ten dollars.

The purpose of the rig is to orient each empty casing correctly and feed it to the reloading hardware. This is accomplished by first separating one casing at a time using this angled tumbler. The disc that makes up the floor has slots cut in it which are the size of one casing. When that slot gets to the highest point of its rotation there is an opening through which the casing falls. To ensure proper orientation a V-shaped piece of heavy wire has been place in the middle of the opening. This acts as a fulcrum, letting the heavier base pull the casing in that direction. You can see this happen in the clip after the break.

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