Concrete Lathe Turns Metal
Full disclosure. If you want a lathe capable of turning metal stock, you probably should just buy one. But what fun is that? You can do like [kachurovskiy] and build …read more Continue reading Concrete Lathe Turns Metal
Author Archives: Al Williams
What has 5,000 Batteries and Floats?
While it sounds like the start of a joke, Australian shipmaker Incat Tasmania isn’t kidding around about electric ships. Hull 096 has started charging, although it has only 85% of …read more Continue reading What has 5,000 Batteries and Floats?
Hackaday Podcast Episode 344: Board with Lasers, Op-Amp Torture, and Farewell Supercon 9
Hackaday Editors Tom Nardi and Al Williams spent the weekend at Supercon and had to catch up on all the great hacks. Listen in as they talk about their favorites. …read more Continue reading Hackaday Podcast Episode 344: Board with Lasers, Op-Amp Torture, and Farewell Supercon 9
The Deadliest US Nuclear Accident is Not What You Think
When you think of a US Nuclear accident, you probably think of Three Mile Island. However, there have been over 50 accidents of varying severity in the US, with few …read more Continue reading The Deadliest US Nuclear Accident is Not What You Think
This Reactor is on Fire! Literally…
If I mention nuclear reactor accidents, you’d probably think of Three Mile Island, Fukushima, or maybe Chernobyl (or, now, Chornobyl). But there have been others that, for whatever reason, aren’t …read more Continue reading This Reactor is on Fire! Literally…
Expert Systems: The Dawn of AI
We’ll be honest. If you had told us a few decades ago we’d teach computers to do what we want, it would work some of the time, and you wouldn’t …read more Continue reading Expert Systems: The Dawn of AI
Remembering Better Mono Graphics
No matter what kind of computer or phone you are reading this on, it probably has a graphics system that would have been a powerful computer on its own back …read more Continue reading Remembering Better Mono Graphics
Magazine Transistor Tester Lives Again
One of the lost pleasures of our modern world is the experience of going shopping at a grocery store, a mall, or a drugstore, and finding this month’s electronics magazine …read more Continue reading Magazine Transistor Tester Lives Again
VFETs are (Almost) Solid State Tubes
We always enjoy videos from [w2aew]. His recent entry looks at vertical or VFETs, which are, as he puts it, a JFET that thinks it is a triode. He clearly …read more Continue reading VFETs are (Almost) Solid State Tubes
Examining the First Mechanical Calculator
Blaise Pascal is known for a number of things, but we remember him best for the Pascaline, an early mechanical calculator. [Chris Staecker] got a chance to take a close …read more Continue reading Examining the First Mechanical Calculator