Author Archives: Ben James

Nerf blaster goes next-level with propane power

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There are no shortage of Nerf gun mods out there. From simply upgrading springs to removing air restrictors, the temptation of one-upping your opponents in a Nerf war speaks to many!

Not content with such lowly modifications [Peter Sripol] decided that his blaster needed to see some propane action.

[Peter] completely stripped out the existing firing mechanism before creating a new combustion chamber from some soldered copper pipe. He added a propane tank and valve on some 3D-printed mounts, and replaced the barrel to produce some intense firepower.

To ignite the fuel inside the combustion chamber, some taser circuitry creates …read more

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Laser projector ditches galvanometer for spinning drum

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Laser projectors like those popular in clubs or laser shows often use mirror galvanometers to reflect the laser and draw in 2D. Without galvos, and on a tight budget, [Vitaliy Mosesov] decided that instead of downgrading the quality, he would seek an entirely different solution: a spinning mirror drum.

He fires a laser at a rotating drum with twelve mirror faces, each at a different adjustable vertical angle. The laser will hit a higher or lower point on the projection surface depending on which mirror it’s reflecting off – this creates resolution in the Y direction.

Timing the pulsing of …read more

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Hide Secret Messages In Plain Sight With Zero-Width Characters

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Fingerprinting text is really very nifty; the ability to encode hidden data within a string of characters opens up a large number of opportunities. For example, someone within your team is leaking confidential information but you don’t know who. Simply send each team member some classified text with their name encoded in it. Wait for it to be leaked, then extract the name from the text — the classic canary trap.

Here’s a method that hides data in text using zero-width characters. Unlike various other ways of text fingerprinting, zero width characters are not removed if the formatting is stripped, …read more

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Universal Chip Analyzer: Test Old CPUs In Seconds

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Collecting old CPUs and firing them up again is all the rage these days, but how do you know if they will work? For many of these ICs, which ceased production decades ago, sorting the good stuff from the defective and counterfeit is a minefield.

Testing old chips is a challenge in itself. Even if you can find the right motherboard, the slim chances of escaping the effect of time on the components (in particular, capacitor and EEPROM degradation) make a reliable test setup hard to come by.

Enter [Samuel], and the Universal Chip Analyzer (UCA). Using an FPGA to …read more

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3D-Printer Gets Hot-Swappable Hot-Ends

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3D printers can be hacked into a multitude of useful machines, simply by replacing the filament extruder with a new attachment such as a laser engraver or plotter.

However, [geggo] was fed up with re-wiring and mounting the printhead/tool every time he wanted to try something new, and set out to design a modular printhead system for next-level convenience. The result? A magnetic base-plate, allowing a 3D printer to become a laser engraver within a matter of seconds. This new base-plate mounts onto the existing ball bearings and provides a sturdy place for attachments to snap to – with room …read more

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