Collaborate Disseminate
For all of the semiconductor industry’s legendary reputation for cleanliness, the actual processes that go into making chips use some of the nastiest stuff imaginable. Silicon oxide is nothing but …read more Continue reading Big Chemistry: Hydrofluoric Acid
For a lot of reasons, home etching of PCBs is somewhat of a dying art. The main reason is the rise of quick-turn PCB fabrication services, of course; when you …read more Continue reading Copper Be Gone: The Chemistry Behind PCB Etching
When you see a project with a digital display these days, you’ll be forgiven for assuming that there’s some kind of microcontroller behind the scenes. And while that’s often the …read more Continue reading Op-Amp Challenge: Measuring pH, No Code Required
When you think of the periodic table, some elements just have a vibe to them that’s completely unscientific, but nonetheless undeniable. Precious metals like gold and silver are obvious examples, …read more Continue reading Mining and Refining: Sulfur
The original Game Boy was the greatest selling handheld video game system of all time, only to be surpassed by one of its successors. It still retains the #2 position …read more Continue reading Acid-Damaged Game Boy Restored
While it’s in vogue right now to name fancy new technology after Tesla, the actual inventor had plenty of his own creations that would come to bear his namesake, including …read more Continue reading Tiny Tesla Valves Etched in Glass
Decapsulating ICs used to be an exotic technique. (I should know, I did that professionally for one of the big IC vendors back in the 1980s.) These days, more and more people are learning to take apart ICs for a variety of reasons. If you are interested in doing it …read more
BEC fraudsters now have bases of operation across at least 39 counties and are responsible for $26 billion in losses annually — and growing. Continue reading BEC Attacks: Nigeria No Longer the Epicenter as Losses Top $26B
LSD appears to cause information to disintegrate as it is passed through a neural circuit that determines how we process internal and external stimuli. Continue reading Scientists Identify Key Neural Mechanisms Behind an LSD Trip
Did you ever stop to think how unlikely the discovery of soldering is? It’s hard to imagine what sequence of events led to it; after all, metals heated to just the right temperature while applying an alloy of lead and tin in the right proportions in the presence of a proper fluxing agent doesn’t seem like something that would happen by accident.
Luckily, [Chris] at Clickspring is currently in the business of recreating the tools and technologies that would have been used in ancient times, and he’s made a wonderful video on precision soft soldering the old-fashioned way. The video …read more