Collaborate Disseminate
We’ve all heard about the perils of counterfeit chips, and more than a few of us have probably been bitten by those scruple-free types who run random chips through a …read more Continue reading Exploring Cheap Tantalum Caps of Mysterious Provenance
It’s not likely that we’ll talk about a new PC here at Hackaday because where’s the news in yet another commodity computer? But today along comes not one but two …read more Continue reading New DOS PCs, in 2023?
Something that probably unites many Hackaday readers is an idle pursuit of browsing AliExpress for new pieces of tech. Perhaps it’s something akin to social media doomscrolling without the induced …read more Continue reading What Is A Schumann Resonance And Why Am I Being Offered A 7.83Hz Oscillator?
The old saying “you get what you pay for” is a cautionary cliché, but is directly contrary to several other common sayings. In the case of [Spikee]’s planned CNC machine …read more Continue reading Testing an Inexpensive CNC Spindle
Isn’t it convenient when your pick-and-place machine arrives with a fully-set-up computer inside of it? Plug in a keyboard, mouse and a monitor, and you have a production line ready …read more Continue reading Zhengbang Pick & Places Your Confidential Data In The Bag, Slowly
One of the exciting trends in hardware availability is the inexorable move of FPGA boards and modules towards affordability. What was once an eye-watering price is now merely an expensive one, and no doubt in years to come will become a commodity. There’s still an affordability gap at the bottom …read more
We nearly passed over this tip from [xoxu] which was just a few links to some AliExpress pages. However, when we dug a bit into the pages we found something pretty surprising. Somewhere out there in the wild we…east of China there’s a company not only reverse engineering the Mini …read more
Continue reading MIT Mini Cheetah Made and Improved In China
[Charles Ouweland] purchased some parts off Aliexpress and noticed that the Texas Instruments logo on some of his parts wasn’t the Texas Instruments logo at all, it was just some kind of abstract shape that vaguely resembled the logo. Suspicious and a little curious, he decided to take a closer look at the MCP1702 3.3v LDO regulators he ordered as well. Testing revealed that they were counterfeits with poor performance.
Looking at the packages, there were some superficial differences in the markings of the counterfeit MCP1702 versus genuine parts from Microchip, but nothing obviously out of place. To conclusively test …read more
Continue reading What Good Are Counterfeit Parts? Believe It Or Not, Maybe A Refund
We all know the old saw: if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. But nowhere does this rule seem to break down as regularly as when we order parts. Bangood, AliExpress, and eBay are flooded with parts ready to be magically transported across the globe to our doorsteps, all at prices that seem to defy the laws of economics.
Most of these transactions go off without a hitch and we get exactly what we need to complete our Next Cool Thing. But it’s not always so smooth, as [Kerry Wong] recently discovered with an eBay order that …read more
Boeing and DARPA are building a spaceplane. Right now it’s only a press release and a few concept images, but it looks like this is an air-launched system kind of like a Tristar/Pegasus, only much higher and completely unmanned. It’s a ton and a half to low earth orbit, with a goal of 10 flights in 10 days.
Up in Albany? There’s a new hacker con happening in a few weeks. Anycon is a hacking, infosec, and cyber security conference happening June 16 & 17th in Albany, NY. The organizers of this con ([Chris], and his company Leet Cybersecurity) are …read more
