Hackaday Links: September 2, 2018

It’s (was, is?) the end of August, and that means the entire dreadlocked population of San Francisco is out in the middle of the Nevada Desert for a week. Yes, it’s Burning Man, and as always we have a host of builds that make you ask, ‘how did they do that, and how did they get that here’.

For the last few years, the greatest logistical feat of art cars is the 747. Yes, it’s the fuselage of a 747, turned into an art car. The top deck is a convertible. The biggest question surrounding this 747 is how do …read more

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Scribble Your Way To Quick Printed Circuit Boards

There are a variety of techniques employed by electronic constructors seeking the convenience of a printed circuit board without the inconvenience of making a printed circuit board. Dead bug style construction in which the components float on a spiders-web of soldered leads above a ground plane is one, Manhattan style construction in which pads made from small cut squares of bare copper-clad PCB are glued on top of a groundplane is another.

[Freestate QRP] has another take on this type of electronics, with what he calls “Scribble style” construction. He cuts away copper from bare board to create pads and …read more

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Wilderness Radio Build

[AA7EE] is no stranger to building radios. His latest is a from-scratch build of a 20 meter QRP transceiver based on the popular SST design. Although the SST has been available as a kit, [AA7EE] incorporated some design changes from others and some of his own, too. He even added an onboard keyer to simplify operation. You can see videos of the radio below.

The build uses Manhattan-style PCB pads. Although the construction is very attractive, the real value of the post is the detailed explanation of not only how, but why everything is the way it is. This isn’t …read more

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Ugly Manhattan Adapters

“Ugly” or “Manhattan” style circuit building is popular among ham radio folks. Basically, you solder the circuit point-to-point, using a solid copper plate as a backplane. “Manhattan” gets its name from the little pads and parts of different heights strewn all around the board — it looks like the Manhattan skyline. It’s a great one-off construction method and actually has reasonably good properties for radio/analog circuitry. It’s easy to pull off with leaded components, but gets trick with smaller surface-mount parts.

Unless you build some adapters. [Ted Yapo] has made his library of small Manhattan adapters available for us all …read more

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