Collaborate Disseminate
Multimeters are a bit like potato chips: you can’t have just one. But they’re a lot more expensive than potato chips, especially the good ones, and while it’s tempting to …read more Continue reading Multiply Your Multimeter with Relays and USB
I had one of those why-didn’t-I-think-of-it moments this week, reading this article about multiplexing I2C on the ESP32 microcontroller. The idea is so good, and so simple, that it’s almost …read more Continue reading Sometimes It’s the Little Things
Typewriters may be long past their heyday, but just because PCs, word processor software, and cheap printers have made them largely obsolete doesn’t mean the world is better off without …read more Continue reading Converting an 80s Typewriter Into a Linux Terminal
Typewriters may be long past their heyday, but just because PCs, word processor software, and cheap printers have made them largely obsolete doesn’t mean the world is better off without …read more Continue reading Converting an 80s Typewriter Into a Linux Terminal
Flip dots displays are timeless classics, but driving the large ones can quickly turn into a major challenge. The electromagnets require a lot of current to operate, and the driver …read more Continue reading Mechanically Multiplexed Flip-Dot
Chances are pretty good that you have at least one digital image sensor somewhere close to you at this moment, likely within arm’s reach. The ubiquity of digital cameras is due to how cheap these sensors have become, and how easy they are to integrate into all sorts of devices. …read more
Continue reading Image Sensor from Discrete Parts Delivers Glorious 1-Kilopixel Images
Today’s commercial aircraft are packed to the elevators with sensors, computers, and miles and miles of wiring. Inside the cockpit you’re more than likely to see banks of LCDs and push buttons than analog gauges. So what’s that mean for the intrepid home simulator builder? Modern problems require modern solutions, …read more
Continue reading 3D Print Your Way to a Glass Cockpit Simulator
Love ’em or hate ’em, Nixies and the retro clocks they adorn are here to stay. At least until the world’s stock of surplus Soviet tubes is finally depleted, that is. The glow discharge tubes were last mass manufactured in the 1980s, and while they’re not too hard to get …read more
Continue reading Turning OLEDs and Acrylic into Faux Nixie Tubes
What prosthetic limbs can do these days is nothing short of miraculous, and can change the life of an amputee is so many ways. But no matter what advanced sensors and actuators are added to the prosthetic, it has to interface with the wearer’s body, and that can lead to …read more
Continue reading Flex PCBs Make Force-Mapping Pressure Sensor for Amputee
There’s an old joke that there are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who know binary, those who don’t, and those who didn’t see a base three joke coming. Perhaps [Dmitry Sokolov] heard that joke because he’s built a ternary (base 3) computer. He claims it is the first one to be built in the last 50 years. You can see a video about the device below. There’s also a video of the device with a nixie tube output.
You may not think of it often, but bit is a contraction of binary digit, so a ternary computer …read more
Continue reading There are 10 Kinds of Computers in the World