Collaborate Disseminate
Whatever kind of clock you’re interested in building, you’re going to need to build an oscillator of some sort. Whether it be a pendulum, a balance wheel, or the atomic transitions of cesium or rubidium, something needs to go back …read more
Continue reading Tuning Fork Keeps This Throwback Digital Clock Ticking
It wouldn’t be October without Halloween, and it wouldn’t be Halloween without some spooky music. There’s no instrument spookier than a Theremin, which also happens to be one of the world’s first electronic instruments.
You’ve no doubt heard the eerie, otherworldly tones of the Theremin in various 1950s sci-fi films, …read more
Continue reading The Theremin is 100 Years Old; Celebrating the Spookiest of Instruments
A synthesizer without transistors could almost be the basis of a trick question, surely without transistors it must be using a vacuum tube or similar. Not [Dr. Cockroach]’s synth though, instead of transistors it uses coupled pairs of LEDs and light-dependent resistors as its active components. Its oscillator circuit comes …read more
It is common wisdom that solderless breadboards are only good for low frequencies. But how fast can they really go? There’s been a contest going on to see who can make the fastest breadboard-mounted oscillator and [Joe Smith] has been trying to keep his leading position. He’s already managed 6 …read more
The Eico model 377 was a pretty common audio signal generator. [The Radio Mechanic] picked one up from 1956 that was in reasonably good shape, and shares a teardown and repair of the unit that you can see in the video below. The device could produce sine and square waves …read more
While working on recreating an “ancient” (read: 60-year-old) logic circuit type known as resistor-transistor logic, [Tim] stumbled across a circuit with an unexpected oscillation. The oscillation appeared to be random and had a wide range of frequency values. Not one to miss out on a serendipitous moment, he realized that …read more
When we use a microcontroller to flip a few GPIOs or talk SPI to a peripheral chip, we are often overlooking that it will usually contain an array of built-in peripherals that were once the preserve of extra hardware. Analogue ports, timers, UARTs, and clock generators, to name just a …read more
Before Tesla devised beautifully simple rotary machinery, he explored other methods of generating alternating current. One of those was the mechanical oscillator, and [Integza] had a go at replicating the device himself. (Video, embedded below the break.)
Initial attempts to reproduce the technology using 3D-printed parts were a failure. The …read more
Continue reading Building a Mechanical Oscillator, Tesla Style
When you start watching [learnelectronic’s] two-part series about making a radio transmitter, you might not agree with some of his history lessons. After all, the origin of radio is a pretty controversial topic. Luckily, you don’t need to know who invented radio to enjoy it.
The first transmitter uses a …read more
Continue reading Take a Break From Arduinos, And Build A Radio Transmitter
Great things happen when we challenge ourselves. But when someone else says ‘I bet you can’t’ and you manage to pull it off, the reward is even greater. After [WilkoL] successfully made a tuning fork oscillator, his brother challenged him to make one out of a wine glass. We’ll drink …read more
Continue reading Homebrew Oscillator Is In a Glass By Itself