Collaborate Disseminate
Grounding of electrical systems is an often forgotten yet important design consideration. Issues with proper grounding can be complicated, confusing, and downright frustrating to solve. So much so that engineers …read more Continue reading Solving Grounding Issues on Switch Audio
How far would you go for your cup of tea? [samsungite]’s missus doesn’t like clutter on her countertops, so away the one-cup kettle would go back into the cupboard for …read more Continue reading RoboTray is a Secret Tea Butler
Like many hackers, [Matthias Wandel] has a penchant for measuring the world around him, and quantifying the goings-on in his home is a bit of a hobby. And so when …read more Continue reading Using Homebrew Coils to Measure Mains Current, and Taking the Circuit Breaker Challenge
It’s no surprise that many hardware hackers avoid working with AC, and frankly, we can’t blame them. The potential consequences of making a mistake when working with mains voltages are …read more Continue reading Custom Isolated Variac is Truly One of a Kind
Arguably, the most tedious part of any Tesla coil build is winding the transformer. Getting that fine wire wound onto a suitable form, making everything neat, and making sure it’s …read more Continue reading Flat Transformer Gives This PCB Tesla Coil Some Kick
Transformers have an obvious use for increasing or decreasing the voltage in AC systems, but they have many other esoteric uses as well. Electric motors and generators are functionally similar …read more Continue reading Keep Coffee Warm Through Induction Heating
Anyone who has ever wound a toroidal coil by hand can tell you that it’s not exactly a fun job. Even with the kinds of coils used in chokes and transformers for ham radio, which generally have relatively few windings, passing all that wire through the toroid time after time …read more
Continue reading Homebrew Coil Winder Makes Toroids a Snap to Wind
Thanks to low-cost WiFi enabled microcontrollers such as the ESP8266 and ESP32, it’s never been a better time to roll your own smart home system. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t daunting for new players. If you’re looking for an easy first project, putting your old school doorbell on the …read more
Continue reading The Easiest Way To Put Your Doorbell On The Internet
You can say one thing for [Derek]’s amateur radio ambitions — he certainly jumps in with both feet. While most hams never even attempt to “shoot the Moon”, he’s building out an Earth-Moon-Earth, or EME, setup which requires this little beauty: a homebrew quarter-wave hardline RF divider, and he’s sharing …read more
Continue reading Shoot the Moon with this Homebrew Hardline RF Divider
In these troubled times, when a trip to the grocery store could turn into a brawl over toilet paper, you might be inclined to build yourself a low-cost electroshock weapon. Or at least, that’s what [Alex Zidros] did. We don’t necessarily recommend you follow in his footsteps, and we’re certainly …read more
Continue reading A DIY Stun Gun You Probably Shouldn’t Build