Collaborate Disseminate
When we think of a vacuum leak we generally think of a car that just doesn’t want to run quite right. Most normally aspirated internal combustion engines rely on the …read more Continue reading Solving Ultra High Vacuum Leaks Has An Elementary Solution
The advent of the microcontroller changed just about everything. Modern gadgets often have a screen-based interface that may hide dozens or hundreds of functions that would have been impractical and …read more Continue reading Tech Hidden in Plain Sight: Cruise Control
Old wives’ tales, folk knowledge, common sayings, and even cliches and idioms are often taken as givens since they form an often unnoticed part of our vocabulary and culture. There’s …read more Continue reading You Can Put Toothpaste In the Tube (With Effort)
Let’s be honest — not too many of us have a need to deposit nanometer-thick films onto substrates in a controlled manner. But if you do find yourself in such …read more Continue reading Thin Coatings Require an Impressive Collection of Equipment and Know-How
Science today seems to be dominated by big budgets and exotics supplies and materials, the likes of which the home gamer has trouble procuring. But back in the day, science …read more Continue reading Reviving Old Recipe for Faraday Wax Keeps Vacuum Experiments Going
We all know how easy it is to fall down the rabbit hole, something that turns a seemingly simple job into an accidental journey of experimentation and discovery. And perhaps …read more Continue reading A Trip Down the Vacuum Clamping Rabbit Hole
If engineering choices a hundred years ago had been only slightly different, we could have ended up in a world full of steam engines rather than internal combustion engines. For now, though, steam engines are limited to a few niche …read more
This video on building a DIY desoldering iron says it all right up front: this is stupid and dangerous, and you shouldn’t do it. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, or that it doesn’t have potential to be turned into something else.
The story begins, as it often does …read more
Continue reading Bad Idea for Desoldering Actually Might be Pretty Smart
Atmospheric pressure is all around us, and capable of providing a great deal of force when used properly. As Otto Von Guericke demonstrated with his Magdeburg hemispheres over 350 years ago, simply removing air from a chamber to create a vacuum can have astounding results. More recently, [Tom Stanton] has …read more
Continue reading Vacuum Dragster Uses Syringes For Propulsion
After seeing Yeti’s $800 V Series cooler and the German-designed Qool, we figured it was only a matter of time before we’d see a competitively priced vacuum-insulated cooler for the American market. That cooler is the Dam Cooler, a 25+ quart (24+ L) ic… Continue reading Dam Cooler vacuum-insulates and organizes food and beverage