Collaborate Disseminate
Vanadium flow batteries are an interesting project, with the materials easily obtainable by the DIY hacker. To that effect [Cayrex2] over on YouTube presents their take on a small, self-contained …read more Continue reading A Vanadium Redux Flow Battery You Can Build
Ever wonder what’s inside an electrolytic capacitor? Many of us don’t, having had at least a partial glimpse inside after failure of the cap due to old age or crossed …read more Continue reading Learning About Capacitors by Rolling Your Own Electrolytics
In the technologically-underpinned modern world, most of us interact with a battery of some sort every day. Whether that’s the starter battery in a car, the lithium battery in a …read more Continue reading The Voltaic Pile: Building the First Battery
Famously an insulator, rubber might not seem like a great candidate for an electrolyte material in a battery, but researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a new rubbery material with a high conductivity. This elastomer electrolyte could make for safe… Continue reading Rubbery electrolyte makes for longer-lasting, safer EV batteries
We’re not aware of any authoritative metrics on such things, but it’s safe to say that the Ender 3 is among the most hackable commercial 3D printers. There’s just something …read more Continue reading Simple Mods Turn 3D Printer into Electrochemical Metal Cutter
In theory, batteries and capacitors are fairly simple. One stores energy chemically and the other stores energy in an electric field. In practice though, building an energy storage device that …read more Continue reading Battery of the Future, Now Buildable Yourself
It’s a luxury to be able to access a modern machine shop, complete with its array of lathes, mills, and presses. These tools are expensive though, and take up a lot of space, so if you want to be able to machine hard or thick metals without an incredible amount …read more
Making a capacitor is pretty easy. Just get two conductors close together. The bigger area you can get and the closer you can get them, the bigger the capacitor you can make. [BigClive] found some fake capacitors that were supposed to be very high value, but weren’t. Taking them apart …read more
Returning a piece of retro hardware to factory condition is generally a labor of love for the restorationist. A repair, on the other hand, is more about getting a piece of equipment back into service. But the line between repair and restoration is sometimes a fine one, with the goals of one bleeding over into the other, like in this effort to save an otherwise like-new Amiga 2000 with a leaky backup battery.
Having previously effected emergency repairs to staunch the flow of electrolyte from the old batteries and prevent further damage, [Retromat] entered the restoration phase of the project. …read more
Continue reading Amiga Repairs Put One Tough Little Machine Back in Service
When that fateful morning comes that your car no longer roars to life with a quick twist of the key, but rather groans its displeasure at the sad state of your ride’s electrical system, your course is clear: you need a new battery. Whether you do it yourself or – perish the thought – farm out the job to someone else, the end result is the same. You get a spanking new lead-acid battery, and the old one is whisked away to be ground up and turned into a new battery in a nearly perfect closed loop system.
Contrast this …read more
Continue reading Getting the Lead Out of Lithium Battery Recycling