Old American radios (and we mean really old ones) took several kinds of batteries. The A battery powered the filaments (generally 1.5V at a high current draw). The B battery powered the plate (much…

This is the third and final installment of a series of posts on how to create a PCB in KiCad, and part of an overarching series where I make the same schematic and board in dozens of different soft…

Over the last decade or so, the cost to produce a handful of custom PCBs has dropped through the floor. Now, you don’t have to use software tied to one fab house – all you have to do is…

LaserWeb is open-source laser cutter and engraver software, and [JordsWoodShop] made a video tutorial (embedded below) on how to convert a cheap laser engraver to use it. The laser engraver used in…

Soon the skies will be filled with drones, or so the conventional wisdom goes, and these flying droids will deliver pizza, mail, packages, and medical supplies right to one of the taller trees in our ...

Forth is one of those interesting languages that has a cult-like following. If you’ve never looked into it, its strength is that it is dead simple to put on most CPUs, yet it is very powerful…

If you were an American child of the early 1980s then perhaps you were the owner of a Commodore 64, an Apple II, or maybe a TRS-80. On the other side of the Atlantic in the UK the American machines w...

We’re all familiar with record-your-own-message greeting cards. Generally they’re little more than a cute gimmick for a friend’s birthday, but [dögenigt] saw that these cards had …

Logic probes are simple but handy tools that can be had for a couple of bucks. They may not be the sexiest pieces of test gear, nor the most versatile, but they have their place, and building your …

Digital cameras are great, because you can take thousands of pictures without running out of film. But there’s something to be said for having a tangible image you can hold in your hand. The …

The ornament projects we post around here tend to be simple, stand-alone projects. We are, however, well into the era of the Internet of Things (like it or not) and holiday ornaments need not be singl...

Behold the unholy union of Amazon's Alexa and that feature-limited animatronic bear from the 80s, Teddy Ruxpin. Alexa Ruxpin?

As if stuffing Alexa inside a talking fish weren't bad enough, now Amaz...

The bad news is that when our robot overlords come to oppress us, they'll be able to tell how well they're doing just by reading our facial expressions. The good news? Silly computer-vision-enhanced p...

In the mid-1970’s there were several U.S.-based hobby electronics magazines, including Popular Electronics and Radio Electronics. Most people know that in 1975, Popular Electronics ran articl…

Until recently, computer-aided design (CAD) software was really only used by engineering companies who could afford to pay thousands of dollars a year per license. The available software, while ver…

This one is apparently a few years old, but the idea looks so good that we’re left wondering whatever happened to it. [Seyi Sosanya] made what amounts to a 3D printer, but one that prints in …

The great thing about holidays is that they always seem to require some shiny things. The modern version of shiny things seems to be LEDs and advances in technology being what they are, we now have am...

Now, over the holiday season there seems to be a predilection towards making merry and bright. As many an engineer and otherwise are sure to note, fine alcohols will facilitate this process. One such ...

For fans of vintage computers of the 80s and 90s, SCSI can be a real thorn in the side. The stock of functioning hard drives is dwindling, and mysterious termination issues are sure to have you cur…

[Sashi]’s PURE modules system wants your next wireless microcontroller and sensor module project to be put together using card-edge connectors. But it’s a lot deeper than that — P…