HackSpace #80

I spend a lot of time – probably too much – thinking about what makes a particular piece of technology good or bad. There can be a temptation in the technical press to get obsessed over numbers. If the numbers go up, that must mean that something is fundamentally better. However, that’s wrong. All technology is about tools, and a tool is better if it makes it easier to achieve your aim – this month, the tools in question are 3D printers. It is, of course, possible that your sole aim is producing a Benchy in the shortest possible time, but it’s far more likely that you have something else in mind when you get a 3D printer. Perhaps you want to expand your range of gaming miniatures, or you…

hsmag.cc/CybertruckClock Ah, the Tesla Cyber Truck. Its angular, low-poly bodywork means that it’s unlikely ever to pass the Euro NCAP (European New Car Assessment Programme) safety standards that govern what we can drive in the UK. Apparently Europeans have soft, fleshy bodies made out of meat, which deform unfortunately when wrapped around angular stainless steel objects build without crumple zones. What these faceless Brussels Eurocrats don’t understand is that human life isn’t that important compared with looking really cool. The maker of this project, gokux, reckoned the Cyber Truck’s flat planes would make the perfect case for a desk clock, and by golly, they were right. The Cyber Clock can not only tell you the time, but also the humidity and temperature thanks to its onboard DHT11 sensor, displayed on…

hsmag.cc/FMRadio CB design has come a long way since everything was green. This FM radio is pretty much just a PCB, with the controls and even the speaker mounted directly to the one printed circuit board. This device is designed not just to be simple, but to be affordable too: the components are all easily obtained, and include a 32-bit RISC-V microcontroller, a 128 x 32 pixel OLED display, and a Li-Ion battery charger. The 3W speaker isn’t going to give you the best sound quality, but is just the job if you want to listen to the cricket commentary on Radio 4 (or even baseball, if that’s what floats your boat). This design is barely more than a single PCB — there is a 3D printed case, but to…

hsmag.cc/RotaryPhoneTimer Speak to anyone who’s had a go at up cycling old electronics and they’ll tell you that older is better. The devices were built to last in the days before planned obsolesce, so if you decide to reincorporate original components, there’s a good chance that they’ll still work. The cases are put together with screws, nuts and bolts, meaning you can get into the innards without destroying anything, as you would if they were glued together. And anything built before the 70, when microchips first made their way into consumer electronics, will necessarily be bigger in order to house the chunky old electronics components used at the time. This old phone had already been upcycled by a previous owner before Scott-28 got his hands on it, converting a hand-crank…

hsmag.cc/ApocalypticTerminal We’re not quite at the level where we can walk into the house and control our home appliances with voice commands – though thanks to Pete Warden and Useful Sensors, who we speak to this issue on page 38, that day is getting closer. Instead, the tech enthusiast has to come up with their own bespoke way to control their lights, music, heating and suchlike. One such device is this wall-mounted terminal by Rick Pannen. We can almost hear your incredulity through the page: “Wall mounted! But that’s a CRT screen. It’ll weight a ton!”. Although this looks it uses a heavy CRT screen, Rick’s achieves a similar effect by using a 7-inch LCD screen in the back with a fresnel lens in front. It’s a brilliant visual trick,…

hsmag.cc/VFDCalculator If you love the look of Nixie tubes, but are scared by high voltages, VFD tubes could be the retro display device for you. They work using the same logic as nixies, with a connecting pin for each segment of the display plus three pins to provide power, and you can get hold of them at reasonable prices from online auction sites. Maker Oskar wanted to build a project incorporating IV-12 VFD tubes as a display, and chose to build this beautiful calculator. It uses an Arduino Nano, Cherry MX Brown switches, key caps bought off Ali Express, and a custom PCB to allow the 1970s Soviet technology of the VFDs to work with an Arduino Nano. Programming in Arduino’s custom version of the C programming language can be…