Crooked Bough News Round-up

— A New Mac Plus Motherboard, No Special Chips Required

 

at 5/21/25 9:30am

The Macintosh Plus was Apples third version on the all-in-one Mac, and for its time it was a veritable powerhouse. If you dont have one here in 2025 there are read more

[Category: Retrocomputing, 68000, Mac Plus, mini-itx]

— Big Chemistry: Fuel Ethanol

 

at 5/21/25 8:00am

If legend is to be believed, three disparate social forces in early 20th-century America the temperance movement, the rise of car culture, and the Scots-Irish culture of the South read more

[Category: Current Events, Featured, Interest, alcohol, carbon dioxide, co2, corn, distillation, ethanol, fermentation, fuel, gasoline, yeast]

— A Look Inside a Lemon of a Race Car

 

at 5/21/25 5:00am

Automotive racing is a grueling endeavor, a test of ones mental and physical prowess to push an engineered masterpiece to its limit. This is all the more true of 24 read more

[Category: car hacks, automotive, mazda miata, mustang, race car]

— Fault Analysis of a 120W Anker GaNPrime Charger

 

at 5/21/25 2:00am

Taking a break from his usual prodding at suspicious AliExpress USB chargers, [DiodeGoneWild] recently had a gander at what used to be a good USB charger. Before it went completely read more

[Category: Reverse Engineering, Teardown, autopsy, usb charger, USB Power]

— The Mouse Language, Running on Arduino

 

at 5/20/25 11:00pm

Although plenty of us have our preferred language for coding, whether its C for its hardware access, Python for its usability, or Fortran for its mathematic prowess, not every language read more

[Category: Software Hacks, arduino, atmega328p, esolang, esoteric, interpreted, minimalist, mouse, programming, programming language, reverse polish notation, stack]

— Plugging Plasma Leaks in Magnetic Confinement With New Guiding Center Model

 

at 5/20/25 8:00pm

Although the idea of containing a plasma within a magnetic field seems straightforward at first, plasmas are highly dynamic systems that will happily escape magnetic confinement if given half a read more

[Category: Science, plasma physics, stellarator]

— Working On Open-Source High-Speed Ethernet Switch

 

at 5/20/25 5:00pm

Our hacker [Andrew Zonenberg] reports in on his open-source high-speed Ethernet switch. He hasnt finished yet, but progress has been made. If you were wondering what might be involved in read more

[Category: FPGA, hardware, Network Hacks, ethernet switch, fpga, high speed, open source, XCKU5P]

— Stylus Synth Should Have Used a 555– and Did!

 

at 5/20/25 2:00pm

For all that should have used a 555 is a bit of a meme around here, theres some truth to it. The humble 555 is a wonderful tool in the read more

[Category: Musical Hacks, 555 audio, class B, NE555, stylophone]

— As The World Burns, At least You’ll Have Secure Messaging

 

at 5/20/25 12:30pm

Theres a section of our community who concern themselves with the technological aspects of preparing for an uncertain future, and for them a significant proportion of effort goes in to read more

[Category: Wireless Hacks, encryption, LoRa, one time pad]

— The Make-roscope

 

at 5/20/25 11:00am

Normal people binge-scroll social media. Hackaday writers tend to pore through online tech news and shopping sites incessantly. The problem with the shopping sites is that you wind up buying things, and then you have even more projects you dont have time to do. Thats how I found the MAKE-roscope, an accessory aimed at kids that turns a cell phone into a microscope. While it was clearly trying to appeal to kids, Ive had some kids microscopes that were actually useful, and for $20, I decided to see what it was about. If nothing else, the name made it appealing. My goal was to see if it would be worth having for the kinds of things we do. Turns out, I should have read more closely. It isnt really going to help you with your next PCB or to read that tiny print on an SMD part. But it is interesting, and depending on your interests you might enjoy having one. The material claims the scope can magnify from 125x to 400x. What Is It? A microscope in a tin. Just add a cell phone or tablet The whole thing is in an unassuming Altoids-like tin. Inside the box are mostly accessories you may or may not need, like a lens cloth, a keychain, plastic pipettes, and the like. There are only three really interesting things: A strip of silicone with a glass ball in it, and a slide container with five glass slides, three of which have something already on them. Theres also a spare glass ball (the lens). What I didnt find in my box were cover slips, any way to prepare specimens, and perhaps most importantly clear instructions. There are some tiny instructions on the back of the tin and on the lens cloth paper. There is also a QR code, but to really get going, I had to watch a video (embedded below). What I quickly realized is that this isnt a metalurgical scope that takes images of things. It is a transmissive microscope like you find in a biology lab. Normally, the light in a scope like that goes up through the slide and into the objective. This one is upside down. The light comes from the top, through the slide, and into the glass ball lens. Bio Scopes Can Be Fun Of course, if you have an interest in biology or thin films or other things that need that kind of microscope, this could be interesting. After all, cell phones sometimes have macro modes that you can use as a pretty good low-power microscope already if you want to image a part or a PCB. You can also find lots of lenses that attach to the phone if you need them. But this is a traditional microscope, which is a bit different. The silicone compresses, which seems to be the real trick. Heres how it works in practice. You turn on your camera and switch to the selfie lens. Then you put the silicone strip over the camera and move it around. Youll see that the lens makes a spotlight in the image when it is in the right place. Get it centered and zoom until you cant see the circle of the lens anymore. Then you put your slide down on the lens and move it around until you get an image. It might be a little fuzzy. Thats where the silicone comes in. You push down, and the image will snap into focus. The hardest part is pushing down while holding it still and pushing the shutter button. Zeiss and Nikon dont have anything to worry about, but the images are just fine. You can grab a drop of water or swab your cheek. It would have been nice to have some stain and either some way to microtome samples, or at least instructions on how you might do that with household items. Verdict For most electronics tasks, you are better off with a loupe, magnifiers, a zoomed cell phone, or a USB microscope. But if you want a traditional microscope for science experiments or to foster a kids interest in science, it might be worth something. For electronics, you are better off with a metallurgical scope. Soldering under a stereoscope is life-changing. Weve seen more expensive versions of this, too, but we arent sure they are much better.

[Category: Cellphone Hacks, Hackaday Columns, Science, microscope]

— When Repairs Go Inside Integrated Circuits

 

at 5/20/25 9:30am

What can you do if your circuit repair diagnosis indicates an open circuit within an integrated circuit (IC)? Your IC got too hot and internal wiring has come loose. You read more

[Category: Repair Hacks, IC repair, integrated circuit]

— The World Wide Web and the Death of Graceful Degradation

 

at 5/20/25 8:00am

In the early days of the World Wide Web with the Year 2000 and the threat of a global collapse of society were still years away the crafting read more

[Category: Featured, History, Interest, Rants, Software Development, graceful degradation, web design]

— An Awful 1990s PDA Delivers AI Wisdom

 

at 5/20/25 5:00am

There was a period in the 1990s when it seemed like the personal data assistant (PDA) was going to be the device of the future. If you were lucky you read more

[Category: Artificial Intelligence, handhelds hacks, LLM, pda, serial]

— PentaPico: A Pi Pico Cluster For Image Convolution

 

at 5/20/25 2:00am

Heres something fun. Our hacker [Willow Cunningham] has sent us a copy of his homework. This is his final project for the ECE 574: Cluster Computing course at the University read more

[Category: Microcontrollers, Raspberry Pi, cluster, image convolution, parallel processing, Raspberry Pi Pico]

— An Open-Source Wii U Gamepad

 

at 5/19/25 11:00pm

Although Nintendo is mostly famous for making great games, they also have an infamous reputation for being highly litigious not only for reasonable qualms like outright piracy of their games, read more

[Category: Nintendo Wii Hacks, android, controller, game pad, nintendo, open source, steam deck, touch screen, wi-fi, Wii U]

— 3D Printing Uranium-Carbide Structures for Nuclear Applications

 

at 5/19/25 8:00pm

Within the nuclear sciences, including fuel production and nuclear medicine (radiopharmaceuticals), often specific isotopes have to be produced as efficiently as possible, or allow for the formation of (gaseous) fission read more

[Category: 3d Printer hacks, Science, 3d printed, dlp, SLA/DLP, uranium]

— Overengineered Freezer Monitor Fills Market Void

 

at 5/19/25 5:00pm

A lot of projects we see around here are built not just because they can be built, but because theres no other option available. Necessity is the mother of invention, read more

[Category: News, battery, freezer, home automation, Monitoring, probe, temperature, thermocouple, wifi, wireless]

— Easy Panels With InkJet, Adhesives, and Elbow Grease

 

at 5/19/25 2:00pm

Nothing caps off a great project like a good, professional-looking front panel. Looking good isnt easy, but luckily [Accidental Science] has a tutorial for a quick-and-easy front panel technique in read more

[Category: how-to, 2d print, front panel]

— A UV Meter For The Flipper Zero

 

at 5/19/25 12:00pm

We all know UV radiation for its contributions to getting sunburned after a long day outside, but were you aware there are several types different types of UV rays at read more

[Category: Tool Hacks, AS7331, flipper zero, uv sensor]

— Keebin’ with Kristina: the One with the Wafer-Thin Keyboard

 

at 5/19/25 11:00am

But sir! I cant believe I missed [dynam1keNL]s initial flat offering from about a year ago, the mikefive, which came about when he and some friends ordered switches directly from read more

[Category: Hackaday Columns, Peripherals Hacks, avalanche keyboard, Brackelsberg typewriter, Cyberpunk 2077, typewriter keyboard, wafer thin]

— The Nightmare of Jailbreaking a ‘Pay-To-Ride’ Gotcha Ebike

 

at 5/19/25 9:30am

Theoretically bicycle rental services are a great thing, as they give anyone the means to travel around comfortably without immediately having to rent a car, hail a taxi or brave read more

[Category: Reverse Engineering, ebike]

As of 5/21/25 11:17am. Last new 5/21/25 8:31am.