homemade components

Claude Paillard, Virtuosic YouTube Maker OG

Claude Paillard, Virtuosic YouTube Maker OG

Looking back at one of the earliest YouTube makers who influenced a genre.

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How-To: Phone Plug Tilt Switch

How-To: Phone Plug Tilt Switch

Here’s another cool improvised switch hack from Forrest Mims. All it requires is a spare tip/shield connector with a removable housing, and a BB or other conductive metal ball.

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How-To: Ball-in-Cage Switch

How-To: Ball-in-Cage Switch

A ball-in-cage switch is a mechanical alarm switch that works on an ingenious principle. It has a single relatively unstable “open” position, in which a metal ball rests in a small divot in an insulating base, inside a cage made from two U-shaped metal staples that overlap one another without contacting. The ball is too […]

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How-To:  Homemade Memristor

How-To: Homemade Memristor

Fascinating video from Nyle Steiner, who reports on his experiments with simple homemade memristors made from what are, probably, Al-CuS-Cu and Al-PbS-Pb junctions. He describes the observations that led him to experiment with these systems and the results of his experiments, and then wraps up by drawing out a simple memristor demonstration circuit and demonstrating its operation on-camera.

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Jumbo 7-Segment Display from Glue Sticks, LEDs

Jumbo 7-Segment Display from Glue Sticks, LEDs

More cool original content from Hack a Day, this time by Kevin Dady. He writes: “I was recently commissioned to make a device which uses a pretty large number display, and I went out shopping. The seven segment we liked best was still quite pricey, and would not fit our enclosure correctly anyway…”

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